Benthamites at a crossroads

What's a web crawler doing in India's elections?

Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka has a radical use case. The officials fed the tool a long list of keywords: Like #DhruvRathee , #bhakth , #Modi #dictatorship

The job? Scan the internet every second. Flag any online conversation around these words🧵

UPDATE: An organizer announced that some of those arrested have been charged with a CLASS A misdemeanor, the highest category in CT that can come with up to a year in jail.

Students are stomping their feet and continue to arrive.

Meanwhile at least 25 cops are on the scene.

News alert! We’re delighted to announce the appointment of Janaki Srinivasan as Associate Professor in Digital South Asian Studies. This is a joint post with Oxford School of Global & Area Studies. She will also join the governing body of St Antony's College, University of Oxford. Find out more: oii.ox.ac.uk/news-events/as…

Left, Jack Balkin in 2003 predicting in the The New York Times what would happen to the GOP if Roe were overturned.

Right, today's The New York Times.

Enjoyed moderating this panel!Grateful to all the speakers and the audience for an excellent discussion.

Day 1 was fantastic! (resisting an
earthquake joke)
Excited to moderate tomorrow’s session on content moderation in SLB 127. I’ll be in conversation with Yohannes Ayalew, Endalkachew Chala, Sarah Fisher and Jeffrey Howard. Details below⬇️

Today I’m at the “Propaganda and Emerging Technologies” conference at ⁦The Information Society Project⁩.

One hour in and already there’s a cameo from ⁦Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK⁩’s concept of enshittification.

Unable to access the Election Commission of India website outside India. .gov domains are usually not accessible outside and there are VPNs and workarounds but this one needs to be opened up specially right now? Election Commission of India

Yessss

I occasionally write review essays that engage with the worldviews of thinkers who have made important contributions to the study of political economy. This compendium collects eight such essays from the last two years: ceipimg.s3.amazonaws.com/email/New+Delh…

Honored to be featured in this list on remarkable women in AI by TechCrunch techcrunch.com/2024/04/01/wom… I talk about why I do what I do and how we must rebalance power in the tech ecosystem. Digital Futures Lab

🚨New: In first week of model code, a web of advertisers on Facebook and Instagram paid more than Rs 85 lakh and placed pro-BJP ads, ridiculing the Opposition. Of the 20 top political advertisers only the BJP was boosted by surrogates. 1/n The Indian Express indianexpress.com/elections/in-f…

Excited to participate on this panel Yale Law School tomorrow with outstanding AI Law scholars.

Amazing to see more folks signing on to the Mozilla letter, including the Center for Democracy & Technology, Access Now, Rappler and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa (!). einnews.com/pr_news/698110…

In AI Now Institute's collection of essays on global industrial AI policy, Jyoti and I argue that, despite a lot of hype, India's ad-hoc and reactive national AI policy fails to address key sites of power

ainowinstitute.org/publication/an…

Some highlights... 🧵 1/

🚨New: Election Commission asks IT Ministry to stop sending PM’s letter on WhatsApp in view of the moral code of conduct. Asks ministry to immediately send a compliance report.

The Supreme Court has recently delivered a landmark judgment on free speech. It held that Javed Ahmed Hajam, a professor in Kolhapur, could not be prosecuted for criticizing the abrogation of article 370 or for wishing happy Independence Day to Pakistanis. Unlike many other SC…