Politics and Governance

Political Ads Cambridge Analytica (CA) paid people to take in-app survey; mined FB profile data including friends' data; crafted tailored sensitive ads to sway-able voters. Elections are about emotions, not facts. Data science and social media can help us make sense of and manipulate the chaos. An alternative argument. Political misinformation is: Weak in high profile partisan races because pre-existing beliefs hardly change Strong when people don’t have string pre-existing opinions, e....

Should Platforms Be Neutral? Facebook banned praise, support and representation of white nationalism and separatism, because the two concepts cannot be meaningfully separated from white supremacy and organized hate groups. Furthermore, people that search for related terms will have “Life After Hate” suggested to them. Part of me is uncomfortable. Sure, Facebook is trying to do the right thing here. What if Facebook was replaced by some tyrannical government that censors opposition?...

State Surveillance In the aftermath of the Capitol insurrection, FBI was contacting people whose cellphones pinged cell towers near the Capitol during the riots. A powered mobile phone always sends signals to one of the closest base stations. Given multiple base stations, the angle and time of arrival, and location signatures of each cell location can be used to locate a mobile device. The higher the density of cell towers, the more precise the calculated location....

From my vantage point, it seems there are two camps. But reality is often a shade of grey. Interested in various arguments that frequently arise in this area. I have my opinions/biases, but nothing that I can defend rigorously. Some (most?) of these claims are supported by anecdotal evidence, which is an avenue for belief fixation, and therefore makes it hard to come to a resolution . I don’t know if it’s because anti-PC material is more viral, but most of the prominent publications are either anti-PC, or anti-anti-PC....

Motivation: Why are politics so contentious? How can I relate better with people that hold opposing political beliefs? Why People Are Irrational About Politics. Michael Huemer. Philosophy, Politics and Economics. 2015. Salient features of political disagreements: widespread (many people disagree on many issues), strong conviction/confidence, and persistent (difficult to resolve). Political Disputes Are Not Explained by Miscalculation or Ignorance Miscalculation Theory: Political issues are difficult and partisans make mistakes in their reasoning....

Introduction; 05. What Is Your Privacy Worth?;

Motivation for Differential Privacy in Datasets; Information and Technology Policy [WWS 351]; Privacy [WWS 351]; Myths and Fallacies of 'Personally Identifiable Information'; Differential Privacy: A Primer for a Non-technical Audience; Privacy and Human Behavior in the Age of Information;