The Internet as a Reverse Panopticon

March 10, 2022March 10, 2022 Computers and SocietyLeave a comment

C. Dianne Martin is Emeritus Professor of Computer Science at George Washington University, and Adjunct Professor in the School of Information, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has been teaching Computers and Society since 1983.

This article is adapted from one published March, 2013, in the ACM SIGCSE Inroads Magazine.

In 1787 Jeremy Bentham, the British Utilitarian philosopher and penal reform theorist, wrote a series of letters in which he proposed a Panopticon (all-seeing), also called The Inspection-House. His letters put forward “the idea of a new principle of construction applicable to any sort of establishment, in which persons of any description are to be kept under inspection”. For the next 16 years he was obsessed with the desire to implement his model prison design, which he believed would transform penal methods by drastically cutting cost through significant downsizing of the workforce needed to oversee prison populations. He also felt such prisons would have positive moral value to the prisoners.

I Do Not Want Mark’s Metaverse

December 16, 2021January 5, 2022 Computers and Society1 Comment

[WE WILL PUBLISH YOUR MOST THOUGHTFUL RESPONSES. Send to ronbaecker@gmail.com, 300-1000 words, include hyperlinks.]

In a blog posted two days ago, I highlighted phrases and sentences from Mark Zuckerberg’s recent keynote speech sketching his vision of Meta’s intended metaverse. Here are thoughts triggered by his words:

1. “ you’re going to be able to do almost anything you can imagine … “This isn’t about spending more time on screens … [include] communities whose perspectives have often been overlooked … consider everyone …”

No, Mark, be honest. This is about getting more people into Meta, and about getting them to spend more time in the metaverse, because that’s the only way you can sustain the growth your shareholders expect, and the only way you can withstand the onslaught of firms like Tiktok that now have greater appeal to the next generation of users.

Stretched Too Thin by Social Media: Beware its power to reshape your web of relationships

November 18, 2021February 14, 2022 Computers and SocietyLeave a comment

Brett Frischmann is the Charles Widger Endowed University Professor in Law, Business and Economics, Villanova University. His most relevant book to his thoughts below is Re-Engineering Humanity (Cambridge University Press 2018).

This post is based on an article that appeared in Scientific American (January 2020).

Recently, I’ve received multiple invitations to leave Facebook and Twitter and join a new social network that promises to not destroy democracy. I’m tempted. I’m also tempted to delete my accounts and abandon social media altogether. The decision got me thinking, not about democracy but instead about how social media affect my behavior and relationships.

Social media promise and deliver social networks with better or at least bigger scale and scope. Essentially, this means you can connect to many more people from many different places to relate on a wider variety of interests. To socialize is a core human need. The difficult question is whether social media improve our capability to relate to each other.

Physically separated, socially connected

February 11, 2021June 22, 2021 Computers and Society3 Comments

Contributed by Ron Baecker, an Emeritus Professor of Computer Science at the University of Toronto, co-author of The COVID-19 Solutions Guide and author of Computers and Society: Modern Perspectives (OUP, 2019).

My family is widely separated. I live in Canada. My brother-in-law, niece, nephew, and their families are in New Jersey and Pennsylvania; my cousins, their children, and their families are in Argentina, Spain, England, and on both coasts of the USA. Typically, I visit my niece and nephew once or twice a year; I manage a trip to Buenos Aires or Bilbao, Spain, about every 3 years. But not recently. I therefore Facetime with either my nephew or my niece almost every week. We also are about to have our fourth global family Zoom. This started out to celebrate individual birthdays, with great spirit and feeling of bringing the family closer together. The next event will celebrate 3 birthdays — ages 78, 41, and 9 — and a recent birth in the family in London. The 9-year-old birthday event will see us participating in a day-long scavenger hunt. What fun!

K-12 Education Pods: Problems, Fears and Options

September 15, 2020June 22, 2021 Computers and SocietyLeave a comment

Contributed Judith A. Langer, who is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Education, a researcher who has specialized in language, literacy, and learning, and one of the co-authors of The COVID-19 Solutions Guide.

August and early September of 2020 were extremely difficult times for everyone who had a stake in education: parents, teachers, school administrators and local officials. In June and July, most people hoped school could resume in the ways it always had and this, I think, may have held them back from creating a fully planned “new normal.” Many early scenarios contained some online teaching in the event that in the future schools might need to be shuttered for periods of time, but they were hoping an overall easing of cases would permit in-class instruction. Most models contained scenarios for all in-class, hybrid and fully on-line to cover the unknown range of needs, but many did not. Unexpected spikes in Covid-19 in heretofore low-case regions escalated uncertainty about what the future might hold. Sizable ranges in the intensity of new cases within states and communities pointed to the need for more locally determined options.

Can the internet help people live through a pandemic?

June 4, 2020June 22, 2021 Computers and SocietyLeave a comment

Contributed by Ronald Baecker and Judith Langer.

Ron is an an Emeritus Professor of Computer Science at the University of Toronto, co-author of The COVID-19 Solutions Guide and author of Computers and Society: Modern Perspectives (OUP, 2019).

Judith is the Vincent O’Leary Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Albany, State University of New York and co-author of The COVID-19 Solutions Guide.

COVID-19: Computer scientists and CS students can act proactively for good

May 1, 2020June 22, 2021 Computers and SocietyLeave a comment

Contributed by Ronald Baecker, who is an Emeritus Professor of Computer Science at the University of Toronto, co-author of The COVID-19 Solutions Guide and author of Computers and Society: Modern Perspectives (OUP, 2019).

Readers of my blog will recall what I describe as digital dreams and digital nightmares.

Our world has been enriched by digital technologies used for collaboration, learning, health, politics, and commerce. Digital pioneers imagined giving humanity greater control over the universe; augmenting knowledge and creativity; replacing difficult and dangerous physical labour with robot efforts; improving our life span with computationally supported medicine; supporting free speech with enhanced internet reason and dialogue; and developing innovative, convenient, and ideally safe products and services. Online apps and resources are proving very valuable, even essential, in the era of COVID-19.

Digital collaboration technologies flourish during COVID-19

April 15, 2020June 21, 2021 Computers and SocietyLeave a comment

For most of human history, dyads and groups were only able to work and play together if they were collocated. All of this changed in the 19th century, when the first remote collaboration and entertainment technologies — the telegraph, the telephone, and the radio — were developed and widely commercialized. These were joined in the 20th century by television. By the middle part of the century, medical images were being transmitted over phone lines; soon thereafter, 2-way television was being used for remote medical consultations.

COVID-19 information and misinformation web portal for Canadians

March 31, 2020June 21, 2021 Computers and SocietyLeave a comment

Contributed by Dr. Anatoliy Gruzd. Anatoliy is the Director of Research of the Social Media Lab at Ryerson University.

“In the face of an unprecedented global and national health emergency, today we are announcing the launch of a new COVID-19 web portal for Canadians. Visit the portal at: covid19misinfo.org.

Power, politics, and the internet

September 15, 2019June 21, 2021 Computers and SocietyLeave a comment

Contributed by Uma Kalkar. Uma is a senior undergraduate at the University of Toronto and 2019-2020 International Presidential Fellow at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress researching the politics of domestic and national digital divides.

In 2016, the United Nations classified internet access as a human right, deeming that cutting or censoring the internet by states impinges on personal freedoms. Unfortunately, conflict-heavy zones and politically unstable states deny their citizens unfiltered internet in order to isolate and control discussion and debate. Through internet censorship, governments attempt to hide regime atrocities and to revise history.

Computers and Society

Resources for Learning and Thinking Ethically

Category: Internet