Building on its work on privacy, civil rights, and social justice, the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute will host a research convening focused on data and discrimination.
The event – a preconference of the International Communication Association’s annual meeting – will take place in less than two months. It comes at a time when policymakers, civil society advocates, technologists, and researchers in the United States and beyond have begun thinking about justice, fairness, and equity in the context of big data.
This preconference will revolve around three themes: Discovering and Responding to Harms; Participation, Presence, and Politics; and, Fairness, Equity, and Impact. At the conclusion of the event, OTI will produce a short report. A tentative schedule* is as follows:
Program
9:00-9:10 Introduction
9:10-10:50 Discovering and Responding to Harms Big Data and Unattainable Scholarship, Asta Zelenkauskaite, Department of Culture and Communication, Drexel University; Erik P. Bucy, College of Media & Communication, Texas Tech University Behavioral Tracking on Health Websites, Tim Libert, Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania Discrimination by Design? Data-Based Pricing in Online Ad-Buying Systems, Darren Stevenson, Department of Communication, University of Michigan Citizen Perspectives on the Customization/Privacy Paradox Related to Smart Grid Implementation, Jenifer Sunrise Winter, School of Communications, University of Hawaii, Manoa * Auditing Algorithms: A Research Method for Detecting Discrimination on Internet Platforms, Christian Sandvig, Department of Communication Studies, University of Michigan; Kevin Hamilton, Center for People and Infrastructures, Coordinated Science Laboratory, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Karrie Karahalios, Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Cedric Langbort, Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
11:05-12:35 Participation, Presence, Politics Aisle Wars: Digital Retailing, Discrimination, and the Social Imaginary, Lee McGuigan, Annenberg School for Communication University of Pennsylvania; Joseph Turow, Annenberg School for Communication University of Pennsylvania Biometric Technologies and Surveillance: Social Sorting, Discrimination and Citizenship, Avi Marciano, Department of Communication, University of Haifa, Israel Bot Technology, Algorithmic Culture, and Political Contention, Samuel Woolley, Department of Communication, University of Washington The Construction of Open Government Data: Decisions Points and Discriminatory Potential, Timothy Davies, Web Science and Social Policy, University of Southampton
12:35-1:50 Lunch
1:50-2:00 Recap
2:00-3:30 Fairness, Equity, Impact Privacy and Class: Privacy’s Distributive Value, Jennifer Urban, Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic, University of California-Berkeley School of Law Civil Rights and Surveillance, Virginia Eubanks, Department of Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies, State University of New York, Albany Networked Harm, Power, and Data Discrimination, Karen Levy, Department of Sociology, Princeton University; danah boyd, Microsoft Research How Data Mining Discriminates, Solon Barocas, Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University
3:30-4:00 Closing Discussion
*Please note that the program is subject to change.
