In a few hours (evening for me, morning in India!) I'm giving a keynote for the COMPUTE conference on integrating ethics into computer science education. Including some links in this thread to papers and other things I will reference in that talk! Perfect for #CSEdWeek2020. :)
First: Why integrate ethics into technical CS classes? It's one way to change the culture towards recognizing that ethics is an integral part of the practice of computing, and not a specialization. howwegettonext.com/what-our-tech-…
Our work in this area is funded by the Responsible Computer Science challenge, and you can find out more about other institutions involved on their website! #ResponsibleCSfoundation.mozilla.org/en/what-we-fun…
Standalone tech ethics classes are also awesome and can provide a lot of ideas for content to integrate into other classes as well. If you teach such a class and want ideas OR to help out others, here is a crowdsourced list! medium.com/@cfiesler/tech…
And for one concrete idea for a creative, fun activity that can be plugged into any topical CS class, here's details about the Black Mirror Writers Room as an example of an ethical speculation exercise. howwegettonext.com/the-black-mirr…
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Someone on TikTok asked if I could recommend books about tech ethics and I have never been so hyped to create a piece of content in my life. vm.tiktok.com/ZMJV3WPj8/
Obviously this list had to be visual so if there are obvious omissions it's probably because my copy of the book is trapped in my office I haven't been to since April or I've loaned it to one of my students. :)
Update on the bonkers omegaverse copyright lawsuit- a bogus DMCA claim for @thelindsayellis's video about bogus DMCA claims. AMAZING EXAMPLE of a complete misunderstanding of fair use. Let's talk about bad faith takedowns & what fair use protects! [Thread]
To briefly summarize the topic of Lindsay's original video:
Author sends DMCA takedowns for another author's books based on a claim of copyright infringement for worldbuilding concepts that originally came out of fanfiction. Gets more bonkers from there.
Following Lindsay's video, she immediately heard from Author's lawyer, with claims of copyright infringement and defamation. re: copyright infringement, the video includes about 400 words of Author's book. (Heavily bleeped since, you know... it's werewolf erotica.)
I'm alarmed by this exact issue, and here's a related one I've thought a lot about:
All datasets that curate "public" data (e.g., photographs or social media posts) create secondary archives of content that otherwise the original content creators would have control over. [Thread]
There are many reasons why you might want to delete content that you originally shared publicly, and why that content still being used by others (even scientists) might be harmful. One example that comes to mind is someone who has been through gender transition.
I also wrote about a speculative example in this design fiction about research ethics--in which there is a curated dataset of "last words" of deceased life-loggers, then used by trolls to harass their surviving loved ones. cmci.colorado.edu/~cafi5706/grou…
As we speak, the short video I made for my #CSCW2020 paper with @BriannaDym is playing "at" the conference! "Moving Across Lands: Online Platform Migration in Fandom Communities." Here is a longer version that was targeted at a general audience! #CSCW2020
And if you missed my #CSCW2020 session but want to see the 5-minute talk about online platform migration that is focused specifically on takeaways for CSCW researchers, here is that presentation!
Here are the social computing research-related takeaways from "Moving Across Lands: Online Platform Migration in Fandom
Communities" (link: cmci.colorado.edu/~cafi5706/CSCW…):
Thread about content moderation & privacy trade-offs!
Last week, Playstation users freaked out b/c of an update that included a warning that "by participating in voice chats, you agree to your voice being recorded" - for "safety and moderation purposes." foxbusiness.com/technology/pla…
What's actually happening is that players now have the option, when making harassment reports, to include a short (40-second) voice chat clip with their report.
You can see why this is useful. You can also see why people might not like the idea of chats being recorded.
When @aaroniidx interviewed Discord moderators about how they moderate voice channels, a HUGE issue was "evidence." How can you ban someone from a community based on reports when there's no proof? They really wanted recordings. medium.com/acm-cscw/voice…
Recently some people have asked me how to reach out to potential advisors when applying to PhD programs. So here is a template - remember YMMV based on your discipline so find out about norms!
Dear Dr. __ , I am considering applying to your department's PhD program, one reason
being that I am very interested in the work you are doing on __ (for example, I particularly enjoyed your paper __ and see myself possibly doing that kind of work). My own research interests relate to ___ in these ways, and I have some research experience with ___. I'm wondering
if you will be considering taking on new PhD advisees, or if you have suggestions for other faculty I should reach out to. I'd be interested to hear more about the recent work in your lab, and I'd be happy to answer any questions or to talk if more information would be helpful.