Hi all, We invite you to our next session of the X4D Talks <http://x4d.org> on *April 20th 1400 ET/1800 UTC/2330 IST* on the topics of *Privacy and Participation in Social Media. *
The session will be moderated by *Dr. Dhanaraj Thakur* (Research Director at the Center for Democracy & Technology, USA). Our speakers include: *Mallory Knodel, Center for Democracy & Technology, USA* *Social media private messaging with end-to-end encryption* Many of these messaging apps provide end to end encrypted communication either by default or as an option. Governments and law enforcement agencies have incorrectly argued that encryption undermines national security and have moved to weaken or remove encrypted messaging. What are the human rights implications of these moves and what is the role of research in protecting privacy and encryption on these apps? What is the technical reality of these apps and does it match up with what law enforcement says about them? *Joyojeet Pal, Microsoft Research, IndiaThe Blindspot: Technology, Development and Tiptoeing around Democracy* In the last two decades of academic engagements around technology and development, we have seen initiatives and research focusing largely on access to services in domains such as healthcare, education, and agricultural production. While there has been growing interest and engagement around rights based research and action in gender and accessibility, there has been comparatively less engagement on issues of democratic engagement. In this talk, we consider the role of social media polarization and state control over democratic processes within the discourse of technology and development, and propose that scholars need to play an engaged role in subjects that are messy and risky to their continued engagement in development scholarship. *Maggie Jack, Syracuse University and University of California, Irvine, USANetworked Authoritarianism at the Edge * With a team of researchers, I conducted a qualitative research study in 2018 that examined how village-level officials in rural Cambodia (who are relatively new internet users) utilize Facebook to supplement and extend long-standing patterns of information control. We found that they used Facebook Newsfeed and Messenger, exclusively on smartphones, to promote local government activities, report to the central government, and monitor local affairs. This monitoring has led to widespread “chilling effects,” a phenomenon that occurs when political activists and citizens stop using the internet for dissent due to intimidation. I argue that this social media withdrawal often emerges more from the lingering psychological effects of historical violence than the sophistication of technological tactics. *Kiran Garimella, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USAMisinformation on WhatsApp?* In this talk, I will present our on-going research on WhatsApp. I will first talk about the tools we built to collect large amounts of WhatsApp data from political groups in India. Next, I will discuss how such data could be useful for journalists, fact checking organizations and researchers, to study various problems, including misinformation and hate. I will present three case studies making use of this data: (i) studying image-based misinformation, showcasing novel ways images are being used to spread false information, (ii) How a closed messaging application is being used for cross-platform coordination and manipulation of Twitter trends, and (iii) the prevalence of a special form of hate speech which we call fear speech — speech inducing fear about a certain group (muslims in our case). Finally, I will conclude with potential solutions to tackle these problems and how end to end encryption on WhatsApp makes it challenging to address them. When: *April 20th, 1400 ET/1800 UTC/2330 IST * Where: https://ucl.zoom.us/j/93923102086 Warmly, Neha & Akhil
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