Tuesday, November 28, 2023

Democracy By Design More than 200 mobsters convicted in historic Italian mafia trial France24

 Deep space astronauts may be prone to erectile dysfunction, study finds Guardian 


George Santos says he’ll treat expulsion as a ‘badge of honor’ as he claims his colleagues are drunkenly having sex with lobbyists ‘every night’Business Insider


Democracy By Design


Election Integrity Framework for Online Platforms. Published September 2023. “With over 50 countries set to hold elections amidst tectonic geopolitical and technological shifts, 2024 will present unprecedented challenges for democracy and the information gatekeepers who support it. Those challenges are compounded by increasing volatility of the content policy landscape, as partisan debates over where platforms should draw the lines grow more bitter, and repressive regimes engage in draconian censorship under the guise of countering disinformation.

 But there is a clear path forward to avoid these pitfalls, build consensus, and protect both freedom of expression and free and fair elections – a path to build Democracy By Design. 

Below, we outline a set of high-impact, content-agnostic election integrity recommendations for online platforms – readily actionable interventions rooted in their own product design and policy toolkits, and in many cases, empirically backed by their own research.

The Democracy By Design framework includes three major planks, under which there are specific recommendations and background to support them:

  • Bolstering Resilience, which focuses on ‘soft interventions’ that introduce targeted friction and context to mitigate harm;
  • Countering Election Manipulation, which outlines bulwarks against evolving threats posed by malign actors and automated systems; and
  • Paper Trails, which highlights key transparency measures needed to assess systemic threats, evaluate the efficacy of interventions, and foster trust. The result is a framework meant to avoid political landmines and broadly resonate across nations with distinct laws and cultures, and platforms with incongruous architecture and resources – a consensus roadmap to enhance systemic resilience against election threats.”


Columbia Law Prof Banned From Depositions After Allegations Of Verbal Abuse, Intimidating Presence


For CNN’s Anderson Cooper, being a journalist and stepping into others’ lives is a ‘privilege’

‘People who are suffering want you to know — the world to know — about what they are going through.’


Buzz words

Shock of the old: the amazing, infuriating history of the electric car. ‘By 1900, a third of all cars on the road in the US were electric’: see Electric Car Charging Stations in Chicago, 1916 / “On the internet, no one knows you’re a dog.” / ‘Secret 7” takes 7 tracks from 7 musicians and presses each one 100 times onto 7” vinyl’. On behalf of War Child / Historic England is after information about local ghost signs. They could probably start off by having a look at Sam Roberts’ excellent GhostSigns.co.uk / related, the Take Courage House / curse that eminently reasonable and pleasant Dutch Cycling Lifestyle (via b3ta) / David Shrigley’s 1984 / a very silly expensive house / Wainwright dunks on Heatherwick / Quake goes Brutalist / take a visit to the IKEA Museum.