Damian wrote a blogpost in which he comments on the current debate on the role of algorithms. He argues that – while there are valid reasons to be concerned – critics who see algoritms as evil or scary per se, miss the point and hinder a constructive debate.

[in Dutch]

Het fascinerende spookbeeld: Hoe irrationele argumenten het debat over kunstmatige intelligentie bemoeilijken

Researchers from the Personalised Communication project presented various papers at TILTing Perspectives 2017: Regulating a connected world, a conference organized by Tilburg University from 17-19 May. The conference brought together researchers, practitioners, policy makers, and civil society at the intersection of law and regulation, technology, and society, and provided a great opportunity to exchange ideas and make new connections.

Marijn presented a paper on mobile health apps, privacy and autonomy. Frederik chaired several panels, among which a panel on price discrimination. A paper cowritten by Bálazs, Frederik, Kristina, Judith, Natali, and Claes was presented, discussing the technological, legal, ethical, and organizational infrastructures of research into algorithmic agents. Another paper presented was written by Balázs, Judith, and Natali, and concerned the conditions under which people accept news personalization. Sarah presented her paper on how news personalization affects the right to receive information.

Kristina gave a talk on COMMUNICATION AND USER RIGHTS at the National Day of Communication congress 2017. This year it took place on the 17th of May on the campus of the University of Twente in Enschede.

At the center of all communications is the user but accounts about them vary: Are users exploited netslaves, or are they creative prosumers, or probably mixture of both? In her talk she discussed various communication users’ rights arising in the landscape of online services, such as the right to privacy, the right to be forgotten, the right to receive information, and the right not to be discriminated against. She acquainted the participants  with users who have made an entry into the story of modern communication rights. She closes with a call for respect of user rights online which ultimately benefits all, individuals, business and society at large.

In de 56e aflevering van de podcast Onder Mediadoctoren spreken dr. Linda Duits en dr. Vincent Crone met dr. Sophie Boerman over in welke mate adverteerders kunnen inzoomen op de consument, of reclames altijd als zodanig worden herkend en welke rol ethiek hierbij speelt.

De podcast kan hier bekeken en geluisterd worden:

Afl 56: Persoonstargeting

Bekijk ook aflevering 50, met daarin dr. Sanne Kruikemeier over filterbubbels:
http://ondermediadoctoren.nl/afl-50-filterbubbels/

On Tuesday, Damian gave a lecture “Big Data: Why social scientists should care” at the Amsterdam Research Initiative, discussing the role of Big Data in society as well as in research. He argued that social scientists on the one hand have to observe the role of so-called Big Data as a societal phenomenon, but on the other hand also can make use of these techniques to answer social-scientific research questions. Directly before, he had given a two-day workshop on the use of Python to answer social-scientific research questions at Radboud University Nijmegen.

Monday May 15 at 19.30 Judith will be part of the panel discussing the media and filter bubble with editor in chief of the AD Hans Nijenhuis and data scientist at Blendle Arno Veenstra.

A summary of the night can be found here.

© OneWorld

Judith was invited to participate in the closing debate of the annual meeting of the Swiss Association of Communication Science (SGKM) on «The power of algorithms: societal, economic and political implications»  with Michael Latzer (IPMZ Universität Zürich), René Pfitzer (Lead Data Scientist, Neue Zürcher Zeitung), Jens Kaessner (Telecomjurist BAKOM), Urs Karrer (Digital Consulting Practice Lead IBM Schweiz);
Convener: Konstantin Dörr (Research and Teaching Associate Universität Zürich)
The panel was co-organised by the group Medienpolitik, Medienstrukturen und Mediengeschichte.