"[...] The DECA is a decision-making tool to help USAID Missions, their partners, and other relevant stakeholders identify the opportunities, maximize the benefits, and manage the risks associated with digital technology. The goal is to help USAID’s partner countries along their journey to self-re
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liance through a better understanding of each country’s digital ecosystem. The DECA pilot phase began September 2019 through August 2020 and USAID/Colombia was the flagship pilot. This report presents the findings and recommendations of the Colombia DECA pilot, which was conducted between November 2019 and February 2020. The pilot DECA included desk research, consultations with USAID/Colombia, and two weeks of in-country research. A total of 60 key informant interviews and three site visits were conducted with stakeholders from civil society, academia, the private and public sectors, and USAID/Colombia technical offices. The DECA pilot was guided by four key USAID/Colombia priorities: implementing the peace agreement, promoting licit economies, integrating Venezuelan migrants and Colombian returnees, and strengthening citizen security." (Executive summary)
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"The concept of ‘the commons’ has been used as a framework to understand resources shared by a community rather than a private entity, and it has also inspired social movements working against the enclosure of public goods and resources. One such resource is free (libre) and open source software
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(FLOSS). FLOSS emerged as an alternative to proprietary software in the 1980s. However, both the products and production processes of FLOSS have become incorporated into capitalist production. For example, Red Hat, Inc. is a large publicly traded company whose business model relies entirely on free software, and IBM, Intel, Cisco, Samsung, Google are some of the largest contributors to Linux, the open-source operating system. This book explores the ways in which FLOSS has been incorporated into digital capitalism. Just as the commons have been used as a motivational frame for radical social movements, it has also served the interests of free-marketeers, corporate libertarians, and states to expand their reach by dragging the shared resources of social life onto digital platforms so they can be integrated into the global capitalist system. The book concludes by asserting the need for a critical political economic understanding of the commons that foregrounds (digital) labour, class struggle, and uneven power distribution within the digital commons as well as between FLOSS communities and their corporate sponsors." (Back cover)
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"The study revealed some clear patterns about why people fall for misinformation, regardless of their age, gender or education level. Some of the key trends common across city and village respondents were: 1. Majority of the respondents do not question the source of the information, or assess if the
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source or sender is a credible authority on the subject. Respondents across demographics focus more on the content of the message and rely on personal biases and beliefs while deciding whether they will believe or reject a message. 2. Respondents usually do not verify information from alternative sources on the web. There is a noticeable skepticism against social media, but despite that it is noteworthy that majority respondents are unaware of strategies to evaluate evidence or verify online content. 3. A great deal of trust in mainstream media, to the point that they blindly trust information misattributed to mainstream media. 4. Majority respondents do not realise the extent of manipulated content they access online. Respondents are also oblivious to the absence of gatekeeping on social media and the difference of nature between news versus non-news content. 5. If the sender is a prominent influencer or a person they look upto, respondents were more likely to believe the message. Believability increases if the ideology of person sharing information aligns with that of the audience." (Key insights from user study, page 4)
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"Facebook is “best” source of information for elections, but television is still most trusted Among irst time youth voters, 83% of survey respondents cited Facebook as the best channel to receive elections information. In Myanmar, Facebook and the Internet are virtually interchangeable. Key Info
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rmant Interviews (KII) and Focused Group Discussions (FGD) confirmed that information flows fluidly among Facebook users, who receive and share information in their respective common interest groups on Facebook, highlighting the important role of informal social media networks, which function as information sharing mechanisms. A few qualifying facts add more nuance to this finding: 1) the online survey was distributed through Facebook, which selfselects Facebook users; 2) the emergence of COVID-19 has increased Facebook use and the number of Facebook users; 3) respondents and interviewees were well aware of disinformation common to the platform, diluting their trust in information received via social media [...] Traditional media still plays a central role in inclusive voter education/elections outreach. While social media use is now widespread, survey respondents and interviewees still cited television, print and radio as main sources of information. 49% of respondents still regularly read the newspaper, 65% still watch TV, and 36% still listen to the radio. Moreover, insights from interviews and FGDs show that voters in Rakhine, Chin and Shan, affected by Internet outages, those in rural areas with limited access to Internet and digital communications infrastructure, and internally displaced persons may be excluded from information distributed solely on social media. Though traditional media is essential to inclusive quality information, this sector, especially those at the local and regional level, is struggling to survive financially ..." (Summary of key findings)
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"This article explores the challenges and opportunities presented by advances in artificial intelligence (AI) in the context of information operations. The article first examines the ways in which AI can be used to counter disinformation online. It then dives into some of the limitations of AI solut
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ions and threats associated with AI techniques, namely user profiling, micro-targeting, and deep fakes. Finally, the paper reviews a number of solutions that could help address the spread of AI-powered disinformation and improve the online environment. The article recognises that in the fight against disinformation, there is no single fix. The next wave of disinformation calls first and foremost for societal resilience." (Abstract)
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"La encuesta se realizó entre el 10 y 20 de abril a través de un formulario de Google compartido por redes de contactos y en redes sociales (principalmente Twitter). Las 2.325 respuestas no representan al universo de oyentes de podcasts ya que no se realizó ningún trabajo estadístico sobre la m
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uestra (que no es muestra) [...] El 27,3% comenzó a escuchar podcast en 2019 y el 24,5% en 2018. El 96% de los encuestados escucha podcast a través de teléfonos móviles y el 46% lo hace desde computadoras personales o de escritorio. La plataforma preferida para eschuchar es Spotify. La segunda plataforma es YouTube con el 23%. Los formatos preferidos de los participantes son: los de conversación/mesa redonda (51%) y los de entrevistas (22,7%). Especialmente si son sobre: Cine y series, Sociedad y Cultura, y Economía y política." (Página 2, Resumen, página 9)
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"The world is facing an unprecedented climate and environmental emergency. Scientists have identified human activity as primarily responsible for the climate crisis, which together with rampant environmental pollution, and the unbridled activities of the extractive and agricultural industries, pose
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a direct threat to the sustainability of life on this planet. This edition of Global Information Society Watch (GISWatch) seeks to understand the constructive role that technology can play in confronting the crises. It disrupts the normative understanding of technology being an easy panacea to the planet’s environmental challenges and suggests that a nuanced and contextual use of technology is necessary for real sustainability to be achieved. A series of thematic reports frame different aspects of the relationship between digital technology and environmental sustainability from a human rights and social justice perspective, while 46 country and regional reports explore the diverse frontiers where technology meets the needs of both the environment and communities and where technology itself becomes a challenge to a sustainable future." (Back cover)
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"There is no “one size fits all” approach to digital contact tracing technologies (DCTT). Technology design should not be static, but it should be capable of evolving depending upon local conditions, new evidence, and changing preferences and priorities. Technology companies alone should not con
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trol the terms, conditions, or capabilities of DCTT, nor should they presume to know what is acceptable to members of the public. DCTT should be designed to have a base set of features that protect privacy, with layers of additional capabilities that users may choose to activate. An initial default should be that user location data are not shared, but users should be provided with easy mechanisms and prompts to allow for opting-in to this capability, with encouragement to the public if it is shown to be critical to achieving public health goals. Data collected through DCTT should be made available to public health professionals and to researchers in de-identified form to support population-level epidemiologic analyses." (Summary, page 2)
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"This document is a compilation of the outcomes of the research component of a small project entitled “Putting cybersecurity on the rights track” that the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) implemented during the course of 2019 with the participation of APC members." (About this pr
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oject, page 4)
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"This report and the associated workbook seeks to contribute to the discourse in three ways. First, we hope to open an extensible documentation and overview of practices, experiences, and resources on the legitimisation of, and resistance to, state-backed internet shutdowns across the world. Second,
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we seek to enable and advance a collective understanding of emerging legal and jurisprudential frameworks being used to legitimise and resist internet shutdowns. Free and open access to such data would help human rights lawyers and civil society advocates to locate relevant jurisprudence and accordingly tailor strategies." (About this report, page 6)
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"I. Regional countries spend about 1.1 percent of GDP on digital investment, while advanced economies spend an average of 3.2 percent
II. 37% of social media users in the region have contributed to the creation of news, commented on it or shared it with others.
III. There is an upward trend in arres
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ts and detentions after political related publications on social media.
IV. Notable regional trend in political parties and governments gaging members on social media.
V. Social media interruptions through internet disruption are now common in the region.
VI. Citizen journalism through social media is on the rise in the region.
VII. There is significant growing employment of social media surveillance which threatens to squeeze the space for freedom of expression and access to information, including civic activism on social media.
VIII. Increasing presence of social media within political campaigns and electoral processes across the region.
IX. Significant rise in organized social media manipulation through cyber troops within the region.
X. Substantial use of social media to ‘break’ news by traditional media houses.
XI. Increase in social media surveillance in the region.
XII. Internet penetration in 2019 averaged 39.6 percent in region compared to 62.7 percent in the rest of the world, affecting social media usage.
XIII. Region has some of the highest total cost of mobile ownership in the world ranging from 10% to 68% of average income and also has highest cost of internet; limiting social media usage.
XIV. Africa remains the only continent whose digital gender gap has widened since 2013." (Key highlights, page 5)
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"This third edition has been thoroughly updated to incorporate the latest research and developments, including the rise of Big Data, AI, and the Internet of Things. The book's case studies and pedagogical material have also been extensively revised and updated to include such watershed events as the
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Snowden revelations, #Gamergate, the Cambridge Analytica scandal, privacy policy developments, and the emerging Chinese Social Credit System. New sections include "Death Online," "Slow/Fair Technology", and material on sexbots. The "ethical toolkit" that introduces prevailing ethical theories and their applications to the central issues of privacy, copyright, pornography and violence, and the ethics of cross-cultural communication online, has likewise been revised and expanded. Each topic and theory are interwoven throughout the volume with detailed sets of questions, additional resources, and suggestions for further research and writing." (Back cover)
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"[...] se identificaron rápidamente las principales temáticas a incluir en el libro. Estas son: acceso a Internet y derechos humanos online, populismo y desinformación, privacidad, ciberseguridad, big data y datos abiertos, teleeducación, teletrabajo, cooperación digital y transformación digit
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al de las empresas. El libro tiene como propósito mostrar cómo Internet, en tiempos de la COVID-19, desde diversas áreas, le ha servido a la humanidad, pero en particular a nuestra región, que, con una perspectiva latinoamericana, ha sabido tomar como referencia experiencias globales. Además, su objetivo es presentar los nuevos retos y riesgos que han surgido, a fin de demostrar cómo estos pueden atenderse coordinadamente entre los diversos actores comprometidos para minimizar su impacto." (Introducción, página 19)
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"Utilising results of an unprecedented global study, this volume explores the ways in which young adults in seven different countries engage with digital and social media in religiously significant ways. Presenting and analysing the findings of the international research project Young Adults and Rel
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igion in a Global Perspective (YARG), an international panel of contributors shed new light on the impact of digital media and its associated technologies on young people's religiosities, worldviews, and values. Case studies from China, Finland, Ghana, Israel, Peru, Poland, and Turkey are used to demonstrate how these developments are progressing, not just in the West, but across the world." (Publisher description)
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