Upcoming livestream, Responsible Tech pods, & More!

We're busy building our report, Improving Social Media: The People, Organizations, & Ideas for a Better Tech Future

Jan 27, 2021

Let’s discuss how we can tackle misinformation while also valuing free expression.

🤔We all agree that we need to improve social media, but the tougher question is How? Right now we have 95 collaborators busy tackling this question, along with gathering resources and interviews for the upcoming release of Improving Social Media: The People, Organizations, & Ideas for a Better Tech Future on Feb 17.

To continue exploring this question (this is definitely a project that will need multiple updates), we are bringing together two incredible experts who have been working to improve social media. We hope that you can join us on Thurs, Feb 25th at 1pm ET for a highly-interactive conversation with Dr. Jasmine McNealy (Associate Professor of Telecommunication at the University of Florida, Harvard Berkman Klein Center affiliate, media & law expert) and Dr. Claire Wardle (co-founder and director of First Draft, leading expert on user generated content, verification and misinformation). Check out this recent interview that Jasmine did with CNBC, along with this fascinating exploration of deep fakes with the New York Times by Claire.

This is part of our regular livestream series with TheBridge, and the conversation will be moderated by All Tech Is Human’s David Ryan Polgar and will also be recorded. In addition, a follow-up podcast & curated resources will be supplied by our partners The Radical AI Podcast.

Content moderation is a messy topic; it is also crucial to our social media experience that has real world consequences.

🎤We had a terrific conversation with guests Sarah T. Roberts, PhD (co-founder and Co-Director of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry, author of Behind the Screen: Content Moderation in the Shadows of Social Media) & Murtaza Shaikh, PhD (Senior Advisor on Hate Speech, Social Media and Minorities to UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues).

You can watch the video above, or listen to a podcast for this conversation from The Radical AI Podcast on Apple Podcasts & Spotify. Also, check out the curated resources and action items from this conversation and topic! In addition, we received far more questions then we could get to, but listed many of them HERE.

If you would like to catch up on some of our previous livestreams, you can do that HERE. Some recent guests have included Yael Eisenstat, Safiya Noble, Meredith Broussard, Dipayan Ghosh, Timnit Gebru, Mutale Nkonde, and Rumman Chowdhury.

Key takeaways & resources

We’re busy building our report, Improving Social Media: The People, Organizations, & Ideas for a Better Tech Future and would love your help.

👍Right now we have a diverse range of 95 collaborators piecing together our upcoming report, which is being released on Feb 17. If you would like to add your resources or suggestions, you can do there HERE. If you are interested in assisting with our shared document, weekly meetings, and Slack group, you can sign up HERE.

This report is coming along really nicely. Our aim, as it has been since our launch in 2018, is to bring together a diverse range of people across academia, industry, government, and civil society to collectively tackle large issues. We will be highlighting some of the terrific work being done in the space, with the purpose of promoting knowledge-sharing and collaboration in order to improve social media.

We’re aiming to get this report in the hands of policymakers, tech companies, and the Responsible Tech community at large. If you have specific ideas on helping with this, please write us at Hello / AllTechIsHuman.org

You asked and we listened. We will be developing “Responsible Tech Pods” through our Slack group.

🤗It has been amazing to see the diverse range of individuals—from students, to academics, to researchers, to attorneys, to artists and everything in between—that have been connecting and collaborating through our new Slack group, which now has over 450 members. If you would like to join us there to discuss the latest research, careers in Responsible Tech, events, our join our new reading group, you can sign up HERE.

One idea that has come up over and over is a desire to better connect with one another and also learn from each other. In the coming weeks, we will be launching “Responsible Tech Pods” that will allow for closer connection and collaboration around specific topics along with future “happy hour” type gatherings.

📚 Our Responsible Tech Book & Discussion Club, led by Felicia Chen and Grace Juster, has been growing steadily with interest and suggested books (through voting). Check out this RESPONSIBLE TECH BOOK LIST and reach out to Felicia and Grace on Slack to get involved!

There are a lot of events happening in Responsible Tech, but it is hard to keep track of.

We receive a lot of messages about events in the space, along with a lot of posts on our Slack about upcoming events. It can be difficult to keep track of (although it is quite positive to see so much activity). Rebekah Tweed, a collaborator with our recent All Tech Is Human projects, has developed an excellent events calendar that we have embedded HERE.

📣 Responsible Tech Voice of the Week: Elizabeth M. Renieris

Earlier this week, Elizabeth M. Renieris was appointed the founding director of the Notre Dame-IBM Tech Ethics Lab (announcement). Having assembled 100 collaborators for our report on The Business Case for AI Ethics: Moving From Theory to Action (final report arriving late March), we will be watching how Elizabeth’s leadership at the Notre Dame-IBM Tech Ethics Lab can help build a better tech future and expand collaborations in the space.

Elizabeth has been heavily involved in the Responsible Tech community, particularly in the area of digital identity, and has been a practitioner fellow at Stanford University’s Digital Civil Society Lab along with a technology and human rights fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. We had the opportunity to interview Elizabeth as part of our Responsible Tech Guide released in September.

💡 Responsible Tech Organization of the Week: Tech Policy Press

Tech Policy Press, formerly known as Protego Press, has been a welcome haven for thoughtful explorations at the intersection of technology, policy, power, and people. Justin Hendrix, who formerly ran the NYC Media Lab, is their CEO, co-founder, and Editor. Tech Policy Press is creating much-needed accessible research-backed pieces around disinformation, content moderation, Section 230, and more. This non-profit media startup is stirring up debate and discussion around technology & democracy, which is greatly needed right now.

Check out our list of other Responsible Tech organizations.

👩‍💻 Responsible Tech Job of the Week: Associate Director at the Trust & Safety Professional Association

As we have seen with our recent livestream on content moderation, along with the work we are doing on the upcoming Improving Social Media: The People, Organizations, & Ideas for a Better Tech Future, how platforms go about moderating content and building trust & safety greatly impacts how we as citizens communicate and even form our reality. The Trust & Safety Professional Association (TSPA) “supports the global community of professionals who develop and enforce principles and policies that define acceptable behavior and content online.” The Associate Director will be responsible for the strategy and implementation of program operations at the TSPA, and have “the opportunity to create and shape the organization that will enable trust and safety practitioners to navigate and overcome professional challenges, supporting them as they continue doing critically important work for the health of the Internet and society at large.”

Looking for more Responsible Tech jobs? Check out this job board.

If you believe in our mission to inform & inspire the next generation of responsible technologists, do let us know.

Let’s co-create a more thoughtful tech future,

-All Tech Is Human | Write us at Hello / AllTechIsHuman.org

Responsible Tech Guide | The Business Case for AI Ethics

Join our Improving Social Media project