newspeak

Is Data Speech? by Jane R. Bambauer :: SSRN.

The title is brilliant. And the article interesting.

The key point: “Data privacy laws regulate minds, not technology. Thus, for all practical purposes, and in every context relevant to the privacy debates, data is speech.”

The abstract:

Privacy laws rely on the unexamined assumption that the collection of data is not speech. That assumption is incorrect. Privacy scholars, recognizing an imminent clash between this long-held assumption and First Amendment protections of information, argue that data is different from the sort of speech the Constitution intended to protect. But they fail to articulate a meaningful distinction between data and other, more traditional forms of expression. Meanwhile, First Amendment scholars have not paid sufficient attention to new technologies that automatically capture data. These technologies reopen challenging questions about what “speech” is.

This Article makes two bold and overdue contributions to the First Amendment literature. First, it argues that when the scope of First Amendment coverage is ambiguous, courts should analyze the government’s motive for regulating. Second, it highlights and strengthens the strands of First Amendment theory that protect the right to create knowledge. Whenever the state regulates in order to interfere with knowledge, that regulation should draw First Amendment scrutiny.

In combination, these claims show clearly why data must receive First Amendment protection. When the collection or distribution of data troubles lawmakers, it does so because data has the potential to inform, and to inspire new opinions. Data privacy laws regulate minds, not technology. Thus, for all practical purposes, and in every context relevant to the privacy debates, data is speech.

Digital Market Manipulation by Ryan Calo :: SSRN.

The article is probably by now a classic. At any rate, worth reading and investigating the issues raised.

The essay by Andrew Leonard is worth reading, if only because of its synthesis. The familiar point, that we ought to proceed with eyes wide open and not look to “Big Data” analysis or any other seeming technological system as a panacea, bears repeating. Leonard quotes Morozov, who argues that the outcome will be less not more transparency, and also O’Reilly, who is rather more optimistic:

“The general lesson from algorithmic regulation systems is that you focus on the outcome and you continue to tweak the algorithm to achieve that outcome, precisely because people do try to game the system. At least with an algorithmic regulation system, you have a chance of adapting more quickly. With an old-fashioned paper regulatory system, people game the system too and they go on doing it for years.”

Fair enough. In a perfect world, we will always be tweaking the algorithm. But the nature of those tweaks will be just as contested as the writing of existing regulations is contested in Congress. And the same power law is likely to be as true in the black boxes of software as in the legislative sausage factory. Capital writes the rules. And the more we take humans out of the picture, the harder it will be for real people to fight the power.

I tend to believe that Leonard’s bleaker outlook is likelier to be the one most people encounter. But I also believe that in this case too the future will not be distributed equally, nor even using the same technologies. Here, as with other instances, there will be irruptions of differences that will prove disruptive. Different capital regimes in different polities alone will unmake hegemonic effects, or at least compromise them: there is no single capital market nor single consumer field.

 One code to rule them all: How big data could help the 1 percent and hurt the little guy – Salon.com.

Modeling Leadership – Why Nations Fail – Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson.

Clearly, the ideas here can be applied to open source collaborations, where the issue is, in some places, still stuck on the notion of the value of a charismatic leader (aka benevolent dictator). As with most such things (having to do with politics and people), it’s more complicated than programmatic logic would like.

Data Mining Exposes Embarrassing Problems for Massive Open Online Courses | MIT Technology Review.

Quote: “Not only does student participation decline dramatically throughout the new generation of Web-based courses, but the involvement of teachers in online discussions makes it worse.”

A Short-Form Guide to Contracts for Tech Startups and Software Developers – AlleyWatch.

Quote:

Although it is legal to export discarded goods to poor countries if they can be reused or refurbished, much is being sent to Africa or Asia under false pretences, says Interpol. \”Much is falsely classified as \’used goods\’ although in reality it is non-functional. It is often diverted to the black market and disguised as used goods to avoid the costs associated with legitimate recycling,\” said a spokesman. \”A substantial proportion of e-waste exports go to countries outside Europe, including west African countries. Treatment in these countries usually occurs in the informal sector, causing significant environmental pollution and health risks for local populations,\” he said.

Few countries understand the scale of the problem, because no track is kept of all e-waste, says the European Environment Agency, which estimates between 250,000 tonnes and 1.3m tonnes of used electrical products are shipped out of the EU every year, mostly to west Africa and Asia. \”These goods may subsequently be processed in dangerous and inefficient conditions, harming the health of local people and damaging the environment,\” said a spokesman.

A new study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggests that the US discarded 258.2m computers, monitors, TVs and mobile phones in 2010, of which only 66% was recycled. Nearly 120m mobile phones were collected, most of which were shipped to Hong Kong, Latin America and the Caribbean. The shelf life of a mobile phone is now less than two years, but the EU, US and Japanese governments say many hundreds of millions are thrown away each year or are left in drawers. In the US, only 12m mobile phones were collected for recycling in 2011 even though 120m were bought. Meanwhile, newer phone models are racing on to the market leaving old ones likely to end up in landfills. Most phones contain precious metals. The circuit board can contain copper, gold, zinc, beryllium, and tantalum, the coatings are typically made of lead and phone makers are now increasingly using lithium batteries. Yet fewer than 10% of mobile phones are dismantled and reused. Part of the problem is that computers, phones and other devices are becoming increasingly complex and made of smaller and smaller components.

The failure to recycle is also leading to shortages of rare-earth minerals to make future generations of electronic equipment.

via Toxic ‘e-waste’ dumped in poor nations, says United Nations | Global development | The Observer.

Building Creative Commons: the five pillars of Open Source Finance | openDemocracy.

Facebook’s ‘Deep Learning’ Guru Reveals the Future of AI | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com.

Of some interest: The Canadian support for this research…. and the seeming lack of its subsequent exploitation. That’s being left to Facebook, in the US.

The Power Source of an Electric Car Matters.

Quote:

The findings are based on a standard fully electric vehicle, equivalent to the Nissan Leaf, using the 2009 average fuel mix for each country listed. Vehicle manufacturing emissions are assumed to be 70g CO2e/km based on a number of third-party studies. In terms of reference, the average gasoline powered vehicle in the United States has emissions of about 300g CO2e/km. In comparison, a hybrid would emit around 180g CO2e/km when you factor in manufacturing, fuel production and fuel combustion.

In India, South Africa, Australia, Indonesia and China where power generation is heavily coal based, electric car emissions can actually end up being similar to traditional petrol and diesel vehicles. In fact, an electric car in India generates as much carbon as a 20 miles per gallon petrol vehicle in the United States.

At the opposite end of the scale, Iceland and Paraguay are the greenest countries to drive an electric car. Both countries have driving emissions of just 70 g CO2e/km. The electricity per kilometre in Paraguay will generate less than one sixth of a gram of carbon emissions.