Big Tech funds the very people who are supposed to hold it accountable; The Washington Post, December 7, 2023

Joseph Menn

 and 

Naomi Nix

, The Washington Post; Big Tech funds the very people who are supposed to hold it accountable

"“Big Tech has played this game really successfully in the past decade,” said Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard Law School professor who previously founded Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society without raising money outside the university. “The number of academics who have been paid by Facebook alone is extraordinary.”

Most tech-focused academics say their work is not influenced by the companies, and the journals that publish their studies have ethics rules designed to ward off egregious interference. But in interviews, two dozen professors said that by controlling funding and access to data, tech companies wield “soft power,” slowing down research, sparking tension between academics and their institutions, and shifting the fields’ targets in small — but potentially transformative — ways...

Harvard’s Lessig, who spent years heading a center on ethics issues in society at the university, is developing a system for academics to verify that their research is truly independent. He hopes to present the initiative, the Academic Integrity Project, to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He is still looking for funding."

Jan. 6 shattered her family. Now they’re trying to forgive.; The Washington Post, January 9, 2023

Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, The Washington Post ; Jan. 6 shattered her family. Now they’re trying to forgive.

"After rioters stormed the Capitol, relatives and friends who disagreed with their actions faced a difficult choice: Should they turn their loved ones over to authorities? Could they continue to have relationships with people accused of trying to interfere with the peaceful transition of power?"

Who owns your cells? Legacy of Henrietta Lacks raises ethical questions about profits from medical research; Cleveland.com, August 18, 2023

Gretchen Cuda Kroen, cleveland.com; Who owns your cells? Legacy of Henrietta Lacks raises ethical questions about profits from medical research

"While the legal victory may have given the family some closure, it has raised concerns for bioethicists in Cleveland and elsewhere.

The case raises important questions about owning one’s own body; whether individuals are entitled to a share of the profits from medical discoveries derived from research on their own cells, organs and genetic material.

But it also offers a tremendous opportunity to not only acknowledge the ethical failures of the past and the seeds of mistrust they have sown, but to guide society toward building better, more trustworthy medical institutions, said Aaron Goldenberg, who directs the Bioethics Center for Community Health and Genomic Equity (CHANGE) at Case Western Reserve University."

Why is AMLO worried about an outsider? She’s funny, profane — and inspiring.; The Washington Post, August 20, 2023

 David Ignatius, The Washington Post; Why is AMLO worried about an outsider? She’s funny, profane — and inspiring.

"“Beware of what is happening in Mexico,” Gálvez warns me at the end of our conversation. “Our president is capable of anything. He has no limits.”

A chilling example of what frightens many Mexicans about López Obrador happened last Wednesday morning at the president’s office, a few miles from where I was talking to Gálvez.

At his regular morning news conference that day, reporters asked López Obrador about five young men from Jalisco who had disappeared a few days before. A horrific video had just surfaced that showed the five, friends since childhood, their bodies battered and bloody, with their mouths taped shut and their hands tied behind their backs. One victim was forced to bludgeon another with a brick and then decapitate him, before he was killed himself. Investigators later recovered their badly burned bodies. The governor of Jalisco said the murders were “clearly linked to organized crime.”

And what did the president say when reporters asked him to comment on this appalling crime? “Can’t hear,” said López Obrador, cupping his hand to his ear. He then told a crude joke about a poor Mexican man who pretended he couldn’t hear a question. And then he smiled and walked offstage."

Report on Anti-Gay Slur Could Put Local News Site Out of Business; The New York Times , August 15, 2023

Jeremy W. Peters  , The New York Times; Report on Anti-Gay Slur Could Put Local News Site Out of Business

"Some First Amendment advocates said the playbook was relatively easy to replicate: A public official unhappy with the coverage sues, creating crushing costs for an outlet."

AI ethics toolkit updated to include more assessment components; ZDNet, June 27, 2023

 Eileen Yu, ZDNet ; AI ethics toolkit updated to include more assessment components

"A software toolkit has been updated to help financial institutions cover more areas in evaluating their "responsible" use of artificial intelligence (AI). 

First launched in February last year, the assessment toolkit focuses on four key principles around fairness, ethics, accountability, and transparency -- collectively called FEAT. It offers a checklist and methodologies for businesses in the financial sector to define the objectives of their AI and data analytics use and identify potential bias.

The toolkit was developed by a consortium led by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) that compromises 31 industry players, including Bank of China, BNY Mellon, Google Cloud, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, Visa, OCBC Bank, Amazon Web Services, IBM, and Citibank."

Supreme Court Justices Don’t Like Being Criticized in Public, Which Is a Good Reason to Keep Doing It; The New York Times, May 23, 2023

Stephen I. Vladeck, The New York Times ; Supreme Court Justices Don’t Like Being Criticized in Public, Which Is a Good Reason to Keep Doing It

"We will all disagree as to whether public criticism of the court in specific contexts is fair. But what can’t be denied is that public pressure on the court has been, both historically and recently, a meaningful check on the institution’s excesses — and an essential means by which the public is able to hold unelected and otherwise unaccountable judges and justices to account.

In the case of the shadow docket, it has led the court to tamp down its aggressiveness and try to provide more explanations for its less justified interventions. In the hotly debated case of ethics reform going on now, all nine justices have already publicly committed to following at least broad ethical norms. The court can go further, and it can (and should) adopt formal internal mechanisms to enforce whatever rules the justices agree to bind themselves to — much in the way that internal inspectors general hold both the executive and legislative branches to account.

The point is not that any one set of reforms is a magic bullet. Rather, it is that a court whose legitimacy depends at least to some degree on public support is not, should not be and never has been immune to criticism and pressure from the same public."

Why Supreme Court ‘ethics’ legislation would do more harm than good; The Washington Post, April 28, 2023

Jason Willick, The Washington Post ; Why Supreme Court ‘ethics’ legislation would do more harm than good

"Lower courts have a formal process for fielding complaints of judicial misconduct, because lower-court judges can be censured or temporarily suspended from cases by panels of fellow judges. The Supreme Court is different — it does not, by definition, answer to other courts, so any code of conduct would be unenforceable within the judicial branch. Accountability at the highest levels of the executive and judicial branches must come from the political process: impeachment. By installing a permanent investigative bureaucracy to scrutinize the Supreme Court, the Senate legislation would warp constitutional lines of authority."

Exclusive: German authors, performers call for tougher ChatGPT rules amid copyright concerns; Reuters, April 19, 2023

 Foo Yun Chee, Reuters;  Exclusive: German authors, performers call for tougher ChatGPT rules amid copyright concerns

"Forty-two German associations and trade unions representing more than 140,000 authors and performers on Wednesday urged the European Union to beef up draft artificial intelligence rules as they singled out the threat to their copyright from ChatGPT...

"The unauthorised usage of protected training material, its non-transparent processing, and the foreseeable substitution of the sources by the output of generative AI raise fundamental questions of accountability, liability and remuneration, which need to be addressed before irreversible harm occurs," the letter seen by Reuters said."

Governor Shapiro announces ethics rules, training for employees; WABC27, January 20, 2023

George Stockburger, Sarah Willson, WABC27; Governor Shapiro announces ethics rules, training for employees

"Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro says approximately 3,500 Commonwealth employees will be required to sign an integrity pledge and participate in ethics training.

Shapiro also announced an executive order regarding the solicitation or acceptance of gifts for executive branch employees. The rule includes “a total prohibition on gifts, discounts, services or any other items or other benefits of any value received from a lobbyist or lobbying firm.”...

The moves were part of a three-part ethics package announced by the Governor’s office on Friday."

Our Values; Georgia Tech

Georgia Tech; Our Values

"Our Strategy Guided by Values, Reinforced Through Culture

Our values are foundational in everything we do. They are our lodestar. Values define who we are and who we aspire to be as a community. They help us make decisions. They refer to an inclusive “we” and apply to every member of the Georgia Tech community — student, faculty, staff, alumni, and affiliate. No matter the role, the values are meant to guide our priorities every day, to help us focus on our important, shared mission.

Students are our top priority. 

We are educators first and foremost, committed to developing leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition. We measure our success by the achievements of our students and the impact of our graduates in improving the lives of others.

We strive for excellence. 

We strive to be among the best at what we do and to set high expectations for each of us individually and for our community as a whole. The expectation of excellence, which is instrumental to our ability to have a meaningful impact in the world, extends to our teaching, our research and creative endeavors, our athletic programs, and our operations.   

We thrive on diversity. 

We see diversity of backgrounds and perspectives as essential to learning, discovery, and creation. We strive to remove barriers to access and success, and to build an inclusive community where people of all backgrounds have the opportunity to learn and contribute to our mission.  

We celebrate collaboration. 

We enable and celebrate collaboration across disciplines and perspectives, between units and departments, and with other organizations at home and around the world. We value the contributions of all members of our community, promote civil and respectful discourse, and help one another succeed.  

We champion innovation. 

We inspire, empower, and provide the resources and environment for innovative ideas and solutions to flourish. We welcome new concepts and approaches that lead to creative ideas and solutions.  

We safeguard freedom of inquiry and expression. 

We protect the freedom of all members of our community to ask questions, seek truth, and express their views. We cherish diversity of ideas as necessary for learning, discovery, scholarship, and creativity.  

We nurture the well-being of our community.

We strive to build a healthy and vibrant environment that helps our students and every member of our community grow holistically and develop the self-awareness, knowledge, and practices necessary to pursue healthy, purposeful, fulfilling lives.

We act ethically.

We hold one another to the highest standards of professional and ethical conduct. We are transparent and accountable, and strive to earn and maintain the public trust.

We are responsible stewards.

We are careful stewards of the resources we are entrusted with and strive to be an example of sustainability, efficiency, respect, and responsibility."

Names on a list: Fleeing Mariupol, one checkpoint at a time; Associated Press, March 21, 2022

MSTYSLAV CHERNOV, Associated Press; Names on a list: Fleeing Mariupol, one checkpoint at a time

"The absence of information in a blockade accomplishes two goals.

Chaos is the first. People don’t know what’s going on, and they panic. At first I couldn’t understand why Mariupol fell apart so quickly. Now I know it was because of the lack of communication. 

Impunity is the second goal. With no information coming out of a city, no pictures of demolished buildings and dying children, the Russian forces could do whatever they wanted. If not for us, there would be nothing.

That’s why we took such risks to be able to send the world what we saw, and that’s what made Russia angry enough to hunt us down. 

I have never, ever felt that breaking the silence was so important."

Holocaust Denial Materials and Other Fascist Content Removed from Library Ebook Platforms; Library Journal, March 7, 2022

 Matt Enis , Library Journal; Holocaust Denial Materials and Other Fascist Content Removed from Library Ebook Platforms

"In February, collection development librarians from U.S. public libraries pointed out on listservs and social media that several fascist ebooks—including ebooks that deny the Holocaust, a sympathetic biography of Hitler, and a new English translation of a title written by Nazi officer—were available for patrons to download on hoopla and were surfacing in searches alongside other nonfiction content. One of the titles was also available for libraries to license via OverDrive Marketplace. On February 22, the Library Freedom Project (LFP) and Library Futures (LF) released a joint statement demanding “full accountability for how these materials were selected for inclusion on the platforms and more transparency in the companies’ material selection processes going forward” along with a form letter template for concerned librarians to email the leaders of both companies...

Citing the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s collection of antisemitic content as an example, Potash argued that there are legitimate uses for this content, such as the study of propaganda or the history of the Holocaust. He emphasized that context-free antisemitic or Holocaust denial ebooks surfacing in a library’s popular history collection was highly unlikely to happen on OverDrive’s patron-facing platform.

“We are strong advocates of freedom of speech and First Amendment rights, and we also believe in trusting librarians,” Potash said. “So, every aspect of what gets added or discovered in a patron-facing site is because a librarian made that judgement call or selected the title.”...

Macrina contends that the current climate makes the removal of fascist propaganda even more important. “My view of free speech has an analysis of power in it,” she said. “Who is really at risk of being silenced? Who is really under threat for their speech? [Currently] it’s queer people, it’s Black people, it’s people of color in general…. Trans children right now have just become criminalized in Texas. So, the context of the book bannings that we’re seeing are part of a bigger issue that we are facing as a society that is challenging the very humanity of some of the most marginalized people…. Nazis went after those people. Nazis burned books.”"

A New Code for Ethical Collecting Calls on the Art Market to Do Better by Transparently Working with Dealers; ART News, March 1, 2022

Tessa Solomon , ART News; A New Code for Ethical Collecting Calls on the Art Market to Do Better by Transparently Working with Dealers

"In 2020, Pepe gathered a group of like-minded collectors from around the world—Pedro Barbosa, Iordanis Kerenidis, Andre Zivanari, Sandra Terdjman, Haro Cumbusyan, and Jessica and Evrim Oralkan—to form a think tank dedicated to tackling the problem. The collective, working with an advisory team of 15 curators and artists, spent over a year drafting a set of principles and standards using “the language of professionals,” or what other industries use as a means of heading off power imbalances, according to Pepe. The draft is a living document, continually open to edits and additions as deeper dimensions of the issue reveal themselves.

Last week, the collective released the text of their efforts at the ARCO Madrid art fair. Titled Code of Conduct for Contemporary Art Collectors, the 11-page manual provides a template for collectors of all levels for ethically acquiring, exhibiting, and donating art, which was also reviewed by the group’s advisory team.

The code includes how to interact with dealers responsibly and transparently, how to support institutions and serve on their governing boards, and how to build and maintain collections. Each bullet point is broken down into several subcategories—the section on dealing with dealers, for example, covers “holding dealers accountable to pay artist[s] promptly,” and “not requesting artworks below fair market price,” such as asking for a discount...

This isn’t the first of ethical guideline introduced for the art world, though it is the most comprehensive. Previous attempts include the Basel Art Trade Guidelines, published by the Basel Institute on Governance, and the American Alliance of Museums’s Code of Ethics for Museums, but enforcement of either is uneven and the scope of their concerns is significantly narrower...

The group plans to update the code yearly, adding new concerns as they arise and other recommendations crowdsourced from a survey on the website. Oralkan added, “It’s a good thing—living documents shouldn’t have an end.”"

Head of nation’s largest 4-year university system resigns under fire; Politico, February 17, 2022

CHRIS RAMIREZ, Politico; Head of nation’s largest 4-year university system resigns under fire

"Three weeks before Castro was named chancellor in September 2020, Castro and Lamas entered a settlement agreement that barred Lamas from working for CSU. In return, Lamas was guaranteed $260,000, full benefits and a letter of recommendation from Castro to any other college jobs Lamas applied for, USA Today reported.

Castro apologized in an open letter to students and faculty at Cal State, saying he regretted offering Lamas the letter of recommendation. He added that Lamas was removed from campus immediately after a formal Title IX claim was filed against Lamas in 2019.

A growing number of faculty and state lawmakers had been calling for an investigation, outraged at the report. 

Such behavior happens “all the time,” CFA North Associate Vice President Meghan O’Donnell said in an interview Thursday. “It’s important for us to recognize that this is systemic,” she said, “and part of the problem is the fact that we have very little transparency or public input into the hiring of these senior level administrators.”...

The CSU also announced it will begin an initiative to “bring CSU to the forefront of Title IX innovation, accountability and response.”"

Congress approves bill to end forced arbitration in sexual assault cases; NPR, February 10, 2022

Deirdre Walsh, NPR ; Congress approves bill to end forced arbitration in sexual assault cases

"The Senate approved legislation banning the practice of using clauses in employment contracts that force victims of sexual assault and harassment to pursue their cases in forced arbitration, which shields accused perpetrators.

Sen. Kirstin Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., introduced the bill five years ago and lawmakers negotiated with business leaders to get support for the bill. In a sign of the overwhelming support for the measure, it was approved by voice vote in the chamber.

The bill, called the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act, was passed with a large bipartisan vote by the House of Representatives on Monday and heads to President Biden's desk for his signature.

The bill gives individuals a choice between going to court or going to arbitration to resolve allegations in cases related to sexual harassment or assault. The measure is also retroactive — invalidating any existing forced arbitration clauses in ongoing cases that could make it difficult for any survivors to litigate cases against their employers.""

The Sandy Hook Father Who Refused to Let Alex Jones Win; The New York Times, February 10, 2022

Kara Swisher, The New York Times; The Sandy Hook Father Who Refused to Let Alex Jones Win

Conspiracy theories have loomed over the school shooting in which his son, Noah, died. Leonard Pozner reflects on how the truth can triumph online.

"I’m Kara Swisher, and you’re listening to “Sway.” Today I want to talk about how the information age has become the misinformation age. From Covid deniers to QAnon enthusiasts and big lie believers, it sometimes feels like we live in a post-truth world. In fact, it feels like we already live there all the time now.

My guest today is no stranger to that. Leonard Pozner is the father of Noah, who, in 2012, at only age six, was murdered at the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. Noah was one of 20 children and six educators who lost their lives in that massacre. And while much of America mourned the tragedy, some did not. Rumors abounded online, calling Sandy Hook a hoax. Amongst the chief conspiracists, conservative talk show host and founder of Infowars, Alex Jones."

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts gives an incomplete history lesson on judicial ethics; NBC News, January 4, 2022

Steven Lubet, Williams Memorial Professor at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, NBC News ; Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts gives an incomplete history lesson on judicial ethics

In his end of the year report, Roberts' argument for the court's independence from oversight omitted a key part of its history.

"His comments come amid increased calls for the Supreme Court to be subject to a code of ethics, like all other U.S. courts. As chief justice, though, Roberts has consistently defended the court’s refusal to adopt one, rejecting all suggestions of congressional or other oversight. His referring to Taft’s support for judicial independence seems to bolster that argument. But the story Roberts presented is oddly incomplete, omitting a crucial aspect of Taft’s legacy: Taft also believed that judges should be accountable for their conduct according to ethical standards developed outside the judiciary – a proposition that Roberts has politely but firmly rejected...

Another financial scandal, resulting in the resignation of Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas in 1969, spurred the ABA to re-examine the by-then-antiquated canons. The ABA promulgated the much-strengthened Code of Judicial Conduct in 1972. The Judicial Conference of the United States, with authority over the lower federal courts, officially adopted the code in 1973, as did every state judiciary in the following years. Though the code itself doesn’t include penalties, violations can lead to discipline in some circumstances.

That progress stopped at the Supreme Court steps. The Supreme Court has declined for over 50 years to adopt the Judicial Conference code, or any other, making it the only court in the U.S.without a formal set of ethics rules."

‘A For-Profit Company Is Trying to Privatize as Many Public Libraries as They Can’; FAIRNESS & ACCURACY IN REPORTING (FAIR), December 17, 2021

JANINE JACKSON, FAIRNESS & ACCURACY IN REPORTING (FAIR); ‘A For-Profit Company Is Trying to Privatize as Many Public Libraries as They Can’

CounterSpin interview with Caleb Nichols on defending public libraries

CN: And so it’s all about slashing pensions, slashing pay from salaries to hourly rates, kind of nickel-and-diming workers. And that does save money. But the other dimension to that is that these are library budgets and county budgets that are miniscule compared to the other things that money is being spent on. So it’s this sort of race to zero idea of, there’s already not really much money. So in the case of Riverside, and I go over this in the article, they kind of have this narrative, it’s their flagship case, it’s like, look at what the private sector can do for the public sector. Look at how much better we are at running this.

But really, if you look at the amount of money that Riverside was spending on their libraries, it just wasn’t enough money. It just wasn’t a good fraction of the budget. And also the savings that they claimed to have engineered come from places that are not necessarily linked to what this company has actually done. It’s all kind of a shell game, scam, illusion. It’s a grift.

And the same people that are running this company are the same usual suspects as have done other grifting, notably the Scantron Corporation, which has arguably changed the way that we do public education in the United States—for the worse, if you ask most people. The CEO of Library Systems & Services came from the Scantron Corporation. So these are people with experience in this type of, we are going to take our private interests into the public and capitalize off of taxpayer dollars without being accountable...

"CN: But the thing that people need to know, first and foremost, is that there is a private, for-profit company that is trying to privatize as many public libraries as they possibly can. And why is that? That right there for me is enough to go whoa, whoa, whoa, something’s really wrong.

And so on that same note, I don’t understand why American Library Association, for example, is not coming out much more forcefully against this happening, and is not being much more pivotal in forwarding this discussion. There are non-profit groups, like Every Library that has been working on individual cases where libraries are trying to be privatized by this company. But why isn’t the professional organization that governs all of librarianship, literally accredits the schools that give us our master’s degrees, why aren’t they protecting this most precious public good? So that’s a big question that I have. But also, like, where’s the rest of the media?

Why aren’t we talking about this? ‘Cause it’s happening. According to LS&S, they have 80 public library systems they are operating, making them the third-biggest public library operator in the country. I guess that’s probably behind New York Public Library, and maybe LA? I’m not really sure what exactly their metric is. But they’re bragging about that on their website. So I’m just like, no no no no no no; that can’t be how this is.

Because Americans love public libraries. And they love the public part of public libraries. It is one of these things that’s like, we all love the post office and we all love libraries. We can kind of agree on that. And as you mentioned before, the post office is another example of where this kind of attack is happening."

Far right is using Twitter’s new rule against anti-extremism researchers; The Washington Post, December 2, 2021

Drew Harwell, The Washington Post; Far right is using Twitter’s new rule against anti-extremism researchers

Researchers fear the new ban on posts sharing people’s private information will be ‘emboldening to the fascists’ eager to keep their identities concealed. ‘Things now unexpectedly work more in our favor,’ one Nazi sympathizer wrote.

"The company said that each report will be reviewed case-by-case and that flagged accounts can file an appeal or delete the offending posts to resolve their suspensions.

Snyder, the Philadelphia anti-fascist researcher, said she believed her reported tweet did not break the rules but deleted it anyway, worried that any appeal she filed would take too long or ultimately fail. She suspects the rule could have a “catastrophic” chilling effect on other researchers working to expose extremists."