tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/digital-rights-20337/articlesdigital rights – The Conversation2023-05-17T22:51:24Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2021762023-05-17T22:51:24Z2023-05-17T22:51:24ZIt’s time for us to talk about creating AI-free spaces<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518176/original/file-20230329-787-qn3mqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C0%2C2143%2C2357&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/fr/@mo_design_3d">Mo design</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Dan Simmons’ 1989 sci-fi classic <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperion_(Simmons_novel)"><em>Hyperion</em></a>, the novel’s protagonists are permanently connected to an artificial intelligence network known as the “Datasphere” that instantly feeds information directly to their brains. While knowledge is available immediately, the ability to think by oneself is lost.</p>
<p>More than 30 years after Simons’ novel was published, the rising impact of AI on our intellectual abilities might be thought of in similar terms. To mitigate these risks, I offer a solution that can reconcile both AI’s progress and the need to respect and preserve our cognitive capacities.</p>
<p>The benefits of AI for human well-being are wide-ranging and well publicised. Among them is the technology’s potential to advance <a href="https://www.alandix.com/academic/talks/AI-Summit-NY-2021-AISJ/">social justice</a>, combat <a href="https://idss.mit.edu/news/how-ai-can-help-combat-systemic-racism/">systemic racism</a>, improve <a href="https://theconversation.com/breast-cancer-diagnosis-by-ai-now-as-good-as-human-experts-115487">cancer detection</a>, mitigate the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-machine-learning-is-helping-us-fine-tune-climate-models-to-reach-unprecedented-detail-165818">environmental crisis</a> and boost <a href="https://knowledge4policy.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/s2_2_vertesy.pdf">productivity</a>.</p>
<p>However, the darker aspects of AI are also coming into focus, including <a href="https://theconversation.com/criminal-justice-algorithms-being-race-neutral-doesnt-mean-race-blind-177120">racial bias</a>, its capacity to deepen <a href="https://theconversation.com/artificial-intelligence-can-deepen-social-inequality-here-are-5-ways-to-help-prevent-this-152226">socio-economic disparities</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/ai-can-now-learn-to-manipulate-human-behaviour-155031">manipulate</a> our emotions and behaviour.</p>
<h2>The West’s first AI rulebook?</h2>
<p>In spite of the growing risks, there are still <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-eu-and-us-diverge-on-ai-regulation-a-transatlantic-comparison-and-steps-to-alignment/">no binding national or international rules</a> regulating AI. That is why the European Commission’s <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2014_2019/plmrep/COMMITTEES/CJ40/DV/2023/05-11/ConsolidatedCA_IMCOLIBE_AI_ACT_EN.pdf">proposal</a> for a regulation on artificial intelligence is so relevant.</p>
<p>The EC’s proposed AI Act, of which the <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2014_2019/plmrep/COMMITTEES/CJ40/DV/2023/05-11/ConsolidatedCA_IMCOLIBE_AI_ACT_EN.pdf">latest draft</a> was green-lit by the European Parliament’s two committees last week, examines the potential risks inherent in the technology’s use, and classifies them according to three categories: “unacceptable”, “high” and “other”. In the first category, AI practices that would be forbidden are those that:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Manipulate a person’s behaviour in a manner that causes or is likely to cause that person or another person physical or psychological harm. </p></li>
<li><p>Exploit the vulnerabilities of a specific group of persons (e.g., age, disabilities) so that AI distorts the behaviour of these persons and is likely to produce harm.</p></li>
<li><p>Evaluate and classify people (e.g., social scoring).</p></li>
<li><p>Employ real-time facial recognition in public spaces for the purpose of enforcement, except in specific cases (e.g., terrorist attacks).</p></li>
</ul>
<p>In the AI Act, the notions of “unacceptable” risks and harms are closely related. Those are important steps and reveal the need to protect specific activities and physical spaces from the interference of AI. With my colleague Caitlin Mulholland, we have shown the need for <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/6rshg">stronger AI and facial recognition regulation</a> to protect basic human rights such as privacy.</p>
<p>It is particularly true regarding recent developments on AI that involve <a href="https://theconversation.com/predicting-justice-what-if-algorithms-entered-the-courthouse-91692">automated decision-making</a> in the judicial fields and its use for <a href="https://www.accessnow.org/press-release/eu-ai-act-migration-status/">migration management</a>. Debates around ChatGPT and OpenAI also raise concerns over their impact on our <a href="https://theconversation.com/generative-ai-like-chatgpt-reveal-deep-seated-systemic-issues-beyond-the-tech-industry-198579">intellectual capacities</a>.</p>
<h2>AI-free sanctuaries</h2>
<p>These cases show concern over deploying AI in sectors where human rights, privacy and cognitive abilities are at stake. They also point to the need for spaces where AI activities should be strongly regulated. </p>
<p>I argue these areas can be defined through the ancient concept of sanctuaries. In an article on <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-surveillance-capitalism-and-how-does-it-shape-our-economy-119158">“surveillance capitalism”</a>, Shoshana Zuboff presciently refers to the right of sanctuary as an antidote to power, taking us on a tour of sacred sites, churches and monasteries where oppressed communities once found refuge. Against the pervasiveness of digital surveillance, Zuboff insists on the right of sanctuary through the creation of <a href="https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/03/harvard-professor-says-surveillance-capitalism-is-undermining-democracy/">robust digital regulation</a> so that we can enjoy a “space of inviolable refuge”.</p>
<p>The idea of “AI-free sanctuaries” does not imply the prohibition of AI systems, but a stronger regulation in the applications of these technologies. In the case of the EU’s AI Act, it implies a more precise definition of the idea of harm. However, there is no clear definition of harm in the EU’s proposed legislation nor at the level of member states. As <a href="https://policyreview.info/articles/news/identifying-harm-manipulative-artificial-intelligence-practices/1608">Suzanne Vergnolle</a> argues, a possible solution would be finding shared criteria between European member states that would better describe the types of harm resulting from manipulative AI practices. Collective harms based on race and socio-economic background should also be considered.</p>
<p>To implement AI-free sanctuaries, regulations allowing us to preserve our <a href="https://www.law.kuleuven.be/citip/blog/my-brain-hurts-can-the-ai-act-adequately-protect-cognitive-and-or-mental-harm-by-ai-software-part-2/">cognitive and mental harm</a> should be enforced. A starting point would consist in enforcing a new generation of rights – “neurorights” – that would protect our cognitive liberty amid the rapid progress of neurotechnologies. <a href="https://lsspjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40504-017-0050-1">Roberto Andorno and Marcello Ienca</a> hold that the <em>right to mental integrity</em> – already protected by the European Court of Human Rights – should go beyond the cases of mental illness and address unauthorised intrusions, including by AI systems.</p>
<h2>AI-free sanctuaries: a manifesto</h2>
<p>In advance, I would like to suggest the right of “AI-free sanctuaries”. It encapsulates the following (provisional) articles:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>The right to opt out. All individuals have the right to opt out from AI types of support in sensitive areas one is able to choose during the period of time one may decide. This entails the complete non-interference of AI device and/or a moderate interference.</p></li>
<li><p>No sanctions. Opting out from AI support will never entail any economic or social drawbacks.</p></li>
<li><p>The right to human determination. All individuals have the right to a final determination <a href="https://thepublicvoice.org/ai-universal-guidelines/">made by a human person</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>Sensitive areas and people. In collaboration with civil society and private actors, public authorities will define areas that are particularly sensitive (e.g., education, health) as well as human/social groups, like children, that should not be exposed/or moderately exposed to intrusive AI.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>AI-free sanctuaries in the physical world</h2>
<p>Until now, “AI-free spaces” have been unevenly applied, from a strictly spatial point of view. Some US and European schools have chosen to eschew screens from classrooms – the so-called <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/sep/29/the-no-tech-school-where-screens-are-off-limits-even-at-home">“low-tech/no-tech education” movement</a>. Many digital-education programs rely on designs that can favour addiction, while public and low-funded schools tend to increasingly rely on screens and digital tools, which enhance a <a href="https://www.turninglifeon.org/execs-on-tech">social divide</a>. </p>
<p>Even outside of controlled settings such as classrooms, AI’s reach is expanding. To push back, between 2019 and 2021, a dozen of US cities have passed laws restricting and prohibiting the use of facial recognition for law-enforcement purpose. Since 2022, however, many cities are <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-cities-are-backing-off-banning-facial-recognition-crime-rises-2022-05-12/">backing off</a> in response to a perception of rising crime. Despite the EC’s proposed legislation, in France, AI video surveillance <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20230323-french-mps-battle-over-ai-video-surveillance-cameras-at-paris-olympics">cameras</a> will monitor Paris Olympics in 2024</p>
<p>Despite its potential to reinforce inequalities, <a href="https://theconversation.com/facial-analysis-ai-is-being-used-in-job-interviews-it-will-probably-reinforce-inequality-124790">facial-analysis AI is being used in some jobs interviews</a>. Fed with the data of candidates who were successful in the past, AI would tend to select candidates from privileged backgrounds and exclude those from diverse ones. Such practices should be prohibited. </p>
<p>AI-powered Internet search engines should also be prohibited, as the technology is not ready to be used at this level. Indeed, as Melissa Heikkiläa points out in a 2023 <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/02/14/1068498/why-you-shouldnt-trust-ai-search-engines/"><em>MIT Technology Review</em> article</a>, “AI-generated text looks authoritative and cites sources, that could ironically make users even less likely to double-check the information they’re seeing”. There’s also a measure of exploitation, as “the users are now doing the work of testing this technology for free.”</p>
<h2>Permitting progress, preserving rights</h2>
<p>The right to AI-free sanctuaries will allow the technical progress of AI while protecting simultaneously the cognitive and emotional capacities of all individuals. Being able to opt out of AI’s being used is essential if we want to preserve our abilities to acquire knowledge, experience in our own ways, and preserve our moral judgement.</p>
<p>In Dan Simmons’ novel, a reborn “cybrid” of the poet John Keats is disconnected to the Datasphere and is able to resist the takeover of AIs. This point is instructive since it also reveals the relevance of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-the-line-between-machine-and-artist-becomes-blurred-103149">debates</a> on AI’s interference in <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-price-of-ai-art-has-the-bubble-burst-128698">arts</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/ais-first-pop-album-ushers-in-a-new-musical-era-100876">music</a>, literature and culture. Indeed, and along with <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-the-lensa-ai-app-technically-isnt-stealing-artists-work-but-it-will-majorly-shake-up-the-art-world-196480">copyright issues</a>, these human activities are closely tied to our imagination and creativity, and these capacities are primarily the cornerstone of our abilities to resist and think for ourselves.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202176/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Antonio Pele a reçu des financements de la Commission Européenne, Projet Horizon 2020, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Action . Making Humans: Human Dignity in Nineteenth-Century France HuDig19:
<a href="https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101027394/fr">https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101027394/fr</a>
Host & Partner institutions: IRIS/EHESS-Paris & The Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought CT, New-York </span></em></p>Setting up AI-free ‘sanctuaries’ could allow us to reap the technology’s benefits while offering vital safeguards to our cognitive capacities and privacy.Antonio Pele, Associate professor, Law School at PUC-Rio University; Marie Curie Fellow at IRIS/EHESS Paris; MSCA Fellow at the Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought (CCCCT), Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1843122022-06-10T03:21:24Z2022-06-10T03:21:24ZEdtech is treating students like products. Here’s how we can protect children’s digital rights<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467352/original/file-20220607-12-won02o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C57%2C5499%2C3606&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Schools’ use of educational technologies (edtech) grew exponentially at the height of COVID lockdowns. A recent <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2022/05/25/how-dare-they-peep-my-private-life/childrens-rights-violations-governments">Human Rights Watch (HRW) report</a> has exposed children’s rights violations by providers of edtech endorsed by governments in Australia and overseas. </p>
<p>The lockdowns have ended but edtech remains embedded in education. Children will have to navigate issues of data privacy in their learning and other activities.</p>
<p>So what can Australian governments and schools do to protect students? Both can take steps to ensure children’s digital rights are enabled and protected.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/childrens-privacy-is-at-risk-with-rapid-shifts-to-online-schooling-under-coronavirus-135787">Children's privacy is at risk with rapid shifts to online schooling under coronavirus</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What problems did the report expose?</h2>
<p>HRW reviewed 164 edtech products, including ten of the many apps and websites used in Australian schools. According to its report, New South Wales and Victorian education departments endorsed the use of six of these, including Zoom, Minecraft Education and Microsoft Teams. </p>
<p>The review found that, to varying degrees, these apps and websites harvested children’s personal, location or learning data to monitor, track or profile students. These practices ultimately violated children’s digital rights to privacy. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1529439735990607877"}"></div></p>
<p>The use and commodification of data associated with our online activities may not seem particularly alarming. It is, after all, a transaction we routinely make. Yet, for children, rights to privacy and to <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/treaty-bodies/crc/general-comments">protection from corporations</a> that seek to maximise profits rather than act in the best interests of the child are fundamental. </p>
<p>Edtech commodifies children when their personal data is made available to the advertising technology industry, as the HRW report shows. When a child uses an app or website for learning, the resulting data can be collected, monitored, tracked, profiled and traded in data economies. These practices are intentionally opaque and highly profitable for technology corporations. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-new-proposed-privacy-code-promises-tough-rules-and-10-million-penalties-for-tech-giants-170711">A new proposed privacy code promises tough rules and $10 million penalties for tech giants</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>A further complication is that schools choose digital technologies on behalf of children and their families. Students often do not have a genuine choice when required to use apps and websites endorsed by schools or education departments. This means children do not have the agency to make informed decisions about their online learning.</p>
<h2>What can the government do?</h2>
<p>Australian law can be improved to better protect children’s privacy. </p>
<p>In 2019, the then Coalition government announced a <a href="https://www.ag.gov.au/integrity/consultations/review-privacy-act-1988">review</a> of the Australian Privacy Act 1988, with submissions closing in January this year. The act predates the development of the world wide web. It needs to be strengthened to account for personal data and data-driven economies. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1453211703441690627"}"></div></p>
<p>The new Labor government should commit to continuing this important work. It should also develop a legislated Australian Children’s Code setting out principles governing the management of children’s data. The code to protect their digital rights must be enforceable and resourced. </p>
<p>Countries such as the UK (<a href="https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/the-children-s-code-what-is-it/">Age-Appropriate Design Code in the UK</a>) and Ireland (<a href="https://www.dataprotection.ie/en/dpc-guidance/fundamentals-child-oriented-approach-data-processing">Fundamentals for a Child-Oriented Approach to Data Processing</a>) have already adopted such codes. These require online services to follow a set of standards when using children’s data.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/apps-that-help-parents-protect-kids-from-cybercrime-may-be-unsafe-too-156583">Apps that help parents protect kids from cybercrime may be unsafe too</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What can the education system do?</h2>
<p>Without legislation to protect children’s privacy, schools and education departments can still enable children’s rights to privacy. They can do so through considered selection of educational technologies and through everyday school practices and curriculum.</p>
<p>Education departments can draw on international standards, such as the UK Children’s Code, to:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>inform technology procurement practices</p></li>
<li><p>better consider privacy risks when assessing educational technologies</p></li>
<li><p>develop policy and guidelines to support schools’ decision-making. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>There will always be a need for schools and teachers to make critical decisions about which apps and websites they bring into the classroom. This is not to promote a “use it” or “do not use it” position. Rather, informed guidelines would support school assessments of risks and help develop practices that uphold children’s digital rights.</p>
<p>Assessing the risks is difficult due to the intentionally opaque designs of digital technologies. The development of assessments, policy and guidelines at a department level is necessary to support teachers to integrate edtech in ways that protect children’s privacy. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, there are some practical steps teachers and families can take. Examples include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>consider the purpose and advantage of using the chosen educational technology</p></li>
<li><p>access privacy reviews through organisations like <a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/">Common Sense Media</a></p></li>
<li><p>review the privacy policy of each app or website, paying attention to what data it collects, for what purpose, and who the data are shared with (although these aren’t always clear or accurate, as the HRW report shows)</p></li>
<li><p>review privacy settings on apps</p></li>
<li><p>check websites using a privacy tool like <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/09/25/privacy-check-blacklight/">Blacklight</a>, used in the HRW review.</p></li>
</ul>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1488383206650961920"}"></div></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-an-age-of-elsa-spider-man-romantic-mash-ups-how-to-monitor-youtubes-childrens-content-123088">In an age of Elsa/Spider-Man romantic mash ups, how to monitor YouTube's children's content?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Education can also empower children to make informed choices about their data and privacy.</p>
<p>Current Australian school programs focus on digital safety and well-being. They aim to help students understand interpersonal online risks and harms. Examples of this approach are the newly revised Australian Curriculum’s <a href="https://v9.australiancurriculum.edu.au/teacher-resources/understand-this-general-capability/digital-literacy">digital literacy capability</a> and the new Labor government’s promise of an <a href="https://www.alp.org.au/policies/safe-kids-are-esmart-kids">eSmart Digital Licence+</a>. </p>
<p>While understanding interpersonal online risks and harms are crucial for children’s well-being, this focus overlooks risks associated with the commodification of personal data. To enable children’s digital rights they must be given opportunities to understand and critically engage with digital economies, datafication and the associated impacts on their lives.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1532607766728146945"}"></div></p>
<h2>We’re still catching up to edtech</h2>
<p>The HRW report has shone a spotlight on children’s right to digital and data privacy in schools. However, its findings may be just the tip of the iceberg in a largely unregulated industry. The report covered only a small proportion of the educational technologies being used in Australian schools. </p>
<p>Children have the right to engage with digital environments for learning and play, and to develop their autonomy and identity, without compromising their privacy. </p>
<p>The Australian government has the power to create laws to protect children’s digital rights. Together with education that empowers teachers and children to make informed decisions, these rights can be much better protected.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184312/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tiffani Apps receives funding from Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karley Beckman receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah K. Howard receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>The fast-growing educational technology industry is poorly regulated and profits from user data. Australian law, education departments and schools can all do more to improve safeguards for children.Tiffani Apps, Senior Lecturer in Digital Technologies for Learning, University of WollongongKarley Beckman, Senior Lecturer in Digital Technologies for Learning, University of WollongongSarah K. Howard, Associate Professor, Digital Technologies in Education, University of WollongongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1702562021-10-20T14:31:01Z2021-10-20T14:31:01ZTo protect our privacy and free speech, Canada needs to overhaul its approach to regulating online harms<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427367/original/file-20211019-19039-1jyybcs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C7571%2C5032&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Canada's proposed internet regulation measures focus almost exclusively on speech.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the wake of the leaks by <a href="https://apnews.com/article/facebook-frances-haugen-congress-testimony-af86188337d25b179153b973754b71a4">Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen</a>, at least one thing remains clear: social media companies cannot be left to their own devices for addressing harmful content online.</p>
<p>But Canada is currently on a path to <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.html">regulating “online harms”</a> that global experts — like the <a href="https://globalnetworkinitiative.org/canada-online-harms-proposal/">Global Network Initiative</a>, <a href="https://rankingdigitalrights.org/2021/09/27/public-submission-to-the-canadian-governments-proposed-approach-to-regulating-online-harms/">Ranking Digital Rights</a>, <a href="https://techpolicy.press/five-big-problems-with-canadas-proposed-regulatory-framework-for-harmful-online-content/">internet scholar Daphne Keller</a>, <a href="https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2021/09/onlineharmsconsult/">legal scholar Michael Geist</a> and others — have decried as among the worst in the world.</p>
<p>Why was this law proposed in Canada, and why now? Immediately after the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-federal-officials-revising-plan-to-regulate-social-media-in-light-of/">began to make good</a> on an election promise from 2019 to introduce a law modelled after the <a href="https://germanlawarchive.iuscomp.org/?p=1245">German Network Enforcement Act</a> — commonly known as NetzDG.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/planned-social-media-regulations-set-a-dangerous-precedent-155844">Planned social media regulations set a dangerous precedent</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Despite Canada’s longstanding role as a champion of <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/canada-united-nations-system/reports-united-nations-treaties.html">human rights</a> and <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/global-affairs/news/2020/11/media-freedom-coalition-ministerial-communique.html">internet freedom</a>, the law proposed has numerous flaws that call the country’s reputation into question.</p>
<h2>A lack of nuance</h2>
<p>The Canadian law would have 24-hour content blocking requirements for illegal content just like the German law, which has <a href="https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/publications/the-digital-berlin-wall-how-germany-accidentally-created-a-prototype-for-global-online-censorship/">provided a blueprint for online censorship by authoritarian regimes</a>.</p>
<p>But the law would go much further than Germany’s NetzDG, and not in a good way. NetzDG requires removal of “manifestly unlawful” content within 24 hours but gives platforms <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2021-07-06/germany-network-enforcement-act-amended-to-better-fight-online-hate-speech/">seven days</a> to assess content that falls in legally gray areas. There is no nuance like this in Canada’s proposed blocking requirements, and that’s a problem.</p>
<p>Canada’s requirement is bound to lead to over-removal and the censorship of legitimate speech, especially given that companies can face massive fines of up to five per cent of gross global revenues or $25 million under the proposed law. There is also mounting evidence that automated removal decisions by platforms are biased <a href="http://hrlr.law.columbia.edu/hrlr/fosta-in-legal-context/">against marginalized</a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/8/15/20806384/social-media-hate-speech-bias-black-african-american-facebook-twitter">racialized communities</a>, causing further harms to the very people that this law aims to protect.</p>
<h2>Intrusive obligations</h2>
<p>The proposed law could well require websites and social media companies to proactively monitor and filter <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content/discussion-guide.html#a4a">five types of content</a> posted online ranging from “terrorist” content to intimate images shared without consent. It would also force websites to disclose personally identifying information to law enforcement and intelligence agencies.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://theconversation.com/ca/podcasts">Click here to listen to Don’t Call Me Resilient</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Entire websites could be blocked in Canada, with enormous implications for the rights to free expression and access to information in Canada and beyond.</p>
<p>But requiring websites and social media platforms to proactively monitor content and feed data on their users to the police is tantamount to <a href="https://www.undocs.org/A/HRC/38/35">pre-publication censorship</a>, according to David Kaye, former special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression.</p>
<p>It also effectively transforms online service providers into an investigative tool and “<a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/data-protection/news/german-online-hate-speech-reform-criticised-for-allowing-backdoor-data-collection/">suspicion database</a>” for law enforcement. </p>
<p>When combined, these intrusive obligations pose an unacceptable risk to the privacy of Canadians and have no place in the laws of a free and democratic society.</p>
<h2>What happens in Canada won’t stay in Canada</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://cippic.ca/en/news/CIPPIC_calls_on_government_to_reconsider_online_harms_legislation">Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa</a>, and many other non-governmental organizations ranging from <a href="https://citizenlab.ca/2021/09/comments-on-the-federal-governments-proposed-approach-to-address-harmful-content-online/">Citizen Lab</a> to the <a href="https://internetsociety.ca/submission-to-the-department-of-canadian-heritage-consultation-on-internet-harms/">Internet Society of Canada</a> and the <a href="https://ccla.org/fundamental-freedoms/cclas-submission-on-canadas-proposed-approach-to-addressing-harmful-content-online/">Canadian Civil Liberties Association</a>, have all filed comments describing the problems with the law.</p>
<p>What happens in Canada won’t stay in Canada. Just as with the <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/google-fights-canada-order-global-search-results/">landmark ruling in <em>Google Inc vs. Equustek Solutions Inc</em></a>, which enabled worldwide online takedowns and <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210506/12170946745/wireds-big-230-piece-has-narrative-to-tell.shtml">spawned international imitators</a>, other countries will leap on Canada’s example to pass similar laws that advance their own governmental interests.</p>
<p>Canada needs a new approach to regulating online harms that respects human rights. We must change course before authoritarian regimes replicate Canada’s approach for intrusive surveillance, censorship and other human rights abuses.</p>
<h2>Harmful content cannot be addressed in isolation</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427342/original/file-20211019-23-15u8k8m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man holds a sign in German" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427342/original/file-20211019-23-15u8k8m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427342/original/file-20211019-23-15u8k8m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427342/original/file-20211019-23-15u8k8m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427342/original/file-20211019-23-15u8k8m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427342/original/file-20211019-23-15u8k8m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427342/original/file-20211019-23-15u8k8m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427342/original/file-20211019-23-15u8k8m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A sign from a protest against content filtering laws in Germany reads ‘Only totalitarian states need upload-filtering.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Markus Spiske/Unsplash)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A fundamental problem with the Canadian online harms legislation is that it deals with the most controversial aspect of internet governance — the issue of online speech regulation — in isolation.</p>
<p>Unlike its global peers in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/aug/19/facebook-antitrust-case-ftc-monopoly">the United States</a> and <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/europe-fit-digital-age/digital-markets-act-ensuring-fair-and-open-digital-markets_en">the European Union</a>, there has been no conversation in Canada about the bigger picture of big tech regulation. </p>
<p>Canada hasn’t reckoned with the business models of behemoth social media platforms <a href="https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/03/harvard-professor-says-surveillance-capitalism-is-undermining-democracy/">premised on surveillance capitalism</a> and the problems of <a href="https://www.mediatechdemocracy.com/work/the-state-of-competition-policy-in-canada">anti-competitive actions</a> by technology companies. </p>
<p>Nor has the government devoted a fraction of the political energy it is spending on online harms to reforming Canada’s outdated online privacy laws.</p>
<h2>Human digital rights</h2>
<p>After Trudeau’s Liberal government called for a snap election, his party promised to <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-liberals-parliamentary-agenda-lists-three-internet-regulation-bills-as/">introduce legislation to regulate online harms within 100 days</a>.</p>
<p>Some promises are best not kept. This is one of them.</p>
<p>The digital rights community needs to hold Canada to account and urge Canada to slow down, think things through, and come up with a model of internet regulation that should be emulated — and not avoided — around the world.</p>
<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/8e5484a0-56c5-49c4-b0c7-cf7458c63316?dark=true"></iframe>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/being-watched-mass-surveillance-amplifies-racist-policing-and-threatens-the-right-to-protest-dont-call-me-resilient-ep-10-167522">Episode 10: Being Watched: How surveillance amplifies racist policing and threatens the right to protest</a>.</p>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-572" class="tc-infographic" height="100" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/572/661898416fdc21fc4fdef6a5379efd7cac19d9d5/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170256/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yuan Stevens does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Canada needs to overhaul its approach to addressing online harms if it wants to remain a human rights leader and champion of internet freedom.Yuan Stevens, Legal Researcher at the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC), L’Université d’Ottawa/University of OttawaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1681742021-09-26T12:18:29Z2021-09-26T12:18:29ZWe need concrete protections from artificial intelligence threatening human rights<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423032/original/file-20210923-17-4z3ggm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C0%2C6979%2C2986&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A human rights-based approach is essential in regulating artificial intelligence technologies.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Events over the past few years have revealed several <a href="https://edoc.coe.int/en/internet/7589-algorithms-and-human-rights-study-on-the-human-rights-dimensions-of-automated-data-processing-techniques-and-possible-regulatory-implications.html">human rights violations</a> associated with increasing <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3259344">advances in artificial intelligence (AI)</a>.</p>
<p>Algorithms created to regulate speech online <a href="https://digitalcommons.schulichlaw.dal.ca/scholarly_works/250/">have censored speech</a> ranging from religious content to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54102575">sexual diversity</a>. AI systems created to monitor illegal activities have been used to <a href="https://forbiddenstories.org/about-the-pegasus-project/">track and target human rights defenders</a>. And algorithms have discriminated against Black people when they have been used to <a href="https://www.thecut.com/2021/06/why-doctors-struggle-to-detect-skin-cancer-in-black-people.html">detect cancers</a> or <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessments-in-criminal-sentencing">assess the flight risk of people accused of crimes</a>. The list goes on.</p>
<p>As researchers studying the intersection between AI and social justice, we’ve been examining solutions developed to tackle AI’s inequities. Our conclusion is that they leave much to be desired.</p>
<h2>Ethics and values</h2>
<p>Some companies voluntarily adopt <a href="https://hbr.org/2020/11/ethical-frameworks-for-ai-arent-enough">ethical frameworks</a> that are difficult to implement and have little concrete effect. The reason is twofold. First, ethics are founded on values, not rights, and ethical values tend to <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3435011">differ across the spectrum</a>. Second, these frameworks cannot be enforced, making it difficult for people to hold corporations accountable for any violations.</p>
<p>Even frameworks that are mandatory — like Canada’s <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/government/system/digital-government/digital-government-innovations/responsible-use-ai/algorithmic-impact-assessment.html">Algorithmic Impact Assessment Tool</a> — act merely as guidelines supporting best practices. Ultimately, self-regulatory approaches do little more than <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/10125/59651">delay the development and implementation of laws to regulate AI’s uses</a>.</p>
<p>And as illustrated with the European Union’s recently proposed <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1623335154975&uri=CELEX%3A52021PC0206">AI regulation</a>, even attempts towards developing such laws have drawbacks. This bill assesses the scope of risk associated with various uses of AI and then subjects these technologies to obligations proportional to their proposed threats. </p>
<p>As non-profit digital rights organization Access Now has pointed out, however, <a href="https://www.accessnow.org/eu-regulation-ai-risk-based-approach/">this approach doesn’t go far enough in protecting human rights</a>. It permits companies to adopt AI technologies so long as their operational risks are low.</p>
<p>Just because operational risks are minimal doesn’t mean that human rights risks are non-existent. At its core, this approach is anchored in inequality. It stems from an attitude that conceives of fundamental freedoms as negotiable.</p>
<p>So the question remains: why is it that such human rights violations are permitted by law? Although many countries possess charters that protect citizens’ individual liberties, <a href="https://www.cigionline.org/articles/charter-and-human-rights-digital-age/">those rights are protected against governmental intrusions alone</a>. Companies developing AI systems aren’t obliged to respect our fundamental freedoms. This fact remains despite technology’s growing presence in ways that have fundamentally changed the nature and quality of our rights.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FuOc8-UZbxM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A side event at the 76th Session of the UN General Assembly on New Tech and Human Rights.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>AI violations</h2>
<p>Our current reality deprives us from exercising our agency to vindicate the rights infringed through our use of AI systems. As such, “<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781351025386-6">the access to justice dimension that human rights law serves becomes neutralised</a>”: A violation doesn’t necessarily lead to reparations for the victims nor an assurance against future violations, unless mandated by law.</p>
<p>But even laws that are anchored in human rights often lead to similar results. Consider the <a href="https://gdpr-info.eu/">European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation</a>, which allows users to control their personal data and obliges companies to respect those rights. Although an important step towards more acute data protection in cyberspace, this law hasn’t had its desired effect. The reason is twofold.</p>
<p>First, <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/12/10/18656519/what-are-cookies-website-tracking-gdpr-privacy">the solutions favoured</a> don’t always permit users to concretely mobilize their human rights. Second, they don’t empower users with <a href="https://news.northeastern.edu/2021/04/22/how-can-we-protect-our-privacy-in-the-era-of-facial-recognition/">an understanding of the value of safeguarding their personal information</a>. <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=27469&LangID=E">Privacy rights are about much more than just having something to hide.</a></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423039/original/file-20210923-25-glc1mz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="folder labelled GENERAL DATA PROTECTION REGULATION on cluttered desk" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423039/original/file-20210923-25-glc1mz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423039/original/file-20210923-25-glc1mz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423039/original/file-20210923-25-glc1mz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423039/original/file-20210923-25-glc1mz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423039/original/file-20210923-25-glc1mz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423039/original/file-20210923-25-glc1mz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423039/original/file-20210923-25-glc1mz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation proposes that users control their own personal data.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Addressing biases</h2>
<p>These approaches all attempt to mediate between both the subjective interests of citizens and those of industry. They try to protect human rights while ensuring that the laws adopted don’t impede technological progress. But this balancing act often results in merely illusory protection, without offering concrete safeguards to citizens’ fundamental freedoms. </p>
<p>To achieve this, the solutions adopted must be adapted to the needs and interests of individuals, rather than assumptions of what those parameters might be. Any solution must also include <a href="https://theconversation.com/amp/la-justice-sociale-langle-mort-de-la-revolution-de-lintelligence-artificielle-160579">citizen participation</a>.</p>
<p>Legislative approaches seek only to regulate technology’s negative side effects rather than address their ideological and societal biases. But addressing human rights violations triggered by technology after the fact isn’t enough. Technological solutions must primarily be based on principles of <a href="https://datasociety.net/library/governing-artificial-intelligence/">social justice and human dignity rather than technological risks</a>. They must be developed with an eye to human rights in order to ensure adequate protection.</p>
<p>One approach gaining traction is known as “<a href="https://www.bsr.org/en/our-insights/blog-view/human-rights-by-design">Human Rights By Design</a>.” Here, “companies do not permit abuse or exploitation as part of their business model.” Rather, they “<a href="https://digitalcommons.schulichlaw.dal.ca/scholarly_works/250/">commit to designing tools, technologies, and services to respect human rights by default</a>.”</p>
<p>This approach aims to encourage AI developers to categorically consider human rights at every stage of development. It ensures that algorithms deployed in society will remedy rather than exacerbate societal inequalities. It takes the steps necessary to allow us to shape AI, and not the other way around.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168174/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karine Gentelet receives funding from the FQRSC and the SSHRC. The Chair she holds is funded by the foundation of the École normale supérieure de Paris, the Abéona Foundation and Laval University. She is member of Amnistie Internationale Canada Francophone</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarit K. Mizrahi is affiliated with Abeona-ENS-OBVIA Chair in AI and Social Justice as Research Assistant. Additionally, her Ph.D. research is funded by SSHRC through a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Scholarship.</span></em></p>Applications of artificial intelligence have been shown to include discriminatory practices. This creates a need for meaningful rights-based regulations to ensure that AI will not exacerbate inequalities.Karine Gentelet, Professeure et titulaire de la Chaire Abeona-ENS-OBVIA en intelligence artificielle et justice sociale, Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO)Sarit K. Mizrahi, Ph.D. in Law Candidate, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of OttawaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1638762021-07-07T15:04:17Z2021-07-07T15:04:17ZNew Kiswahili science fiction award charts a path for African languages<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409866/original/file-20210706-21-17nf4h6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The 6th edition of <a href="https://kiswahiliprize.cornell.edu/">The Mabati Cornell Kiswahili Prize for African Literature</a>, suspended last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is back. Founded in 2014, the prize recognises writing in African languages and encourages translation from, between and into African languages. Kiswahili is widely spoken across the east coast of Africa. This year’s prize also offers a special award designed to promote and popularise a Kiswahili vocabulary for technology and digital rights. We spoke to the prize founders – literary academic Lizzy Attree, also of <a href="http://shortstorydayafrica.org">Short Story Day Africa</a>, and literature professor and celebrated <a href="http://www.mukomawangugi.com/books.html">author</a> Mukoma Wa Ngugi – on the challenges of growing literature in African languages.</em></p>
<h2>What’s the idea behind the special Nyabola prize?</h2>
<p><strong>Lizzy Attree:</strong> The <a href="https://kiswahiliprize.cornell.edu/special-prize-for-2021/">Nyabola prize</a> gives us the opportunity to work in a new area that is really exciting for us. <a href="https://www.nanjalawrites.com">Nanjala Nyabola</a>, the Kenyan writer and activist, approached us with the idea and the funding to target vocabulary for technology and digital rights. This was particularly interesting to us for two reasons. Firstly, we have long wanted to offer a short story prize, but have stuck with longer works because of the opportunity it gives us to focus on <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Swahili-language">Kiswahili</a> literature as a fully mastered form. But we are aware that a short story prize is a good place to start for those who are only beginning to write. Secondly, Kiswahili is often considered to be steeped in archaic, or historically poetic technical words and forms. These must be updated to accommodate the modern language of science and technology. It has been an interesting adventure to find out which words can be adapted or amended to fit with modern digital and technological advancement.</p>
<p><strong>Mukoma Wa Ngugi:</strong> There is also the idea that African languages are social languages, emotive and cannot carry science. Most definitely not true. All languages can convey the most complex ideas but we have to let them. There is something beautiful about African languages carrying science, fictionalised of course, into imagined futures.</p>
<h2>Mukoma, you also write speculative fiction; what is its power?</h2>
<p><strong>Mukoma Wa Ngugi:</strong> At the height of dictatorship in Kenya under president <a href="https://theconversation.com/daniel-arap-moi-the-making-of-a-kenyan-big-man-127177">Daniel arap Moi</a>, when writers and intellectuals were being <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4186808">detained and exiled</a>, and their books <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1991/02/13/in-kenya-animal-farm-corralled/136feeb9-6d5b-421a-a6a2-72072e15e8ff/">banned</a>, it was the genre writers who kept the politics alive. In fact I dedicated my detective novel <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/212059/nairobi-heat-by-mukoma-wa-ngugi/"><em>Nairobi Heat</em></a> to two such Kenyan writers, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/441171.David_G_Maillu">David Mailu</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Meja-Mwangi">Meja Mwangi</a>. We inherited a hierarchy of what counts as serious literature from colonialism, the division between minor and major literatures. It is important for us to blur the lines between literary and genre fiction – they are both doing serious work but in different styles. And the same goes between written literature and orature (spoken literature). Orature is seen lesser-than but, as writers and scholars have <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3820568">argued</a>, orature has its own discipline and aesthetics.</p>
<h2>How has African language publishing changed since the prize began?</h2>
<p><strong>Lizzy Attree:</strong> Sadly I don’t think African language publishing has advanced very much in the last seven years or that there are enough academic studies focusing on this area. The demise of the <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/award/show/5194-noma-award-for-publishing-in-africa">Noma Award</a> for Publishing in Africa was part of the decline, or indicative of it. However, book festivals are <a href="https://qz.com/africa/1684458/the-rise-of-literary-festivals-in-african-cities-lagos-hargeysa/">growing</a>, and we hope that in time this will lead to more awards and more publishing in African languages. Mukoma’s father, <a href="https://theconversation.com/tipped-to-win-nobel-literature-prize-kenyas-ngugi-misses-out-again-67009">Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o</a>, is a pioneer in this area, and it’s been wonderful to see his novel shortlisted for the International Booker Prize recently. Although there are many other good examples of where changes are happening, considering the size of the continent and the number of languages, there is still a huge gap.</p>
<p><strong>Mukoma Wa Ngugi:</strong> <a href="https://jaladaafrica.org/">Jalada Journal</a> is a good example of how attitudes to writing in African languages have changed for the better. In 2015 Jalada took a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/mar/29/jalada-africa-short-story-ngugi-wa-thiongo-translated-over-30-languages-publication">short story</a> written by Ngugi in Gikuyu and self-translated into English and had it translated to close to 100 languages. This made it the most translated African short story. But the genius of their initiative was that most of the translations were between African languages. The Jalada example is important for two reasons – it shows that innovation can happen when African languages talk to each other. And that for the younger writers, African languages do not carry the same sense of inferiority – English is just another language. All in all I don’t think the Nyabola prize, for example, would have been possible 10 years ago. A lot has changed where it matters the most; the ideology around African languages is shifting.</p>
<h2>Do awards work and why are there so few major literary prizes in Africa?</h2>
<p><strong>Lizzy Attree:</strong> I think awards certainly work in raising the profile of writers and their work, but it is difficult to find funding for these kinds of projects.</p>
<p><strong>Mukoma Wa Ngugi:</strong> It is all about setting up a viable and thriving literary ecosystem for writing in African languages. Literary agents, publishers, readership, critics, literary prizes and so on. Prizes are just one aspect. We realised that from the onset so our winners, in addition to the monetary awards, have also been published by <a href="https://mkukinanyota.com">Mkuki na Nyota Press</a> in Tanzania. We have been trying to get them translated into English but as Lizzy points out, funding is a huge problem. We were lucky to partner with Mabati Rolling Mills and the Safal Group. We have a de facto slogan: African philanthropy for African cultural development. But all the living parts of the African literary ecosystem have to be thriving. In this, we all have work to do.</p>
<h2>Why is African language literature so important?</h2>
<p><strong>Lizzy Attree:</strong> It’s been clearly demonstrated that learning in one’s mother tongue brings huge advantages to students. And where else must we find ourselves reflected if not in our own literature, in our own languages?</p>
<p><strong>Mukoma Wa Ngugi:</strong> You can think of language as the sum total of a people’s history and knowledge. We store history and knowledge in language. To speak only English is to be alienated from your past, present and future. It is a pain we should all feel deeply. In my <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/9724578/rise_of_the_african_novel">book</a>, <em>The Rise of the African Novel: Language, Identity and Ownership</em>, I give the example of how early writing in South African languages remains outside our literary tradition. I talk about how that leads to truncated imaginations. We write within literary traditions, but what happens to your imagination when you cannot access your literary tradition?</p>
<p><em>The shortlist will be announced in October/November 2021, with the winners announced in Dar es Salaam in December 2021.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163876/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There is something beautiful about African languages carrying science, fictionalised of course, into imagined futures.Mukoma Wa Ngugi, Associate Professor of literatures in English, Cornell UniversityLizzy Attree, Adjunct Professor, Richmond American International UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1278402019-11-27T15:20:14Z2019-11-27T15:20:14ZTim Berners-Lee: web inventor’s plan to save the internet is admirable, but doomed to fail<p>Tim Berners-Lee is credited with inventing the world wide web and now he’s calling on us to save it. The British engineer and computer scientist recently released a <a href="https://contractfortheweb.org/">Contract for the Web</a> – a list of commitments for governments, businesses and individuals to make in order to tackle fake news and privacy violations online. </p>
<p>According to a new report by Amnesty International, the internet is threatened as never before by the dominance of companies such as <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/11/google-facebook-surveillance-privacy/">Facebook and Google</a>), which <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/24/tim-berners-lee-unveils-global-plan-to-save-the-internet">stand accused of</a> “enabling human rights harm at a population scale”.</p>
<p>Tech companies allow us to keep up to date with the world and keep in touch with friends and family no matter where they live. We use them to find job opportunities or to create new communities online. But every time you use search engines or social media, your personal data can be hoarded and sold on to other businesses. No doubt these platforms would argue that our data is the cost of using their services for free, but there’s plenty in this arrangement for ordinary web users to fear.</p>
<p>Google could be buying your medical data <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/14/im-the-google-whistleblower-the-medical-data-of-millions-of-americans-is-at-risk">without your knowledge</a> to sell it on to insurance companies. Perhaps you’ve restricted your Facebook privacy settings, but Facebook can still <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2016/5/27/11795248/facebook-ad-network-non-users-cookies-plug-ins">track you across other websites</a>. Maybe you identify as a gender or ethnic group that is served different adverts because an algorithm determines that you’re not appropriate for certain <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/bfd60c3c-c5d0-11e8-8167-bea19d5dd52e">jobs</a> or <a href="https://qz.com/1733345/the-fight-against-discriminatory-financial-ads-on-facebook/">housing and credit options</a>. Even the news you read online may be deliberately misleading or dishonest, in the hope of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/25/digital-democracy-will-face-its-greatest-test-in-2020">manipulating your political opinions</a>.</p>
<p>If the power of large tech companies isn’t challenged with international regulation, human rights could be under threat. Is the world doomed to endure a “<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/25/tech/berners-lee-web-safer-plan-scli-intl/index.html">digital dystopia</a>”, or could Berners-Lee’s plan ensure the internet remains a common good?</p>
<h2>Is this for everyone?</h2>
<p>The Contract for the Web includes ideas such as net neutrality, which would stop internet service providers from slowing down a person’s connection if they browse outside approved or promoted websites. It also includes respect for privacy and data rights, including preventing corporations from handing information over to governments. It includes fighting for the web as a space for positive communities and collaboration – whether this means being more civil when we post online or opposing oppressive moves by governments. This final aim is essential for raising awareness and promoting more inclusive attitudes online, from stopping hate speech to enabling new ideas.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/net-neutrality-may-be-dead-in-the-us-but-europe-is-still-strongly-committed-to-open-internet-access-89521">Net neutrality may be dead in the US, but Europe is still strongly committed to open internet access</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This is nothing new. Some of the organisations who support the contract, such as the <a href="https://www.eff.org/">Electronic Frontier Foundation</a>, have been campaigning for these principles for years. Privacy regulations such as the <a href="https://gdpr.eu/">GDPR</a> have been a small but important step towards protecting data in Europe, and they’ve provided a blueprint for <a href="https://theconversation.com/kenya-plans-to-place-public-security-above-data-privacy-thats-a-bad-idea-111099">other countries</a>. </p>
<p>Groups, including the <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-GB/about/manifesto/">Mozilla Foundation</a>, promote open-source software that can anyone can download and use. But the fact that <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/25/20981502/contract-for-the-web-tim-berners-lee-google-facebook-principles-techlash">Google and Facebook</a> back the contract raises some questions. Do they really want to help reform the web to curb their worst behaviour or will manipulation continue to be the cost of access? </p>
<p>The algorithms of Google, Facebook and Twitter determine what people see online, whether that is adverts or political content. The contract does nothing to resolve this huge imbalance in influence and power. Many of us feel like we have no choice but to use their services, and they often use openness – such as free email and free apps like Google Maps – as a way of furthering their control over everything people do online. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/STqQju5T6BA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Google makes money from people using free services, mostly by hoovering up our data to fuel targeted ads, and its business model isn’t likely to change overnight. For internet reform to succeed, it would need international collaboration between governments for effective regulation, along with pressure from users.</p>
<p>The early web was full of utopian ideas, like John Perry Barlow’s famous <a href="https://www.wired.com/2016/02/its-been-20-years-since-this-man-declared-cyberspace-independence/">Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace</a>. This tried to place the internet as a space separate from government control, but didn’t anticipate the inevitable extent and character of corporate influence. Berners-Lee has remained faithful to this vision of collaboration and creativity for the betterment of humanity. But history, or perhaps the influence of major corporations, has not been kind to the web. </p>
<p>While his new contract won’t fix all of its problems, Berners-Lee is right – we need action now from all sectors to reform the web. It has great potential to bring people together and support the diverse needs of humanity, but only if control can be wrestled from giants like Facebook and Google.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127840/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Garfield Benjamin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Can we make the web more inclusive or will our online reality always be a lawless wasteland of trolls and lies?Garfield Benjamin, Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Media Arts and Technology, Solent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1223342019-09-06T11:39:07Z2019-09-06T11:39:07ZZao’s deepfake face-swapping app shows uploading your photos is riskier than ever<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291099/original/file-20190905-175678-1uch4n1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/machine-learning-systems-technology-accurate-facial-712489231?src=-1-22">Zapp2Photo/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The latest photo app craze can make you look like a movie star. <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/disturbing-deepfake-app-lets-you-convincingly-superimpose-your-face-onto-celebrities">Zao uses</a> artificial intelligence to replace the faces of characters in film or TV clips with images of anyone whose photo you upload to the app.</p>
<p>The effect is startlingly realistic and shows just how far this sort of “<a href="https://theconversation.com/deepfakes-what-fairies-and-aliens-can-teach-us-about-fake-videos-102747">deepfake</a>” technology has come. But it also highlights how great the risks have become of making your photos available online where anyone can use or abuse them – and the limitation of the law in dealing with this issue.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1168049059413643265"}"></div></p>
<p>One of the key problems is the legal right that companies have to use your photos once you upload them to their apps or websites. Several <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/02/chinese-face-swap-app-zao-triggers-privacy-fears-viral">media reports</a> state that Zao’s terms and conditions initially gave it “free, irrevocable, permanent, transferable, and relicenseable” rights. A backlash against this has now pushed the company that makes the app, Momo Inc, to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-02/china-s-red-hot-face-swapping-app-provokes-privacy-concern">change its terms</a>. It says it won’t use headshots or videos uploaded by users except to improve the app and won’t store images if users delete them from their accounts.</p>
<p>But many other photo applications, such as the age or gender-changing <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/the-faceapp-agechallenge-is-filling-twitter-with-pictures-of-old-people">FaceApp</a>, retain <a href="https://faceapp.com/terms">similar rights</a> to effectively do whatever they want with the uploaded content. With “a perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, fully-paid, transferable sub-licensable license”, FaceApp essentially gains all of the original owner’s rights to the photo (except that it does not have an exclusive licence).</p>
<p>These terms are not dissimilar to those of even more popular and mainstream apps <a href="https://help.instagram.com/581066165581870">such as Instagram</a>, which opens its photo-feed to advertisers. Instagram <a href="https://theconversation.com/ten-things-you-should-know-about-instagrams-terms-of-use-102800">can let</a> other companies exploit users’ photos without any compensation and further pass this right on to a third party without additional permission.</p>
<p>And, of course, you don’t even have to give permission for someone to use your photos for them to do so anyway. Once they’re online, your images can be circulated without your knowledge. <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9b83/3ca55abd01f842c764804706750743c67115.pdf">Studies</a> have demonstrated that people’s understanding of online privacy settings remains <a href="https://www.scitepress.org/papers/2015/53182/53182.pdf">largely limited</a>. If privacy settings aren’t sufficient, anyone could access your photos.</p>
<p>This can include journalists, who can <a href="https://www.ipso.co.uk/media/1510/social-media-public.pdf">republish images</a> from social media without necessarily violating privacy laws if the images have already entered the public domain. Photos are still protected by copyright law but images taken from videos can sometimes be published under “<a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/section/30">fair dealing</a>” provisions.“ It is also not uncommon for journalists to use screenshots of the web page on which an image is published, which the publication would not automatically have to remove if a user deleted the original photo.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291101/original/file-20190905-175673-yi6hlp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291101/original/file-20190905-175673-yi6hlp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291101/original/file-20190905-175673-yi6hlp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291101/original/file-20190905-175673-yi6hlp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291101/original/file-20190905-175673-yi6hlp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291101/original/file-20190905-175673-yi6hlp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291101/original/file-20190905-175673-yi6hlp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Zao’s deepfakes have been an instant viral hit.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/stone-staffordshire-uk-september-2-2019-1494358415?src=-1-11">Ascannio/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The development of AI makes the potential consequences of giving up control of your photos even greater. The deepfake technology used by Zao and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ng-interactive/2019/jun/22/the-rise-of-the-deepfake-and-the-threat-to-democracy">other apps</a> can create manipulated photos and videos that are very hard to tell from the real thing.</p>
<p>This has already led to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/21/call-for-upskirting-bill-to-include-deepfake-pornography-ban">deepfake pornography</a>, which involves superimposing someone’s face onto explicit images using an <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/gydydm/gal-gadot-fake-ai-porn">AI-based</a> synthesis technique. This type of online abuse can expose victims to financial or emotional blackmail and ultimately cause them serious psychological and emotional <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/793360/Online_Harms_White_Paper.pdf">harm</a>.</p>
<h2>Legal recourse</h2>
<p>If you do find your image has been used in ways you never wanted, how can the law help? If it’s simply a case of the image being used within the terms and conditions you agreed to (and no other laws have been broken), you probably don’t have much recourse. Under the EU’s ”<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-right-to-be-forgotten-is-fundamental-in-the-digital-age-28995">right to be forgotten</a>“, you could <a href="https://theconversation.com/faceapps-fine-print-means-you-effectively-cant-sue-them-unless-you-send-a-letter-to-their-russian-office-within-30-days-120658">ask for your photos</a> to be deleted from a company’s servers so they can’t make further use of them, although this isn’t an absolute right.</p>
<p>But the advent of AI-apps creates another issue. While a company can delete your images from their servers, it <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0267364917302091">may be impossible</a> to remove the related data from AI software that has processed and learned from the pictures. This data may be effectively unavailable but it cannot be truly "forgotten”.</p>
<p>There are other ways in which the law seems out of step with the evolution of AI-altered images, particularly when they’re used for abusive and offensive purposes. In the UK, the recent law targeting <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/2/section/33/enacted">“revenge pornography”</a> only applies to private sexual images, which might not include non-private photographs transposed onto a sexual image of another person.</p>
<p>There might be other options for those who fall victim to the creation of deepfake pornography. The fact that people <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/city-worker-davide-buccheri-who-posted-xrated-pictures-of-intern-on-porn-site-jailed-a3828586.html">have been convicted</a> of posting other people’s images on pornographic websites shows that the law of harassment can also be relied upon under certain circumstances. It might also be possible to make claims for misuse of private information, defamation or breach of copyright.</p>
<p>If someone tricks you into granting access to your social media profile and taking photos to generate fake pornographic images, you could also engage <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/12/section/170/enacted">data protection legislation</a>. But it’s questionable whether civil legal actions such as defamation or privacy suitably recognise the harm that can be done with deepfakes in a way that a specific criminal charge would – and as yet no such charge exists.</p>
<p>The advent of social media has fundamentally challenged our expectations over how we control our photographs. The current patchwork of legal provisions needs <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/law-around-non-consensual-taking-making-and-sharing-of-sexual-images-to-be-reviewed">to be reviewed</a> to consider the emerging ways images are created and shared without a subject’s consent, so that these issues are addressed more widely with a lasting impact. Along with a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-to-introduce-world-first-online-safety-laws">new regulatory framework</a> for online safety, users need to be educated to appreciate risks of online activity and navigate online spaces responsibly.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122334/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexandros Antoniou does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The law is out of step with technology that means anyone can manipulate your images in hyper-realistic ways.Alexandros Antoniou, Lecturer in Media Law, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1210252019-07-30T22:53:12Z2019-07-30T22:53:12ZSidewalk Toronto’s master plan raises urgent concerns about data and privacy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286184/original/file-20190730-43145-1tdptqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C11759%2C3661&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The proposed Quayside neighbourhood in Toronto will collect data from individuals in public spaces, but getting consent is a tricky issue.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://storage.googleapis.com/sidewalk-toronto-ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/19133949/QueensQuay_SidewalkLabs.jpg">Picture Plane for Heatherwick Studio for Sidewalk Labs</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On June 24th, Sidewalk Labs, the Google sister company proposing a smart city for Toronto’s eastern waterfront, released its mammoth 1,500-page <a href="https://quaysideto.ca/sidewalk-labs-proposal-master-innovation-and-development-plan/">Master Innovation and Development Plan</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/time-to-reset-waterfront-torontos-smart-city-public-consultations-120636">Time to reset Waterfront Toronto's Smart City public consultations</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>During Sidewalk Labs’ approximately two-year public consultations, privacy and control over data quickly emerged as flashpoints. A July 2019 survey by The Forum Poll found that <a href="http://poll.forumresearch.com/post/3002/sidewalk-toronto-july-2019">while only 38 per cent of Torontonians were familiar with the smart-city project, 60 per cent of those people did not trust Sidewalk Labs to collect data on its residents</a>. </p>
<p>What data is collected within smart cities, how, by whom and under what rules are important questions because smart cities rely upon the all-encompassing accumulation and mining of data. These activities are typically undertaken through privately operated software and infrastructure.</p>
<p>As a researcher who explores how companies collect, use and set rules regarding data, I closely read Sidewalk Labs’ <a href="https://quaysideto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/MIDP_Vol.2_Chap.5_DigitalInnovation.pdf">Digital Innovation</a> chapter to examine how the company proposes to govern data. Here, I focus on one particularly troubling proposal, although those interested may also wish to read lawyer Sean McDonald’s <a href="https://medium.com/swlh/midp-the-data-governance-proposal-55272767dd40">detailed analysis</a>. </p>
<h2>Data in public spaces</h2>
<p>In its master plan, Sidewalk Labs proposes to make available to the public much of the data collected in public spaces like parks and streets, as well as data from publicly accessible private spaces like building courtyards and stores. In essence, this data would be held in a common pool for anyone to use, subject to yet-to-be-determined rules. </p>
<p>At first glance, this may seem relatively uncontroversial. Publicly accessible data won’t contain personal information, either because it was collected as non-identifiable data (think sensors counting bicycles at intersections), or has been de-identified after collection, a process that is not without <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.6028/NIST.IR.8053">risk of re-identification</a>. </p>
<p>Sidewalk Labs claims that its default of publicly accessible data ensures that “<a href="https://quaysideto.ca/sidewalk-labs-proposal-master-innovation-and-development-plan/">Data collected in the public realm or in publicly owned spaces should not solely benefit the private or public sector</a>.” By making the data available to all, the argument goes, no single entity will control data.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8i5WIM_sLRA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Bianca Wylie, founder of the Open Data Institute Toronto, gives a presentation on data in the smart city.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Notification for consent</h2>
<p>However, there are two key problems with making data from public spaces publicly accessible by default. First, there’s the thorny issue of consent. Under Canadian <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/P-8.6/page-1.html#h-416888">privacy law</a>, companies must gain consent before collecting personal information that relates to an identifiable individual. Sidewalk Labs, arguing that obtaining people’s consent for data collection in public spaces is difficult, <a href="https://medium.com/sidewalk-talk/how-can-we-make-urban-tech-transparent-these-icons-are-a-first-step-f03f237f8ff0">proposes to use</a> a series of symbols the company created in collaboration with industry and civil-society groups. </p>
<p>The designs incorporate four hexagons: to indicate the technology’s purpose, to identify the entity responsible for the technology, to provide information the type of data gathered (video, image, audio or otherwise), and to provide a QR code that allows interested individuals to learn more. Together, the four hexagons are intended to indicate visually the type of data collection underway in public spaces. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286188/original/file-20190730-43136-1ua140l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286188/original/file-20190730-43136-1ua140l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286188/original/file-20190730-43136-1ua140l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286188/original/file-20190730-43136-1ua140l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286188/original/file-20190730-43136-1ua140l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286188/original/file-20190730-43136-1ua140l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286188/original/file-20190730-43136-1ua140l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286188/original/file-20190730-43136-1ua140l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The icons developed by Sidewalk Labs to provide information about data collection technologies in public spaces.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://github.com/sidewalklabs/dtpr/blob/master/dtpr_designguide/DTPR_Design_Guide.pdf">Puncture and Sidewalk Labs</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sidewalk Labs’ emphasizes that the project is designed to bring “<a href="https://medium.com/sidewalk-talk/how-can-we-make-urban-tech-transparent-these-icons-are-a-first-step-f03f237f8ff0">transparency</a>” to urban technology. However, it’s difficult to see how relying upon people to notice and understand signage in public spaces constitutes consent, especially when it involves requiring people to learn what different symbols mean and remember their relationship to each other. Placing signage in public spaces doesn’t guarantee that people passing through will observe or understand the symbols. </p>
<p>It’s unclear how visually impaired people may be able to interpret the signs or if the information will be available in multiple languages. As the signage incorporates smartphone-dependent QR codes, only people with smartphones are able to learn more about the data collection, which could leave certain populations with little ability to learn more. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/protecting-childrens-data-privacy-in-the-smart-city-113319">Protecting children's data privacy in the smart city</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Problematically, people who decline to have their data captured may have to consider certain public spaces off limits. There are no easy ways to “opt out” of using public spaces. As scholars <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3390610">Ellen Goodman and Julia Powles</a> observe in their review of Sidewalk Labs’ efforts to plan a smart city, the company envisions no “surveillance-free zones.”</p>
<h2>Equitable data access</h2>
<p>The second key problem is that just because data is publicly accessible does not mean that everyone can equally access, store or process the data to deliver products and services. Certainly, publicly accessible pools of data may benefit small companies, non-profits and government departments. </p>
<p>But certain actors are more able to capitalize upon data than others. Companies with <a href="https://medium.com/@McDapper/toronto-civic-data-and-trust-ee7ab928fb68">significant stores of proprietary data, algorithmic modelling capacity and commercial distribution infrastructure have a distinct market advantage</a>. Simply put, Sidewalk Labs is in a privileged position as it can draw upon Google’s vast resources in data analytics. </p>
<p>Given these serious challenges, what can be done? Waterfront Toronto, the tripartite governmental agency that issued the bid for the smart-city project <a href="https://quaysideto.ca/">is holding public consultations</a> until July 31st with another round planned for the autumn. </p>
<p>Those concerned about Sidewalk Labs’ <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-june-25-2019-1.5188733/sidewalk-labs-1-3b-plan-for-toronto-s-waterfront-is-bad-for-democracy-critic-says-1.5188753">draft master plan and the process to date should raise their concerns</a> with <a href="https://www.waterfrontoronto.ca/nbe/portal/waterfront/Home/waterfronthome/newsroom/newsarchive/news/2019/june/open+letter+from+waterfront+toronto+board+chair%2C+stephen+diamond+regarding+quayside">Waterfront Toronto</a> and their elected federal, provincial and municipal representatives. </p>
<p>What should consent look like in a smart city? How can people who have concerns about data collection opt out while continuing to enjoy public spaces? Should data from public spaces be made public by default? These are all serious questions that need to be answered before decisions are made about the project moving forward.</p>
<p>[ <em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/ca/newsletters?utm_source=TCCA&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121025/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natasha Tusikov receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Insight Development Grant.</span></em></p>A report based on public consultations conducted by Sidewalk Labs has still not answered many pressing concerns about privacy and consent in Toronto’s Quayside development.Natasha Tusikov, Assistant Professor, Criminology, Department of Social Science, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1033742018-09-19T14:35:45Z2018-09-19T14:35:45ZWhy tech giants have little to lose (and lots to win) from new EU copyright law<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237128/original/file-20180919-158243-roiwue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C3%2C2023%2C1180&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Copyright, and copyright laws, will not always match expectations.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/inkninja/8119702305">inkninja</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The new European Union Copyright Directive, <a href="http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20180906IPR12103/parliament-adopts-its-position-on-digital-copyright-rules">passed recently by the European parliament</a> after a <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/09/european-parliament-approves-copyright-bill-slammed-by-digital-rights-groups/">vociferous campaign</a> both for and against, has been described by its advocates as Europe striking a blow against US tech giants in the battle for control of copyrighted content online. This is painted as a battle about who pays for creative works, culture, and the role and workings of a free press in a world where these “commodities” are exchanged freely on social media and other platforms controlled by giants such as Google and Facebook. </p>
<p>The sense of this battle is found in two articles from the text of the new directive. <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/what-is-article-13-article-11-european-directive-on-copyright-explained-meme-ban">Article 11</a> introduces the “press publishers’ right”, also called the “link tax”. This permits publishing groups such as newspapers and other media to charge online content sharing service providers and platforms – most obviously, Google, Facebook and Twitter – a fee for a licence to link to their content. <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/09/an-eu-copyright-bill-could-force-youtube-style-filtering-across-the-web/">Article 13</a> makes online content sharing service providers responsible for the copyright content uploaded by users. Large platforms must implement filters to monitor copyright infringements and obtain licences from music, film and television rights-holders for the use of copyright content where it appears on their services – YouTube and Instagram, for example. This has led to claims that the directive would effectively ban memes, because automated checking of uploads would identify them only as copyright material, rather than allowable “fair use” or “parody”.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, publishers and copyright industries across Europe have saluted the new law as a great victory of European culture and free press against the greedy American titans. But it is not this simple. </p>
<h2>First-mover advantage</h2>
<p>When companies like Google and Facebook started their ascent as global players in the mid-2000s, they benefited from a generally favourable legislative framework, made of legislative vacuum and liberal legislation. Thanks to the flexible contours of the <a href="http://copyrightblog.kluweriplaw.com/2016/12/14/american-european-safe-harbours/">“safe harbour” provisions for internet hosting services</a> – which essentially immunises them from any liability for content uploaded by their users – YouTube rapidly became the main channel of distribution of music. Similarly, Facebook and Google News became major distributors of news (whether good, bad or “fake”). </p>
<p>The ascent of these companies was not without hurdles and challenges, including a chequered history of lawsuits from music, film and television companies against content-sharing platforms, and by press publishers <a href="https://cmds.ceu.edu/article/2018-07-03/news-aggregation-and-reform-eu-copyright-law">against news aggregators</a>, which eventually changed the legal contours of the hosting providers’ <a href="http://copyrightblog.kluweriplaw.com/2012/01/31/passive-vs-active-hosting/">safe harbour in the European Union</a>. As a result of these legal disputes, the tech firms have progressively adapted their business models from head-on challenge of copyright norms to adopting a more accommodating attitude towards copyright holders and press publishers. </p>
<p>Google, for example, has entered into various commercial agreements with news agencies and publishers to display content in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/18/technology/a-first-step-on-continent-for-google-on-use-of-content.html">Google News</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/business/global/18book.html?_r=1">Google Books</a>. YouTube, a Google subsidiary, has <a href="http://copyrightblog.kluweriplaw.com/2013/04/16/france-youtube-universal-and-sacem-enter-into-a-new-agreement/">entered into revenue-sharing agreements with copyright holders</a> based on a technology called <a href="https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2797370?hl=en-GB">Content ID</a> that detects, identifies and manages copyright-protected music and video uploaded by users. Facebook has struck similar deals <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/9/17100454/facebook-warner-music-deal-songs-user-videos-instagram">with major music labels</a> and has a partnership programme <a href="https://www.facebook.com/careers/life/getting-the-scoop-on-the-news-partnerships-team-at-facebook">with news publishers</a>. A large amount of the content we consume today through these platforms is authorised by the copyright owners and generates some revenue for them.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237138/original/file-20180919-158222-s56hg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237138/original/file-20180919-158222-s56hg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237138/original/file-20180919-158222-s56hg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237138/original/file-20180919-158222-s56hg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237138/original/file-20180919-158222-s56hg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237138/original/file-20180919-158222-s56hg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237138/original/file-20180919-158222-s56hg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It’s a bit more complicated than that.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reddit</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A hammer to crack a nut</h2>
<p>So in this respect, what the new EU Copyright Directive now obliges the tech giants to do is largely what they do already. To be sure, it is an open question whether they pay enough for the privilege of making use of (and profiting from) all that content created by others. Admittedly, by obliging tech giants to pay press publishers and to obtain licences with copyright holders, the new directive may reduce their bargaining power with respect to the arrangements they must make with content creators, and therefore lead the copyright holders to increase their revenue share. This small (and largely uncertain) effect has some important consequences.</p>
<p>Take the directive’s article 13, which redefines the safe harbour for content-sharing providers. In effect, platforms like YouTube will be directly responsible for copyright content uploaded by their users (although they will continue to be shielded from direct liability for other wrongs committed by their users, such as defamation or hate speech). If this norm was in place ten or 15 years ago it would have prevented YouTube from becoming what it is today. </p>
<p>But now it is only good news for YouTube. The new directive will have little effect on its current business model (perhaps paying only a little more for contracts with copyright owners), but it will prevent others from challenging established firms’ dominant positions. Costs that for platforms like YouTube or Instagram today represent a small and ultimately insignificant portion of their profits are huge and <a href="https://promarket.org/digital-economy-much-less-competitive-think/">potentially insurmountable barriers for new companies</a> attempting to enter the market.</p>
<p>Only micro or small enterprises and non-commercial platforms – which are excluded from the effects of article 13 – will benefit from the same favourable legislative conditions that Facebook and Google experienced at the beginning of their career. But even these, as soon as they become more than start-ups, will have to operate in the same playing field as established giants – leaving them with no serious prospect of winning a substantial market share, challenging their dominance, or providing an outlet for innovation.</p>
<p>Quite the opposite from what was the intention, the Copyright Directive may ensure the current crop of tech giants retain their dominant position for a long time, possibly forever. Which one could say is not exactly bad news for them, and not exactly a victory for European creativity either.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103374/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maurizio Borghi is Director of the Centre for Intellectual Property Policy & Management of Bournemouth University. The Centre receives external funding from the Research Council UK, the UK Intellectual Property Office, the European Commission and the European Union Intellectual Property Office. In 2014 Maurizio Borghi has received the Google Faculty Research Award.</span></em></p>In an example of the law of unintended consequences, the Copyright Directive is likely to cement the US tech giants’ grip, rather than provide space for others to grow.Maurizio Borghi, Professor of Law, Bournemouth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/966012018-06-04T14:03:17Z2018-06-04T14:03:17ZCambridge Analytica is more than a data breach – it’s a human rights problem<p>The closure of Cambridge Analytica following the revelations about its use of <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/cambridge-analytica-51337">Facebook data</a> not only points to the need for greater business regulation. It also highlights the importance of thinking more about how people can bring human rights claims in cases like these. </p>
<p>The right to a remedy is often overlooked. That’s at least in part because it’s difficult to understand the extent of the harm caused by incidents like the kind involving Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. Data breaches are fairly common events, so companies can downplay their seriousness. Consumers, for their part, may have started to see such breaches as normal too. The harm is not immediately tangible and therefore can feel less real.</p>
<p>However, in incidents like these, the implications for human rights are serious and pervasive. The harm caused by data breaches is often framed as “just” privacy, as if a breach of privacy is not important. But it’s hard to see how accessing and sharing people’s private thoughts and opinions without meaningful consent isn’t a very serious act.</p>
<p>It’s also important to remember that privacy acts as a <a href="https://www.ejiltalk.org/first-report-of-the-un-special-rapporteur-on-the-right-to-privacy-to-the-human-rights-council/">gatekeeper</a> to other rights. Users’ rights to freedom of thought and opinion and assembly and association are put at risk by allowing their private information to be used against them in an effort to influence their views – including their political opinions. This has serious implications for the functioning of democracy.</p>
<p>In these types of situations, the risks to human rights are even greater if data are made accessible or even sold to third parties. Once out there, people’s data could be fed into algorithms to help companies and states make decisions about them. That could be whether or not to grant them a mortgage, provide health insurance or whether a person gets bail when arrested. People’s human rights could be at perpetual risk once their data has been shared, potentially without them even knowing it.</p>
<h2>Making a claim</h2>
<p>Under international human rights law, people have a right to make a claim when they have an arguable case that their rights have been violated. If successful, the United Nations <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/RegularSessions/Session27/Documents/A.HRC.27.37_en.pdf">says</a> they are entitled to a remedy “capable of ending ongoing violations” as well as measures such as apologies, compensation and guarantees of non-repetition in order to ensure that violations don’t happen again. </p>
<p>This means that companies need to offer processes that address the human rights dimensions to a complaint. States also need to ensure that there are bodies, like courts and ombudspersons, available to hear complaints and that victims are supported in bringing a claim, for example, through legal aid. </p>
<p>However, the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica incident reveals the significant obstacles people face in claiming their rights. As part of the debate on regulation of technology companies, these obstacles merit more attention and need to be addressed. </p>
<p>Victims can only bring a claim if they know their rights have been put at risk. Facebook reportedly knew of the situation in 2015 and claims that it sought assurances from Cambridge Analytica that the data had been deleted. However, users were only <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/08/facebook-to-contact-the-87-million-users-affected-by-data-breach">notified</a> once investigative journalists broke the story <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/cambridge-analytica-facebook-influence-us-election">years later</a>. These delays could in themselves be seen as a human rights issue. States and businesses should be under a clear obligation to promptly notify people if their rights have been potentially affected so that they can bring a claim.</p>
<p>Ending ongoing violations is also tricky in a case like this. If data has been accessed, shared or sold to third parties, deleting the initial data set will not put a stop to its use further along the chain. Tracing the journey of data is difficult, particularly if it has been combined with other data sets. This again highlights the need for regulation to prevent these situations from occurring in the first place.</p>
<p>Ascertaining the data journey and whether, how and what decisions have been made on the basis of the data is critical for assessing the level of harm and compensation that should be awarded. Where the data journey cannot be fully traced –- and therefore deleted – the perpetuation of ongoing harm can continue into the future, potentially without end. Compensation should therefore not only focus on harm that can be identified already but also take into account potential future harm where the data is still out there.</p>
<p>Even if all these issues were addressed, the case of Cambridge Analytica and Facebook highlights the problems of companies closing down. As the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43985186">chair</a> of the House of Commons Select Committee for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has already noted, it’s crucial that the Cambridge Analytica closure does not result in the destruction of data until investigations are complete; otherwise the level of harm and who is accountable will be difficult to determine.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96601/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lorna McGregor receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, as part of her work on the Human Rights, Big Data & Technology (HRBDT) Project, based at the University of Essex. She is a Commissioner of the British Equality and Human Rights Commission and a member of REDRESS' Legal Advisory Board. The views expressed in this post are as part of her work in HRBDT and do not necessarily reflect the position of either organisation.</span></em></p>Victims could be entitled to redress – but it won’t be easy.Lorna McGregor, Director, Human Rights Centre, PI and Co-Director, ESRC Human Rights, Big Data and Technology Large Grant, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/937172018-03-22T04:37:17Z2018-03-22T04:37:17ZAustralia should strengthen its privacy laws and remove exemptions for politicians<p>As revelations <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-21/cambridge-analytica-in-australia/9570432">continue to unfold</a> about the misuse of personal data by Cambridge Analytica, many Australians are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/mar/22/australias-political-parties-defend-privacy-exemption-in-wake-of-cambridge-analytica">only just learning</a> that Australian politicians have given themselves a free kick to <a href="https://www.alrc.gov.au/publications/41.%20Political%20Exemption/exemption-registered-political-parties-political-acts-and-pract">bypass privacy laws</a>. </p>
<p>Indeed, Australian data privacy laws are generally weak when compared with those in the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union. They fall short in both specific exemptions for politicians, and because individuals cannot enforce laws even where they do exist.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-privacy-laws-gutted-in-court-ruling-on-what-is-personal-information-71486">Australia's privacy laws gutted in court ruling on what is 'personal information'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>While Australia’s major political parties have <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/australian-parties-deny-using-data-firm-cambridge-analytica">denied</a> using the services of Cambridge Analytica, they do engage in substantial data operations – including the Liberal Party’s <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/cyber-minister-refuses-to-be-drawn-into-sa-election-data-mining-claims">use of the i360 app</a> in the recent South Australian election. How well this microtargeting of voters works to sway political views is <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/the-noisy-fallacies-of-psychographic-targeting/amp">disputed</a>, but the claims are credible enough to spur demand for these tools.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"976118543317057536"}"></div></p>
<p>Greens leader Richard di Natale told <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/company-tax-cuts-will-not-lead-to-wage-growth-di-natale/9574882">RN Breakfast</a> this morning that political parties “shouldn’t be let off the hook”:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>All political parties use databases to engage with voters, but they’re exempt from privacy laws so there’s no transparency about what anybody’s doing. And that’s why it’s really important that we go back, remove those exemptions, ensure that there’s some transparency, and allow people to decide whether they think it’s appropriate.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Why should politicians be exempt from privacy laws?</h2>
<p>The exemption for politicians was introduced way back in the <a href="https://www.alrc.gov.au/publications/41.%20Political%20Exemption/exemption-registered-political-parties-political-acts-and-pract">Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Bill 2000</a>. The Attorney-General at the time, Daryl Williams, justified the exemption on the basis that freedom of political communication was vital to Australia’s democratic process. He said the exemption was:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…designed to encourage that freedom and enhance the operation of the electoral and political process in Australia.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Malcolm Crompton, the then Privacy Commissioner, argued against the exemption, stating that political institutions: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>…should follow the same practices and principles that are required in the wider community.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Other politicians from outside the two main parties, such as Senator Natasha Stott Despoja in 2006, have tried to remove the exemptions for similar reasons, but failed to gain support from the major parties.</p>
<h2>What laws are politicians exempt from?</h2>
<h3>Privacy Act</h3>
<p>The <a href="https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy-law/privacy-act/">Privacy Act</a> gives you control over the way your personal information is handled, including knowing why your personal information is being collected, how it will be used, and to whom it will be disclosed. It also allows to you to make a complaint (but not take legal action) if you think your personal information has been mishandled.</p>
<p>“Registered political parties” are <a href="https://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/cth/consol_act/pa1988108/s7c.html">exempt from the operation of the Privacy Act 1998</a>, and <a href="https://www.alrc.gov.au/publications/41.%20Political%20Exemption/exemption-registered-political-parties-political-acts-and-pract">so are</a> the political “acts and practices” of certain entities, including:</p>
<ul>
<li>political representatives — MPs and local government councillors;</li>
<li>contractors and subcontractors of registered political parties and political representatives; and</li>
<li>volunteers for registered political parties.</li>
</ul>
<p>This means that if a company like Cambridge Analytica was contracted to a party or MP in Australia, their activities may well be exempt.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-there-such-a-thing-as-online-privacy-7-essential-reads-88849">Is there such a thing as online privacy? 7 essential reads</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h3>Spam Act</h3>
<p>Under the <a href="https://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/cth/consol_act/sa200366/sch1.html">Spam Act 2003</a>, organisations cannot email you advertisements without your request or consent. They must also include an unsubscribe notice at the end of a spam message, which allows you to opt out of unwanted repeat messaging. However, the Act says that it has no effect on “implied freedom of political communication”.</p>
<h3>Do Not Call Register</h3>
<p>Even if you have your number listed on the <a href="https://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/cth/consol_act/dncra2006201/sch1.html">Do Not Call Register</a>, a political party or candidate can authorise a call to you, at home or at work, if one purpose is fundraising. It also permits other uses.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"787088619479535617"}"></div></p>
<h2>How do Australian privacy laws fall short?</h2>
<h3>No right to sue</h3>
<p>Citizens can sue for some version of a breach of privacy in the UK, EU, US, Canada and even New Zealand. But there is still no constitutional or legal right that an individual (or class) can enforce over intrusion of privacy in Australia. </p>
<p>After exhaustive consultations in 2008 and 2014, the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) recommended a modest and carefully limited statutory tort – a right to dispute a serious breach of privacy in court. However, both major parties effectively rejected the ALRC recommendation. </p>
<h3>No ‘legal standing’ in the US</h3>
<p>Legal standing refers to the right to be a party to legal proceedings. As the tech giants that are most adept at gathering and using user data – Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon – are based in the US, Australians generally do not have legal standing to bring action against them if they suspect a privacy violation. EU citizens, by contrast, have the benefit of the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opcl/judicial-redress-act-2015">Judicial Redress Act 2015</a> (US) for some potential misuses of cloud-hosted data. </p>
<h3>Poor policing of consent agreements</h3>
<p>Consent agreements – such as the terms and conditions you agree to when you sign up for a service, such as Gmail or Messenger – waive rights that individuals might otherwise enjoy under privacy laws. In its response to the Cambridge Analytica debacle, <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/03/suspending-cambridge-analytica/">Facebook claims</a> that users consented to the use of their data. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/consent-and-ethics-in-facebooks-emotional-manipulation-study-28596">Consent and ethics in Facebook's emotional manipulation study</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But these broad user consent agreements are not policed strictly enough in Australia. It’s known as “bad consent” when protective features are absent from these agreements. By contrast, a “good consent” agreement should be simple, safe and precautionary by default. That means it should be clear about its terms and give users the ability to enforce them, should not be variable, and should allow users to revoke consent at any time. </p>
<p>New laws introduced by the EU – the <a href="https://www.eugdpr.org/">General Data Protection Regulation</a> – which come into effect on May 25, are an example of how countries can protect their citizens’ data offshore. </p>
<h2>Major parties don’t want change</h2>
<p>Privacy Commissioner Tim Pilgrim <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/mar/22/australias-political-parties-defend-privacy-exemption-in-wake-of-cambridge-analytica">said today in The Guardian</a> that the political exemption should be reconsidered. In the past, independents and minor party representatives have objected to the exemption, as well as the weakness of Australian privacy laws more generally. In 2001, <a href="http://eresources.hcourt.gov.au/showCase/2001/HCA/63">the High Court said</a> that there should be a right to sue for privacy breach.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-big-data-may-be-having-a-big-effect-on-how-our-politics-plays-out-72577">Why big data may be having a big effect on how our politics plays out</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But both Liberal and Labor are often <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/mar/22/australias-political-parties-defend-privacy-exemption-in-wake-of-cambridge-analytica">in tacit agreement to do nothing substantial</a> about privacy rights. They have not taken up the debates around the collapse of IT security, nor the increase in abuse of the “consent” model, the dangers of so called “open data”, or the threats from artificial intelligence, Big Data, and metadata retention. </p>
<p>One might speculate that this is because they share a vested interest in making use of voter data for the purpose of campaigning and governing. It’s now time for a new discussion about the rules around privacy and politics in Australia – one in which the privacy interests of individuals are front and centre.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93717/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Vaile is Board or Committee Member of Internet Australia, The Australian Privacy Foundation, the Association of Social and Market Research Organisation, and various professional, government and civil society and policy organizations. </span></em></p>It’s time for a new discussion about the rules around privacy and politics in Australia – one in which the privacy interests of individuals are front and centre.David Vaile, Teacher of cyberspace law, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/934282018-03-16T06:46:21Z2018-03-16T06:46:21ZGig platforms’ claims over worker chat groups: fraught territory indeed<p>Food delivery platform Foodora, it seems, is <a href="http://www.afr.com/news/policy/industrial-relations/foodora-fires-courier-for-refusing-to-quit-workers-chat-group-20180314-h0xg33">trying to claim intellectual property rights</a> over an encrypted chat group that Foodora riders were using to swap tips and shifts, and talk about pay and conditions. </p>
<p>This raises important questions about what digital privacy rights we have, especially over what might once have been “water cooler” conversations. Many Australians wouldn’t agree that employers have rights even to look at private social media posts. </p>
<p>And when it comes to intellectual property rights, employers’ rights are usually limited to material created in the course of employment. And rights over the material of independent contractors are even more limited. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/17587">recent research</a>, based on an online survey, my colleagues and I found that only 37% of Australians agreed that it was acceptable for current employers to look at your public social media posts. Only 20% agreed it was acceptable when the social media posts were private.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-way-they-manipulate-people-is-really-saddening-study-shows-the-trade-offs-in-gig-work-79042">'The way they manipulate people is really saddening': study shows the trade-offs in gig work</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Our research asked about employers looking at posts by employees. But Foodora considers its drivers <a href="https://www.foodora.com.au/contents/terms-and-conditions.htm">independent contractors</a>, not employees. This is due to the flexibility and autonomy that it asserts the drivers have (and is <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/business/careers/fired-for-taking-a-holiday-bicycle-couriers-claim-unfair-dismissal-20180313-p4z45p.html">in dispute</a>), but it also makes it extraordinary that Foodora would lay claim to a private chat group among riders. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.afr.com/news/policy/industrial-relations/foodora-fires-courier-for-refusing-to-quit-workers-chat-group-20180314-h0xg33">According to The Australian Financial Review</a>, Foodora claims that by maintaining and refusing to transfer ownership of encrypted chat groups on Telegram, a rider was potentially breaching confidentiality and Foodora’s intellectual property rights. </p>
<p>It is difficult to imagine what kind of intellectual property rights Foodora might be talking about. Could an employer or platform claim copyright in a chat group? We’d first have to accept that conversations in a chat group are protected by copyright, just because they’ve been written down.</p>
<p>But even if they are, employers usually only <a href="http://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ca1968133/s35.html">own</a> what employees create <em>in the course of their employment</em>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-gig-economy-workers-will-be-left-short-of-super-85814">How gig economy workers will be left short of super</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>If I’m an employee graphic designer, hired to create new logos and designs for my company, no one should be surprised that they belong to the company. </p>
<p>But if I’m a retail sales assistant and writing the world’s next great novel at night, it would be very surprising if my supermarket employer could turn around and claim the copyright royalties. </p>
<p>A general rule of thumb is: what work was the person hired to do? It’s not obvious to me that conversations delivery riders might have, even if it is ostensibly about their work, is work they were hired to do. </p>
<p>And remember, again, gig workers like Foodora drivers are, according to the platforms themselves, independent contractors. In copyright law, <a href="https://www.artslaw.com.au/info-sheets/info-sheet/employment-issues-for-nsw-employees/">work created by independent contractors belongs to them</a>. We would, though, have to look at the way the Foodora contracts are written. The ownership rules in copyright are all subject to contract. </p>
<p>It’s conceivable that a platform’s terms could be so broadly written that it tries to claim copyright in anything at all that is related to the platform - but that would be an extraordinarily broad way to write a contract. I suspect courts might be quite unwilling to read a term like that broadly.</p>
<p>Foodora might be claiming that the information shared by the drivers is confidential information. Here things are a little more legally interesting: to get to the bottom of a claim like that would mean looking at the law of contract, the terms of the contract, the law of equity etc. </p>
<p>But again, it’s not clear that a platform could claim that the standard terms and conditions it offers to contractors are confidential information (they are quite widely discussed in the media), or that riders discussing those terms among themselves is a breach of confidence. And for a court to treat terms like that as confidential would be very disempowering for workers - and not great for the market for employment, either.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-new-definition-of-worker-could-protect-many-from-exploitation-91083">A new definition of 'worker' could protect many from exploitation</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>More fundamentally, we also need to ask, if a gig economy platform claims that private, encrypted conversations happening among workers somehow belongs to it, what degree of control is that platform asserting over the workers?</p>
<p>This isn’t consistent with the assertion that those workers are free, autonomous, independent contractors with none of the rights (or responsibilities?) of an employee.</p>
<p>In our study we found that those who had only completed high school – the least powerful employees – were consistently the group least likely to agree it was acceptable for any employer to look at public or private social media posts.</p>
<p>We also found that a majority of Australians supported some government regulation for online gig work platforms. So perhaps platforms should think about the consistency of the claims they make. Foodora’s feels a little like having your pizza and eating it too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93428/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kimberlee Weatherall is employed by the University of Sydney. Research quoted in this piece has been funded by the University of Sydney's Research Excellence Initiative.</span></em></p>Could an employer or platform claim copyright in a chat group? We’d first have to accept that conversations in a chat group are protected by copyright.Kimberlee Weatherall, Professor and Associate Dean (Research) The University of Sydney Law School, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/806752017-07-13T05:38:50Z2017-07-13T05:38:50ZPlatform co-ops offer urban communities a bigger say in their lives<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177979/original/file-20170713-19642-bq3c5j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Kolorob youth facilitator spreads the word in the Dhaka neighbourhood of Bauniabadh.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.kolorob.info/portfolio_page/bb17/">www.kolorob.info</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This is one of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/ecocity-summit-40496">series</a> of articles to coincide with the 2017 <a href="https://www.ecocity2017.com/">Ecocity World Summit</a> in Melbourne.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Digital platform companies like Facebook, Uber and Google regulate our likes, updates, schedules, locations, photos, jobs and trips. In the “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/07/facebook-uber-amazon-platform-economy">world of the platform</a>”, the power and control of these proprietary systems commodify our habits, attitudes and movements. These platforms inundate our lives in many ways, delivering a daily deluge of data and applications.</p>
<p>Despite recent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jun/27/google-braces-for-record-breaking-1bn-fine-from-eu">financial penalties</a> and calls for <a href="http://ylpr.yale.edu/sites/default/files/YLPR/pasquale.final_.2.pdf">regulatory oversight</a>, the growth and reach of these platforms show few signs of slowing. Today, Facebook’s active user community of <a href="http://www.socialmediopolis.com/socialtrax-blog/4542-facebook-passes-2-billion-monthly-active-users-adds-tools-to-celebrate">more than 2 billion</a> is greater than that of any country. </p>
<p>In some cities, the statistic of “active Facebook users” seems to be a proxy for the urban population itself. Digital marketing company Hootsuite <a href="https://thenextweb.com/contributors/2017/04/11/current-global-state-internet/#.tnw_IqoqZDsf">recently reported</a> Bangkok registered 30 million such users, followed by Dhaka and Jakarta, with 22 million each.</p>
<p>While these counts include confounds – duplicate, dummy and visitor accounts – they register the daunting pervasiveness of Facebook in South and South-East Asian cities, as well as the scale of their digital populations.</p>
<p>This produces complex social effects. Patterns of inclusion and exclusion are both perpetuated and manipulated into new forms. Distinctions between urban infrastructures and new media platforms <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1461444816661553">are rapidly collapsing</a>.</p>
<h2>Creating alternative platforms</h2>
<p>The concerning power of platform companies has led some to seek alternative models, such as <a href="https://platform.coop/">platform co-operatives</a>. </p>
<p>Building on the successes of open source software, the co-operative model creates digital platforms in ways that directly benefit creators, members and users. If, for example, a platform co-operative sold advertising, any proceeds might be distributed equitably to its members, rather than to a much smaller group of company shareholders.</p>
<p>Such co-operatives are examples of new organisational forms that look to overcome inequities in the world’s megacities. We recently participated in an example, a Dhaka-based project called <a href="http://www.kolorob.info">Kolorob</a>, that has developed a small-scale platform for mapping services in informal settlements. </p>
<p>Kolorob has built a custom <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=demo.kolorob.kolorobdemoversion">Android application</a> and database of schools, legal centres, health clinics, government offices and commercial businesses in the northern district of Mirpur. <a href="https://bangladesh.savethechildren.net">Save the Children</a> in Bangladesh funds and operates the project.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-5onTZxziKI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Kolorob aims to transform the lives of poor urban dwellers by improving their access to local services.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The need for directories and maps of services is growing. Digital maps deliver real-time information through front-end, consumer-focused services in global cities. Google Maps, for example, offers reviews of businesses, traffic updates and even warnings on parking availability in <a href="http://www.droid-life.com/2017/01/26/google-maps-adds-parking-difficulty-indicator-25-cities/">25 US cities</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, informal settlements in many megacities lack basic information on essential services. These are expensive to map, and their communities represent limited markets for advertising and other services.</p>
<p>As spatial information tools to <a href="http://www.fig.net/resources/publications/figpub/pub48/figpub48.pdf">manage megacities</a> increase, citizen participation and collaborative decision-making can help meet the need for access to services while deciphering the noisy complexity of unplanned urban settlements.</p>
<p>The Kolorob project began by recruiting young people to map services into <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=5/51.500/-0.100">OpenStreetMap</a>, a freely accessible global database of locations. Using their local contacts, project staff collaborated with communities to co-ordinate the mapping of more than 2,000 local businesses and services. </p>
<p>To search and navigate the database, local developers built an Android app that has been downloaded more than 10,000 times.</p>
<h2>Exploring co-operatives’ potential</h2>
<p>We reported on the aims and progress of the project <a href="https://theconversation.com/signals-from-the-noise-of-urban-innovation-in-the-worlds-second-least-liveable-city-56925">in</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/design-in-the-hybrid-city-diy-meets-platform-urbanism-in-dhakas-informal-settlements-61661">2016</a>. We are now interested in how crowdfunding, volunteerism, hybrid business models, local partnerships and grant applications can sustain the project’s outcomes. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177980/original/file-20170713-19675-mkmhw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177980/original/file-20170713-19675-mkmhw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177980/original/file-20170713-19675-mkmhw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177980/original/file-20170713-19675-mkmhw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177980/original/file-20170713-19675-mkmhw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177980/original/file-20170713-19675-mkmhw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177980/original/file-20170713-19675-mkmhw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177980/original/file-20170713-19675-mkmhw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How can co-operative community platforms survive and compete against the global corporate giants?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.kolorob.info/portfolio_page/p8/">www.kolorob.info</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At stake are wider questions. Can examples of platform co-operativism – community-led, owned and operated digital infrastructure – overcome urban information gaps? And how, in doing so, might they sustain themselves to compete against corporate alternatives?</p>
<p>These stakes involve long-term networks and commitments, well beyond the scope of NGO funding cycles. With the rise of an “<a href="https://acfid.asn.au/sites/site.acfid/files/ACFID%20Innovation%20for%20Impact%20-%20Web%20Ready.pdf">innovation for impact</a>” agenda in the NGO sector, agility, cross-sectoral collaboration and “shared value” partnerships with the private sector become essential components of this new orientation.</p>
<p>As community co-operatives begin to establish themselves as stakeholders in the digital infrastructure of cities, traditional project evaluation needs to move from the language of “success or failure” to a more calibrated understanding of their short and long-term effects. </p>
<p>Kolorob has highlighted some of these: greater participant learning, emergent citizen science, and political literacy and representation.</p>
<p>There are risks in ceding complete control of our cities’ digital lives to market or state interests. These include not only the monopolisation of information, but a shift in our roles from active citizens to the relative passivity implied in the term “user”. </p>
<p>Despite close scrutiny of the social erosion associated with “<a href="http://financeandsociety.ed.ac.uk/ojs-images/financeandsociety/FS_EarlyView_LangleyLeyshon.pdf">platform capitalism</a>”, these platforms continue to proliferate. They already influence – in complex ways – city infrastructure developments and prospects for wider urban participation. </p>
<p>We need to build and sustain urban platforms that are no longer simply lock-in and proprietary. Instead, we should embrace open source software, participatory design and a more inclusive distribution of proceeds. </p>
<p>Even without fully realising their potential, platform co-operatives and allied models offer us new ways to think about who does – and who ought to – benefit from the labour and data we invest in city and digital infrastructure.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can read other articles in the series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/ecocity-summit-40496">here</a>. The <a href="https://www.ecocity2017.com/">Ecocity World Summit</a> is being hosted by the University of Melbourne, Western Sydney University, the Victorian government and the City of Melbourne in Melbourne from July 12-14.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80675/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liam Magee is affiliated with the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University. The Institute received funding from Save the Children Bangladesh to undertake research in Dhaka in 2016. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Sweeting works for Save the Children Australia. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Teresa Swist is affiliated with the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University. The Institute received funding from Save the Children Bangladesh to undertake research in Dhaka in 2016.</span></em></p>A co-operative project that maps services in Dhaka shows how communities of citizens can be more than passive users of the digital platforms that increasingly shape our daily lives.Liam Magee, Senior Research Fellow, Digital Media, Western Sydney UniversityDavid Sweeting, Institute Associate, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney UniversityTeresa Swist, Engaged Research Fellow, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/782582017-06-11T20:30:41Z2017-06-11T20:30:41ZCreative city, smart city … whose city is it?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172600/original/file-20170607-3668-1wymt6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When the smart city looks inhuman: a robot police officer from Dubai greets guests at last November's Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ramon Costa/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2007 US creative cities “guru” <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Creative-Class-Transforming-Community/dp/1491576766">Richard Florida</a> was flown up to Noosa to tell the local city council how they, too, could become a creative city. </p>
<p>Noosa was one of a long line of cities across the globe queuing up to pay big bucks to the US-based academic-entrepreneur. “Being creative” had become an almost universal aspiration. Who would not want to be a creative city? </p>
<p>And so Creative [insert name of city here] signs sprang up in the most unlikely places, along with stock shots of creative young things hunched over laptops in cafes.</p>
<p>Ten years later, different gurus are being flown around and the signs have been replaced by Smart [insert name of city here]. The stock shots are much the same, but now the young things are being innovative, disruptive and above all “smart”. That’s the trouble with fast policy: here today, gone tomorrow.</p>
<p>Below the surface more tectonic shifts can be felt. In its first outing in the mid-1990s the “creative city”, associated with thinkers such as <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Creative-City-Toolkit-Urban-Innovators/dp/1844075982/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1496259774&sr=1-1&keywords=charles+landry+the+creative+city">Charles Landry</a>, was an energising vision of a new role for cultural creativity in our cities.</p>
<p>Now expanded in democratic fashion beyond the world of “high art” to embrace popular, everyday creativity, culture would be a key resource for the 21st-century city. </p>
<p>Culture could re-activate the decayed industrial zones of the inner city, breathing new life into the dead infrastructures of factories and power stations, dockyards and tram depots, schools, barracks and banks. Culture could renew stale urban identities, catalyse new aspirations and stamp a different global brand on long-dormant cities. </p>
<p>And with the creative industries – culture plus all things design and digital – all that was needed were some creative people and a bit of entrepreneurial flair. Then we would have one of the industries of the future. </p>
<p>Creativity broke cities away from the old bureaucratic top-down planning silos of the industrial city and let them approach the future holistically. Culture would be what cities do best, earning a living and enjoying it at the same time. </p>
<p>By the time Florida had left Noosa the discontent was growing. Big investments in photogenic CBD developments seemed more intended for the creative class than local citizens, generating massive real estate profits while the suburbs languished unloved. </p>
<p>Creative industries turned out not to be so inclusive after all. They failed to soak up all those unemployed dirty industry workers and were reliant on educated workers willing to work their way up on low pay and high debt.</p>
<h2>The turn of the smart city</h2>
<p>Since the global financial crisis the energising vision has been around social justice, citizenship and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/will-habitat-iii-defend-the-human-right-to-the-city-57576">right to the city</a>, with a return of community and activist-focused arts activities. Creatives are now less Californian start-ups and more counter-cultural “post-capitalists”.</p>
<p>Enter the <a href="https://theconversation.com/while-governments-talk-about-smart-cities-its-citizens-who-create-them-59230">Smart City</a>, creativity without all those messy cultural bits. The tech start-ups were just as cool, the fab labs and hacker spaces just as disruptive, but now slotted onto a very different agenda.</p>
<p>This too promised a re-invention of the city, not now a cultural re-imagining but a complete re-tooling of the social and governmental infrastructure of the city. Courtesy of some very big global tech companies, a new digital infrastructure could be rolled out, applying sensors, data-capture devices and large-scale computing power to urban life.</p>
<p>Smart cities are data cities, promising efficient management of transport and utilities, security, and customised commerce. If the early Creative City embraced the messiness of city life, viewing it not as chaos but creative fecundity, the Smart City give us a clean utopian picture of the perfectly transparent city. </p>
<p>It’s messy on the surface, but with a big data back-room providing bespoke information for almost any aspect of urban living your care to ask for. What’s not to like?</p>
<h2>A corporate taming of creativity</h2>
<p>That the brains of the Smart City – as envisioned by its corporate promoters – are increasingly embedded in its walls rather than its inhabitants reveals much about the trajectory of the digital economy so closely tied to Florida’s conception of the Creative City and its industries. </p>
<p>Internet scholar <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Future-Internet-How-Stop/dp/0300151241/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1496259831&sr=1-1&keywords=jonathan+zittrain">Jonathan Zittrain</a> has described the rise of “app” culture as a betrayal of the creative potential unleashed by the mainstreaming of the internet. If the open internet was messy and chaotic, Zittrain argues that it was correspondingly “generative”, promoting experimentation and creativity. </p>
<p>By contrast, the “app” represents the pacification and domestication of the internet: its transformation from a productive medium to an infrastructure for consumption and marketing. Apps sort our music and photos for us, tell us where to eat, how to get there, and what to watch afterwards. The price of the newfound convenience that renders smart phones so addictive is a shift in the balance of control away from the end user. </p>
<p>For Zittrain, the “applified” world is “one of sterile appliances tethered to a network of control” – which is not a bad description of the corporate blueprint for the Smart City. </p>
<p>As urbanist <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Against-smart-city-here-Book-ebook/dp/B00FHQ5DBS/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1496259876&sr=1-3&keywords=adam+greenfield">Adam Greenfield</a> has observed, the corporate world has taken the lead in both envisioning and promoting its version of the “informated” city. It looks suspiciously like the commercial internet projected out into physical space. </p>
<p>The promise is one of efficiency, convenience and security: smart streets that adjust traffic flow in real time, walls that change images to suit our tastes (which have become indistinguishable from market preferences), even floors that cushion us when we fall. </p>
<p>For all the talk of disruption, the paradoxical promise of the smart city is one of data-driven efficiency and predictability. The promotional materials feature the same smart young things, freed up from the impositions of daily life (traffic, shopping, routine decision-making, even driving), to do … what? </p>
<h2>Whose city is it?</h2>
<p>There are surely possibilities here, but the version of smart city as automated city looks inhuman. It promises to serve people by rendering them increasingly efficient, perhaps to the point of their own redundancy. </p>
<p>To subject the future of the city to the corporate imaginary is to concede too much to the galloping privatisation of our cultural and informational infrastructure. </p>
<p>What if the right to the city were also a right to participate in shaping its information infrastructures and their implementation? Can we envision an alternative to centralised corporate control of the city’s data? And how might public priorities be redefined in ways that distinguish them from the private imperatives of the ruling tech giants? </p>
<p>These are the guiding questions for our <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/symposium-smart-city-creative-city-tickets-34763468470?utm_source=eb_email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=order_confirmation_email&utm_term=eventname&ref=eemailordconf">June 15 symposium</a> in Melbourne, which explores the possibility of another kind of urban culture beyond the tightly controlled formats of the Smart City/Creative City.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78258/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The corporate world has taken the lead in promoting various creative/smart city visions, which struggle to be inclusive, let alone entrust citizens with control over their lives.Justin O'Connor, Professor of Communications and Cultural Economy, Monash UniversityMark Andrejevic, Guest Lecturer, Monash University; Professor and Chair, Department of Media Studies, Pomona CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/734712017-05-03T06:26:38Z2017-05-03T06:26:38ZCan blockchain, a swiftly evolving technology, be controlled?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167477/original/file-20170502-17260-t7ekia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Blockchain is an exciting technology, but for it to go mainstream governments must be able to regulate it.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/namecoin/22995486509">Name Coin/Flick</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The headlong pace of technological change produces giant leaps forward in knowledge, innovation, new possibilities and, almost inevitably, <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-need-new-laws-to-regulate-the-worlds-newest-frontier-the-datasphere-66458">legal problems</a>. That’s now the case with blockchain, today’s buzziest new tech tool. </p>
<p>Introduced in 2008 as the technology underpinning <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/bitcoin-1358">Bitcoin</a>, a digital currency that is created and held electronically without any central authority, blockchain is a secure digital ledger for any kind of data. It simplifies record keeping and reduces transaction costs. </p>
<p>Its range of applications in commerce, finance and potentially politics continues to widen, and that has triggered a debate around how to regulate the tool. </p>
<h2>Goodbye middleman</h2>
<p>Because it does not require a centralised authority to verify and validate transactions, blockchain enables people who may not trust each other to interact and coordinate directly. </p>
<p>With blockchain, there is no middleman in peer-to-peer exchanges; instead, users rely on a decentralised network of computers that interact through a cryptographic, secure protocol. </p>
<p>Blockchain has the ability to “codify” transactions by deploying small snippets of code directly onto the blockchain. This code, generally referred to as a “smart contract”, executes automatically when certain conditions are met. </p>
<p>An early example of smart contracts are the corporate-oriented <a href="https://theconversation.com/digital-copyright-protection-some-success-but-mostly-failure-30215">digital rights management</a> (DRM) systems limiting uses of digital files. Having DRM on your ebook may restrict access to copying, editing, and printing content.</p>
<p>With blockchain, smart contracts have become more complex and, arguably, more secure. In theory, they will always be executed exactly as planned, since no one party has the power to alter the code binding a given transaction.</p>
<p>In practice, however, eliminating trusted brokers from a transaction can create some kinks.</p>
<p>One high-profile smart-contract failure happened to <a href="https://forum.daohub.org/">the DAO</a>, a decentralised autonomous organisation for venture capital funding. </p>
<p>Launched in April 2016, the DAO quickly raised over US$150 million via crowdfunding. Three weeks later, someone managed to exploit a vulnerability in the DAO’s code, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/18/business/dealbook/hacker-may-have-removed-more-than-50-million-from-experimental-cybercurrency-project.html?_r=0">draining approximately US$50 million</a> worth of digital currency from the fund. </p>
<p>The security problem originated not in the blockchain itself but rather from issues with the smart-contract code used to administer the DAO. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166796/original/file-20170426-2841-llbfl1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166796/original/file-20170426-2841-llbfl1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166796/original/file-20170426-2841-llbfl1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166796/original/file-20170426-2841-llbfl1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166796/original/file-20170426-2841-llbfl1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166796/original/file-20170426-2841-llbfl1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166796/original/file-20170426-2841-llbfl1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The DAO’s crowd-funding page in May 2016.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Questions arose about the legality of the act, with some people arguing that since the hack was actually permitted by the smart-contract code, it was a perfectly legitimate action. After all, in cyberspace, “<a href="http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/7113/5657#p4">code is law</a>”. </p>
<p>The DAO debate raised <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/thedao">this key question</a>: should the intention of the code prevail over the wording of the code? </p>
<h2>A new legal realm</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/3047462/the-humans-who-dream-of-companies-that-wont-need-them">Blockchain proponents</a> envision a future in which entire companies and governments operate in a distributed and automated fashion. </p>
<p>But smart contracts pose a series of enforceability issues, which are outlined in a recent <a href="http://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/knowledge/publications/144559/can-smart-contracts-be-legally-binding-contracts">white paper</a> by the London law firm Norton Rose Fulbright. </p>
<p>How can we resolve disputes arising over a self-executing smart contract? How do we identify what types of contractual terms can be properly translated into code, and which ones should instead be left to natural language? And is there a way combine the two? </p>
<p>It is not yet clear that code can address the necessary levels of complexity to replace legal language. After all, the vagueness inherent in the language of law is a feature, not a bug: it compensates for unforeseeable cases that must be assessed on a case-by-case basis in a court of law. </p>
<p>Traditional contracts acknowledge that no law can index the entire complexity of life as it is, let alone predict its future development. They also precisely define terms that can be enforced by law.</p>
<p>Smart contracts, by contrast, are simply snippets of code both defined and enforced by the code underpinning the blockchain infrastructure. Currently, they do not have any legal recognition. This means that when something goes wrong in a smart contract, parties have no legal recourse. </p>
<p>The DAO’s founders painfully learned this lesson last year.</p>
<h2>The creative friction of the law</h2>
<p>If blockchain technologies are ever to go mainstream, governments will have to set up new legal frameworks to accommodate such complexities. </p>
<p><a href="http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1552">Positive law</a> prescribes behaviour and penalises non-compliance. It can encapsulate the normative ideal that a respective government seeks to achieve, demonstrate an ethical vision for society or reify the power structure of the current regime.</p>
<p>Technological developments, on the other hand, are often oriented toward profit and change. </p>
<p>There’s an inherent tension here. Laws may delay the development of technology and hence hurt the competitive advantage of an entrepreneur or even a state. </p>
<p><a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-33365-6_14">Take the case of nanotechnology regulation</a> in the European Union versus in the United States. <a href="http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/GLEP_a_00367#.WQA9yI7YmG8">European law so mitigates risks</a> that it may end up limiting the technology’s potential, losing its competitive edge against the US.</p>
<p>That’s another fact about the law: slow and reactive, it can be a gross annoyance. </p>
<p>But ever since technological advances began speeding along on an exponential curve last century, the law has played a critical role in helping societies maintain certain previously negotiated standards for cohabitation. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pcYJTIbhYF0?wmode=transparent&start=1170" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig on the law and blockchain technologies.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our legal system may sometimes seem antiquated in today’s fast-moving world. But before changing our laws to accommodate new technologies that may (re)define our lives, it is important to have <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0270467615574330">room for debate and time for social struggles</a> to take place. </p>
<p>The law serves this function of creative friction. It can restore human agency against fierce technological development. </p>
<p>Given all the excitement over blockchain technologies, it is probable that interested parties will soon enough seek legal recognition and state-sanctioned enforceability of smart contracts. </p>
<p>These emerging technologies are still too new to have been subjected to a sufficiently thorough analysis of their social, economic and political implications. More time is also needed to assess how blockchain could be deployed in a socially beneficial way. </p>
<p>Blockchain technology seems poised to constitute an important component of tomorrow’s society. The legal system – slow-paced as it is – might be just what we need at this juncture to ensure that this new tool is deployed in a way consistent with established principles and values, with the common good at its core.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73471/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vasilis Kostakis receives funding from IUT (19-13) and B52 grants of the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wolfgang Drechsler receives funding from the IUT (19-13) grant of the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Primavera de Filippi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Laws cannot keep pace with technological advances – but that may not be a bad thing.Vasilis Kostakis, Senior Researcher of Technology Governance, Tallinn University of TechnologyPrimavera de Filippi, Permanent Researcher, Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS)Wolfgang Drechsler, Visiting professor, National University of SingaporeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/650032016-09-07T09:11:05Z2016-09-07T09:11:05ZCorbyn’s digital meh-nifesto is too rooted in the past to offer much for the future<p>While the Labour Party recently launched their <a href="http://www.jeremyforlabour.com/digital_democracy_manifesto">Digital Democracy Manifesto</a> with as much fanfare as they could muster, the reaction to it could be safely described in social media terms as “meh”. There was derision from those who deride everything Corbyn says, and very little from the rest of the media, who moved on to more important things such as <a href="http://www.itv.com/news/2016-09-02/jeremy-corbyn-after-work-drinks-discriminate-against-mothers/">after work drinks</a> and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/31/this-isnt-bloody-funny-jk-rowling-laments-corbyns-strong-position">JK Rowling’s spat with Corbyn’s Twitter followers</a>. </p>
<p>Yet this manifesto, such as it is, does matter – just not in the way that either Corbyn or his opponents might imagine. How governments approach the internet is very important, and until now Labour’s intentions have been unclear. Now, in just three pages of scant detail, the manifesto manages to be inspiring, disappointing, and in parts distinctly alarming.</p>
<p>The idea of a People’s Charter of Digital Liberties is a concept that has been raised by various people and organisations over the last decade in various guises – for example, the Internet Governance Forum’s <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Opinion/Communications/InternetPrinciplesAndRightsCoalition.pdf">charter of human rights and principles for the internet</a> developed between 2009 and 2011. But it is also an area in which the UK has been distinctly backward. Corbyn’s proposals, despite fine aspirations to tackle serious issues such as privacy, feel naïve and old-fashioned. It refers to unspecificed “other hi-tech methods”, emphasises CCTV which seems a little old-fashioned in the current environment, and fails to even mention commercial invasions of privacy (Facebook, Google and so forth), all of which makes it seem out of touch.</p>
<p>That feeling is repeated throughout. The manifesto’s promise of a Universal Service Network of high-speed broadband reaching even rural areas is barely different from what all governments have promised – and generally <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-promised-right-to-fast-internet-rings-hollow-for-millions-stuck-with-20th-century-speeds-39153">failed to deliver</a> – for the past 20 years. Hardly revolutionary. </p>
<p>The idea of an Open Knowledge Library – an “on-line hub of learning resources” – is reminiscent of the old <a href="http://www.edtechhistory.org.uk/history/the_1980s/ncet.html">National Council for Educational Technology’s</a> ideas from the early 1990s, although open access to state-funded research is an interesting take on it, and a subject of considerable debate in academia. </p>
<p>Placing “Community Media Freedom” at the heart of the manifesto is welcome, but the blithe statement that Ofcom will be able to protect citizens from the “manipulation of software algorithms for private gain” betrays a lack of understanding about how these things work. It seems as if Corbyn wishes to undermine the business models of Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon at a stroke, without realising that this is what he is proposing. </p>
<p>Another eyebrow-raising statement is to reform intellectual property law “so that both producers and consumers benefit”. <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-promised-right-to-fast-internet-rings-hollow-for-millions-stuck-with-20th-century-speeds-39153">If only it were that easy</a>.</p>
<h2>Alarm bells</h2>
<p>However, it’s the <a href="http://arstechnica.co.uk/business/2016/08/jeremy-corbyn-vows-digital-citizen-passport-if-elected-pm/">Digital Citizen Passports</a> that are the most worrying part of the manifesto. This might turn out to be one of two things. It might essentially be a restatement of the existing <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/introducing-govuk-verify/introducing-govuk-verify">Gov.uk Verify system</a>, in which case why mention it at all? Alternatively, it’s an indication that there will be a more all-encompassing citizen ID for the internet – perhaps something not a million miles from the National Identity Register that was introduced by Labour in the 2000s and <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/identity-cards-and-new-identity-and-passport-service-suppliers">scrapped by the coalition government in 2010</a>.</p>
<p>Alarm bells will ring among those concerned with privacy and civil liberties at the statement that Digital Citizen Passport holders will have their place in the electoral role updated when they move home, as this suggests a national citizen address register. The blasé assurance that privacy will be protected from hackers by “strict laws” reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how vulnerable personal data is to theft and loss, the inevitability of function creep, and the deeper civic implications of this kind of system. It is no coincidence that authoritarian regimes around the world approve of this sort of approach – and that UK citizens (if not always UK governments) have opposed such national identity systems strongly since World War II.</p>
<p>There’s a huge missed opportunity in this manifesto, too. Labour has had a very poor record on civil liberties in the last two decades, and this, particularly for Corbyn, could have been a chance to break from the past. With the authoritarian-leaning Theresa May as prime minister, it should have been obvious for Labour to position itself as a protector of civil liberties. There are strong reasons for Labour to do so: surveillance has often been used against those on the left such as trades unions and protest groups, and is still primarily used as a tool of the powerful against the weak.</p>
<p>Similarly, censorship and other restrictions on freedom of speech are things that Labour should be strongly against, yet are conspicuous by their absence. Plans to force ISPs to filter content under the pretext of blocking pornography <a href="https://www.blocked.org.uk">represent significant threats to free speech</a>, yet go without mention. Chris Bryant MP was <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/30/jeremy-corbyn-accused-of-ignoring-problem-of-internet-abuse-as-h/">among those</a> who noted there was no mention of tackling online abuse either. He is right to suggest it should be discussed, but quite wrong that the answer is “new laws”. There is already more than enough law in the area; instead there is a dearth of imagination.</p>
<p>And that is really the point: we need new approaches to these important issues around the internet’s place in our world. There are many on the left who understand them and could have helped produce something more forward-looking and in tune with the state of the internet today. It is a shame Corbyn could not look outside his inner circle to find them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65003/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Bernal is a member of the Labour Party. He is on the Advisory Council of the Open Rights Group, and a member of the National Police Chiefs' Council's Independent Digital Ethics Panel for Policing.</span></em></p>If there are forward-thinking minds within Labour that could bring fresh thinking to internet issues, they didn’t get the call.Paul Bernal, Lecturer in Information Technology, Intellectual Property and Media Law, University of East AngliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/601742016-06-01T00:44:30Z2016-06-01T00:44:30ZEarly experiments show a smart city plan should start with people first<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124470/original/image-20160530-7678-19q0a6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Brisbane aspires to be a truly smart and connected city.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marcus Foth</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The federal government’s recently released <a href="https://cities.dpmc.gov.au/smart-cities-plan/">Smart Cities Plan</a> is built on three pillars: smart investment, smart policy and smart technology. Yet, it also suggests that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Cities are first and foremost for people.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>and:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If our cities are to continue to meet their residents’ needs, it is essential for people to engage and participate in planning and policy decisions that have an impact on their lives.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Despite this quintessential policymaking statement, the plan largely uses language that conveys a limited role for people in cities: they live, work and consume. The absence of a more thorough response is surprising considering the rich body of work calling for better <a href="http://eprints.qut.edu.au/39160/">human engagement</a> in the smart city agenda.</p>
<p>South Korea’s early “U-city” (ubiquitous city) experiments, such as <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/dec/22/songdo-south-korea-world-first-smart-city-in-pictures">New Songdo</a>, were engineered by the national <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaebol">chaebol</a> such as Samsung and SK Telecom, and their deployment was assisted by top-down <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.4018/978-1-60566-152-0.ch025">policy directives</a>. <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?oi=bibs&cluster=10240009651625265856&btnI=1&hl=en">Germaine Halegoua</a> laments a missed opportunity to use the ubiquitous computing at the core of the U-city for community engagement and participation.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.citylab.com/authors/eric-jaffe/">Eric Jaffe</a> critiques Rio de Janeiro’s flawed smart city brain, the Integrated Centre of Command and Control, made by IBM. He <a href="https://medium.com/sidewalk-talk/4-lessons-from-rios-flawed-smart-cities-initiative-31cbf4e54b72#.srlipol9c">proposes four key lessons</a>, all of which point to the forgotten focus on people. In the same city, however, there is also hope.</p>
<h2>People-first approach</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.ted.com/speakers/alessandra_orofino">Alessandra Orofino</a> founded <a href="http://www.meurio.org.br">Meu Rio</a>, Rio de Janeiro’s largest mobilisation network, which is now <a href="http://www.ourcities.org">expanding</a> to the rest of the world. In her <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/alessandra_orofino_it_s_our_city_let_s_fix_it">TED talk</a>, she suggests:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s our city. Let’s fix it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What this simple statement entails is profound: the <a href="http://eprints.qut.edu.au/78107/">citizen’s right to the digital city</a>. It is a cultural shift in thinking that people have to be at the core of any smart city agenda. And urban dwellers ought to be enabled not only to actively participate in city-making, but also to lead such initiatives.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zMGE3mbS9NY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Alessandra Orofino’s TED talk: It’s our city. Let’s fix it.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are more and more accounts reminding us that the city is more than just a space governed by <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/nov/24/who-owns-our-cities-and-why-this-urban-takeover-should-concern-us-all">investments</a>, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/somerville-mayor-happiness-policies">policies</a> and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/25/we-cant-allow-the-tech-giants-to-rule-smart-cities">technology</a>. <a href="http://www.uva.nl/en/about-the-uva/organisation/staff-members/content/w/a/b.g.m.dewaal/b.g.m.dewaal.html">Martijn de Waal</a> describes his notion of <a href="http://www.thecityasinterface.com">city as interface</a>. <a href="https://assetstewardship.com/asset-stewardship-team/barbara-thornton-bio/">Barbara Thornton</a> considers the <a href="http://platformed.info/city-as-a-platform-applying-platform-thinking-to-cities/">city as platform</a>. And <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethan_Zuckerman">Ethan Zuckerman</a> takes us back to when cities were appreciated for their function as <a href="http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2011/05/12/chi-keynote-desperately-seeking-serendipity/">serendipity engines</a> that allow for the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-we-should-design-smart-cities-for-getting-lost-56492">sagacious discovery of diversity</a>.</p>
<h2>Open and agile cities</h2>
<p>What comes hand in hand with this renewed focus on people is a changing role of local governments away from <a href="http://www.governmentnews.com.au/2012/08/moving-beyond-roads-rates-and-rubbish/">roads, rates and rubbish</a>, and towards enabler and facilitator, and towards cities being open and agile.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/the-future-will-be-built-on-open-data-heres-why-52785">Open data</a> is a pertinent example to illustrate this process. In the early days of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-government#Government_2.0">Government 2.0</a>, the focus was on identifying government-held datasets that could be made available in public repositories such as <a href="http://data.gov.au">data.gov.au</a>. </p>
<p>These days, the <a href="http://www.odiqueensland.org.au">Open Data Institute Queensland</a>, the <a href="http://oascities.org">Open & Agile Smart Cities</a> network and other entities are <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2016.1139876">prompting governments to go further</a>: to support new private-public partnerships that bridge the common triad of disconnect between <a href="https://medium.com/sidewalk-talk/what-smart-cities-can-learn-from-singapore-s-smart-nation-e19a7efefa3a#.2dmd96xy7">technology and government</a>, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot">government and people</a>, and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/jan/22/inside-story-india-smart-city-gold-rush-it">people and technology</a>. Nationally, a leader of such partnership models is <a href="http://www.codeforaustralia.org">Code for Australia</a>.</p>
<p>Cat Matson is on a quest as the City of Brisbane’s chief digital officer to transform it into a <a href="http://catmatson.com.au/problem-smart-cities/">truly smart, connected city</a>. From her recent visit to Singapore, she brought back <a href="http://www.digitalbrisbane.com.au/Blog/CDO-Wrap-May-2016">key lessons</a> for Brisbane and other local governments:</p>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Design a city (or a solution/system) that, when you’re no longer in government, you’ll be proud of.</li>
<li>Identify real problems, for industry, citizens or government, which could be solved with a digital solution.</li>
<li>Use design thinking to develop solutions to those problems.</li>
<li>Get as many stakeholders involved in that design-thinking process as possible.</li>
<li>Be smart about the role of government and industry in executing those solutions.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<h2>Spaces for urban and civic innovation</h2>
<p>Cities have not only to focus on people first and be open and agile, they also have to provide space – digital and physical – for people to come together and collaborate on urban and civic innovations. The most successful examples demonstrate an appreciation for a diverse range of places that form a <a href="http://urbanixd.eu">network</a> or a <a href="http://i-nq.com.au">local innovation ecosystem</a>.</p>
<p>Such spaces are not limited to the typical business startup incubators. In fact, they are often <a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-needs-an-innovation-skunkworks-51326">skunkworks</a> that are free, open and messy, because the process of creative imagination that leads to innovation is messy.</p>
<p>In London, the British government’s innovation program devoted to cities, the <a href="http://futurecities.catapult.org.uk">Future Cities Catapult</a>, has paired up with <a href="http://www.100resilientcities.org">100 Resilient Cities</a> and Ordnance Survey’s <a href="https://geovation.uk/hub/">Geovation Hub</a> to create the <a href="http://www.urbaninnovationcentre.org.uk">Urban Innovation Centre</a>.</p>
<p>In Vancouver, local universities and the City of Vancouver have partnered to create <a href="http://citystudiovancouver.com">CityStudio Vancouver</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… an innovation hub inside City Hall where staff, university students and community members co-create, design and launch projects on the ground. The central mission of CityStudio is to innovate and experiment with the ways cities are co-created, while teaching students the skills needed to collaborate on real projects in Vancouver with City staff and community stakeholders. These projects improve our city and enrich our neighbourhoods, making the city more liveable, joyful and sustainable.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/114150422" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Vancouver involves researchers, students and community members in its smart city agenda.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Melbourne, Code for Australia has opened the first <a href="http://www.codeforaustralia.org/civiclab/">Civic Lab</a>.</p>
<p>Considering Australia’s staggering <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_by_country">level of urbanisation</a> – close to 90% of the population – it will be paramount to think carefully about how best to invest in the future of our cities. Governments and policymakers have to recognise and enable people as active agents of change towards more habitable and sustainable cities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60174/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marcus Foth receives research funding from the Australian Research Council's Linkage Projects funding scheme and the Australian government's Low Income Energy Efficiency Program. He is a member of the Queensland Greens and was their 2015 Queensland state election candidate for Mount Isa.</span></em></p>Australia’s Smart Cities Plan largely conveys a limited role for people: they live, work and consume. This neglects the rich body of work calling for better human engagement in smart cities.Marcus Foth, Professor of Urban Informatics, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/564922016-04-07T20:08:33Z2016-04-07T20:08:33ZWhy we should design smart cities for getting lost<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116862/original/image-20160331-9712-11d9jym.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The 'Lose Yourself in Melbourne' ad was onto something: instead of being directed to the fastest or shortest route, some people might want to take a diverting detour.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jENsTGWzC3g">'It's Easy to Lose Yourself in Melbourne', Tourism Victoria</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The internet has reached our cities. A smart city is optimised for <a href="https://theconversation.com/want-the-economy-to-grow-its-time-to-look-at-cities-and-efficiency-54517">efficiency</a>, productivity and comfort. </p>
<p>The smart city uses <a href="https://theconversation.com/intelligent-infrastructure-when-roads-and-vehicles-talk-to-each-other-7865">intelligent transport systems</a>. It is administered by integrated <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/may/23/world-cup-inside-rio-bond-villain-mission-control">urban command centres</a>, which analyse the omnipresent raw material of the digital era: <a href="http://www.citiesofdata.org">big data</a>. As citizens go about their everyday lives, they leave data traces everywhere, <a href="http://underworlds.mit.edu">even in the sewers</a>.</p>
<p>Many technology companies and city governments celebrate the new <em>enfant terrible</em> of smart city research: the <a href="http://cusp.nyu.edu">urban scientist</a> who finally imposes a rigorous scientific (that is, positivistic) mindset on city governance. However, <a href="https://theconversation.com/big-data-algorithms-can-discriminate-and-its-not-clear-what-to-do-about-it-45849">Jeremy Kun</a> confirms that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… being quantitative doesn’t protect against bias.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Commentators such as <a href="http://catmatson.com.au/problem-smart-cities/">Cat Matson</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/ten-themes-that-will-help-build-cities-designed-for-people-25525">Charles Landry</a> and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/25/we-cant-allow-the-tech-giants-to-rule-smart-cities">Paul Mason</a> advocate a people-centred approach to city design. In <a href="http://eprints.qut.edu.au/88937/">our own work</a>, we warn that ignoring decades of research by architects, geographers, urban planners, designers and sociologists could lead to a dystopian future where <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-anyone-asking-people-what-they-want-from-the-smart-cities-of-the-future-23855">humans lose agency</a> if we mindlessly pursue convenience and efficiency.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/h1BQPV-iCkU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Wall-E presents a vision of a dystopian future created by techno-scientific determinism.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Algorithmic culture of like-mindedness</h2>
<p>Big data <a href="https://medium.com/futurists-views/algorithmic-culture-culture-now-has-two-audiences-people-and-machines-2bdaa404f643#.lw6bg0vz1">requires analysis by algorithms</a>, and they in turn create <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles">filter bubbles</a>. Corporations such as Facebook and Google deploy sophisticated algorithms to help us navigate the otherwise bloated social mediascape. The content displayed on Facebook’s news feed is selected based on a user’s profile, location, interests, online habits – what they post, share, recommend and “like”.</p>
<p>The popularity of social media stems from its power to create personalised spaces, <a href="http://readwrite.com/2015/05/13/walled-gardens-of-the-web/">walled gardens</a>, which are tailored to individual preferences and favour content <em>relevant</em> to each user. Proprietary algorithms determine what is deemed <em>relevant</em>.</p>
<p>Without <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism_ethics_and_standards">ethics</a>, it is these algorithms that determine the make-up of the Facebook news feed, Google’s top search results and the recommendations on whom to follow on Twitter and what to buy on Amazon. They are optimised to prioritise content that <a href="https://theconversation.com/algorithms-are-changing-business-heres-how-to-leverage-them-56281">generates more business</a>.</p>
<p>As Gilad Lotan <a href="https://medium.com/i-data/israel-gaza-war-data-a54969aeb23e">has observed</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We’re not seeing different viewpoints, but rather more of the same. A healthy democracy is contingent on having a healthy media ecosystem. As builders of these online networked spaces, how do we make sure we are optimising not only for traffic and engagement, but also an informed public? … The underlying algorithmics powering this recommendation engine help reinforce our values and bake more of the same voices into our information streams. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The diversity advantage of cities</h2>
<p>As more and more social media platforms embrace urban environments <a href="http://eprints.qut.edu.au/39160/">as their playground</a>, this algorithmic culture has important implications for cities. </p>
<p>People come together in cities not just for the infrastructure and convenience they provide, but for offering choice. Cities are fundamentally about <a href="http://charleslandry.com/panel/wp-content/themes/twentyeleven/books/The-Intercultural-City.pdf">possibilities, opportunities and diversity</a>.</p>
<p>Jane Jacobs <a href="http://www.pps.org/reference/jjacobs-2/">notes</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Ethan Zuckerman <a href="http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2011/05/12/chi-keynote-desperately-seeking-serendipity/">thinks of cities as serendipity engines</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>By putting a diverse set of people and things together in a confined place, we increase the chances that we’re going to stumble onto the unexpected.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>However, Zuckerman also asks:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… do cities actually work this way?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s a timely question for smart cities governed by big data and algorithmic analysis. How can a smart city become a serendipity engine? Can we design smart cities for getting lost?</p>
<p>Here are some examples of why that may not be such a bad idea.</p>
<h2>Getting lost and getting to know strangers</h2>
<p>Public transport journey planners are usually optimised for two factors: the fastest speed and shortest distance to get you from A to B. Yet there are <a href="http://eprints.qut.edu.au/54029/">opportunities beyond telematics</a>.</p>
<p>Why don’t we offer the choice to go slow, to <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.4018/978-1-60566-152-0.ch028">take the least polluted route</a> to work, or the scenic way home?</p>
<p>Experimental prototypes such as Martin Traunmueller’s <a href="http://www.citylab.com/navigator/2016/02/this-app-will-turn-you-into-an-urban-wanderer/470577/">Likeways</a> and Mark Shepard’s <a href="http://serendipitor.net/">Serendipitor</a> allow you to lose yourself and rediscover your city.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116735/original/image-20160330-28459-7cw45p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116735/original/image-20160330-28459-7cw45p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116735/original/image-20160330-28459-7cw45p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=262&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116735/original/image-20160330-28459-7cw45p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=262&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116735/original/image-20160330-28459-7cw45p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=262&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116735/original/image-20160330-28459-7cw45p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116735/original/image-20160330-28459-7cw45p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116735/original/image-20160330-28459-7cw45p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Likeways app lets users choose routes that wander past restaurants, pubs, shops, museums or art galleries.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/likeways/id1054718491?mt=8">Screenshot, courtesy Martin Traunmueller</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In addition to a diversity of places, cities also offer a diversity of people. However, all too often we stay within our existing social networks of friendship and convenience. Eric Paulos’s <a href="http://www.paulos.net/research/intel/familiarstranger/">Familiar Stranger Project</a> investigated anxiety, comfort and play in public places.</p>
<p>Yet our ability to unlock the advantage of a city’s social diversity is still in its infancy. Early examples include <a href="http://eprints.qut.edu.au/83742/">co-working spaces and meet-up groups</a> that bring diverse people together, airlines offering <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_seating">social seating</a>, and design interventions such as <a href="http://www.alphr.com/games/1003052/jokebox-aims-for-eye-contact-in-a-city-full-of-screens">Jokebox</a> that foster playfulness and curiosity.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116739/original/image-20160330-28445-1vk8eej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116739/original/image-20160330-28445-1vk8eej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116739/original/image-20160330-28445-1vk8eej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116739/original/image-20160330-28445-1vk8eej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116739/original/image-20160330-28445-1vk8eej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116739/original/image-20160330-28445-1vk8eej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116739/original/image-20160330-28445-1vk8eej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116739/original/image-20160330-28445-1vk8eej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Co-working spaces aim to spark creativity and innovation by bringing diverse people together.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thehub/12913967493">flickr/Impact Hub</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/nov/24/who-owns-our-cities-and-why-this-urban-takeover-should-concern-us-all">Saskia Sassen</a> warns that the privatisation of public spaces in the city:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… has deep and significant implications for equity, democracy and rights.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This also stifles innovation, as people are lacking the kinds of “<a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-needs-an-innovation-skunkworks-51326">skunkworks</a>” that foster creativity and diversity.</p>
<h2>Deliberative democracy and the city</h2>
<p>Besides the nascent opportunities vested in people and places, what may well be the final frontier of a truly smart (as in intelligent) city is content and discourse. Seeking to burst the <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles">filter bubbles</a>, Eli Pariser created <a href="http://www.upworthy.com/about">Upworthy</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… on a mission to change what the world pays attention to.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It curates news you should read rather than just “<a href="http://www.apple.com/news/">the news you want</a>” to read.</p>
<p>Another illustrative example is Rebecca Ross’s project <a href="http://www.londonischanging.org">London is Changing</a>. Large digital displays visualise local community voices and juxtapose diverse opinions about the impact of gentrification in London.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116845/original/image-20160330-28436-1wfxgxu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116845/original/image-20160330-28436-1wfxgxu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116845/original/image-20160330-28436-1wfxgxu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116845/original/image-20160330-28436-1wfxgxu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116845/original/image-20160330-28436-1wfxgxu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116845/original/image-20160330-28436-1wfxgxu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116845/original/image-20160330-28436-1wfxgxu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116845/original/image-20160330-28436-1wfxgxu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A digital billboard displays local community voices and diverse opinions about gentrification in London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.londonischanging.org/">London is Changing</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To uphold a <a href="http://eprints.qut.edu.au/78107/">citizen’s right to the digital city</a> and strengthen the role of <a href="https://theconversation.com/cities-in-the-future-of-democracy-16688">cities in a deliberative democracy</a>, cities should empower <a href="http://eprints.qut.edu.au/85019/">citizens to be smart</a>. Smart cities should allow us to get lost and find new places, to meet strangers who may become new friends, and to engage in discussions with diverse others so we may form new opinions.</p>
<p>Alexandros Washburn <a href="http://commonedge.org/when-all-is-optimized/">observes</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In talking about the anticipational smart wonders of ‘our city’, we really mean ‘my city’. We confuse the collective with the personal.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If the collective that is <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2856428.2856430">civic intelligence</a> is what makes cities smart, we need more serendipity engines. Smart cities should be <a href="http://oascities.org">open and agile</a> and employ what Bob Dick calls “<a href="http://www.aral.com.au/resources/dialectic.html">dialectical processes</a>” and what Anna Cox calls “<a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/uclic/research/CHI2016/Cox.CHI.2016.pdf">design friction</a>”.</p>
<p>That way we may change algorithmic filters for the sagacious discovery of diversity in the city. Diversity fuels innovation, and innovation is what we need <a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-needs-an-innovation-skunkworks-51326">to be sustainable</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56492/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marcus Foth receives research funding from the Australian Research Council's Linkage Projects funding scheme, and the Australian Government's Low Income Energy Efficiency Program. He is a member of the Queensland Greens and was their 2015 Queensland State Election candidate for Mount Isa.</span></em></p>If smart cities run on big data and algorithms that channel only ‘relevant’ information and opinions to us, how do we maintain the diversity of ideas and possibilities that drives truly smart cities?Marcus Foth, Professor of Urban Informatics, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/481502015-10-07T01:14:51Z2015-10-07T01:14:51ZExplainer: what is fanfiction?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96123/original/image-20150924-17092-19s69hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fanfiction: all it takes is to imagine a story beyond the canonical work.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kristina Alexanderson/flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Consider yourself a stranger to <a href="http://fanlore.org/wiki/Fanfiction">fanfiction</a>? It’s unlikely.</p>
<p>If you’ve read E.L. James’ <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10818853-fifty-shades-of-grey">50 Shades of Grey</a> (2011) then you already have at least one title under your belt. If you caught Robert Downey Jr’s turn as <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0988045/">Sherlock Holmes</a> (2009), that’s another.</p>
<p>So what is it? At its most basic, fanfiction is a genre of amateur fiction writing that takes as its basis a “canon” of “original” material.</p>
<p>This original material is most often popular books, television shows and movies – but can expand to almost anything, from the lives of celebrities to the travels of inanimate objects like the Mars rover.</p>
<p><a href="http://fanlore.org/wiki/Fanwork">Fanworks</a>, including fanfiction and fanart, are created by fans who are invested in the source material. They seek to expand the narrative universe and share their personal creations with other fans for free.</p>
<h2>Fanfiction in other guises</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96727/original/image-20150930-19539-qad8ig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96727/original/image-20150930-19539-qad8ig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96727/original/image-20150930-19539-qad8ig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1224&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96727/original/image-20150930-19539-qad8ig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1224&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96727/original/image-20150930-19539-qad8ig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1224&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96727/original/image-20150930-19539-qad8ig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1538&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96727/original/image-20150930-19539-qad8ig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96727/original/image-20150930-19539-qad8ig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1538&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alice in Wonderland fanart.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/randar/10830360545/in/album-72157637616324065/">Mary Blair/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The main impulse behind fanfiction has always been a playful desire to engage with original works. Yet authors are still subject to modern copyright laws. In Australia, the US and the EU, copyright exists for the lifetime of the author plus seventy years.</p>
<p>Many early Disney film adaptations were derivative works based on out-of-copyright novels – think <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043274/">Alice in Wonderland</a> (1951) and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061852/">The Jungle Book</a> (1967). In a way this could be considered a form of fanfiction.</p>
<p>Today, existing restrictions mean those interested in “remixing” copyrighted material create online communities to discuss and distribute their work freely. One of the aims of the fan-led <a href="http://transformativeworks.org/">Organisation of Transformative Works</a> is to fight for the validity of <a href="http://transformativeworks.org/projects/legal">fair use laws</a>.</p>
<p>Still, the amateur status copyright law forces on fanworks is one of the reasons fanfiction as a whole is regarded with some derision.</p>
<p>This is one reason why the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-literary-pilgrimage-from-bronteites-to-twihards-43465">Twilight</a> fanfiction origins of <a href="https://theconversation.com/fifty-shades-of-grey-is-just-an-old-fashioned-romance-thats-the-problem-37440">50 Shades of Grey</a> were obscured. Due to residual textual and thematic similarities, the question of <a href="http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/02/14/50-shades-copyright-infringement/">copyright infringement</a> remains open.</p>
<p>Still, canonical works have remained a source of creative inspiration.</p>
<p>Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/188572.The_Complete_Sherlock_Holmes">Sherlock Holmes</a> (1887-1927) series has spawned a veritable industry of derivative works, both sanctioned and <a href="https://theconversation.com/free-sherlock-holmes-the-copyright-battle-of-baker-street-18544">unsanctioned</a>. Many successful novelists, including Colleen McCullough with <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3919195-the-independence-of-miss-mary-bennet">The Independence of Miss Mary Bennett</a> (2009), publish literary <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/jane-austen-fanfiction">reimaginings of Jane Austen’s novels</a>.</p>
<p>The “fanfiction” classification usually results from the context of creation and circulation rather than anything inherent to the subject matter or quality of writing.</p>
<h2>It’s fiction, Jim, but not as we know it…</h2>
<p>Popular culture academics in the US and the UK trace the beginnings of an identifiable fan culture and community from the 1970s. These tendencies were first identified by <a href="http://henryjenkins.org/">Henry Jenkins</a> in <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/219853.Textual_Poachers">Textual Poachers</a> (1992).</p>
<p>There is early evidence of fans coming together around science fiction television shows like <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057765/?ref_=nv_sr_2">The Man From U.N.C.LE.</a> (1964-1968) and the original <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060028/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2">Star Trek</a> (1966-1969).</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96162/original/image-20150925-17079-6po5ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96162/original/image-20150925-17079-6po5ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96162/original/image-20150925-17079-6po5ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96162/original/image-20150925-17079-6po5ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96162/original/image-20150925-17079-6po5ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96162/original/image-20150925-17079-6po5ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96162/original/image-20150925-17079-6po5ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96162/original/image-20150925-17079-6po5ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Game of Thrones fanart.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mimikaweb/12853096845/in/photolist-bxMryU-bqTTFk-wEeej6-pPfZG3-cARMRA-caNZGo-kzPzRY-kzMtU2-kzMPAV-9Vir2x-iYaAZT-fk6UMe">MiMiKa Z/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Comparable communities formed around anime and manga in Japan during the 1980s. The influential all-female manga artist group <a href="http://myanimelist.net/people/1877/CLAMP">Clamp</a> first came to prominence through <a href="http://www.mangahere.co/doujinshi/">Doujinshi</a> (amateur, self-published works) based on <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0294023/">Captain Tsubasa</a> (1983-1986) and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0161952/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Saint Seiya</a> (1986-1989).</p>
<p>Today, thanks to the internet, connecting to other fans has never been easier. This level of accessibility has lead to a remarkable proliferation of what was once considered an obscure subculture.</p>
<p>In the digital realm, just one popular archival site – <a href="http://www.wattpad.com">www.wattpad.com</a> – currently hosts a staggering 40 million users a month.</p>
<p>It would be difficult to find a pop culture phenomenon today – from the <a href="http://marvelcinematicuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/Marvel_Cinematic_Universe_Wiki">Marvel Cinematic Universe</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0944947/">Game of Thrones</a> (2011-present) to K-dramas (Korean dramas) like <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2449910/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2">Coffee Prince</a> (2012-present) and <a href="http://www.bollywoodnewsworld.com/whatisbollywood/">Bollywood</a> movies – that does not have fanfiction written about it.</p>
<h2>Why do people write and read it?</h2>
<p>Fanfiction enables readers, writers, and sometimes even <a href="https://theconversation.com/meet-the-english-professor-who-taught-fanfic-at-an-ivy-league-university-42664">literary professors</a> to play in an imaginative sandbox, interpreting and reinterpreting events, relationships and characters to flesh out different scenarios.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96131/original/image-20150925-17096-zqiiuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96131/original/image-20150925-17096-zqiiuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96131/original/image-20150925-17096-zqiiuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96131/original/image-20150925-17096-zqiiuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96131/original/image-20150925-17096-zqiiuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96131/original/image-20150925-17096-zqiiuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96131/original/image-20150925-17096-zqiiuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96131/original/image-20150925-17096-zqiiuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Game of Thrones fanart.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mimikaweb/12853507134/in/photolist-bxMryU-bqTTFk-wEeej6-pPfZG3-cARMRA-caNZGo-kzPzRY-kzMtU2-kzMPAV-9Vir2x-iYaAZT-fk6UMe">MiMiKa Z/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The power of fanfiction stems from the fact that it actively invites writers to break down boundaries considered “natural” in a broader cultural context – primarily around sex, sexuality, and gender.</p>
<p>Fanfiction communities often critically engage with stories not written specifically for them. With doubts swirling over whether Marvel will <a href="http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/the-avengers-why-marvels-refusal-to-make-a-black-widow-movie-is-a-case-of-depressing-hollywood-sexis">ever make a Black Widow movie</a>, is it any wonder female fans feel the need to create their own stories?</p>
<p>These reinterpretations interact with canonical events – actual events from the original text – in different ways, “filling in” unexplored aspects of a scene, or “fixing” things that were dissatisfying or problematic.</p>
<p>Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse’s study, <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/186225.Fan_Fiction_and_Fan_Communities_in_the_Age_of_the_Internet">Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet</a> (2006), found that fanfiction is primarily written by women, of all ages and sexual identities, and tends to explore – or “<a href="http://the-toast.net/2015/09/30/a-linguist-explains-the-grammar-of-shipping/">ship</a>” – intimate and romantic relationships between characters.</p>
<p>Fans themselves have attempted to quantify the <a href="http://melannen.dreamwidth.org/77558.html">demographic diversity</a> of readers and writers, with over 10,000 participants taking part in one particular <a href="http://centrumlumina.tumblr.com/post/63208278796/ao3-census-masterpost">survey</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96133/original/image-20150925-17087-1s6sv8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96133/original/image-20150925-17087-1s6sv8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96133/original/image-20150925-17087-1s6sv8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96133/original/image-20150925-17087-1s6sv8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96133/original/image-20150925-17087-1s6sv8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96133/original/image-20150925-17087-1s6sv8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96133/original/image-20150925-17087-1s6sv8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96133/original/image-20150925-17087-1s6sv8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Game of Thrones fanart.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mimikaweb/12853163133/in/photolist-bxMryU-bqTTFk-wEeej6-pPfZG3-cARMRA-caNZGo-kzPzRY-kzMtU2-kzMPAV-9Vir2x-iYaAZT-fk6UMe">MiMiKa Z/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Situated within such a demographic, fanfiction becomes a unique space within which a much more fluid approach to ideas of what is “possible” or “realistic” is encouraged. </p>
<p>As a result, fanfiction faces the same criticism as many genres where <a href="https://theconversation.com/sorry-kids-men-are-better-writers-than-women-34348">women</a> predominate, from <a href="https://theconversation.com/bodice-rippers-and-bad-education-do-romance-novels-lead-to-sexual-mistakes-2283">romance novels</a> to <a href="https://theconversation.com/telling-the-real-story-diversity-in-young-adult-literature-46268">young adult literature</a>. Sarah Rees Brennan, a fanfiction writer who went “pro”, <a href="http://sarahreesbrennan.tumblr.com/post/77926940735/ok-dont-get-me-wrong-because-its-just">writes about her experiences</a> in this context. </p>
<p>Those fans not engaged in fanfiction sometimes <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/news/sherlock-fanfic-caitlin-moran/">mock</a> fanfiction writers for being “delusional”, questioning the “realism” of the relationships featured in fanworks. Additionally, since a lot of fanfiction is explicitly erotic, it becomes the target of <a href="http://flavorwire.com/380348/the-most-hilariously-disturbing-band-fanfiction-youll-ever-read">parody</a>. </p>
<p>The sheer volume and variable quality of fanfiction makes it an even easier target. Instead, I’d argue that the uneven quality of fanfiction reflects the low barrier of entry to the community rather than an inherent lack of value in the genre.</p>
<h2>What are examples of the pitfalls?</h2>
<p>This is not to say that the potential for subversion is always expressed unproblematically.</p>
<p>While transgressive in some ways, fanfiction writers and readers remain enmeshed within social power hierarchies. These communities <a href="http://www.themarysue.com/diversity-in-fanfic/">do engage in self-critique</a>, but issues of sexism and racism still persist. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96125/original/image-20150924-17083-7theoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96125/original/image-20150924-17083-7theoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96125/original/image-20150924-17083-7theoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96125/original/image-20150924-17083-7theoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96125/original/image-20150924-17083-7theoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96125/original/image-20150924-17083-7theoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96125/original/image-20150924-17083-7theoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Coffee Prince fanart.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/48652201@N06/5589672419/in/photolist-9vWwSp-wUZ1uX-4kn3Up-fPzHRX-hobpyC-i73nMh-bH9D8F-dNZ1Uw-ieMyLc-epzSs9-wCmZGh-ibDReg-ieMBz9-uYDJZ7-goYCy-N5BL-f1XMYQ-dGgFPq-hoaM6t-55bWJD-drY8L1-eX6n7w-dyauYM-kdiq5a-nBAtzJ-ew9of7-ffdsF3-f8rVfY-6xauhX-gcvkvn-bjJzF1-feAgow-6PxGnk-2nEkS-dmqVJq-dCzYoB-51mtG8-ddMNZm-vVELg4-vDb8sv-wCkQMo-vRtY6m-mXtoQQ-erndpA-ejqMzf-fPFPre-abhs3C-ejk5Gx-ejqLUY-nBAcY1">Liz Mogollon/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Most English language fanfiction, whether it involves straight or queer relationships, remains concerned with white characters.</p>
<p>This is partly a reflection of the racial biases that still plague the production of the (mostly US) popular films and television shows that form the basis of these communities.</p>
<p>However, it is a worrying trend that even when non-white characters have significant roles in a canonical work, fanfiction very often fails to register this – or worse, undercuts it.</p>
<p>In Marvel Cinematic Universe fanfiction, characters of colour receive significantly less attention than their white counterparts. Clearly, interracial pairings (red) receive far less attention.</p>
<iframe src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/p0pOa/2/" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" oallowfullscreen="oallowfullscreen" msallowfullscreen="msallowfullscreen" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>It is not surprising that <a href="http://marvelcinematicuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/Captain_America">Steve Rogers (Captain America)</a> and <a href="http://marvelcinematicuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/Winter_Soldier">Bucky Barnes’ (Winter Soldier)</a> close canon relationship has prompted a great deal of fanfiction, but the difference concerning the number of stories about <a href="http://marvelcinematicuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/Falcon">Sam Wilson’s (Falcon)</a> pivotal relationship with Rogers is startling. The fact that there is more fanfiction for Rogers and <a href="http://marvelcinematicuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/Darcy_Lewis">Darcy Lewis</a>, characters who have never met in canon, is further proof of this imbalance.</p>
<p>Although <a href="http://marvelcinematicuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/Hawkeye">Clint Barton (Hawkeye)</a> and <a href="http://marvelcinematicuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/Phil_Coulson">Phillip Coulson</a> barely interact in the films, they have prompted a very significant output of fanworks. <a href="http://marvelcinematicuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/Iron_Man">Tony Stark’s (Iron Man)</a> close friend <a href="http://marvelcinematicuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/War_Machine">James Rhodes (War Machine)</a> is paired with him rarely whereas there are many stories featuring Stark alongside Rogers, <a href="http://marvelcinematicuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/Pepper_Potts">Pepper Potts</a> and <a href="http://marvelcinematicuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/Hulk">Bruce Banner (The Hulk)</a>.</p>
<p>Similarly, while fanfiction based around non-US media like Bollywood films, anime or K-pop doesn’t have the same problems regarding race and ethnicity, it still must negotiate its own cultural prejudices.</p>
<h2>Disrupting the canon</h2>
<p>As Alexis Lothian, Kristina Busse and Robin Anne Reid <a href="http://queergeektheory.org/docs/Lothian_QFS.pdf">conclude</a>, fanfiction provides a fluid space for (mainly) queer women writers and readers to engage with the various pop cultural narratives that influence their lives.</p>
<p>These negotiations, while messy and problematic, retain the potential to (re)fashion the “canon” to be inclusive of a broader range of human experiences.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96183/original/image-20150925-16039-1je7u1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96183/original/image-20150925-16039-1je7u1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96183/original/image-20150925-16039-1je7u1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96183/original/image-20150925-16039-1je7u1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96183/original/image-20150925-16039-1je7u1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96183/original/image-20150925-16039-1je7u1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96183/original/image-20150925-16039-1je7u1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96183/original/image-20150925-16039-1je7u1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hunger Games fanart.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jade_lilly/8267232152/in/photolist-dAxJ6o-84cjzq-6K69Bk-4HXWuW-9yQaka-wEeej6-7YsygX-88qXsb-9D8Rfu-kzPzBu-aaLEbG-63eamZ-6DDz52-5LTVh1-8NCedK-j7hftv-dCL1Wi-5WF7rn-bQknrB-db39s4-nw1ssy-zKDkk-nfX3r7-kzMFKr-ddTcpM-kzMywr-aDAEgd-aDAEfy-kzMdv6-8yBGKw-fteLMX-CtXxR-4vnGgp-eaZ5V3-eAFTh1-dKDLrV-79bw31-eaTvNX-eaZ7wS-eaZ5MC-dwZXq9-6oX5ro-6oSVXH-6oX4Xm-5Vaurd-eaTuec-7YVQSR-nhHmwM-659DCc-7YZ1tU">Jade Lilly/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48150/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rukmini Pande does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Fanfiction is nebulous, confusing and often mocked. It’s also explosively popular. So what is it?Rukmini Pande, PhD researcher in the fields of Popular Culture and Postcolonialism, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/475072015-09-14T15:15:40Z2015-09-14T15:15:40ZAs Champion’s League kicks off, earthquake in sports rights could be next<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/94653/original/image-20150914-4698-7y4kyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">All because we like kicking balls between two sticks</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&searchterm=football&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=178481624">Krivosheev Vitaly</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Where there’s passion, there’s profit” was a phrase coined by Alex Fynn, the original architect of what would become the UEFA Champions League competition back in 1992. How right he was. </p>
<p>As Europe’s 32 leading clubs begin the group stages of an annual journey that will end with the champions being crowned at the San Siro in Milan next May, no one could have predicted the <a href="https://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-how-much-is-the-champions-league-worth-42376">spectacular success</a> and financial growth of the competition all those years ago. </p>
<p>Media rights are at the core of this financial success, of course. UEFA, the governing body of European football, has told me that rights make up around 80% of all the revenue that the organisation secures. From an era in the early 1990s where rights meant purely television – ITV had the exclusive UK contract in those days – we’re now in a digital era where rights management for sports event has become much more complex. </p>
<p>In an era of streaming and ubiquitous access to digital content, policing the intellectual property from live coverage has become integral to rights holders’ business models. They’re up against increasingly tech savvy fans who are only interested in seeing live sport, wherever and whenever they can – not to mention media organisations seeking new ways to satisfy them. Consequently both in football and elsewhere, some of the most interesting battles are no longer taking place on the field. </p>
<p>Recent 2015 flashpoints include the Rugby World Cup, where <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/international/australian-media-groups-opt-out-of-covering-rugby-world-cup-1.2258837">there will be</a> no accredited journalists from News Corp Australia, Fairfax Media or Australian Associated Press. They couldn’t agree with the organisers on the amount of video content they would be allowed to carry on their websites, claiming that the restrictions meant they would be unable to offer their own audience the level of 24/7 mobile multi-platform coverage that they would expect.</p>
<p>Over in PGA golf, American golf journalist Stephanie Wei’s media accreditation <a href="http://www.golf.com/tour-and-news/pga-tour-revokes-stephanie-weis-credentials">was withdrawn</a> for the rest of the season back in May because she used her Twitter feed to <a href="https://www.periscope.tv">Periscope</a> golfer Jordan Spieth during a practice round (for the uninitiated, Periscope is a live DIY video broadcast platform). The PGA said it owned all video rights for the entire week of the event, not simply the actual tournament. </p>
<h2>Territorial pinchings</h2>
<p>Technology has also famously caused headaches for sports organisations who have packaged rights by territory. The modern classic was the case of Karen Murphy, the pub owner from Portsmouth in England who challenged the FA Premier League and its exclusive territorial rights arrangement with Sky Sports in 2005. Fed up with what she saw as Sky’s high prices, she had purchased a subscription with Greek broadcaster Nova, who had the Greek rights to screen English games. Having imported a Greek decoder and card, she broadcast Nova’s coverage in her pub. The Premier League duly took her to court. </p>
<p>The case ended up before the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in 2011, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2045029/Pub-landlady-Karen-Murphy-wins-EU-fight-screen-Premier-League-football.html">which accepted</a> Murphy’s argument that she was entitled under EU competition law to purchase a subscription from another member state. The case was then referred back to the UK High Court, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/feb/24/pub-landlady-karen-murphy-premier-league">which upheld</a> the European ruling but also noted that Murphy’s broadcast infringed the copyright restrictions that applied to elements such as graphics, logos and music, all of which belonged to the Premier League. </p>
<p>This has meant that the impact of the ECJ decision has not been as great as some feared (and others hoped). Contracts were rewritten, forcing foreign rights holders to only broadcast in their own language and heavily restricting the number of games that they could show at 3pm UK time, the time when pub customers would expect to catch a game. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-25849670">Numerous pubs</a> broadcasting foreign Premier League streams <a href="http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2014/11/24/pubs-in-breach-of-premier-league-copyright/">have also been</a> prosecuted for breaching copyright for the reasons outlined in the Murphy case. </p>
<p>Of more recent interest has been <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/news/digital-single-market-strategy-europe-com2015-192-final">EU proposals published</a> in May that intend to outlaw the geo-blocking of content across the EU by the end of 2016. This will potentially prevent the likes of UEFA from selling rights country by country, which would be a huge change to the status quo. If for example YouTube acquired the exclusive rights for a sports event, it would need to make them available to users across Europe. </p>
<p>As you can imagine, this has prompted discussions between various sports rights holders and the European Commission. Watch this space for announcements in the coming months, which may yet see the proposals watered down. Instead of only selling pan-European rights, one lesser option that I understand has been on the table is “portability”. This would mean that if I had a British pay-TV football subscription, Sky or BT would have to enable me to watch online while travelling in other countries. Under such a scenario, rights might still be sold country by country after all. </p>
<p>While there are surely pros and cons to this kind of more modest change, it is worth bearing in mind one legacy of past EU interventions into the sports rights market, such as <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/73c030bc-57d8-11da-8866-00000e25118c.html">breaking up</a> Sky’s monopoly of English Premier League games in the UK in 2005. The EU had started out with the intention of increasing competition, but this ironically pushed up the cost of viewing for fans. And the ECJ’s Murphy decision led to the 3pm games restriction, which lessened the range of games available to viewers in Europe. Whatever the downside of the status quo, it has its consolations too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/47507/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Raymond received funding from RCUK for the CREATe Centre's Copyright, Football and European Media Rights project</span></em></p>Today’s digital morass has made sports rights infinitely more complicated than when Europe’s premier football event kicked off in 1993.Raymond Boyle, Professor of Communications, University of GlasgowLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.