1,720,989 research outputs found
Zero rating broadband data: equality and free speech at the network's other edge
No full textWhen broadband providers "zero rate" data, they offer certain services or buckets of data for free without counting consumption against the user’s data caps. Depending on how these offers are structured, they be anti-competitive and violate net neutrality norms of open access. But they may also subsidize broadband access and increase expressive opportunities for users. Net neutrality theory has tended to focus on the free speech and economic inequality at the edge provider end of digital networks, positing that users have identical or derivative interests. The "virtuous cycle" of innovation at the heart of U.S. open networks policy starts and ends at the provider edge of the network. This conception of innovation overlooks digital divide issues and user economic constraint. Especially as customers of speech platforms, such as social media or video sharing sites, users may have interests that diverge from those of edge providers. Because some zero rating practices benefit users at the consumer edge of the network, blanket bans can have a regressive effect, especially where the risk of competitive harm to edge providers is relatively small. By the same token, zero rating should not be permitted where broadband platform self-dealing and other practices pose substantial risk of competitive harm and minimal increase in expressive opportunities for users
Urbanism under Google: lessons from Sidewalk Toronto
No full textCities around the world are rapidly adopting digital technologies, data analytics, and the trappings of “smart” infrastructure. No company is more ambitious about exploring data flows and seeking to dominate networks of information than Google. In October 2017, Google affiliate Sidewalk Labs embarked on its first prototype smart city in Toronto, Canada, planning a new kind of data-driven urban environment: “the world’s first neighborhood built from the internet up.” Although the vision is for an urban district foregrounding progressive ideals of inclusivity, for the crucial first 18 months of the venture, many of the most consequential features of the project were hidden from view and unavailable for serious scrutiny. The players defied public accountability on questions about data collection and surveillance, governance, privacy, competition, and procurement. Even more basic questions about the use of public space went unanswered: privatized services, land ownership, infrastructure deployment and, in all cases, the question of who is in control. What was hidden in this first stage, and what was revealed, suggest that the imagined smart city may be incompatible with democratic processes, sustained public governance, and the public interest.
This article analyzes the Sidewalk project in Toronto as it took shape in its first phase, prior to the release of the Master Innovation and Development Plan, exploring three major governance challenges posed by the imagined “city of the future”: privatization, platformization, and domination. The significance of this case study applies well beyond Toronto. Google and related companies are modeling future business growth embedded in cities and using projects like the one in Toronto as test beds. What happens in Toronto is designed to be replicated. We conclude with some lessons, highlighting the precarity of civic stewardship and public accountability when cities are confronted with tantalizing visions of privatized urban innovation
Exploring police perspectives on algorithmic transparency: a qualitative analysis of police interviews in the UK
No full textThe UK Government’s ‘Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard’ is intended to provide a standardised way for public bodies and government departments to provide information about how algorithmic tools are being used. To explore the implications of police use of the Standard, we conducted semi-structured interviews with respondents from across UK policing and commercial bodies involved in policing technologies. Our aim was to identify rewards, risks, challenges for the police, and areas where the Standard could be improved. We find that algorithmic transparency is both achievable for policing, and could bring significant rewards. If the Standard became an integral part of an effort to drive reflective practice across the development and deployment of algorithmic technology, it could help police forces to learn from each other, facilitate good policy choices around technology, and decrease wasted costs. However, participants reported notable concerns, including misperception of the dangers of policing technology, and a worry that the Standard will become an administrative burden rather than a benefit for policing or the public. For successful incorporation, we highlight the need to 1) clearly define what is covered by the Standard, 2) provide suitable exemptions for sensitive contexts and tradecraft, 3) ensure that forces have the resources and ability to comply with the Standard, and 4) address supplier responsibilities regarding transparency in procurement contracts. We suggest that future evaluation of the Standard is needed to investigate: a) whether the Transparency Reports created using the Standard meet the needs of intended users, including impacted individuals, advocacy groups, researchers, and legal and policy advisers, b) whether the Standard contributes to an improvement in the quality of policing technology, and c) whether the Standard enables the assessment of the lawfulness of technology used by the police
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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