October 2022 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

Now we know for sure that big tech peddles despair, we must protect ourselves | Zoe Williams | The Guardian

by Alberto Cammozzo

We cannot seal off a death from despair as an individual act when there are global corporations unrestrainedly marketing despair. <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/07/big-tech-despair-prot…> Now that the inquest into the awful death of Molly Russell in 2017 has delivered its findings, we have a new reality to adjust to. The teenager died from an act of self-harm, “while suffering depression and the negative effects of online content”. Her father described how she had entered “the bleakest of worlds”: online content on self-harm and suicide was delivered in waves by Instagram and Pinterest, just leaving it to the algorithm. “Looks like you’ve previously shown an interest in despair: try this infinitely replenishing stream of fresh despair.” Social media platforms deliberately target users with content, seeking attention and therefore advertising revenue: we knew that. This content can be extremely damaging: we knew that, too. But surely now that we’ve struggled, falteringly, towards the conclusion that it can be deadly, there can be no more complacency. These are corporations like any other, and it’s time to build on the consensus that they cause harm by regulating, as we would if they were producing toxic waste and pumping it into paddling pools. People, parents especially, worry a lot about the digital age and its impact on teenagers, and a lot of those worries are nonsense: are they addicted to Fifa? Will Minecraft turn them into recluses or sever their connection with the natural world? Does Fortnite stop them reading books (in fact, yes, but some other time for that)? Sometimes you’ll get a useful correction from a specialist in addiction or adolescence but there isn’t a coherent pushback from tech giants, because these anxieties create exactly the debate they need, amorphous and essentially luddite in character: what if today’s kids are less resilient than yesterday’s because they were raised in a world with different stimuli? If the real threat to kids is modernity itself, it can never be addressed, it can only be discussed. Underneath all that noise is a persistent drumbeat, an agenda now well known, pursued by methods that have been widely studied. Any platform that is free to use exists to maximise its advertising revenue, which means chasing watchers and watch-time. The algorithms suggesting content are not designed to prioritise quality or relevance, but rather to take an existing interest in any given user and direct them, in Molly Russell’s case, to more extreme versions of it. This had the tragic outcome with Molly that she was bombarded by more and more explicit explorations of misery, such that the coroner, Andrew Walker, said: “It would not be safe to leave suicide as a conclusion.” We cannot seal off a death from despair as an individual act when there are global corporations unrestrainedly marketing despair. The problem goes far beyond young people: we can see algorithm impacts in nativist politics all over the world, and in that regard, youth is not the defining factor – indeed, the casual characterisation of youth as a state of vulnerability is its own blind alley. Nevertheless, there are two elements that make social media particularly influential on the young, and the behemoths of the field particularly culpable in their failure to address the problem. As Laura Bates notes in Men Who Hate Women, her detailed research into the “manosphere”, the social media coverage of Gen Z is astronomical: 85% of US teens use YouTube, 72% use Instagram, 51% still use Facebook. People spend significantly more time watching content that’s been recommended than stuff they’ve gone looking for: on YouTube, 70% of everything watched has been suggested by the site. Adolescence is also, manifestly, a time of great intellectual as well as neurological plasticity, when you might easily want to know what an incel is without wanting to become one, or feel very keenly that the world is doomed one day, without being ready for your entire feed to be about variations of the apocalypse. We can, and do, debate ad nauseam how a mature society supports the outer edges of youthful turbulence, from eating disorders to toxic masculinity, yet we allow the main media consumed by that generation to operate, not just without any sense of responsibility or duty, but with a business model that foments every problem for profit. The standards that social media companies set for themselves are curiously duplicitous, as well as being demonstrably insufficient. Last year, the staff of Connecticut senator Richard Blumenthal set up a fake Insta account posing as a 13-year-old girl interested in “extreme dieting”; it was immediately directed towards user accounts called “I have to be thin”, “Eternally starved”, “I want to be perfect”: evidence, the senator said, that the algorithm amplified harmful content by design. The platform’s response was that it was a sifting error – the site already had rules against the promotion of extreme dieting, and these accounts slipped through it. But this doesn’t answer the central charge, which was not that their rules weren’t executed well enough, but that they were actively advertising eating disorders to kids who showed an interest. CNN repeated the sting the following week, with the same results. The online safety bill, expected to progress through parliament – although it may not be enacted until 2024 – addresses content that promotes self-harm and suicidal ideation, and would put it in Ofcom’s hands to evaluate what is appropriate for under-18s. It’s a useful waypoint, away from tech giants just regulating themselves, but insufficient both practically and in spirit. There’s no point countries regulating one by one, the response needs to be international: and we should not waste time discussing what kind of suicidal ideation is appropriate for what age group. We need to ask more fundamental questions, starting further up the pipeline, about what the moral responsibilities of mass publishing are. All this takes time, youth is short, parents will be thinking they should control incoming influence themselves, that they don’t have time to wait for international initiatives, bills to progress. You can micromanage your kids’ consumption, be aware of the triggers everywhere – YouTube for toxic masculinity, TikTok for overwhelming climate anxiety, Instagram for eating disorders – try to control it all yourself, and this will work for some. But it also corrodes your relationship with your children to be constantly policing them, destroying their trust and openness. I don’t want to turn into the internet jailer just so that Mark Zuckerberg can enjoy unfettered profit. An air of pre-emptive defeatism hangs over this debate: a sense that it is too late to regulate social media, that the lie has travelled all the way round the world, and there is now no point in the truth getting its pants on. But that is a counsel of despair. We cannot afford despair. But at the same time, the solution is not individual. The answer isn’t for a billion parents to surveil their children’s Instagram and Pinterest feeds. It is to build a consensus, which is as global as the platforms themselves, that some things are more important than profit, and regulate accordingly.

Oct. 7, 2022

Education in a time of war

by Alessandro Brolpito

In Ukraine there are regions, called oblast, still reasonably safe, others crossed by the front line and others occupied, some voices from schools at the war front Education in a time of war | ETF (europa.eu) <https://www.etf.europa.eu/en/news-and-events/news/education-time-war> And the ETF initiative, my organisation, to bring digital education as a means to ensure continuity in VET for those pupils that decided to remain in their own country UA Re-Emerge(ncy): e-learning and skills development to rebuild Ukraine | ETF (europa.eu) <https://www.etf.europa.eu/en/news-and-events/news/ua-re-emergency-e-learnin…> We talk a lot about digital inclusion: in Ukraine as in other troubled areas of the world, is where we need to ask the most from digital technology to support inclusion and access to skills and education. Alessandro

Oct. 6, 2022

Dichiarazione del Gruppo di lavoro per la Sicurezza Internazionale e il Controllo degli Armamenti (SICA) dell'Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei

by Diego.Latella

Segnalo la Dichiarazione del Gruppo di lavoro per la Sicurezza Internazionale e il Controllo degli Armamenti (SICA) dell'Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei sui rischi dell'uso delle armi nucleari tattiche, che trovate al seguente link: https://www.lincei.it/it/article/dichiarazione-del-gruppo-sica Il presidente dell'Accademia dei Lincei Roberto Antonelli e il vicepresidente Giorgio Parisi hanno fatto proprie le dichiarazioni della Commissione SICA. Mi preme sottolineare il ruolo importante delle tecnologie informatiche nella gestione dei conflitti e nella loro possibile escalation nucleare. Diego -- Dott. Diego Latella - Senior Researcher CNR/ISTI, Via Moruzzi 1, 56124 Pisa, Italy (http:www.isti.cnr.it [1]) FM&&T Lab. (http://fmt.isti.cnr.it) CNR/GI-STS (http://gists.pi.cnr.it) https://www.isti.cnr.it/People/D.Latella - ph: +390506212982, fax: +390506212040 =================== The quest for a war-free world has a basic purpose: survival. But if in the process we learn how to achieve it by love rather than by fear, by kindness rather than compulsion; if in the process we learn how to combine the essential with the enjoyable, the expedient with the benevolent, the practical with the beautiful, this will be an extra incentive to embark on this great task. Above all, remember your humanity. -- Sir Joseph Rotblat Links: ------ [1] http://www.isti.cnr.it

Oct. 6, 2022

SAVE THE DATE | 14° Conferenza Annuale del Centro Nexa | Venerdì 2 dicembre 2022

by Nexa Media

Gentilissimi, Vi segnaliamo che la prossima *Conferenza Annuale del Centro Nexa* si terrà in data _*venerdì 2 dicembre 2022*_. Indicazioni sugli ospiti e il programma della giornata verranno forniti a breve. Vi aspettiamo numerosi! Cordiali saluti, -- Anita Botta Communication Manager Nexa Center for Internet & Society Politecnico di Torino – DAUIN Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24 - 10129 Torino web: https://nexa.polito.it/ mail: anita.botta(a)polito.it tel: 011 090 7219

Oct. 6, 2022

Re: [nexa] Democracy, poisoned: America’s elections are being attacked at every level | US news | The Guardian

by Alberto Cammozzo

Dubito che questo movimento sia guidato dalla razionalità: Qanon e i deniers non metterebbero in discussione il sistema di voto US se non avessero perso le elezioni. E' invece strumentale a instillare dubbio sul sistema elettorale, non mira a renderlo più robusto. Che il sistema US sia prono a frodi e che frode ci sia già stata è piuttosto evidente sin dalle presidenziali Kelly-Bush: <https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/12/19/2004-kerry-election-fraud…>, tuttavia in quel caso la causa di frode non ha avuto seguito poichè le macchine erano state aggiornate (archiviazione del procedimento per upgrade ?!!). Questo fa capire che un sistema di voto inaffidabile consente questa sleale tattica elettorale: chi si aspetta la sconfitta criticherà il sistema sia per minare la fiducia dell'elettore prima del voto e aumentare l'astensionismo, sia per costruire una motivazione a non accettare il risultato (ad es. non rispettare la tradizione del 'conceding') e perfino a far leva sulla rabbia e tentare un recupero extraelettorale (come il colpo di stato tentato da Trump in gennaio ´21). Nel caso ci si aspetti la vittoria, non si farà menzione della debolezza del sistema elettorale, o lo si farà limitando la critica a quegli stati ove presumibilmente vincerà l'avversario. Il meccanismo di voto italiano prevede che gli avversari usino ogni mezzo per ottenere voti ed è studiato per costringerli a non farlo. Teniamocelo buono. Alberto On 04/10/22 16:11, M. Fioretti wrote: > On Tue, Oct 04, 2022 15:18:17 PM +0200, Alberto Cammozzo via nexa wrote: >> L'incubo costituzionale di un sistema di voto inaffidabile. >> Lo leggano i sostenitori del voto elettronico. >> >> >> >> <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/04/ >> us-democracy-attack-midterms-election-constitutional-crisis-2024> >> ... >> He is moving ahead with a plan to use >> hand-counted paper ballots in the election this fall. >> ... >> Marchant, who is closely linked to the QAnon movement, is also >> leading a nationwide group of election deniers vying for secretary >> of state positions; should he win in November, he told the Guardian >> he plans to scrap all electronic voting machines and switch to >> paper-only counts. > in altre parole, gli americani hanno talmente incasinato QUALSIASI > cosa riguardi il votare, per decenni: > > https://stop.zona-m.net/2021/01/some-comments-im-seeing-on-georgias-runoff.… > > che ormai a proporre cose razionali riguardo al voto ci riescono solo > quelli fuori come balconi sotto qualunque altro aspetto? > > Marco >

Oct. 4, 2022

155° Mercoledì di Nexa | 12 Ottobre 2022, ore 17.00

by Nexa Media

Gentilissimi, vi invitiamo a partecipare al *155° Mercoledì di Nexa*, che si terrà *mercoledì 12 ottobre*, alle ore 17.00, con la presentazione del nuovo libro di Alessandro Mantelero /*"Beyond Data. Human Rights, Ethical and Social Assessment in AI"*/. L'incontro sarà condotto dall'autore del libro, *Alessandro Mantelero*, professore associato al Politecnico di Torino ed esperto di diritto e tecnologia, protezione dei dati personali, IA, etica dei dati e diritti umani. _*L'incontro si terrà IN PRESENZA e ONLINE.*_ *SEDE FISICA* dell'incontro: Centro Nexa su Internet e Società, Politecnico di Torino, Via Boggio 65/a, Torino (1° piano). QUI <https://nexa.polito.it/contatti> maggiori informazioni su come raggiungerci. *STANZA VIRTUALE* dell'incontro: https://didattica.polito.it/VClass/NexaEvent Di seguito maggiori dettagli sull'evento: Nexa Center for Internet and Society Newsletter Se non visualizzi correttamente questo messaggio clicca qui <https://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi-155> NEXA 155° Mercoledì di Nexa Mercoledì 12 ottobre 2022, ore 17.00 - 19.00 Politecnico di Torino https://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi-155 /Beyond Data Human Rights, Ethical and Social Impact Assessment in AI/ *Alessandro Mantelero (Politecnico di Torino)* This event will be webcast live: https://nexa.polito.it/nexa-hangout-on-air *L'INCONTRO SI TERRÀ IN PRESENZA E ONLINE* *SEDE FISICA*: Centro Nexa su Internet e Società, Politecnico di Torino, Via Boggio 65/a, Torino (1° piano) (Per maggiori informazioni su come raggiungerci clicca QUI <https://nexa.polito.it/contatti>) *STANZA VIRTUALE*: https://didattica.polito.it/VClass/NexaEvent The recent turn in the debate on *AI regulation from ethics to law*, the wide application of AI and the new challenges it poses in a variety of fields of human activities are urging legislators to find a paradigm of reference to assess the impacts of AI and to guide its development. This cannot only be done at a general level, on the basis of guiding principles and provisions, but the paradigm must be embedded into the development and deployment of each application. To this end, this chapter suggests a *model for human rights impact assessment (HRIA)* as part of the broader *HRESIA model*. This is a response to the lack of a formal methodology to facilitate an ex-ante approach based on a *human-oriented design of AI*. The result is a tool that can be easily used by entities involved in AI development from the outset in the design of new AI solutions and can follow the product/service throughout its lifecycle, providing specific, measurable and comparable evidence on potential impacts, their probability, extension, and severity, and facilitating comparison between possible alternative options. BIOGRAFIA e informazioni supplementari: [mercoledì155] *Alessandro MANTELERO* has served as a scientific advisor on AI, data protection and human rights for the Council of Europe for several years (Hoc Committee on Artificial Intelligence – CAHAI, Convention 108 – Consultative Committee, 2016-2022). As an expert on data regulation and human rights he advises national and international organizations, including the United Nations, the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, and the European Commission. He has held visiting appointments in several universities, including Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, Nanjing – NUITS, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Universidad de Murcia, and joined the University of Oxford as a visiting research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute in 2013 and 2014, working on data protection and Big Data. He is Associate Editor of Computer Law & Security Review and member of the Editorial Board of European Data Protection Law Review. His main research interests and projects focus on Law and Technology with publications on data protection, AI, data ethics and human rights. *Libro presentato:* * Alessandro Mantelero /Beyond Data. Human Rights, Ethical and Social Impact Assessment in AI <https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/978-94-6265-531-7.pdf>/, T.M.C. Asser Press – Springer 2022. Che cosa sono il Centro Nexa e i cicli di incontri “Mercoledì di Nexa” e “Nexa Lunch Seminar” <https://www.facebook.com/nexa.center/> <https://twitter.com/nexacenter> <https://www.youtube.com/user/NexaCenter> <https://www.instagram.com/nexa_center/> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/3054864/admin/> #nexawednesday <https://twitter.com/search?q=%23nexawednesday&src=typd> #AlessandroMantelero <https://twitter.com/mantelero> #POLITO <https://twitter.com/PoliTOnews> Il Centro Nexa su Internet & Società del Politecnico di Torino (Dipartimento di Automatica e Informatica) dal 2006 è un centro di ricerca indipendente e interdisciplinare che, in collaborazione con l'Università di Torino, studia Internet (e più in generale le Tecnologie digitali) e i suoi rapporti con la società. Maggiori informazioni all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/about. Durante i “*Mercoledì di Nexa*”, che si tengono *ogni 2° mercoledì del mese* alle *ore 17 in punto*, il Centro Nexa su Internet e Società apre le sue porte non solo agli esperti e a tutti coloro i quali lavorano con Internet, ma anche a semplici appassionati e cittadini. Il ciclo di incontri intende approfondire, con un linguaggio preciso ma accessibile, i temi legati alla Rete: motori di ricerca, Creative Commons, social networks, open source/software libero, neutralità della rete, libertà di espressione, privacy, file sharing, big e open data, smart cities e molto altro. Al centro di quasi tutti gli incontri un ospite pronto a dialogare con i direttori del Centro Nexa, il Prof. Juan Carlos De Martin del Politecnico di Torino e il Prof. Marco Ricolfi dell'Università di Torino, nonché lo staff e i Fellows del Centro Nexa. Maggiori informazioni sui Mercoledì di Nexa, incluso un elenco di tutti i “Mercoledì” passati, sono disponibili all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi. Si segnala inoltre che dal maggio 2012 *ogni 4° mercoledì* del mese *dalle ore 13 alle ore 14* il Centro Nexa organizza anche i "*Nexa Lunch Seminar*". Una lista di tutti i “Lunch Seminar” passati è disponibile all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/lunch-seminars. See our events calendar <http://nexa.polito.it/events> if you're curious about future luncheons, discussions, lectures, and conferences not listed in this email. Our events are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted. Responsabile Comunicazione Centro Nexa su Internet & Società: *Anita Botta*, tel: +39 011 090 7219, Mob: +39 347 131 3903, anita.botta(a)polito.it. Maggiori informazioni sui Mercoledì di Nexa e i Nexa Lunch Seminar, sono disponibili all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/events. Weekly Events Newsletter. Sign up <http://nexa.polito.it/mailing-lists> to receive this newsletter if this email was forwarded to you. To manage your subscription preferences, please click here <https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa>. Connect & get involved: Jobs, internships, and more <http://nexa.polito.it/get-involved>. Grazie per l'attenzione, Cordiali saluti, -- Anita Botta Communication Manager Nexa Center for Internet & Society Politecnico di Torino – DAUIN Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24 - 10129 Torino web: https://nexa.polito.it/ mail: anita.botta(a)polito.it tel: 011 090 7219

Oct. 4, 2022

Re: [nexa] Democracy, poisoned: America’s elections are being attacked at every level | US news | The Guardian

by M. Fioretti

On Tue, Oct 04, 2022 15:18:17 PM +0200, Alberto Cammozzo via nexa wrote: > L'incubo costituzionale di un sistema di voto inaffidabile. > Lo leggano i sostenitori del voto elettronico. > > > > <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/04/ > us-democracy-attack-midterms-election-constitutional-crisis-2024> > ... > He is moving ahead with a plan to use > hand-counted paper ballots in the election this fall. > ... > Marchant, who is closely linked to the QAnon movement, is also > leading a nationwide group of election deniers vying for secretary > of state positions; should he win in November, he told the Guardian > he plans to scrap all electronic voting machines and switch to > paper-only counts. in altre parole, gli americani hanno talmente incasinato QUALSIASI cosa riguardi il votare, per decenni: https://stop.zona-m.net/2021/01/some-comments-im-seeing-on-georgias-runoff.… che ormai a proporre cose razionali riguardo al voto ci riescono solo quelli fuori come balconi sotto qualunque altro aspetto? Marco -- Help me write my NEXT MILLION WORDS for digital awareness: https://stop.zona-m.net/2021/10/funding-2021-2022/

Oct. 4, 2022

Democracy, poisoned: America’s elections are being attacked at every level | US news | The Guardian

by Alberto Cammozzo

L'incubo costituzionale di un sistema di voto inaffidabile. Lo leggano i sostenitori del voto elettronico. <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/04/us-democracy-attack-midterm…> The 2022 midterm elections offer an inflection point unlike any America has seen before. Election deniers are on the verge of winning their campaigns for offices with oversight of elections. What happens in November will determine whether people who have spread lies about the 2020 election will be in charge of overseeing future contests. This is why today the Guardian is launching The Fight for Democracy, a series focused on investigating the threats facing the democratic system in one of its supposed bastions. Building off an impactful series on US voting rights, it will scrutinize the movement to undermine election legitimacy, weaken voting rights and target election officials – a movement that ultimately seeks to codify a system of minority rule fundamentally opposed to the promise of a multiracial, multicultural, representative, constitutional democracy. The county commission eventually voted 5-0 to ask Merlino to consider switching to hand-counting paper ballots. She resigned from her role shortly after and has since been replaced by Mark Kampf, a retired financial executive, who has falsely said Trump won the 2020 election. He is moving ahead with a plan to use hand-counted paper ballots in the election this fall. Merlino doesn’t want anyone to fail in their job, but she said the change was concerning. “Even though I’m conservative or whatever, I treat everybody the same. I’m a non-partisan when it comes to my office,” she said. “I think what’s eventually going to happen is you’re going to get people in office, good people, who feel that way, that they serve everybody, that don’t want to do it any more. So what’s going to happen is you’re going to get these people that are conspiracy theorists.” Election deniers A recent analysis by FiveThirtyEight estimated that 60% of Americans will have election deniers on the ballot in November. The threat posed by individuals prepared to throw out legitimate election results is especially pronounced in the handful of key battleground states that were decisive in 2020. That suggests a concerted effort to target roles with the goal of possibly overturning valid election results, a phenomenon that has come to be called election subversion. “It’s not just the number of election deniers who are running, worrying though that is. It’s the way these candidates have focused on the very positions that are most pivotal in determining the outcome of state and presidential elections,” said Jessica Marsden, a lawyer with Protect Democracy Among the Republican candidates are four extreme election deniers running for governor in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Doug Mastriano, competing in Pennsylvania, was a central figure behind the plot to send fake Trump electors to Congress on January 6 even though Biden won the state by 80,000 votes. There are also three extreme election deniers running for secretary of state – the top election administrator post – in Arizona, Michigan and Nevada. In Arizona, state representative Mark Finchem actively lobbied to overturn Biden’s victory and hand the state’s 11 electors to Trump; he has been involved with the far-right Oath Keepers militia and was at the Capitol on January 6. In Michigan, Kristina Karamo first came to prominence when she falsely claimed a miscount in Detroit based upon a basic misunderstanding of election procedures. In Nevada, Marchant, who led the presentation in Nye county, is now the Republican nominee to be the state’s top election official. Marchant, who is closely linked to the QAnon movement, is also leading a nationwide group of election deniers vying for secretary of state positions; should he win in November, he told the Guardian he plans to scrap all electronic voting machines and switch to paper-only counts. Out-of-state funding These candidates are being supported by a flood of money that’s unprecedented for secretary of state races, which have long drawn little attention. In six states with competitive secretary of state races this year, candidates raised $16.3m overall as of the beginning of August, more than double the amount raised at the same point in 2018, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Not accounting for incumbents, who have a significant fundraising advantage, election denier candidates have far outpaced those who have not questioned the election results. Much of the money is coming from outside the states where the candidates are running. Patrick Byrne, the former Overstock.com CEO, who has been one of the most prolific financial backers of election denialism, has been a major donor. So has Richard Uihlein, a GOP mega-donor. “In years past, a lot of people wouldn’t have been able to name their own secretary of state, never mind one of another state. So the idea that a candidate could raise a majority of their money, as some of these are, from out of state, is very surprising,” said Ian Vandewalker, senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice, who has been tracking funding in these races. One of the most successful fundraisers has been Finchem, in Arizona, who had raised $1.2m in his race, 59% of which came from out-of-state donors. In Nevada, candidates have raised more than five times the amount of money raised at the comparable point in past cycles. “To some extent, it’s the usual suspects. People who have been involved in election challenges, including to one degree or another, January 6, who are either directly supporting candidates or are spending in ways that help them or their message,” Vandewalker said. “At the same time, there clearly is some degree of a broad base of financial support for these candidates.” Eyes and ears There is a long US tradition of politicians alleging voter fraud, a specter that in recent years has been used to justify sweeping new voter restrictions, including polling place closures, aggressive voter purging and limits on mail-in voting. Making matters worse, in 2013 the US supreme court gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, a historic piece of legislation from the civil rights era that was supposed to ensure equal access to the polls. As a result, the legal system’s power to protect minority voters from unfair restrictions has been blunted. The push to put election deniers in control of statewide elections has been complemented by an equally forceful push to exert more influence over election administration at the local level. One part is an aggressive effort to recruit poll observers and poll workers to be eyes and ears in the polling place. Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who was closely linked to Trump’s effort to overturn the election, is playing a leading role. Working through the Conservative Partnership Institute, which is linked to Trump’s political apparatus, she’s held a series of events across the country encouraging people who doubt the 2020 election results to sign up to be poll workers. The group encourages attendees to become embedded in their election offices and to become a “permanent presence” in every election office and to determine whether government officials are “friend or foe”. A second part of this effort appears to involve putting as much pressure as possible on local election officials, making it harder for them to run elections and seeding the ground for more chaos. Since the 2020 election, election officials have faced an unprecedented wave of harassment and many are choosing to leave the field. Nearly one in five officials surveyed by the Brennan Center earlier this year said they were “very” or “somewhat likely” to leave the field by 2024. After the 2020 election, we just had to put up with kind of a barrage of garbage. Every day a new conspiracy theory Lynn Constabile Already beefing up security in their office, election officials are now being swarmed with voluminous records requests related to the 2020 election, forcing them to reallocate resources to fulfill them that would otherwise be going towards getting ready to run the elections. Lynn Constabile recently stepped down as the elections director in Yavapai county in Arizona after working there for nearly two decades. Trump handily won Yavapai county, but that didn’t stop false claims about the election from spreading. “After the 2020 election, we just had to put up with kind of a barrage of garbage that came our way. Every day a new conspiracy theory – taking up time that I needed to plan the 2022 election. So probably around last fall I decided I really wasn’t being effective any more in my county,” she said. “People would call us on the phone and yell at us. I’ve been called a communist. And you know, it gets old. We got a barrage of records requests. I would get 10-page records requests. Just threatening that if I didn’t fulfill it, they were gonna sue us. You’re trying to do your job but there’s not enough hours in the day,” she added. She didn’t get explicit death threats, but she did get menacing messages that said things like “watch your back” and “you should be nervous”. She installed security cameras around her house – not something she thought she would ever have to do. It also became hard to find people to fill both full-time and seasonal jobs. “The people that were applying, they didn’t really want to work for us, they wanted to watch us,” she said. Perfect storm The multiple pressures bearing down on US elections could come to a crunch when Americans choose their next president in 2024. “We face a perfect storm,” Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of the new book Power Politics: Trump and the Assault on American Democracy, told the Guardian. “There are restrictions on voting rights, a toxic information ecosystem, political violence – there’s lots of mischief that could take place.” With Trump hinting strongly that he plans to run again, the conditions for West’s perfect storm are all too conceivable: Trump stands, Trump loses in the same swing states that defeated him in 2020, Trump launches a false “stolen election” plot 2.0. Only this time the forces of subversion are far more organized, sophisticated and powerful. Which is one reason so much is at stake in the midterm elections in November. At state level, should election deniers win governor or secretary of state positions they would be empowered to wreak havoc around the 2024 presidential election on a scale that will make Trump’s first “stolen election” effort look like a tea party. Take Finchem in Arizona. He has already made several unsuccessful attempts to overturn Biden’s 2020 win by decertifying results in pockets of the state. As secretary of state, the top election administrator in Arizona, his fraudulent ploys would carry much more weight. In Pennsylvania, Mastriano, should he manage to win his increasingly beleaguered campaign and become governor, would have the power to select the secretary of state who in turn would hold sway over how the count is conducted in critical parts of the commonwealth. The Finchems and Mastrianos would be well placed to throw out just enough votes on fake grounds of mass fraud to swing the result in their states to Trump. “The way election subversion would most likely play out in 2024 is that the secretary of state would refuse to count a certain segment of votes, claiming they were tainted by fraud, and that would lead to a different slate of electors being sent to Congress,” Marsden said. At that point, the crisis would switch to Congress itself. Here too the stakes couldn’t be higher in November. Should the Republicans take control of the House of Representatives, elevating Kevin McCarthy, an avid backer of Trump’s stolen election lie, to the role of speaker, they would be in a strong position to accept the electors sent to Congress fraudulently by election deniers in the states. Potentially the only person left who could stave off democratic disaster would be Kamala Harris, the vice-president, who under the US constitution will preside over certification just as Mike Pence did in 2020. But should she attempt to block the Republicans from certifying Trump as president on the back of fraudulent state actions, she could trigger a confrontation between the executive branch in the form of the vice-president and the legislative branch in Congress. “It’s all about power now,” West said. “If you have power, you can use it to your own advantage – we’re seeing a lot of that in American politics these days.”

Oct. 4, 2022

Memento | John Willinsky (Stanford University) A Workshop on Adding Copyright Reform to the Open Access Agenda | Mercoledì 5 ottobre, ore 17.00

by Nexa Media

Gentilissimi, vi ricordiamo che *domani, *dalle ore 17.00 alle ore 18.00 in punto, presso il Salone d'Onore del Castello del Valentino, Viale Mattioli 39, Torino <https://www.google.com/maps/place/Viale+Mattioli,+39,+10125+Torino+TO/@45.0…>, si terrà un incontro con ospite *John Willinsky* della Stanford University: /*"A Workshop on Adding Copyright Reform to the Open Access Agenda"*/. Il Prof. Willinsky partirà dal suo nuovo libro Copyright's Broken Promise. How to Restore the Law's Ability to Promote the Progress of Science <https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262544412/copyrights-broken-promise/>, MIT Press, 2022 (Open access) per riflettere sul diritto d'autore e sulle sue possibili riforme. Maggiori informazioni sull'evento sono disponibili alla pagina: https://nexa.polito.it/john-willinsky Grazie per l'attenzione, Cordiali saluti, -- Anita Botta Communication Manager Nexa Center for Internet & Society Politecnico di Torino – DAUIN Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24 - 10129 Torino web: https://nexa.polito.it/ mail: anita.botta(a)polito.it tel: 011 090 7219

Oct. 4, 2022

"Judge declares Buenos Aires’ Fugitive Facial Recognition System Unconstitutional"

by J.C. DE MARTIN

*Judge declares Buenos Aires’ Fugitive Facial Recognition System Unconstitutional** * Maria Badillo On September 7, a trial judge declared the implementation of the Fugitive Facial Recognition System (SRFP, for its name in Spanish) by the Government of the City of Buenos Aires unconstitutional. The decision set an important precedent for risks associated with privacy and intimacy in public spaces in the context of public surveillance for law enforcement purposes. Remarkably, this is also one of the very few known judicial decisions in the global privacy space that clearly looks at the rights to privacy, intimacy and data protection as rights having collective relevance rather than merely individual rights. The decision revealed multiple violations of individuals’ privacy, and instances of abuse of authority by system operators. [...] continua qui: https://fpf.org/blog/judge-declares-buenos-aires-fugitive-facial-recognitio…

Oct. 4, 2022