The Centre for Internet and Society
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Digital Native: How free is the internet?
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-august-18-2019-digital-native-how-free-is-internet
<b>It is contradictory and confusing as it amplifies as well as destabilises the order of things.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Nishant Shah was <a class="external-link" href="https://indianexpress.com/article/express-sunday-eye/digital-native-how-free-is-the-internet-5907436/">published in Indian Express</a> on August 18, 2019.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">With the Internet came freedom. Freedom to converse, curate, collect, create, and circulate. The freedom to be, think, act, and connect is the promise of democratisation of the Internet. It enables people across traditional silos to reach over and form new bonds of belonging and coming together. It challenges the vanguards of knowledge by curating information from multiple sources, challenging the status quo with new critical voices. It destabilises the erstwhile centres of information and knowledge production and kickstarts a zeitgeist of user-generated content. It builds an architecture that makes everybody their own personal archivist, chronicling lives in minutiae that would otherwise have been lost. It makes us not just mobile-wielding people, but mobile people, finding an ease of movement that was unknown to older generations.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The freedom to be who we are, to do what we will, and to form commons of collective action and agency marks the internet age. And yet, this freedom is paradoxical. Even as it crosses boundaries, it creates new borders through granular filter bubbles that reinforce our dogmatism. While it challenges the status quo, it also gives way to polarised expressions of hate and violence resulting in digital troll armies and physical lynchmobs. The freedom to choose what we collect and who we speak to increases individual choices while compromising collective civil liberties at the behest of authoritarian governments and surveilling corporations. We write our new histories while also revising the old ones to disarticulate protections afforded to the most vulnerable of our communities. The internet, it would seem, is contrary, contradictory, and confusing as it simultaneously amplifies and destabilises the order of things.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This contradictory nature of the internet easily lends itself to politics of despair, questioning the value and worth of internet freedom if its harms seem to outstrip the affordances it offers. Once you see people on Twitter asking for their food delivery persons to be changed because they come from a different religion, you have to think fondly of the times when people’s bigotry was limited to their living rooms. The mindless flurry of good-morning messages and misogynist jingoism that marks our WhatsApp groups make us seriously question if unmediated information flow is actually worth it. Every instance of targeted advertisement, manipulative content, and misinformation that comes our way through correlating algorithms force us to evaluate the value of user-generated content. A couple of hours on Instagram and Snapchat and looking at people performing their lives as flattened fakeness on scrolling screens gives us existential thoughts about whether all these friends, followers, likes, and hearts are worth the trouble they seem to be putting people into. A look on the dark side and it is easy to be convinced that Internet Freedoms need to be controlled, regulated, and clamped down upon.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">These are questions that can inform policies, shape user behaviour, and control the regulation of information towards censorial, closed, and opaque information systems. This is dangerous because all of these questions are about the “freedom to” promises of the internet. They focus on actions, transactions, reactions, and exactions of our digital behaviour. However, in censoring and regulating these “freedoms to” we often end up cracking down on “freedoms of”. We have to remember that the despair of the “freedoms to” are about the human capacity to abuse the freedoms given to us. Whereas the “freedoms of” are the abstract but material freedoms of speech, expression, self-determination, dignity and life, and if we don’t distinguish the two, we would compromise our fundamental rights in the quest of curtailing specific actions.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We need to recognise these “freedoms of” as fundamental freedoms without which the very conception of contemporary human life is difficult. Concentrating only on the “freedom to” allows for suspensions of our basic rights: an intermediary removing and censoring information without due process, bloggers getting arrested for political protests, civil society organisations trolled and silenced, individual information leaked, big data sets sold without consent, and direct attacks on those who critique the status quo. Internet’s “freedom of” is not just about regulating technology and penalising human behaviour but about the foundational rights and liberties we protect and champion as humans. If the dark side of the abuse of “freedom to” gives us despair, the optimistic imagination invested in the “freedom of” gives us hope. I am not going to facetiously declare that Internet Freedoms are Human Freedoms, because it is too trite an equivalence. But, an authoritarian control of Internet Freedom to action can severely compromise our rights to being free, and human.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-august-18-2019-digital-native-how-free-is-internet'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-august-18-2019-digital-native-how-free-is-internet</a>
</p>
No publishernishantResearchers at Work2019-09-04T01:47:03ZBlog EntryCall for Contributions and Reflections: Your experiences in Decolonizing the Internet’s Languages!
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/stil-2020-call
<b>Whose Knowledge?, the Oxford Internet Institute, and the Centre for Internet and Society are creating a State of the Internet’s Languages report, as baseline research with both numbers and stories, to demonstrate how far we are from making the internet multilingual. We also hope to offer some possibilities for doing more to create the multilingual internet we want. This research needs the experiences and expertise of people who think about these issues of language online from different perspectives. Read the Call here and share your submission by September 2, 2019.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Cross-posted from the Whose Knowledge? website: <a href="https://whoseknowledge.org/initiatives/callforcontributions/" target="_blank">Call for Contributions and Reflections</a></h4>
<p>The call is available in <a href="https://whoseknowledge.org/initiatives/callforcontributions/#CIS-AR" target="_blank">Arabic</a>, <a href="https://whoseknowledge.org/initiatives/callforcontributions/#CIS-PT" target="_blank">Brazilian Portuguese</a>, <a href="#en">English</a>, <a href="https://whoseknowledge.org/initiatives/callforcontributions/#CIS-IZ" target="_blank">IsiZulu</a>, <a href="https://whoseknowledge.org/initiatives/callforcontributions/#CIS-ES" target="_blank">Spanish</a>, and <a href="#ta">Tamil</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Note:</strong> This call for contributions is in a few languages right now, but we invite our friends and communities to translate into many more! Please reach out to info (at) whoseknowledge (dot) org with your translations… thank you!</p>
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<img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cis-india/website/master/img/CISraw_WK-OII_DTIL-banner2.png" alt="Call for Contributions and Reflections: Your experiences in Decolonizing the Internet’s Languages!" />
<p> </p>
<blockquote>
<h4 id="en">“It’s not just the words that will be lost. The language is the heart of our culture; it holds our thoughts, our way of seeing the world. It’s too beautiful for English to explain.”</h4>
– Potawatomi elder, cited in Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “Braiding Sweetgrass.”</blockquote>
<p><strong>The problem:</strong> The internet we have today is not multilingual enough to reflect the full depth and breadth of humanity. Language is a good proxy for, or way to understand, knowledge – different languages can represent different ways of knowing and learning about our worlds. Yet most online knowledge today is created and accessible only through colonial languages, and mostly English. The UNESCO Report on ‘<a href="https://unesdoc.unesco.org/in/documentViewer.xhtml?v=2.1.196&id=p::usmarcdef_0000232743&file=/in/rest/annotationSVC/DownloadWatermarkedAttachment/attach_import_8df09604-0040-4b44-b53c-110207ac407d%3F_%3D232743eng.pdf&locale=en&multi=true&ark=/ark:/48223/pf0000232743/PDF/232743eng.pdf#685_15_CI_EN_int.indd%3A.7579%3A23" target="_blank">A Decade of Promoting Multilingualism in Cyberspace</a>’ (2015) estimated that “out of the world’s approximately 6,000 languages, just 10 of them make up 84.3 percent of people using the Internet, with English and Chinese the dominant languages, accounting for 52 per cent of Internet users worldwide.” More languages become endangered and disappear every year; <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/endangered-languages/atlas-of-languages-in-danger/" target="_blank">230 languages have become extinct between 1950 and 2010</a>.</p>
<p>At best, then, 7% of the world’s <a href="https://www.ethnologue.com/statistics" target="_blank">languages</a> are captured in published material, and an even smaller fraction of these languages are available online. This is particularly critical for communities who have been historically or currently marginalized by power and privilege – women, people of colour, LGBT*QIA folks, indigenous communities, and others marginalized from the global South (Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and Pacific Islands). We often cannot add or access knowledge in our own languages on the internet. This reinforces and deepens inequalities and invisibilities that already exist offline, and denies all of us the richness of the multiple knowledges of the world.</p>
<p>Some of the issues that shape our abilities to create and share content online in our languages include:</p>
<ul>
<li>The internet’s infrastructure (hardware, software, platforms, protocols…);</li>
<li>Content management tools and technologies for translation, digitization, and archiving (voice, machine-learning systems and AI, semantic web…);</li>
<li>The experience of those who consume and produce information online in different languages (devices like cell phones and laptops, messaging tools, micro-blogging, audio-video…);</li>
<li>The experience of looking for content in different languages online, through search engines and other tools.</li></ul>
<p>Understanding the range of these issues will help us map the possibilities and concerns around linguistic biases and disparities on the internet.</p>
<p><strong>Who we are:</strong> We are a group of three research partners who believe that the internet we co-create should support, share, and amplify knowledge in all of the world’s languages. For this to happen, we need to better understand the challenges and opportunities that support or prevent our languages and knowledges from being online. The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The <a href="https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/" target="_blank">Oxford Internet Institute</a> is a multidisciplinary research and teaching department of the University of Oxford, dedicated to the social science of the Internet. <a href="https://whoseknowledge.org/" target="_blank">Whose Knowledge?</a> is a global campaign to centre the knowledges of marginalized communities – the majority of the world – online.</p>
<p>Together we are creating a State of the Internet’s Languages report, as baseline research with both numbers and stories, to demonstrate how far we are from making the internet multilingual. We also hope to offer some possibilities for doing more to create the multilingual internet we want.</p>
<p><strong>Why we need YOU:</strong> This research needs the experiences and expertise of people who think about these issues of language online from different perspectives.</p>
<p>You may be a person who:</p>
<ul>
<li>Self-identifies as being from a marginalized community, and you find it difficult to bring your community’s knowledge online because the technology to display your language’s script is hard to access or read</li>
<li>Works on creating content in languages that are from parts of the world, and from people, who are mostly invisible and unheard online</li>
<li>Is a techie who works on making keyboards for non-colonial languages</li>
<li>Is a linguist who tries to bring together communities and technologies in a way that is easy and accessible</li>
<li>... you may be any of these, all of these, or more!</li></ul>
<p>We are looking for your experience online to help us tell the story of how limited the language capacities of the internet are, currently, and how much opportunity there is for making the internet share our knowledges in our many different languages. Most importantly: you don’t have to be an academic or researcher to apply, we particularly encourage people experiencing these issues in their everyday lives and work to contribute!</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Some of the key questions we’d like you to explore:</h3>
<ul>
<li>How are you or your community using your language online?</li>
<li>What do you wish you could create or share in your language online that you can’t today?</li>
<li>What does content in your language look like online? What exists, what’s missing? (<em>you might think about, for example, news, social media, education or government websites, e-commerce, entertainment, online libraries and archives, self-published content, etc</em>)</li>
<li>How and where and using what technologies do you share or create content in your language? (<em>you might think about, for example, video, audio, writing, social media, digitization…whatever formats, tools, processes or websites you use for creating oral, visual, textual, or other forms of content</em>.)</li>
<li>What is challenging to create or share on your language online? (<em>you might think about, for example, access, device usability, platforms, websites, apps and other tools, software, fonts, digital literacy, etc when developing digital archives, online language resources, or just making any presence on the web in general for your language</em>.)</li></ul>
<p> </p>
<h3>Submissions:</h3>
<p>We would love to hear about your and your community’s experiences in response to any or some of the above questions!</p>
<p>Your contribution could be in the form of a written essay, a visualization or work of art, a video or recorded conversation – we’d be happy to interview you if that’s your preference. We would be happy to accept in any language, and will review the submissions with the support of our multilingual communities and friends.</p>
<p>Are you interested in participating? Please email <strong>raw [at] cis-india [dot] org</strong> a short note (of about 300 words) by <strong>2 September at 23:59 IST (Indian Standard Time)</strong>, briefly outlining your idea along with the following information:</p>
<ul>
<li>Your name</li>
<li>Your location – both country of origin and your current location is useful!</li>
<li>Your language(s)</li>
<li>Your community or any other background you’d care to share with us</li>
<li>Which questions you’re interested in addressing, and why</li>
<li>Your prefered contribution format</li>
<li>Any requests for how we can best support your participation</li></ul>
<p> </p>
<h3>Timeline:</h3>
<ul>
<li><strong>By 2nd September 2019:</strong> Send us your submission note</li>
<li><strong>By 1st November 2019:</strong> Contributors will be notified of selection</li>
<li><strong>By 1st December 2019:</strong> First round of contributions are due. We’ll work with you to finalise contributions by mid January.</li></ul>
<p>Selected contributors will be offered an honorarium of USD 500, and their final works will be published as part of the Decolonising the Internet – Languages Report, in early 2020.</p>
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<h2 id="ta">பங்களிப்பதற்காக அழைப்பு இணைய மொழி ஆதிக்கச் சூழலை மாற்றியதில் உங்கள்அனுபவம்!</h2>
<p> </p>
<blockquote>
<h4>“மொழி அழிவால் சொற்கள் மட்டும் அழிவதில்லை. நம் பண்பாட்டின் சாரமே மொழி தான். மொழியே நம் எண்ணங்களை வெளிப்படுத்துகிறது. இவ்வுலகத்தை நாம் காண்பதும் மொழிவழியே தான். ஆங்கிலத்தால் அதை ஒருக்காலும் வெளிப்படுத்த முடியாது.”</h4>
– போட்டோவாடோமி எல்டர் (ராபின் வால் கிம்மெரார் எழுதிய ‘பிரெயிடிங் சுவீட்கிராஸ்’ என்ற நூலில் இருந்து)</blockquote>
<p><strong>சிக்கல்:</strong> மனித குலத்தின் பரந்துவிரிந்த பண்பாட்டுச் சூழலை வெளிப்படுத்தும் அளவுக்கு இன்றைய இணையம் பன்மொழிச் சூழல் கொண்டதாய் இல்லை. தகவல்களை அறிந்துகொள்வதற்கு மொழி ஒரு கருவியாய் இருக்கிறது. ஒவ்வொரு மொழியும் உலகத்தை வெவ்வேறுவிதத்தில் காட்டத்தக்கன. இருந்தபோதும், பெரும்பாலான அறிவுசார் தளங்கள் ஆதிக்க மொழிகளில், குறிப்பாக ஆங்கிலத்தில் அதிகளவில் இருக்கின்றன. ‘இணையவெளியில் பன்மொழிச் சூழலைக் ஊக்குவிக்க பத்தாண்டுகளில் எடுத்த முயற்சி’ (2015) என்ற யுனெசுகோ அறிக்கையில் குறிப்பிட்டுள்ளதாவது: “உலகில் பேசப்படும் சுமார் 6,000 மொழிகளில், வெறும் 10 மொழியை பேசுவோர் மட்டுமே இணையத்தின் 84.3 சதவீதம் பேராக உள்ளனர். இவற்றில், ஆங்கிலமும் மாண்டரின் சீனமும் பேசுவோர் மட்டும் 52 சதவீதத்தினர் என்பது குறிப்பிடத்தக்கது.” ஒவ்வொரு ஆண்டும் அதிகளவிலான மொழிகள் அருகி, அழிந்து வருகின்றன. 1950 – 2010 ஆகிய ஆண்டுகளுக்குள் 230 மொழிகள் அழிந்திருக்கின்றன</p>
<p>எல்லா உள்ளடக்கத்தையும் கணக்கில் எடுத்தால் கூட, உலகின் 7% மொழிகளில் தான் ஆக்கங்கள் இருக்கின்றன. இவற்றில் சிலவே இணையத்தில் கிடைக்கின்றன. முற்காலத்தில் ஒடுக்கப்பட்டிருந்த பழங்குடியின சமூகத்தினர், அடக்குமுறைக்கு உட்பட்டிருந்த பெண்கள், நிறவெறிக்கு உட்பட்டிருந்தோர், மாற்று பாலின கருத்தியல் கொன்டோர் ஆகியோருக்கான ஆக்கங்கள் வெகு சில. பெரும்பாலானோர் இணையத்தில் தம் தாய்மொழியில் தகவல்களை தேடிப் பெற முடிவதில்லை. தம் மொழியில் கிடைக்கப்பெறாத பெரும்பாலானோருக்கு இவ்வுலகைப் பற்றிய அறிவுசார் ஆக்கங்கள் மறுக்கப்பட்டு, சமமின்மை வெளிப்படுகிறது.</p>
<p>நம் மொழியிலேயே இணையத்தில் ஆக்கங்களை உருவாக்குவதிலும் பகிர்வதிலும் சில சிக்கல்களை எதிர்நோக்குகிறோம். அவை:</p>
<ul>
<li>கட்டமைப்பு வசதிக் குறைபாடு : வன்பொருள், மென்பொருள், இயங்குதளம், மரபுத்தகவு</li>
<li>உள்ளடக்க மேம்பாட்டுக் கருவிகளும் தொழில்நுட்பங்களும் போதிய அளவில் இல்லாமை: மொழிபெயர்ப்புக் கருவி, மின்மயமாக்கக் கருவி, சேமிப்பகம், செயற்கை நுண்ணறிவு, குரல்வழி உள்ளடக்கம்</li>
<li>இணையத்தில் பொருட்களை வாங்கிப் பயன்படுத்துவோரின் கருத்துக்களோ, பொருட்களைப் பற்றிய தகவலோ, இணையச் செயலிகளான செய்தியனுப்பல், வலைப்பூ போன்றவையோ தம் மொழியில் இல்லாமை</li>
<li>தேடுபொறிகளையும் பிற கருவிகளையும் கொன்டு வெவ்வேறு மொழிகளில் ஆக்கங்களைத் தேடிப் பழக்கம் இல்லாமை</li></ul>
<p>இச்சிக்கல்களைப் புரிந்துகொள்வதன் மூலம், இணையத்தின் பன்மொழிச் சூழலுக்கான தேவைகளையும் அவற்றிற்கான குறைநிறைகளையும் சரிப்படுத்திக்கொள்ள முடியும்.</p>
<p><strong>நாங்கள் யார்?:</strong> உலக மொழிகளிலான ஆக்கங்கள் இணையவெளியில் இடம்பெற உதவவும், ஊக்குவிக்கவும் மூன்று ஆய்வு நிறுவனங்கள் கைகோர்த்துள்ளோம். இதை நடைமுறைப்படுத்துவதற்கு முன், நாம் எதிர்கொள்ளும் சிக்கல்களையும் பெறக்கூடிய வாய்ப்புகளையும் நன்கு அறிந்துகொள்வது அவசியம் என உணர்ந்தோம்.</p>
<p>1. சென்டர் ஃபார் இன்டர்நெட் அன்ட் சொசைட்டி (the Centre for Internet and Society or CIS) என்ற தன்னார்வல நிறுவனம், இணையத்தையும், மின்மயமாக்கத் தொழில்நுட்பங்களையும் பற்றிய ஆய்வுகளை கொள்கை நோக்கிலும், கல்விசார் நோக்கிலும் செய்கிறது. உடற்குறைபாடு உடையோருக்கு மின்மயமாக்கிய உள்ளடக்கம், அறிவைப் பெறும் சூழல், அறிவுசார் சொத்துரிமை, திறந்தவெளி ஆக்கங்கள், இணையவழி ஆளுகை, தொழில்நுட்பச் சீர்திருத்தம், இணையவெளியில் தனியுரிமை, இணையவெளிப் பாதுகாப்பு போன்ற தலைப்புகளில் இந்நிறுவனம் கவனம் செலுத்துகிறது.</p>
<p>2. ஆக்சுபோர்டு இன்டர்நெட் இன்ஸ்டிடியூட் என்ற ஆய்வு நிறுவனம் ஆக்சுபோர்டு பல்கலைக்கழகத்தைச் சேர்ந்தது. இது இணையச் சமூகத்துக்காகவே தனித்துவமாக உருவாக்கப்பட்ட துறை.</p>
<p>3. ஹூஸ் நாலெட்ஜ் என்ற இயக்கம், உலகளவில் ஒடுக்கப்பட்ட சமூகங்களின் அறிவுசார் ஆக்கங்களை இணையவெளியில் கொண்டு வர முயற்சி எடுக்கிறது.</p>
<p>நாங்கள் மூவரும் இணைந்து, இணையத்தில் பயன்பாட்டிலுள்ள மொழிகளைப் பற்றிய ஆய்வறிக்கையை தயாரிக்கிறோம். புள்ளிவிவரங்களையும், தகவல்களையும் வெளியிட்டு, பன்மொழிச் சூழலில் எந்தளவு பின்தங்கி இருக்கிறோம் என்பதை உணர்த்த உள்ளோம். இணையவெளியில் ஆக்கங்களை வெளியிட எங்களால் முடிந்த சில வாய்ப்புகளையும் வழங்க உள்ளோம்.</p>
<p><strong>உங்கள் உதவி எங்களுக்கு தேவைப்படுவதன் காரணம்:</strong> இத்தகைய சிக்கல்களை எதிர்நோக்கி வருவோரின் அனுபவங்களையும், அவர்கள் முயன்ற தீர்வுகளையும் பற்றி அறிந்துகொள்வதே இவ்வாய்வின் நோக்கம்.</p>
<p>நீங்கள்,</p>
<ul>
<li>ஒடுக்கப்பட்ட சமூகத்தைச் சேர்ந்தவராக உணர்ந்தாலோ, உங்கள் சமூகத்தின் அறிவுசார் உள்ளடக்கங்கள் இணையவெளியில் கிடைப்பதில்லை என்று கருதினாலோ, உங்கள் மொழி எழுத்துவடிவங்கள் அணுகவும், படிக்கவும் ஏற்றவகையில் கணினிமயமாக்கப்படவில்லை என்று உணர்ந்தாலோ,</li>
<li>தொழில்நுட்பராக இருந்து, ஆதிக்கத்துக்கு உட்பட்டோரின் மொழிகளுக்காக விசைப்பலகைகள் செய்பவராக இருந்தாலோ,</li>
<li>மொழியியலாளராக இருந்து, பல்வேறு சமூகங்களை ஒருங்கிணைத்து, தொழில்நுட்பத்தை அவர்களுக்கு புரியும் வகையிலும், அணுகும் வகையிலும் கிடைக்கச் செய்தாலோ,</li>
<li>… உங்களைத் தான் தேடிக் கொன்டிருக்கிறோம்!</li></ul>
<p>உங்கள் இணையவெளி அனுபவங்களை எங்களுக்கு தெரிவிப்பதன் மூலம், ஒவ்வொரு மொழிச் சமூகத்தின் நிலையையும் நாங்கள் அறிந்துகொள்ள உதவியாக இருக்கும். அத்துடன், எத்தகைய வாய்ப்புகளை ஏற்படுத்தித் தரலாம் என்றும் நாங்கள் சிந்திக்க உதவியாய் இருக்கும்.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>உங்களிடம் நாங்கள் கேட்க விரும்பும் சில கேள்விகள்:</h3>
<ul>
<li>நீங்களும், உங்கள் மொழிச் சமூகத்தினரும் இணையவெளியில் உங்கள் மொழியை எப்படி பயன்படுத்துகிறீர்கள்?</li>
<li>இன்றைய நிலையில், இணையவெளியில் உங்கள் மொழியைக் கொண்டு செய்ய முடியாதது இருப்பின், அதற்கு என்ன செய்ய விரும்புவீர்கள்?</li>
<li>இணையவெளியில் உங்கள் மொழியில் என்னென்ன ஆக்கங்கள் இருக்கின்றன, எவை இல்லை? (எடுத்துக்காட்டாக, செய்திகள், சமுக வலைத்தளம், கல்விசார் உள்ளடக்கம், அரசுசார் உள்ளடக்கம், மனமகிழ் வீடியோக்கள், இணையவழி கற்றல், போன்றவை)</li>
<li>உங்கள் மொழியில் ஆக்கங்களை படைப்பதற்கு எந்த தளத்தை நாடுவீர்கள், எந்த தொழில்நுட்பத்தை பயன்படுத்துவீர்கள்? (எ.கா : ஒளி, ஒலி, உரை, உரைநடை ஒழுங்கமைவு, பிழைத்திருத்திக் கருவி போன்றவை)</li>
<li>உங்கள் மொழியில் எழுதுவதற்கோ, பகிர்வதற்கோ முயலும் போது என்னென்ன மாதிரியான சிக்கல்களை இணையவெளியில் சந்திக்கிறீர்கள்? (எ.கா: அணுக்கம் இன்மை, கருவியில் எழுத்துரு ஆதரவின்மை, பிழை திருத்த கருவி இன்மை)</li></ul>
<p> </p>
<h3>ஆய்வேடு சமர்ப்பித்தல்:</h3>
<p>மேற்கண்ட கேள்விகளுக்கு உங்கள் சமூகத்தினரிடமும், உங்களிடமும் அனுபவம் மூலம் விடை கிடைத்திருக்கும் என நம்புகிறோம். அவற்றைப் பற்றி தெரிந்து கொள்ள விரும்புகிறோம்!</p>
<p>கட்டுரையாகவோ, கலைப்படைப்பாகவோ, பதிவு செய்யப்பட்ட ஆவணமாகவோ, வேறு வடிவிலோ உங்கள் படைப்புகள் இருக்கலாம். நீங்கள் விரும்பினால் உங்களை பேட்டி காணவும் தயாராக இருக்கிறோம். உங்கள் படைப்புகள் எந்த மொழியில் இருந்தாலும் ஏற்போம். எங்களிடமுள்ள பன்மொழிச் சமூகத்திடம் உங்கள் படைப்புகளை கொடுத்து அவற்றை சீராய்வு செய்யச் சொல்வோம்.</p>
<p>உங்களுக்கு பங்கேற்க விருப்பமா? raw@cis-india.org என்ற மின்னஞ்சல் முகவரிக்கு, செப்டம்பர் இரன்டாம் தேதிக்கு முன்னர் அனுப்புக. 300 சொற்களுக்கு மிகாமல், கீழ்க்காணும் விவரங்களைக்</p>
<ul>
<li>உங்கள் பெயர்</li>
<li>இருப்பிடம் – பிறந்த நாடும், தற்போது வாழும் நாடும்</li>
<li>உங்கள் மொழி(கள்)</li>
<li>உங்கள் சமூகத்தினரைப் பற்றிய தகவல் (அ) நீங்கள் விரும்பும் சமூகத்தினரைப் பற்றிய தகவல்</li>
<li>எந்தெந்த கேள்விகளுக்கு பதிலளிக்க விரும்புகிறீர்கள், ஏன்</li>
<li>உங்கள் படைப்பு எந்த வடிவில் உள்ளது</li>
<li>உங்கள் பங்களிப்பை மேம்படுத்தல் நாங்கள் ஏதும் செய்ய வேண்டுமா</li></ul>
<p> </p>
<h3>காலகட்டம்:</h3>
<ul>
<li><strong>2 செப்டம்பர், 2019:</strong> உங்கள் படைப்புகள் எங்களை வந்தடைய வேண்டிய கடைசி நாள்</li>
<li><strong>1 நவம்பர், 2019:</strong> தேர்ந்தெடுக்கப்பட்ட படைப்பாளர்களிடம் விவரம் தெரிவிக்கப்படும் நாள்</li>
<li><strong>1 திசம்பர், 2019:</strong> முதற்கட்ட பங்களிப்பு நடைபெறும். பங்களிப்பை ஜனவரி மாத மத்தியில் முடிக்க முயற்சி செய்வோம்.</li></ul>
<p>தேர்ந்தெடுக்கப்பட்ட படைப்பாளிகளுக்கு 500 அமெரிக்க டாலர்கள் ஊக்கத்தொகையாக வழங்கப்படும். நாங்கள் தயாரிக்கும் அறிக்கையில் அவர்களின் படைப்பு வெளியிடப்படும்.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/stil-2020-call'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/stil-2020-call</a>
</p>
No publishersneha-ppLanguageResearchResearchers at WorkDigital KnowledgeDecolonizing the Internet's LanguagesFeaturedState of the Internet's LanguagesDigital HumanitiesHomepage2019-08-07T12:29:25ZBlog EntryWhy I’m not going to tell you about the dangers of apps like FaceApp
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/nishant-shah-indian-express-july-28-2019-why-i-am-not-going-to-tell-you-about-the-dangers-of-apps-like-face-app
<b>Concerns about privacy, aimed solely at users, are better directed at owners of digital infrastructure.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Nishant Shah was published by <a class="external-link" href="https://indianexpress.com/article/express-sunday-eye/faceapp-controversy-digital-native-blame-it-on-big-brother-5850881/">Indian Express</a> on July 28, 2019.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">I want to write about our data, your security, and the ever-burning question of privacy and its discontent on the social web, all triggered by the viral FaceApp challenge. Timelines have been flooded by people using this free app to see what an AI thinks they will look like 20 years from now. And they haven’t stopped at just themselves. Their friends, their families, their pets, their favourite celebrities, and stars have all been morphed by this “free” Russian-made app, which takes data, overrides all consent, and shows your future old-face.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However, I know that by the time this column reaches you, you will not only have moved on from the viral seduction of FaceApp, but will also have been admonished by every critic, activist, advocate, and woke friend on <a href="https://indianexpress.com/about/facebook/">Facebook</a>, for trading your privacy and personal data to join the mass-sheep movement that we call social apps. You are either irritated by now about people lecturing you of the risks of using apps that exploit your digital footprint to manipulate your future behaviour, or you are shrugging it off as a trade-off that you are happy to make because you have “nothing to hide”.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Any alarm or pangs that you might have felt when you first read about the potential privacy vulnerability hidden in this app have long since been assuaged by the mindless scrolling through the thousands of pictures of your social circles ageing. If you are like me, perhaps, you have gone over to the dark side and laughed at the naiveté of people who talk of graceful ageing in the face of imminent climate collapse.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">So I won’t talk to you about the danger of these apps and how you must be more careful with protecting your privacy. Because, the bottom-line is that you don’t care. And I don’t mean you, the individual reader. I mean the collective, Facebook-friends-forever you, that has long since stopped caring about what happens to things that we can’t see. Data Privacy indifference is not just a new normal, but alarmingly, even after the stunning expose of data-driven manipulation and AI regulation post the Cambridge Analytica revelations, it seems that we don’t care.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It is easy to blame the users — call them ignorant, label them indifferent, chastise them for not being digitally literate, call for awareness and outreach — but that is perhaps the easiest of the scapegoats. All the people who have been smugly announcing that they won’t use this app because they don’t want to feed the machine-learning beast with more of their private data, have largely been targeting individuals for their callous agnosticism when it comes to data sharing. However, what most of these responses fail to take into account is that the user has long since been installed in a condition of precarious data mining with no way out.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We can blame FaceApp, but we have to realise that every app, platform, service, device, institution and organization involved in the digital social web ecosystem has been primarily working as a data broker, selling us all without knowledge, but with consent. FaceApp is the flavour of the week, but it is merely following in the tradition of all our digital intermediaries who have now naturalised the system of capitalizing on our private data for profits. The woke bros can go around pointing fingers towards those who did use the app, but they must surely recognise the hypocrisy of using the social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram on their <a href="https://indianexpress.com/about/android/">Android</a> and <a href="https://indianexpress.com/about/ios/">iOS</a>phones in order to perform their digital sapience. Because we might ban FaceApp, mount a scrutiny to evaluate the vulnerabilities, and help people avoid it, but FaceApp is just one in millions of data leaks that are built as the default in our digital deliriums.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To call the user ignorant or negligent is to conveniently abdicate the digital infrastructure owners and providers of their wilful, deliberate, and designed policies that compromise user data and privacy for gain. To put the onus of using this app and leaking data on to the user is to gloss over the fact that our laws and policies are woefully inadequate to protect the individual user against this continued data extraction, correlation, and consolidation. To laugh at the user who used an app for fun is to ignore the reality that these apps are verified, promoted, and shared without impunity because it is merely doing what the social web was designed for. So use FaceApp. Don’t use it. It doesn’t matter. Your individual actions are not to be blamed or celebrated. The only real change that can come in how we manage our data privacy is going to be in collective accountability of digital intermediaries and an active responsibility on the part of civil and political societies to step out from under their influence.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/nishant-shah-indian-express-july-28-2019-why-i-am-not-going-to-tell-you-about-the-dangers-of-apps-like-face-app'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/nishant-shah-indian-express-july-28-2019-why-i-am-not-going-to-tell-you-about-the-dangers-of-apps-like-face-app</a>
</p>
No publishernishantResearchers at Work2019-07-31T02:37:09ZBlog EntryThe worrying survival of moon landing conspiracy theorists
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/nishant-shah-indian-express-july-31-2019-the-worrying-survival-of-moon-landing-conspiracy-theorists
<b>The moon landing deniers were the original fake news propagandists. Only, they didn’t have the internet.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Nishant Shah was <a class="external-link" href="https://indianexpress.com/article/express-sunday-eye/it-all-began-with-the-giant-leap-that-wasnt-5826919/">published by the Indian Express</a> on July 22, 2019.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Last week, I was pretending to have a rational conversation on Reddit about vaccination. When I say “rational conversation”, I, of course, mean that this person was ranting at me for being a “stooge of science” and an “agent of insurance companies” because I was pointing out to them that vaccination is a collective ethical good and has proven efficacy at eradicating lethal and chronic diseases. After about an hour of back-and-forth, the user taught me a whole new string of profanities and ended with two particularly strange comments. He said he is done talking to “Nazis like me who are so stupid that we would even believe in the moon landing”.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While anti-vaxxers are all the rage right now, it is easy to see why, as conspiracy theorists, they are closely aligned with the moon landing conspiracy theorists and the flat-earthers, more recently. It is the 50th anniversary of human landing on the moon (“kinda-allegedly-look-there-are-grey-areas-I-don’t-know-I-wasn’t-born-then”). Even in the world of fake news, alt-right, algorithmic trolling, and a collective suspension of disbelief on the internet, it looks like the moon landing is still the reference point that all fake-news peddlers go back to.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Moon landing conspiracy theorisation used to be serious business. They conducted painstaking research, met in secret circles, and tried to convince the world that the government was out to fool us. They were thwarted by the lack of a global platform that would amplify their voice and connect the conspirators of the world together. So, they remained in hiding, and away from common sense, caught in their own bubbles.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While the social web has done much for democratising information, there is no denying that it is also the platform that was made for the moon-landing hoax investigators. Not only is the current social media amenable to the easy distribution of dubious controversies, but it has also made these conspiracy theories a vehicle for entertainment. With multiple social media celebrities relying on attention economies of click-bait headlines and controversial statements, conspiracy theories are now produced not as facts but as opinions, and as entertainment.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The moon-landing deniers were zealots. They worked passionately at producing what they thought was counter-evidence to support their claims. The current fake news peddler does not need anything more than a streaming platform, an entertaining hook, a unique aesthetic, and a personal opinion with all the gravitas of an emoji, to put forward theories that no longer depend upon fact. In the mix and stream universe of social media, they can refurbish old conspiracies, and instead of championing a cause, merely present an ambivalent “anything is possible” attitude and presto, they are influencers.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The moon landing conspiracy theorists were quite strident in their belief but they were largely harmless — the equivalent of a man on a public transport shouting that the end is near. However, the new conspiracy theorists have very real, material consequences. We have already seen how they have been able to move elections and influence public behaviour. We have been witnessing how they have normalised fake news so that when we are faced with information that is apparently dubious, we still circulate it or shrug it off without denying it, thus reinforcing its aura.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">They are dangerous not just because of what they talk about — let’s face it, people who actually believe flat earth theories are not really a great loss to civilisation, and if they want to live in Discworld, we can smile at them with benign frustration. What makes these conspiracy theorists alarming is that they are gateway drugs leading to something more frightening: the world of radicalised, alt-right, internet armies that translate the militant zeal of their digital disbelief into acts of violence in real life. It is not a surprise that social media platforms have become the default spaces where real-time shooters and persons with terrorist intent publish their live videos and radical manifestos. There is a reason why the alt-right populist movements target the anti-vaxxers as their key ambassadors for the distribution of messages. It is not a coincidence that neo-Nazi groups ally with flat-earthers and encourage them into real-life violence.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Fifty years after the moon landing, if we are still dabbling in moon-landing conspiracy theories, it is not because we are fascinated with the moon — surely, Mars is our new moon — but because the internet is the platform that the moon-landing deniers had dreamed of. With the social web, without any mechanisms for verification and an infinite possibility of producing counter-narratives, we have a telling story of what happened when information became really free and the protocols for filtering and parsing information transitioned from human understanding to artificial intelligence.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/nishant-shah-indian-express-july-31-2019-the-worrying-survival-of-moon-landing-conspiracy-theorists'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/nishant-shah-indian-express-july-31-2019-the-worrying-survival-of-moon-landing-conspiracy-theorists</a>
</p>
No publishernishantResearchers at Work2019-07-31T02:33:26ZBlog EntryJuly 2019 Newsletter
http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/july-2019-newsletter
<b>Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) newsletter for July 2019.</b>
<table class="grid listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>Highlights for July 2019</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">CIS <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/comments-on-the-draft-copyright-amendment-rules-2019-concerning-statutory-licensing">presented its comments on the proposed rules 29,30,31 of the Draft Copyright (Amendment) Rules, 2019</a> to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Govt. of India. The comments were made in response to Notification G.S.R 393(E) published in the Gazette of India on May 30, 2019. CIS submitted that in the domestic approach to modernising our copyright legislation, we must refrain from considering distribution of born-digital/ digitised works over the public Internet equivalent to the function of broadcasting works over cable/ satellite.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The Indian National Trust for Art & Heritage Pune Chapter is working with various organisations to preserve the natural heritage places like rivers in Pune district of Maharashtra, India. After the presentation of 'Project Jalbodh' by CIS-A2K in River Dialogue organised by INTACH in April 2018, several organisations have shown keen interest in collaboration. Subodh Kulkarni <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-july-30-2019-wikimedia-workshop-on-rivers-under-project-jalbodh">shares some insights in his report</a>.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">ICANN has Advisory Committees which help guide the policy recommendations that the ICANN community develops while its Supporting Organizations are charged with developing policy recommendations for a particular aspect of ICANN's operations. ICANN publishes a combined budget for all these bodies under the head of policy development. <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/didp-34-on-granular-detail-on-icanns-budget-for-policy-development-process">CIS inquired about the financial resources allocated to each of them specifically</a>.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">CIS in partnership with the Internet Society organized an event on the impact of consolidation in the Internet economy. It was divided into two roundtable discussions, the first one focusing on the policies and regulation while the latter dealt with the technical evolution of the Internet. The roundtables aimed to analyze how growing forces of consolidation, including concentration, vertical and horizontal integration, and barriers to market entry and competition would influence the Internet in the next 3 to 5 years. <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/akriti-bopanna-and-gurshabad-grover-july-3-2019-impact-of-consolidation-in-the-internet-economy-on-the-evolution-of-the-internet">The report by Akriti Bopanna and Gurshabad Grover provides an insight into the developments</a>.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">As part of its Researchers at work programme <span>on key thematics at the intersections of internet and society,</span> CIS <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/call-for-essays-list">called for abstracts for essays that explore social, economic, cultural, political, infrastructural, or aesthetic dimensions of the ‘list’</a>. Ten abstracts would be shortlisted by August 9 from the list of submissions and the selected authors would be requested to submit the full essay of their draft by September 15. Final versions of the essays are expected to be published in October.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">With the rise and popularity of app-based platforms such as Ola, Uber, Swiggy Zomato, and others, there is a growing public conversation about regulation of such 'gig-work' platforms and the working conditions of people who work for them. <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/platform-work-india-panel-discussion-20190719">To explore this further CIS conducted a panel discussion at its Bangalore office</a>. Researchers associated with the project presented their preliminary findings. Panelists preliminary field insights along with reflections on what it meant to do such studies, how they went about studying gig-work, and challenges that arose in their work.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">An excerpt from an essay by Maya Indira Ganesh, written for and published as part of the Bodies of Evidence collection of Deep Dives titled <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/maya-indira-ganesh-you-auto-complete-me-romancing-the-bot">You auto-complete me: romancing the bot</a> explains human relations with bots. <span>The Bodies of Evidence collection, edited by Bishakha Datta and Richa Kaul Padte, is a collaboration between Point of View and the Centre for Internet and Society, undertaken as part of the Big Data for Development Network supported by International Development Research Centre, Canada.</span></li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h3>CIS and the News</h3>
<p>The following articles were authored by CIS secretariat during the month:</p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/the-diplomat-justin-sherman-and-arindrajit-basu-july-3-2019-fostering-strategic-convergence-in-us-india-tech-relations-5g-and-beyond">Fostering Strategic Convergence in US-India Tech Relations: 5G and Beyond</a> (<span style="text-align: justify; ">Justin Sherman and Arindrajit Basu; The Diplomat; July 3, 2019).</span></li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/shyam-ponappa-business-standard-july-4-2019-fix-problems-before-complete-failure">Fix Problems Before Complete Failure</a> (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; July 4, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/what-is-the-problem-with-2018ethical-ai2019-an-indian-perspective">What is the problem with ‘Ethical AI’? An Indian Perspective</a> (A rindrajit Basu and Pranav M.B; cyberBRICS; July 17, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-wire-mira-swaminathan-and-shweta-reddy-july-20-2019-old-isnt-always-gold-face-app-and-its-privacy-policies">Old Isn't Always Gold: FaceApp and Its Privacy Policies</a> (Mira Swaminathan and Shweta Reddy; The Wire; July 20, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/nishant-shah-indian-express-july-31-2019-the-worrying-survival-of-moon-landing-conspiracy-theorists">The worrying survival of moon landing conspiracy theorists</a> (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; July 22, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-wire-karan-saini-and-prem-sylvester-july-23-2019-india-is-falling-down-the-facial-recognition-rabbit-hole">India Is Falling Down the Facial Recognition Rabbit Hole</a> (Karan Saini and Prem Sylvester; The Wire; July 23, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/nishant-shah-indian-express-july-28-2019-why-i-am-not-going-to-tell-you-about-the-dangers-of-apps-like-face-app">Why I’m not going to tell you about the dangers of apps like FaceApp</a> (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; July 28, 2019).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/aayush-rathi-and-ambika-tandon-indian-express-july-29-2019-the-digital-identification-parade">The Digital Identification Parade</a> (Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon; Indian Express; July 29, 2019). <i>The authors acknowledge Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Amber Sinha and Arindrajit Basu for their edits and Karan Saini for his inputs</i>.</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-wire-shweta-mohandas-july-30-2019-in-india-privacy-policies-of-fintech-companies-pay-lip-service-to-user-rights">In India, Privacy Policies of Fintech Companies Pay Lip Service to User Rights</a> (Shweta Mohandas; The Wire; July 30, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<h3>CIS in the News</h3>
<p>CIS secretariat was consulted for the following articles published during the month in various publications:</p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/pibplans-a-fact-checking-unit-to-counter-fake-news">PIB plans a fact-checking unit to counter fake news</a> (Smriti Kak Ramachandran; Hindustan Times; July 3, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/huffington-post-gopal-sathe-july-4-2019-fintech-apps-privacy-snooping-credit-vidya">How Sai Baba Was Made To Spy On Your Phone For Credit Ratings</a> (Gopal Sathe; Huffington Post; July 4, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/openness/news/zd-net-july-8-2019-catalin-cimpanu-mozilla-is-funding-a-way-to-support-julia-in-firefox">Mozilla is funding a way to support Julia in Firefox</a> (Catalin Cimpanu; ZD Net; July 8, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/deccan-herald-july-14-2019-rajmohan-sudhakar-deepfakes-algorithms-at-war-trust-at-stake">Deepfakes: Algorithms at war, trust at stake</a> (Rajmohan Sudhakar; Deccan Herald; July 14, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/e2de2de01e41e1ae1ae23e30e1ae1ae02e49e2de21e39e25e1be23e30e0ae32e0ae19e14e34e08e34e17e31e25-e04e38e22e01e31e1ae1ce39e49e40e0ae35e48e22e27e0ae32e0de2be32e41e19e27e17e32e07e40e2be21e32e30e2ae21">Digital public information system design: Talk to experts, find the right way</a> (Prachatai; July 18, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/observer-research-foundation-shashidhar-kj-and-kashish-parpiani-july-22-2019-easing-the-us-india-divergence-on-data-localisation">Easing the US-India divergence on data localisation</a> (Shashidhar KJ and Kashish Parpiani; Observer Research Foundation; July 22, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/economic-times-july-23-2019-tushar-kaushik-for-sex-workers-mobile-phone-becomes-a-double-edged-sword">For sex workers, mobile phone becomes a double-edged sword</a> (Tushar Kaushik; Economic Times; July 23, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/fxstreet-rajarshi-mitra-july-26-2019-twitter-reacts-to-india-s-crypto-currency-drama">Twitter reacts to the India's cryptocurrency drama</a> (<span style="text-align: justify; ">Rajarshi Mitra; FXStreet; July 26, 2019).</span></li>
</ul>
<h2><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k">Access to Knowledge</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Access to Knowledge is a campaign to promote the fundamental principles of justice, freedom, and economic development. It deals with issues like copyrights, patents and trademarks, which are an important part of the digital landscape.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Copyright and Patent</h3>
<p>Research on harms caused to consumers, developing countries, human rights, and creativity/innovation from excessive regimes of copyright, patents, and other such monopolistic rights over knowledge:</p>
<p><strong>Submission</strong></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/comments-on-the-draft-copyright-amendment-rules-2019-concerning-statutory-licensing">Comments on the Draft Copyright (Amendment) Rules, 2019 concerning Statutory Licensing</a> (Anubha Sinha; July 11, 2019). <span>This submission presents comments to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (“</span><strong>DPIIT</strong><span>”), Ministry of Commerce and Industry pertaining to the notification G.S.R 393(E) containing the </span><a class="external-link" href="http://copyright.gov.in/Documents/pdfgazette.pdf">draft Copyright (Amendment) Rules, 2019</a><span> issued on 30</span><span>th</span><span> May 2019.</span></li>
</ul>
<h3>Wikipedia</h3>
<p>Under a grant from Wikimedia Foundation we are doing a project <span style="text-align: justify; ">for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.</span></p>
<p><span style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Blog Entries</strong></span></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-july-19-orientation-programme-wikipedia-workshop-and-action-plan-meeting-in-pah-solapur-university">Orientation programme, Wikipedia workshop & Action Plan meeting in PAH Solapur University</a> (Subodh Kulkarni; July 19, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-july-30-2019-wikimedia-workshop-on-rivers-under-project-jalbodh">Wikimedia Workshop on Rivers under Project Jalbodh</a> (Subodh Kulkarni; July 30, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-july-31-2019-re-licensing-sessions-with-authors-and-organisations">Re-licensing Sessions with Authors and Organisations</a> (Subodh Kulkarni; July 31, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<h3><span>Openness</span></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Our work in the Openness programme focuses on open data, especially open government data, open access, open education resources, open knowledge in Indic languages, open media, and open technologies and standards - hardware and software:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Participation in Event</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/openness/news/learning-and-understanding-the-frameworks-of-rights-at-work">Learning and Understanding the Frameworks of Rights at Work</a><span> (Organized by Kai Hsin Hung; IT for Change; Bangalore; July 13, 2019). Torsha and Mira attended the workshop.</span></li>
</ul>
<h2><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Tunis Agenda of the second World Summit on the Information Society has defined internet governance as the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles of shared principles, norms, rules, decision making procedures and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet. As part of internet governance work we work on policy issues relating to freedom of expression primarily focusing on the Information Technology Act and issues of liability of intermediaries for unlawful speech and simultaneously ensuring that the right to privacy is safeguarded as well.</p>
<h3>Freedom of Speech & Expression</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Under a grant from the MacArthur Foundation, CIS is doing research on the restrictions placed on freedom of expression online by the Indian government and contribute studies, reports and policy briefs to feed into the ongoing debates at the national as well as international level. As part of the project we bring you the following outputs:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Blog Entry</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/didp-34-on-granular-detail-on-icanns-budget-for-policy-development-process">DIDP #34 On granular detail on ICANN's budget for policy development process</a><span> (Akriti Bopanna; July 6, 2019).</span></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Participation in Events</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/european-summer-school-on-internet-governance">13th European Summer School on Internet Governance</a> (Organized by European Summer School on Internet Governance; Meissen; July 13 - 20, 2019). <span>Akriti Bopanna attended the school.</span> </li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/icann-65-de-briefing-meeting">ICANN 65 De-briefing Meeting</a> (Organized by <span>Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations ; July 16, 2019). Akriti Bopanna remotely presented on the Human Rights related developments that took place at the Marrakech meeting, over the course of the 4 days.</span></li>
</ul>
<h3>Privacy</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Under a grant from Privacy International and IDRC we are doing a project on surveillance. CIS is researching the history of privacy in India and how it shapes the contemporary debates around technology mediated identity projects like Aadhar. As part of our ongoing research, we bring you the following outputs:</p>
<p><strong>Blog Entry</strong></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/akriti-bopanna-and-gurshabad-grover-july-3-2019-impact-of-consolidation-in-the-internet-economy-on-the-evolution-of-the-internet">The Impact of Consolidation in the Internet Economy on the Evolution of the Internet</a> (Akriti Bopanna and Gurshabad Grover; July 3, 2019). The blog post was <span>edited by Swaraj Barooah, Elonnai Hickok and Vishnu Ramachandran. Swagam Dasgupta provided inputs. </span></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Participation in Events</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/digital-id-forum-2019">Digital ID Forum 2019</a> (Organized by UNDP; Chulalongkorn University, Thailand; July 3, 2019). Sunil Abraham was one of the panelists at this event.</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/bis-litd-17-meeting">BIS LITD 17 meeting</a> (Organized by Bureau of Indian Standards; New Delhi; July 3, 2019). Gurshabad Grover attended the sixteenth meeting of the Information Systems Security and Biometrics Section Committee (LITD17).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/facebook-data-for-good-in-bangalore">Facebook Data for Good in Bangalore</a> (Organized by Facebook; Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; July 25, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/roundtable-with-the-whatsapp-leadership">Roundtable with the WhatsApp leadership</a> (Organized by WhatsApp; Mountbatten, The Oberoi, New Delhi; July 26, 2019). Will Cathcart, WhatsApp's new global head, visited India and invited Sunil Abraham for a discussion.</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/facebook-data-for-good-delhi">Facebook Data for Good in New Delhi</a> (Organized by Facebook; University of Chicago Center, New Delhi; July 29, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<h3>IT / Information Technology</h3>
<p>A research on the usage of systems (computers and telecommunications) for storing, retrieving and sending information as well as the IT Act:</p>
<p><strong>Participation in Event</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/leveraging-web-application-vulnerabilities-for-reconnaissance-and-intelligence-gathering">Leveraging Web Application Vulnerabilities for Reconnaissance and Intelligence Gathering</a> (Organized by Has Geek; GRD College of Science, Coimbatore; July 5, 2019). Karan Saini gave a talk at the JSFoo Conference.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Artificial Intelligence</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">With origins dating back to the 1950s Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not necessarily new. However, interest in AI has been rekindled over the recent years due to advancements of technology and its applications to real-world scenarios. We conduct research on the existing legal and regulatory parameters:</p>
<p><strong>Participation in Events</strong></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/roundtable-discussion-on-201cthe-future-of-ai-policy-in-india201d-icrier">Roundtable Discussion on “The Future of AI Policy in India”</a> (Organized by Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, New Delhi; July 1, 2019).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/emerging-ai-technology-in-health-care-in-india-health-equity-and-justice-critical-reflections-and-charting-out-way-forward">Emerging AI technology in health care in India, health equity and justice: Critical reflections and charting out way forward</a> (Organized by HEaL (Health, Ethics, and Law Institute of Training, Research and Advocacy) of FMES (Forum for Medical Ethics Society) in collaboration with CPS (Centre for Policy Studies), Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay; July 13, 2019). <span>Radhika Radhakrishnan, participated in a roundtable discussion on "Emerging AI technology in health care in India, health equity and justice: Critical reflections and charting out way forward."</span></li>
</ul>
<h3>Gender</h3>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/presentation-to-amnesty-international-on-researching-the-future-of-work">Presentation to Amnesty International on researching the Future of Work</a> (Organized by Amnesty Interntional, New Delhi; July 18, 2019). Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon made a presentation on CIS research on Future of Work.</li>
</ul>
<h2><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom">Telecom</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The growth in telecommunications in India has been impressive. While the potential for growth and returns exist, a range of issues need to be addressed for this potential to be realized. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the second aspect is a countrywide access to broadband which is low at about eight million subscriptions. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Monthly Blog</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/shyam-ponappa-business-standard-july-4-2019-fix-problems-before-complete-failure">Fix Problems Before Complete Failure</a> (Shyam Ponappa; Organizing India Blogspot; July 4, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw">Researchers@Work</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The researchers@work programme at CIS produces and supports pioneering and sustained trans-disciplinary research on key thematics at the intersections of internet and society; organise and incubate networks of and fora for researchers and practitioners studying and making internet in India; and contribute to development of critical digital pedagogy, research methodology, and creative practice.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Event Organized</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/platform-work-india-panel-discussion-20190719">#MappingDigitalLabour - Panel discussion on platform-work in Mumbai and New Delhi</a> (CIS, Bangalore; July 19, 2019). Watch the <a class="external-link" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1lwpb3jRMQ">session recording video here</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Blog Entries</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://medium.com/rawblog/studying-the-internet-discourse-in-india-through-the-prism-of-human-rights-2a5cefff6f03">Studying the Internet Discourse in India through the Prism of Human Rights</a> (Deva Prasad M.; July 1, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://medium.com/rawblog/digitalpedagogies-ebda95720926">#DigitalPedagogies</a> (Ashutosh Potdar, Maya Dodd, Nidhi Kalra, and Ravikant Kisana; July 1, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://medium.com/rawblog/openaccessscholarlypublishing-f12f4af43322">#OpenAccessScholarlyPublishing</a> (Abhishek Shrivastava, Dibyaduti Roy, and Nirmala Menon; July 11, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://medium.com/rawblog/renarrationweb-b51b8bcce1c0">#RenarrationWeb</a> (Anuja Mirchandaney, Deepak Prince, Dinesh and Shalini; July 23, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h3><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/">About CIS</a></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Follow CIS on:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Twitter:<a href="http://twitter.com/cis_india"> http://twitter.com/cis_india</a></li>
<li>Twitter - Access to Knowledge: <a href="https://twitter.com/CISA2K">https://twitter.com/CISA2K</a></li>
<li>Twitter - Information Policy: <a href="https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy">https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy</a></li>
<li>Facebook - Access to Knowledge:<a href="https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k"> https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k</a></li>
<li>E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org</li>
<li>E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org</li>
<li>List - Researchers at Work: <a href="https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers">https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers</a></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Support CIS:</strong></p>
<p>Please help us defend consumer and citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of 'The Centre for Internet and Society' and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd 'C' Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru - 5600 71.</p>
<p><strong>Collaborate with CIS:</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We invite researchers, practitioners, artists, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to engage with us on topics related internet and society, and improve our collective understanding of this field. To discuss such possibilities, please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at sumandro@cis-india.org (for academic research), with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia projects, write to Tanveer Hasan, Programme Officer, at tanveer@cis-india.org.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>CIS is grateful to its primary donor the Kusuma Trust founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin for its core funding and support for most of its projects. CIS is also grateful to its other donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and IDRC for funding its various projects</i>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/july-2019-newsletter'>http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/july-2019-newsletter</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaTelecomResearchers at WorkInternet GovernanceAccess to Knowledge2019-08-09T13:50:49ZPageCall for Essays — #List
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/call-for-essays-list
<b>The researchers@work programme at CIS invites abstracts for essays that explore social, economic, cultural, political, infrastructural, or aesthetic dimensions of the ‘list’. We have selected 4 abstracts among those received before August 31, 2019, and are now accepting and evaluating further submissions on a rolling basis.</b>
<p> </p>
<img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cis-india/website/master/img/CIS_r%40w_CallForEssays_List_Open.png" alt="Call for essays on #List, abstracts are considered on a rolling basis" />
<p> </p>
<p>For the last several years, #MeToo and #LoSHA have set the course for rousing debates within feminist praxis and contemporary global politics. It also foregrounded the ubiquitous presence of the list in its various forms, not only on the internet but across diverse aspects of media culture. Much debate has emerged about specificities and implications of the list as an information artefact, especially in the case of #LoSHA and NRC - its role in creation and curation of information, in building solidarities and communities of practice, its dependencies on networked media infrastructures, its deployment by hegemonic entities and in turn for countering dominant discourses.</p>
<p>From Mailing Lists to WhatsApp Broadcast Lists, lists have been the very basis of multi-casting capabilities of the early and the recent internets. The list - in terms of list of people receiving a message, list of machines connecting to a router or a tower, list of ‘friends’ and ‘followers’ ‘added’ to your social media persona - structures the open-ended multi-directional information flow possibilities of the internet. It simultaneously engenders networks of connected machines and bodies, topographies of media circulation, and social graphs of affective connections and consumptions.</p>
<p>As a media format that is easy to create, circulate, and access (as seen in the number of rescue and relief lists that flood the web during national disasters) or one that is essential in classification and cross-referencing (such as public records and memory institutions), the list becomes an essential trope to understand new media forms today, as the skeletal frame on which much digital content and design is structured and also consumed through.</p>
<ul>
<li>What new subjectivities - indicative of different asymmetries of power/knowledge - do list-making, and being listed, engender? How are they hegemonic or intersectional?</li>
<li>What new modes of questioning and meaning-making have manifested today in various practices of list-making?
What modalities of creation and circulation of lists affords their authority; what makes them legitimate information artefacts, or contentious forms of knowledge?</li>
<li>How and when do lists became digital, where are lists on paper? How do we understand their ephemerality or robustness; are they medium or message?</li>
<li>Are there cultural economies of lists, list-making, and getting listed? Who decides, and who gets invisibilized on lists?</li></ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Call for Essays</h2>
<p>We invite abstracts for essays that explore social, economic, cultural, political, infrastructural, or aesthetic dimensions of the ‘list’.</p>
<p>Please submit the abstracts by <strong>Friday, August 23, 2019</strong>.</p>
<p>We will select 10 abstracts and announce them on Friday, August 30. The selected authors are expected to submit a full draft of the essay (of 2000-3000 words) by Monday, September 30. We will share editorial suggestions with the authors, and the final versions of the essays will be published on the <a href="https://medium.com/rawblog" target="_blank">researchers@work blog</a> from November onwards. We will offer Rs. 5,000 as honorarium to all selected authors.</p>
<p>Please submit the abstract (300-500 words), and a short biographic note, in a single text file with the title of the essay and your name via email sent to <a href="mailto:raw@cis-india.org">raw@cis-india.org</a>, with the subject line of ‘List’.</p>
<p>Authors are very much welcome to work with text, images, sounds, videos, code, and other mediatic forms that the internet offers.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/call-for-essays-list'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/call-for-essays-list</a>
</p>
No publishersneha-ppResearchers at WorkListRAW BlogResearchFeaturedCall for EssaysInternet Studies2019-10-11T17:07:26ZBlog EntryYou auto-complete me: romancing the bot
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/maya-indira-ganesh-you-auto-complete-me-romancing-the-bot
<b>This is an excerpt from an essay by Maya Indira Ganesh, written for and published as part of the Bodies of Evidence collection of Deep Dives. The Bodies of Evidence collection, edited by Bishakha Datta and Richa Kaul Padte, is a collaboration between Point of View and the Centre for Internet and Society, undertaken as part of the Big Data for Development Network supported by International Development Research Centre, Canada. </b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Please read the full essay on Deep Dives: <a href="https://deepdives.in/you-auto-complete-me-romancing-the-bot-f2f16613fec8" target="_blank">You auto-complete me: romancing the bot</a></h4>
<h4>Maya Indira Ganesh: <a href="https://bodyofwork.in/" target="_blank">Website</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/mayameme" target="_blank">Twitter</a></h4>
<hr />
<p>I feel like Kismet the Robot.</p>
<p>Kismet is a flappy-eared animatronic head with oversized eyeballs and bushy eyebrows. Connected to cameras and sensors, it exhibits the six primary human emotions identified by psychologist Paul Ekman: happiness, sadness, disgust, surprise, anger, and fear.</p>
<p>Scholar Katherine Hayles says that Kismet was built as an ‘ecological whole’ to respond to both humans and the environment. ‘The community,’ she writes, ‘understood as the robot plus its human interlocutors, is greater than the sum of its parts, because the robot’s design and programming have been created to optimise interactions with humans.’</p>
<p>In other words, Kismet may have ‘social intelligence’.</p>
<p>Kismet’s creator Cynthia Breazal explains this through a telling example. If someone comes too close to it, Kismet retracts its head as if to suggest that its personal space is being violated, or that it is shy. In reality, it is trying to adjust its camera so that it can properly see whatever is in front of it. But it is the human interacting with Kismet who interprets this retraction as the robot requiring its own space by moving back. Breazal says, ‘Human interpretation and response make the robot’s actions more meaningful than they otherwise would be.’</p>
<p>In other words, humans interpret Kismet’s social intelligence as ‘emotional intelligence’...</p>
<p>Kismet was built at the start of a new field called affective computing, which is now branded as ‘emotion AI’. Affective computing is about analysing human facial expressions, gait and stance into a map of emotional states. Here is what Affectiva, one of the companies developing this technology, says about how it works:</p>
<p>‘Humans use a lot of non-verbal cues, such as facial expressions, gesture, body language and tone of voice, to communicate their emotions. Our vision is to develop Emotion AI that can detect emotion just the way humans do. Our technology first identifies a human face in real time or in an image or video. Computer vision algorithms then identify key landmarks on the face…[and] deep learning algorithms analyse pixels in those regions to classify facial expressions. Combinations of these facial expressions are then mapped to emotions.’</p>
<p>But there is also a more sinister aspect to this digitised love-fest. Our faces, voices, and selfies are being used to collect data to train future bots to be more realistic. There is an entire industry of Emotion AI that harvests human emotional data to build technologies that we are supposed to enjoy because they appear more human. But it often comes down to a question of social control, because the same emotional data is used to track, monitor and regulate our own emotions and behaviours...</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/maya-indira-ganesh-you-auto-complete-me-romancing-the-bot'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/maya-indira-ganesh-you-auto-complete-me-romancing-the-bot</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroBodies of EvidenceResearchers at WorkResearchPublicationsBD4DBotsBig Data for Development2019-12-06T05:00:19ZBlog Entry#MappingDigitalLabour - Panel discussion on platform-work in Mumbai and New Delhi
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/platform-work-india-panel-discussion-20190719
<b>With the rise and popularity of app-based platforms such as Ola, Uber, Swiggy Zomato, and others, there are growing public conversation about regulation of such 'gig-work' platforms and the work conditions of people who work for them. The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) invites you to a panel discussion on Friday, July 19 in our Bangalore office, where the researchers associated with the project will present preliminary findings, and ethical and methodological challenges of studying app-based platform-work in India. Panelists Anushree Gupta, Rajendra Jadhav, Sarah Zia and Simiran Lalvani, who have conducted field studies of ride-hailing and food-delivery work in Mumbai and New Delhi, will share their preliminary field insights along with reflections on what it meant to do such studies, how they went about studying gig-work, and challenges that arose in their work. The discussion will be moderated by Noopur Raval who co-led the project. We invite scholars, journalists, and all interested members of the public to join us for the event. Tea and snacks will be served at 5 pm. </b>
<p> </p>
<h4>This project is supported by research assistance from the Azim Premji University.</h4>
<h4>Download: <a href="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cis-india/website/master/img/CIS_MappingDigitalLabour_PanelDiscussion_20190719_web.jpg" target="_blank">Poster</a> and <a href="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cis-india/website/master/img/CIS_MappingDigitalLabour_PanelDiscussion_20190719_flyer.jpg" target="_banner">Flyer</a></h4>
<h4>Session Recording: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1lwpb3jRMQ" target="_blank">Video</a> (YouTube)</h4>
<hr />
<h3>Agenda</h3>
<p>5:00 pm - Tea and snacks in the CIS lawn</p>
<p>5:30 pm - Introduction to the project (Sumandro)</p>
<p>5:40-6:20 pm - Reflections based on field studies by the speakers (Anushree, Rajendra, Sarah, and Simiran)</p>
<p>6:20-6:40 pm - Speakers' responses to questions posed by the moderator (speakers and Noopur)</p>
<p>6:40-7:15 pm - Open discussion (moderated by Noopur)</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Speakers and Moderator</h3>
<p><strong>Anushree Gupta</strong> is a Research Associate at Tandem Research. She is interested in studying the embeddedness of technology in society, with a focus on technical workers. Her research interests include technology mediated work, digital technologies and labour sociology. Her masters thesis examined the structure and dissemination of training in vocational education institutes (ITIs). Anushree has worked professionally on software development projects, including game development and social media analytics. She holds an MA in Development Studies from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and a B. Tech. (ICT) from DA-IICT, Gandhinagar.</p>
<p>Anushree studied dimensions of platform-work among taxi drivers in Mumbai for this project.</p>
<p><strong>Rajendra Jadhav</strong> is working as a research consultant, research fellow, researcher and research mentor with various non government organisations and academic institute for last 12 years. Rajendra has worked with Tata Institute of Social Sciences Mumbai as a Research Officer, as Program Director for PUKAR’s Youth Research Fellowship Program, and with National Dalit Watch - NCDHR, New Delhi as a National Coordinator for Research and Advocacy. Rajendra has pursued MA in Media and Cultural Studies from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.</p>
<p>Rajendra studied dimensions of platform-work among food delivery persons in New Delhi for this project.</p>
<p><strong>Sarah Zia</strong> is an education reporter working with Live Mint, and has previously worked with the Times of India and has undertaken an independent study of mobility and transport in Delhi (focusing on paratransit in Delhi and the Delhi Ring Railway). Sarah has pursued MA in Mass Communication from AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi.</p>
<p>Sarah studied dimensions of platform-work among taxi drivers in New Delhi for this project.</p>
<p><strong>Simiran Lalvani</strong> is currently working as a Consultant at Microsoft Research on a Future of Work project. She has an MA in Development and Labour Studies from the Centre for Informal Sector and Labour Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi.</p>
<p>Simiran studied dimensions of platform-work among food delivery persons in Mumbai for this project.</p>
<p><strong>Noopur Raval</strong> is a PhD researcher at the University of California Irvine where she studies issues of labor technology. She has also worked with the Wikimedia Foundation and Microsoft Research in the past. She is interested in questions of intersectionality, and is an avid consumer of popular culture and food.</p>
<p>Noopur is a co-principal investigator of this project (along with Sumandro).</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/platform-work-india-panel-discussion-20190719'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/platform-work-india-panel-discussion-20190719</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroRAW EventsGig WorkDigital LabourPlatform-WorkResearchers at WorkEventMapping Digital Labour in India2019-07-20T11:58:19ZEventFacebook sees its salvation with its cryptocurrency Libra
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-june-30-2019-facebook-sees-its-salvation-with-its-cryptocurrency-libra
<b>Facebook’s Libra is designed to take control of our digital lives.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Nishant Shah was published in the <a class="external-link" href="https://indianexpress.com/article/express-sunday-eye/digital-native-the-new-currency-facebooks-libra-cryptocurrency-5803235/">Indian Express</a> on June 30, 2019.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the early days, when we were still discussing the possible implications of building a data-surveillance system like <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/what-is/what-is-aadhaar-card-and-where-is-it-mandatory-4587547/">Aadhaar</a> in India, one of the persistent narratives was that in return, Aadhaar will build the infrastructure that gives legal and financial identity to the homeless, underserved, and the unbanked populations of the country. I remember how, at one consultation, Nandan Nilekani had jokingly mentioned that the single entry login framework of Aadhaar is easy to understand as the “<a href="https://indianexpress.com/about/facebook/">Facebook</a> of government services”. There were actual rumours that Aadhaar was seeking to collaborate with Facebook to see if we could log in to the public delivery systems using Facebook’s technical infrastructure.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>The probable Aadhaar-Facebook collaboration never happened, but the other idea of Aadhaar enabling mobile payment, financial inclusion through digital outreach, and the possibility of leapfrogging an entire demography into digital transactions, has a different take. Aadhaar did not necessarily build a public infrastructure for banking. However, in establishing a unique identity, it did pave the way for the notorious demonetisation that pushed people into virtual and cashless transactions, and ironically, opening up the Indian market for the Chinese-controlled </span><a href="https://indianexpress.com/about/paytm/">Paytm</a><span> app to take over. Paytm is a clear symptom of China’s digital global dominance where TenCents and Alibaba are monopolising the world financial systems by becoming the de facto digital financial delivery systems for the emerging financial inclusion markets.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span></span><span>A little late in the game, but perhaps with a blockchain advantage, Facebook has entered this business of converting unique identification and engagement into a financial service, with the announcement of their new cryptocurrency endeavour, Libra. Much like those early days of Aadhaar, Facebook has positioned Libra as a pro-poor facilitator of financial inclusion for the large user base who are going to be connected to the Internet for the first time. The progressions of its interest in becoming the naturalised platform for all digital activities, as opposed to its presence as a space for sharing cute cat pictures and passive aggressive videos of relationships, is clear.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span></span><span>By launching Libra — the details are still scarce, but it seeks to create its own currency for the next generation, in collaboration with companies like Uber and Visa — Facebook has thrown its hat into a complete </span><em>Black Mirror</em><span> control of our digital lives. They want the user to first get connected to the Internet through </span><em>Internet.org</em><span>. Next, they want to control the websites that the users can use for free, by making Facebook the default entry point into digital data sharing. They would then collect and sell the data mined from these free services, and target the users to buy and consume using money developed by Libra. It is a fascinating, if not an ominous, cradle-to-grave scenario.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span></span><span>Currently, Facebook, in its humanitarian guise, is putting forth Libra as a .org service that selflessly seeks to transform the lives of financially excluded populations, who, in one fell swoop, would be online, on Facebook, and using Facebook’s currency in one single access point. However, it is clear to see that Libra is not a service for social good — Facebook is converting its advertisement-based exploitation of user data into clear financial goals. Remember, how we darkly used to laugh that data is the new currency? Well, here is Facebook’s Libra proving that data is not just the new currency, it can be the currency.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span></span><span>Facebook’s wealth has entirely been predicated on data as currency and attention as economy. The last few years have been a revelation of how Facebook has capitalised on its data and attention monopoly. In this new step, Facebook is no longer interested in using data to facilitate the financial expansion — with Libra, Facebook is going to become an actual broker of the money that we use. And once we have bought enough of this currency and use it in our everyday transactions, it can never devalue, because if it’s false, the biggest loser will always be the newly banked individual whose first financial identity is not going to be a banking account but Facebook.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span></span><span>In Libra, Facebook sees its salvation. It has long been critiqued that Facebook is facing obsolescence and threat from other social media networks and Libra is yet another way by which Facebook diversifies its portfolio and secures its future by making it the default service for how we live, work, talk, and love.</span></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-june-30-2019-facebook-sees-its-salvation-with-its-cryptocurrency-libra'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-june-30-2019-facebook-sees-its-salvation-with-its-cryptocurrency-libra</a>
</p>
No publishernishantResearchers at Work2019-07-02T03:58:08ZBlog EntryUnpacking video-based surveillance in New Delhi
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/unpacking-video-based-surveillance-in-new-delhi-urban-data-justice
<b>Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon presented at an international workshop on 'Urban Data, Inequality and Justice in the Global South', on 14 June 2019, at the University of Manchester. The agenda for the workshop and the slides from the presentation by Aayush and Ambika are available below.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Agenda of the workshop: <a href="https://github.com/cis-india/website/raw/master/docs/UDJWorkshop2019_Timetable.docx">Download</a> (DOCX)</h4>
<h4>Slides from the presentation: <a href="https://github.com/cis-india/website/raw/master/docs/CIS_AayushAmbika_UDJWorkshop2019_Slides.pdf">Download</a> (PDF)</h4>
<hr />
<p>The aim of the workshop was to present findings from case studies on urban data justice commissioned by the Sustainable Consumption Institute and Centre for Development Informatics at the University of Manchester, on aspects of justice in data systems in cities across the world. Aayush and Ambika presented their study on video-based surveillance in New Delhi, which was conducted across a period of 3 months earlier this year. The study aimed to assess the extent to which CCTV surveillance systems in Delhi support the needs of women in the city, including lower class women and those from informal settlements. The study will be published as a working paper by the University of Manchester in the coming months.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/unpacking-video-based-surveillance-in-new-delhi-urban-data-justice'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/unpacking-video-based-surveillance-in-new-delhi-urban-data-justice</a>
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No publisherAayush Rathi and Ambika TandonBig DataData JusticeSurveillanceFeaturedUrban Data JusticeResearchResearchers at Work2019-06-20T05:13:25ZBlog EntryStaying silent about cyberbullying is no longer an option
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-june-16-2019-staying-silent-about-cyberbullying-is-no-longer-an-option
<b>Cyberbullying is the dangerous new normal.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Nishant Shah was published in the <a class="external-link" href="https://indianexpress.com/article/express-sunday-eye/cyberbullying-is-the-dangerous-new-normal-5780934/">Indian Express</a> on June 16, 2019.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">I found myself in three very different contexts these last couple of weeks, bound together by a normalising of cyberbullying. The first was a conversation with a professor, who had punished a group of students in her class for disruptive behaviour involving their cellphones. As a form of retaliation, they photoshopped her face in a set of pornographic and explicitly profane images and made her into a meme. In the course of a week, many others piled on to this viral phenomenon, and the professor was now suddenly finding her private information, and her face being shared and commented on in ways that she could not control or process. When the four students responsible for the first meme were identified and questioned, their first reaction was that they couldn’t understand what the problem was. “This is what everybody does these days,” was their first collective response. While they were punished and made to recognise their crime, the images of this professor are here to stay on multiple social media sites, with more people sharing them faster than they can be removed.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In a very different setting, one of my friends, who has an 11-year-old son, called me frantically, because she found a steady stream of abusive messages on her son’s phone, targeted at him. These messages were on a closed-group social media platform consisting of students from his school. Her son, apparently, had reported some other kids bullying on the school ground and the chastised bullies had taken to tormenting him online. Calls to the school, inquiries from the principal, attempts at mediating and reconciliation had all fallen on deaf ears. When my friend suggested that her son get off the platform, he was in tears, and adamant that his social life will be over and he has to just stay on, and pay his dues. “Everybody has to pay for what they did. This will also get over,” he said, justifying the bullying and mob attacks that he was being subjected to.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On Reddit channels, I witnessed a furious fight about the suicide of Dr Payal Salman Tadvi — the medical doctor who gave in to depression and, eventually, death, after being bullied by three senior doctors who decided that her caste origins offended their professional sensibilities. The thread was started to talk about caste-based discrimination in contemporary Indian workspaces. It was soon taken over by people using this incident to call people of different castes weak, low-willed, and entitled snowflakes, who could not take hardship because they have been coddled by affirmative action. The irony of this argument aside, the one thing that they kept on insisting was that this act of bullying was not about caste at all because “everybody gets bullied and they have to be strong to fight back” or there is no hope for survival.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In all of these three very different cases, scattered around three different continents and privileges, one thing stands out. Cyberbullying is not just here but it seems to have been naturalised and accepted as the new normal. Thus, instead of stopping these acts, the focus seems to be on helping people cope with it. Similarly, the efforts are directed not at calling out such acts, but at supporting victims to see it through, without any structural respite.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-june-16-2019-staying-silent-about-cyberbullying-is-no-longer-an-option'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-june-16-2019-staying-silent-about-cyberbullying-is-no-longer-an-option</a>
</p>
No publishernishantResearchers at Work2019-07-02T03:52:22ZBlog EntryData bleeding everywhere: a story of period trackers
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/sadaf-khan-data-bleeding-everywhere-a-story-of-period-trackers
<b>This is an excerpt from an essay by Sadaf Khan, written for and published as part of the Bodies of Evidence collection of Deep Dives. The Bodies of Evidence collection, edited by Bishakha Datta and Richa Kaul Padte, is a collaboration between Point of View and the Centre for Internet and Society, undertaken as part of the Big Data for Development Network supported by International Development Research Centre, Canada.</b>
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<h4>Please read the full essay on Deep Dives: <a href="https://deepdives.in/data-bleeding-everywhere-a-story-of-period-trackers-8766dc6a1e00" target="_blank">Data bleeding everywhere: a story of period trackers</a></h4>
<h4>Sadaf Khan: <a href="http://mediamatters.pk/the-team/" target="_blank">Media Matters for Democracy</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/nuqsh" target="_blank">Twitter</a></h4>
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<p>...By now there are a number of questions buzzing around my head, most of them unasked. Are users comfortable with so much of their data being collected? Are there really algorithms that string together all this data into medically-relevant trends? How reliable can these trends be when usage is erratic? Are period tracking apps pioneering, fundamental elements of a future where medical aid is digital and reliable data is inevitably linked to the provision of medical services? And if so, are privacy and health soon to become conflicting rights?</p>
<p>I also want to find out how users understand data collection and privacy before giving apps consent to utilize their data and information as they will. Hareem says she gives apps informed consent. ‘If my data becomes a part of the statistics aiding medical research, why not? There is no harm in it. I am getting a good service, and if my data helps create a better understanding as a part of a larger statistical pool, they are welcome to use it.’</p>
<p>But is she really sure that this information will be used only as anonymised data for medical research? ‘Look at the kind of information that is being collected,’ she answers. ‘Dates, mood, consistency of mucus, basal temperature. What kind of use does one have for this data?’</p>
<p>Naila, in turn, says: ‘Honestly, I have never really thought about what happens to the data the application collects. Obviously I enter detailed information about my cycle and my moods and my sex life. But a), my account is under a fake name and b), even if it wasn’t, who would have any use for stuff like when my period starts and ends and what my mood or digestive system is like at any given moment?’</p>
<p>In fact, this sentiment is shared among all the women interviewed for this piece — what use would anyone have for this data?</p>
<p>As users, we often imagine our own data as anonymised within a huge dataset. But as users, we don’t have enough information about how our data is being used — or will be used in future. The open and at times vague language of a platform’s terms and conditions allows menstrual apps to use data in ways that I may not know of. Some apps continue to hold customer data even after an account is deleted. Even though I may technically ‘agree’ to the terms and conditions, is this fully informed consent?</p>
<p>One of the big concerns around this kind of medical information being collected is the potential for collaborations with big pharmaceuticals and other health service providers. With apps sitting on a goldmine of users’ fertility and health information, health service providers might mine their data for potential consumers and reach out directly to them. While this is like any targeted marketing campaign, the fact that the advertiser is likely to be offering medical services to women suffering from infertility and are at their most vulnerable, raises totally different ethical concerns.</p>
<p>And these apps and their businesses might grow in directions that users haven’t taken into consideration. Take Ovia’s health feature for companies to buy premium services for their employees. While the gesture is packaged as a goodwill one, it also means that an employer has access to extremely private and intimate medical information about their women employees. And while the data set is anonymised, it is still possible to figure out the identity of users based on specific information. For example, how many women in any company are pregnant at any given time?...</p>
<p>Pregnant a year after my miscarriage, I initially downloaded multiple apps in a bid to find a good fit. I don’t know which one of these was in communication with Facebook. But almost immediately, my Facebook timeline started becoming littered with ads for baby stuff — clothes, shoes bibs, prams, cribs, ointments for stretch marks, maternity wear, the works.</p>
<p>It makes me think of those old school clockwork-style videos. You drop a ball and off it goes: making dominos fall, knocking over pots and pans, setting in motion absurd, synchronized mechanisms. Similarly, I drop my data and watch it hurtle into my life, on to other platforms, off to vendors. Maybe to stalkers? To employers? Who knows.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/sadaf-khan-data-bleeding-everywhere-a-story-of-period-trackers'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/sadaf-khan-data-bleeding-everywhere-a-story-of-period-trackers</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroBodies of EvidenceResearchers at WorkResearchFeaturedPublicationsBD4DBig Data for Development2019-12-06T05:03:09ZBlog EntryCan data ever know who we really are?
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/zara-rahman-can-data-ever-know-who-we-really-are
<b>This is an excerpt from an essay by Zara Rahman, written for and published as part of the Bodies of Evidence collection of Deep Dives. The Bodies of Evidence collection, edited by Bishakha Datta and Richa Kaul Padte, is a collaboration between Point of View and the Centre for Internet and Society, undertaken as part of the Big Data for Development Network supported by International Development Research Centre, Canada.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Please read the full essay on Deep Dives: <a href="https://deepdives.in/can-data-ever-know-who-we-really-are-a0dbfb5a87a0" target="_blank">Can data ever know who we really are?</a></h4>
<h4>Zara Rahman: <a href="https://www.theengineroom.org/people/zara-rahman/" target="_blank">The Engine Room</a>, <a href="https://zararah.net/" target="_blank">Website</a>, and <a href="https://twitter.com/zararah" target="_blank">Twitter</a></h4>
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<blockquote>If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.<br /><em>– <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/1982-audre-lorde-learning-60s/" target="_blank">Audre Lorde</a></em></blockquote>
<p>The proliferation of digital data and the technologies that allow us to gather that data can be used in another way too — to allow us to define for ourselves who we are, and what we are.</p>
<p>Amidst a growing political climate of fear, mistrust and competition for resources, activists and advocates working in areas that are stigmatised within their societies often need data to ‘prove’ that what they are working on matters. One way of doing this is by gathering data through crowdsourcing. Crowdsourced data isn’t ‘representative’, as statisticians say, but gathering data through unofficial means can be a valuable asset for advocates. For example, <a href="http://readytoreport.in/" target="_blank">data collating the experiences of women</a> who have reported incidents of sexual violence to the police in India, can then be used to advocate for better police responses, and to inform women of their rights. Deservedly or not, quantifiable data takes precedence over personal histories and lived experience in getting the much-desired currency of attention.</p>
<p>And used right, quantifiable data — whether it’s crowdsourced or not — can also be a powerful tool for advocates. Now, we can use quantifiable data to prove beyond a question of a doubt that disabled people, queer people, people from lower castes, face intersecting discrimination, prejudice, and systemic injustices in their lives. It’s an unnecessary repetition in a way, because anybody from those communities could have told reams upon reams of stories about discrimination — all without any need for counting.</p>
<p>Regardless, to play within this increasingly digitised system, we need to repeat what we’ve been saying in a new, digitally-legible way. And to do that, we need to collect data from people who have often only ever been de-humanised as data subjects.</p>
<p>Artist and educator Mimi Onuoha writes about <a href="https://points.datasociety.net/the-point-of-collection-8ee44ad7c2fa#.y0xtfxi2p" target="_blank">the challenges that arise while collecting such data</a>, from acknowledging the humans behind that collection to understanding that missing data points might tell just as much of a story as the data that has been collected. She outlines how digital data means that we have to (intentionally or not) make certain choices about what we value. And the collection of this data means making human choices solid, and often (though not always) making these choices illegible to others.</p>
<p>We speak of black boxes when it comes to <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/breaking-the-black-box-what-facebook-knows-about-you" target="_blank">the mystery choices that algorithms make</a>, but the same could be said of the many human decisions that are made in categorising data too, whether that be choosing to limit the gender drop-down field to just ‘male/female’ as with Fitbits, or a variety of apps incorrectly assuming that all people who menstruate <a href="https://medium.com/@maggied/i-tried-tracking-my-period-and-it-was-even-worse-than-i-could-have-imagined-bb46f869f45" target="_blank">also want to know about their ‘fertile window’</a>. In large systems with many humans and machines at work, we have no way of interrogating why a category was merged or not, of understanding why certain anomalies were ignored rather than incorporated, or of questioning why certain assumptions were made.</p>
<p>The only thing we can do is to acknowledge these limitations, and try to use those very systems to our advantage, building our own alternatives or workarounds, collecting our own data, and using the data that is out there to tell the stories that matter to us.</p>
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<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/zara-rahman-can-data-ever-know-who-we-really-are'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/zara-rahman-can-data-ever-know-who-we-really-are</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroBodies of EvidenceBig DataData SystemsResearchers at WorkResearchPublicationsBD4DBig Data for Development2019-12-06T05:02:53ZBlog EntryDigital Native: Three things we need to realise about what TikTok is doing to us
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-may-19-2019-nishant-shah-digital-native-three-things-we-need-to-realise-about-what-tik-tok-is-doing-to-us
<b>Fifteen seconds is all that will take for TikTok to own you.
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Nishant Shah was published in <a class="external-link" href="https://indianexpress.com/article/express-sunday-eye/digital-native-times-up-tiktok-5731290/">Indian Express</a> on May 19, 2019.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">If there is one thing that has been building more suspense and drama than our politicians this election season, it is the microblogging site TikTok. From complete ignominy to viral popularity, and then the dramatic ban by a high court to its resurgence offering Rs 1,00,000 daily reward prizes, #ReturnofTikTok has been trending with great enthusiasm and being embraced by the populace, who obviously think that 15-second videos are the pinnacle of human cultural production and expression. But, my friends, followers, TikTokers, I come here not to bury TikTok, but to praise it.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">At first glance, TikTok appears to be just a miniaturised version of the popular social media platforms we know — YouTube, Vine, Snapchat — and merely one more step in figuring out how granular we can make our appified attention. With each video post that can only last 15 seconds, TikTok is often heralded as naturalising the new unit of attention in an informationally saturated environment. Many have looked at it as competition to the grandfathers of social media apps, like <a href="https://indianexpress.com/about/facebook/">Facebook</a> and Instagram, and there is much speculation about how it will take these giants down.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However, the radical departure of TikTok is not in the smallness of its engagement — and thus the extremely low threshold for participation — or in the hashtag organisation of its social media, and the subsequent viral potentiality. What makes TikTok tick (and then, of course, tock), is its embrace of artificial intelligence and big data analytics to power the platform.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">China-based ByteDance that owns TikTok, unlike any of its Big Tech competitors, is not a content production or curation company. It is invested in machine learning, and at its backend are extremely sophisticated algorithms that are using facial recognition, data correlation, and targeted customisation technologies to create the world of TikTok. Unlike Facebook and Twitter, the two templates of “user-generated-content” platforms, where what we see, what we do, and what we say require us to define our social circles and connections, TikTok’s algorithms do not need us to do any social definition.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">From the minute you sign up for it, giving up your personal information and data to extreme mining which bears the same pitfalls of privacy and surveillance that all other big data apps do, TikTok starts presenting content to you. This is not content created by friends, or colleagues, or randos you connect with because you couldn’t be bothered to decline their invites. Instead, this is content created by people you don’t know at all, and brought to you by algorithms that know, even without you telling them what you might like. The more time you spend tapping across the vides, searching hashtags, and going through complex tutorials to make your own 15-second fun video, the more the machine learning algorithms learn you.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">TikTok is such a threat to existing social media companies because they make no apologies of the fact that their human users are not influencers, friends, followers, or connections. They are merely users, who produce content and then their algorithms go around the world, connecting us through reasons and logic that are completely opaque. With TikTok, we see the future of automated technologies, where both the content and the logic of connectivity are no longer dependent on human action or desire, but on algorithmic curation and presentation. Geared towards maximum engagement, TikTok’s algorithms have one task — to completely make us lose all sense of time as we cycle through an almost endless stream of videos that have neither content nor style, but seduce us in their short-lived flash.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">TikTok as a platform might turn out to be another fad. It is already being copied and mimicked by others. It might run out of its global steam. However, what it has opened up for us are three critical things that need more attention in our digital action. First, on TikTok, you don’t have friends because your friend is TikTok, and it tells you, in an easy, gossipy way, all the things that everybody else is doing. Second, TikTok does not pretend to respect individual choice and agency, instead it trains us to accept what is presented as content. In many ways, it is the reverse Spotify — your playlist does not represent your taste in music, but the music shapes you to become the kind of person who likes that music. And, lastly, TikTok infantilises its users, embedding them in a juvenilia, which has no meaning other than the moving images that keep us engaged but distant, responsive but irresponsible, as children of all ages, ready to escape from a world that increasingly seems too complex to live in.</p>
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<p>Nishant Shah is a professor of new media and the co-founder of The Centre for Internet & Society, Bengaluru. This article appeared in print with the headline ‘Digital Native: Time’s Up’</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-may-19-2019-nishant-shah-digital-native-three-things-we-need-to-realise-about-what-tik-tok-is-doing-to-us'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-may-19-2019-nishant-shah-digital-native-three-things-we-need-to-realise-about-what-tik-tok-is-doing-to-us</a>
</p>
No publishernishantResearchers at Work2019-06-09T05:27:52ZBlog EntryDigital Native: Narendra Modi’s interview by Akshay Kumar is a PR masterpiece
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/nishant-shah-indian-express-may-5-2019-digital-native-narendra-modi-interview-by-akshay-kumar-is-pr-masterpiece
<b>How to spot the influencer in your politics.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Nishant Shah was<a class="external-link" href="https://indianexpress.com/article/express-sunday-eye/digital-native-two-good-men-5706670/"> published in Indian Express </a>on May 5, 2019.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Your digital age can easily be measured by one simple concept: the influencer. In descending order of age, there are people who have no idea what it means, those who roll their eyes at the word, those who have friends who are influencers, those who are, or think of themselves as, influencers. Despite studying and following (and sheepishly trying to imitate) influencers on social media, I still find it difficult to explain lucidly who exactly an influencer is, and what it is that she does.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>A</span><span>n influencer is a person who has many followers on social media and they influence the behaviour of these followers. They are not celebrities who influence others, but they are celebrities because they can influence others. They are not famous like traditional stars, but they are stars because so many people listen to them. They are famous for being famous, but, more importantly, they are famous as themselves — as authentic, genuine, real people who you like, and, hence, listen to. So great is the influencer phenomenon that celebrities are now adopting the genre. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span></span><span>The best example of this is the video interview of Prime Minister </span><a href="https://indianexpress.com/about/narendra-modi">Narendra Modi</a><span> by Bollywood star </span><a href="https://indianexpress.com/about/akshay-kumar/">Akshay Kumar</a><span>. Modi, who is looking to repeat his historic electoral victory of 2014, is right now undeniably the biggest political figure of our times. His promises of development, politics of resilience, and affinity for controversial alliances make him not only an extraordinary figure in India, but also stitches him into a larger global shift towards conservative populism.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Akshay Kumar, while he might not be one of the Khans, has emerged as the “common man’s hero”, especially since his last few films have focused on a persistent, if ham-handed, social messaging about critical questions of infrastructure, gender and family in the Indian psyche. So much so, that many critics had speculated if Akshay Kumar was prepping to run for elections, following in the grand tradition of many cinema stars who crossed over from the silver screen to politics.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Individually, and together, Modi and Kumar are two larger-than-life celebrities. And yet, when they came together for an interview, which was historical for several reasons — it emerged in the middle of the elections in the country and it was streamed across digital and TV platforms — they did not talk about their respective renown, portfolios or messages. Instead, they staged an “apolitical” interview, during the course of which we learned about Modi’s preference for Gujarati mangoes and ascetic discipline, and realised that the credit for Kumar’s success has to go to his directors, if this is his repertoire of acting skills.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Or, in other words, these two celebrities came together to make an influencer video — where the banal, the everyday, and the casual are used to create subtle messaging that shapes and nudges the behaviour and taste of the networked user, who is consuming the long interview as an act of eavesdropping on two regular people. This influencer aesthetic is particularly different from the gossipy antics of producer-director <a href="https://indianexpress.com/about/karan-johar/">Karan Johar</a>, with his obviously celebrity friends who joke about nepotism and laugh about how, when you are a star, they let you get away with anything.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This video might be a PR masterpiece, not because it fills up the vacuum that the delayed release of Modi’s fictional biopic had created, but because in a politically saturated environment, it chose to be airy, fluffy and chatty, thus deescalating the tense atmosphere that surrounds this current election.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We might find it difficult to follow Modi the leader, but Narendra Modi the everyday man, who decided to step up and serve his country, is hard to fault. This video saw NaMo and Akki taking the influencer aesthetic to shape the political message that amplifies Modi as our leader.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the meantime, the Opposition leaders in Congress, who desperately need a digital strategist team, did exactly the one thing they should have avoided — they took the bait of the video and went around shouting against it, thus driving more people to watch it, and giving them a chance to overcome their political preferences and relate to Modi as a human being. The Opposition strategy led to a Streisand effect, where the more they negated and critiqued, the more the video went viral, and, in an election that is already poised on a hair’s breadth, it might not be a surprise if the final vote shall be won, not by celebrity endorsements, but by influencer virality.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Nishant Shah is a professor of new media and the co-founder of The Centre for Internet & Society, Bengaluru. This article appeared in print with the headline ‘Digital Native: Two Good Men’</i></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/nishant-shah-indian-express-may-5-2019-digital-native-narendra-modi-interview-by-akshay-kumar-is-pr-masterpiece'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/nishant-shah-indian-express-may-5-2019-digital-native-narendra-modi-interview-by-akshay-kumar-is-pr-masterpiece</a>
</p>
No publishernishantResearchers at Work2019-06-09T03:20:27ZBlog Entry