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Category Archives: Freedom of Information

Gendered disinformation and social networks

Revisión Crítica de Jurisprudencia y Gobernanza. Oxford University Press and New York University School of Law. Gendered disinformation and social networks. Argelia Queralt Jiménez. March 2024. https://doi.org/10.1093/icon/moad094, “The subject of this article is gender-based disinformation on social networks. This type of disinformation is identified with those contents that circulate on networks with the aim of attacking women for being women and expelling them from public debate. This type of behavior undermines women’s credibility in the public eye and can lead to their abandonment of the public sphere. Gendered disinformation particularly targets women who have an impact on the public conversation, politicians, journalists, activists or women with a voice of their own in the media and networks. This phenomenon is a major problem for our democracies because, firstly, it is a blatant demonstration of the discrimination suffered by women in general. And, secondly, because it means restricting the legitimate exercise of these women’s freedom of communication, in a broad sense, and participation in political life, which in turn leads to the distortion of pluralism and participation in decision-making processes. Keywords: disinformation, freedom of speech, gender-based discrimination, political participation social networks.”

More than 2 million research papers have disappeared from the Internet

Nature: “More than one-quarter of scholarly articles are not being properly archived and preserved, a study of more than seven million digital publications suggests. The findings, published in the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication on 24 January, indicate that systems to preserve papers online have failed to keep pace with the growth of research… Continue Reading

The Supreme Court is about to decide the future of online speech

The Verge: “Social media companies have long made their own rules about the content they allow on their sites. But a pair of cases set to be argued before the Supreme Court on Monday will test the limits of that freedom, examining whether they can be legally required to host users’ speech. The cases, Moody… Continue Reading

Émigrés Are Creating an Alternative China, One Bookstore at a Time

The New York Times [no paywall]: “From Tokyo and Chiang Mai, Thailand, to Amsterdam and New York, members of the Chinese diaspora are building public lives that are forbidden in China and training themselves to be civic-minded citizens — the type of Chinese the Communist Party doesn’t want them to be. They are opening Chinese… Continue Reading

Tools for Thinking About Censorship

ReactorMag – “One price of free speech is eternal humility, recognizing that none of us is immune to becoming a tool of censorship if we fail to recognize its manipulative tactics. Was it a government action, or did they do it themselves because of pressure?” This is inevitably among our first questions when news breaks… Continue Reading

Silicon Valley has its own ascendant political ideology. It’s past time we call it what it is.

The Rise of Techno-Authoritarianism by Adrienne LaFrance [The Atlantic; read free] “Silicon Valley still attracts many immensely talented people who strive to do good, and who are working to realize the best possible version of a more connected, data-rich global society. Even the most deleterious companies have built some wonderful tools. But these tools, at scale,… Continue Reading

“Cast as Criminals, America’s Librarians Rally to Their Own Defense”

The New York Times [read free]: “…As America’s libraries have become noisy and sometimes dangerous new battlegrounds in the nation’s culture wars, librarians like Ms. Neujahr and their allies have moved from the stacks to the front lines. People who normally preside over hushed sanctuaries are now battling groups that demand the mass removal of… Continue Reading

New RECAP Archive Search Is Now Live

“In 2016, we launched a major new search engine for the RECAP Archive. Since then, it has grown in usage and size, measuring in at over four hundred million items and receiving about thirty thousand queries per day. Today, after nearly a year of work, and several months in beta, we’re launching a brand-new search… Continue Reading

A leak-hosting site looks to thaw the chill of censorship

Columbia Journalism Review: “In November, Reuters published a special investigative feature headlined, “How an Indian startup hacked the world.” The story alleged that a hacking-for-hire firm called Appin had stolen secrets from executives, politicians, military officials, and wealthy elites around the globe. (Appin has denied this.) A few weeks later, however, the story was taken… Continue Reading

The Atlas of Surveillance Hits Major Milestones: 2023 in Review

EFF: “If you haven’t checked out the Atlas of Surveillance recently, or ever before, you absolutely should. It includes a searchable database and an interactive map, and anyone can download the data for their own projects. As this collaboration with the University of Nevada Reno’s Reynolds School of Journalism (RSJ) finishes its fifth year, we… Continue Reading

Access to Government Information: An Overview

CRS – Access to Government Information: An Overview Updated December 18, 2023: “Congress has long recognized the people’s right to know about the operations and actions of the federal government. A series of modern statutes provides a framework for ways the public may access government information. Built up over the past 60 years, these key… Continue Reading

ODNI Releases Intelligence Community Assessment of Foreign Threats to the 2022 U.S. Elections

“The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) today released the declassified Intelligence Community Assessment of Foreign Threats to the 2022 U.S. Elections [redacted] Coordinated across the Intelligence Community (IC), the assessment addresses the intentions and efforts of foreign actors to influence or interfere with the 2022 U.S. elections. Within 45 days of the… Continue Reading