Al Jazeera: How social media regulations are silencing dissent in Africa. “Through social media platforms, the #EndSARS activists not only managed to call thousands of Nigerians to action and hold Nigerian authorities to account, but also garnered unprecedented international attention and support for their cause. The fact that a burgeoning human rights movement has been contemplated, created and sustained online did not go unnoticed in the overwhelmingly conservative halls of power in Nigeria. Shaken to the core by this new media phenomenon and its astounding proclivity to galvanise a traditionally silenced and disregarded youthful majority, some Nigerian state governors and public officials started to demand that social media be regulated.”
social change
VentureBeat: How to make sure your ‘AI for good’ project actually does good
VentureBeat: How to make sure your ‘AI for good’ project actually does good. “AI has the potential to help us address some of humanity’s biggest challenges like poverty and climate change. However, as any technological tool, it is agnostic to the context of application, the intended end-user, and the specificity of the data. And for that reason, it can ultimately end up having both beneficial and detrimental consequences. In this post, I’ll outline what can go right and what can go wrong in AI for good projects and will suggest some best practices for designing and deploying AI for good projects.”
Radio Free Europe: Belarusian Protesters Counter Authorities’ Moves With Online Tactics
Radio Free Europe: Belarusian Protesters Counter Authorities’ Moves With Online Tactics. “The risks are high, with opposition leaders such as Maryya Kalesnikava jailed after being accused of using media and the Internet to stage protests. But Belarusians are defying the authorities by going online to expose members of the security services cracking down on demonstrations, recruit volunteers, share news and information, and strategize methods of peaceful protest.”
Slate: How Tech Tools Helped Taiwanese Activists Turn a Social Movement Into Real Policy Change
Slate: How Tech Tools Helped Taiwanese Activists Turn a Social Movement Into Real Policy Change. “One community of civic-oriented programmers active in the Sunflower Movement named g0v (pronounced ‘gov-zero’) assembled a collection of open source programs to build vTaiwan, a hybrid online and in-person deliberation process. VTaiwan has a broad set of features that help citizens, government agencies, and civil society reach agreements on contentious issues. The process allows users to transparently propose policies and crowdsource facts, facilitate public discussion, deliberate with key stakeholders, and draft suggested changes.”
Washington Post: Nearly 200,000 deaths, millions of ripples. Each covid-19 fatality shifts attitudes about the virus.
Washington Post: Nearly 200,000 deaths, millions of ripples. Each covid-19 fatality shifts attitudes about the virus.. “The novel coronavirus claimed Cleon Boyd. Then, six days later, it took his identical twin brother, Leon. As they lay dying, the disease cascaded through their family, eventually infecting 11 of their immediate relatives. The Boyd family’s harrowing experience rippled through the towns where they lived and worked, sharply altering attitudes toward the coronavirus and spreading adoption of social distancing and face coverings.”
WRAL: Pandemic could eliminate aspects of daily routine forever
WRAL: Pandemic could eliminate aspects of daily routine forever. “More than six months after the first coronavirus case was diagnosed in North Carolina, the pandemic continues to disrupt and reshape daily life. From work to eating to shopping, experts say the impact will likely last even after the virus is under control.”
Social media and social justice: How to vet online awareness campaigns before jumping in (CNET)
CNET: Social media and social justice: How to vet online awareness campaigns before jumping in. “Whether it’s a black square on #BlackOutTuesday or a black-and-white selfie for #womensupportingwomen, odds are you’ve seen some campaign related to a social cause take over your newsfeed. But at a time when calls to take action are louder than ever, how much good can social media campaigns really do? Fact is, they’re not all created equal, and you’ll want to pause before deciding which ones to support.”
Library of Congress: The March on Washington in Color
Library of Congress / Unsplash Guest Post: The March on Washington in Color. “[August 28] marks the 57th anniversary of the March on Washington—when a quarter-million people came together to draw attention to the continued challenges and inequalities faced by Black Americans. The two dozen or so color photographs from that day and its leaders are locked down under expensive licenses, inaccessible to the general public, limiting the usage and awareness of one of the most defining moments in American history. Today, we fix this. With the help of the team at the Library and visual historian Jordan Lloyd, we’ve assembled a set of images with no known restrictions from the March, its leaders and segregated America.”
Uncut and unedited: Livestreamers have become a key cog in the Louisville protests (USA Today)
USA Today: Uncut and unedited: Livestreamers have become a key cog in the Louisville protests. “Just before 7 p.m. May 28, Louisville entertainer Montez Jones was in a car on the way to an impromptu protest in the name of Breonna Taylor. He opened his Facebook page and hit ‘go live.’ Within hours, hundreds of people had joined him downtown – the crowd growing as word spread through texts, calls and shares of his livestream. Fast-forward three months, and the protests have continued, with people young and old calling for justice for the unarmed Black woman killed in March at the hands of police.”
Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University: New Online Tool Tracks Oil and Gas Transformation
Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University: New Online Tool Tracks Oil and Gas Transformation. “To help explain how the oil and gas sector is transforming, the many challenges the industry is facing, and the intersecting factors that will shape its role in the energy transition, the Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP) partnered with the World Economic Forum on the Oil and Gas Transformation Map, an interactive tool for users to explore and make sense of the complex and interlinked forces that will dictate the future of the industry.”
Axios: Coronavirus forces rethinking of safety net for working women
Axios: Coronavirus forces rethinking of safety net for working women. “The coronavirus pandemic has been devastating for working women, but one prominent women’s policy expert says it could provide a new opportunity to create the kinds of social supports they should have had all along.”
BBC: Iran halts execution of three protesters after online campaign
BBC: Iran halts execution of three protesters after online campaign. “Iran has halted the executions of three men who were sentenced to death over anti-government protests last year, according to one of their lawyers. Babak Paknia told reporters that a request for a retrial had been accepted by the supreme court. The decision comes after a hashtag against their execution was used millions of times online.”
New Yorker: How Pandemics Wreak Havoc—and Open Minds
New Yorker: How Pandemics Wreak Havoc—and Open Minds. “Great crises tend to bring profound social change, for good or ill. The consequences of wars and economic depressions have been amply studied; the consequences of pandemics, less so. This spring, in order to understand our possible future, I decided to look at the past through the eyes of Gianna Pomata, a retired professor at the Institute of the History of Medicine, at Johns Hopkins University. When we first talked, on Skype, she immediately compared covid-19 to the bubonic plague that struck Europe in the fourteenth century—’not in the number of dead but in terms of shaking up the way people think.’ She went on, ‘The Black Death really marks the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of something else.’ That something else was the Renaissance.”
WashU Expert: How to document the protests (Washington University in St. Louis)
Washington University in St. Louis: WashU Expert: How to document the protests. “Americans across the nation are documenting today’s protests through photography and video, often posting their content on Instagram, Twitter and other social media feeds. But is that the safest way to preserve these historic images? No, said Miranda Rectenwald, curator of local history at University Libraries at Washington University in St. Louis. She has created a list of resources from Documenting the Now, the Blacktivists and more, to help protest participants preserve their content for the long term.”
Observer: Feeling Heat, Mark Zuckerberg Will Meet With Civil Rights Groups Boycotting Facebook
Observer: Feeling Heat, Mark Zuckerberg Will Meet With Civil Rights Groups Boycotting Facebook. “While the boycott may not make a significant dent in the company’s income, global brands such as Pepsi and Coca-Cola publicly calling for the platform to change is a big deal. And after a team of top Facebook executives failed to talk those advertisers out of it, CEO Mark Zuckerberg finally agreed to meet with the civil rights groups behind the boycott and hear what they want, a spokesperson confirmed to Reuters late Tuesday.”