(Reproducing this from Fission Talk)

Below I will add in my condensed chapter notes. Each chapter is available as its own paper on the book website 1 if you want to just pick and choose. Many of these chapters were presented as papers at the Internet Governance Forum in 2022.

Here is the TOC for your reference:

  • Chad KohalykOPM
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    8 months ago

    Ch9: Trackers and Chasers: Governance Challenges in Disinformation Datafication

    • datafication has contributed to disinformation. This article analyzes two policy trends to fighting disinformation: regulating of microtargeting (the “trackers”) and requiring traceability (“tracers”)
      • microtargeting: eg bannig the use of targeted during elections, or limiting the types of data collected
      • traceability: require even more data collection so that the source of shared info can be traced back to a user. Examples given from India and Brazil
    • because disinformation datafication is inspired precisely by the intent to identify collective political preferences and influence speech and behavior, governance solutions that focus solely on the rights that individuals exercise over their own data are essentially limited to address the level of social risk entailed in these strategies. This is the core of the problem
      • “data subjects possess only a fraction of the interests in a certain data flow”, while data collectors are motivated to collect as much data as they can, from as many subjects as possible, so they can exploit the insights of horizontal data relations
    • data appears as both an object and a form of governance.
    • policy solutions continuously replicate individualistic understandings of privacy
    • a “horizontal relationship” in datafication, which relates data subjects to each other
    • the “vertical relationship” is the one between individual data subjects and data collectors, expressed in corporate-centered “hegemonic models” that refer data governance to the forms and mechanisms through which collectors retain control over the data they collect
      • data protection laws are often built around the “vertical relationship”… failing to acknowledge “the role that horizontal data relations play in producing social value and social risk”
      • general data protection laws are not enough to address social harm caused by disinformation.
    • ==The article basically asks: can we design a datafied system that incentivizes truth?==
      • ==this kind of talk excites lawmakers, but in my experience, freaks out technologists, especially those who work in privacy