The world has a question for the White House: When do murders matter?; The Washington Post, October 19, 2018

Emily Rauhala, and Anton Troianovski, The Washington Post; The world has a question for the White House: When do murders matter?

[Kip Currier: The price of freedom of speech and a free press can be incredibly high. This was indelibly illuminated these past few weeks via the brutal murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, whose last piece What the Arab world needs most is free expression was published this week in The Washington Post, as well as via subsequent ham-handed and obfuscatory cover-up tactics by the responsible "masterminds", perpetrators, accomplices, and apologists, both domestic and global.

It's equally important that we remember other fact-seekers who have suffered and continue to suffer injustice and death for seeking and reporting information: Panama Papers investigative reporter Daphne Caruana Galizia who was killed last year in a bomb blast while investigating corruption in Malta; Viktoria Marinova who was reporting on corruption and was raped and killed this month in Bulgaria; Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo who were shedding light on the plight of Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims and were recently sentenced to 7 years in prison for collecting and obtaining "confidential documents"; and myriad others.

Every day, and especially at times like these when the world is watching the aftermath of efforts to silence reporter and free expression advocate Jamal Khashoggi, while, unintentionally and paradoxically, elevating him to a worldwide audience, what our leaders say--and don't say--is of profound importance in communicating our most cherished values, and where our "lines in the sand" are on free speech, free and independent presses, truth, accountability, and the value of human life. 

Leaders must remember that we and all of the world are watching to see what is done and is not done in matters of human rights and the rule of law. We must continue to hold them responsible for their action and inaction. History and future generations will as well.]

   

"For nearly three weeks, the world has watched President Trump downplay the disappearance and apparent slaying of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and waited for the most powerful man in the world to act. They are waiting still.

Trump’s inconsistent and cautious remarks about the case have renewed questions about U.S. credibility and complicated the global response, emboldening adversaries such as Russia and China and discouraging robust action by traditional allies, according to analysts and former U.S. officials.

“This is a drastic break from American practice,” said Vali R. Nasr, dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “It signals a very different foreign policy that does not hold governments accountable for things that are outside normal legal or ethical parameters.”

“In effect,” he added, “The U.S. is setting a new standard for itself” — and in so doing, may be setting a new standard for the world."

What Happens When Universities Become ‘Party Strongholds’; The New York Times, October 18, 2018

Zhang Lun, The New York Times; What Happens When Universities Become ‘Party Strongholds’

 [Kip Currier: No matter what one's political leanings and ideology, any human being who values bedrock democratic ideals like free expression and academic freedom should be deeply concerned by the kinds of practices detailed in this New York Times article about China's Orwellian efforts to instill "party strongholds" in higher education classrooms.]

"As China’s economic woes threaten to undermine President Xi Jinping’s authority, the government has intensified its political control on campuses. In Mr. Xi’s words, universities should become “party strongholds.”...

When Western leaders confront China over its intellectual property rights violations during trade talks, it is important to pressure Chinese leaders to make academic freedom a mandatory condition for trade. A little outside pressure is the only hope for change."

Daniel Radcliffe and the Art of the Fact-Check; The New Yorker, October 15, 2018 Issue

Michael Schulman, The New Yorker; Daniel Radcliffe and the Art of the Fact-Check

 [Kip Currier: I saw Daniel Radcliffe on MSNBC's Morning Joe program today, talking about the debut of a new Broadway play, "The Lifespan of a Fact", in which he stars, along with Bobby Cannavale and Cherry Jones. The play's exploration of "truth" is timely and intriguing.

A bit later, I heard reporter Robert Costa on MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle discussing "disappeared" and presumably murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Koshaggi's final piece for The Washington Post, which was submitted before he was last seen and was published yesterday, with a note from his editor: "Jamal Khashoggi: What the Arab world needs most is free expression". Koshaggi's observations are prescient, poignant, and thought-provoking. Costa made the excellent point that truth goes hand-in-hand with the ability to have the freedom to seek and report truth.]

"Fact: the actor Daniel Radcliffe is currently starring in the Broadway show “The Lifespan of a Fact,” as a magazine fact checker with an aviation inspector’s zeal for accuracy. The play is drawn from a real-life skirmish: in 2005, Jim Fingal, an intern at The Believer, was tasked with fact-checking an essay by John D’Agata (played by Bobby Cannavale), about a teen suicide in Las Vegas. D’Agata had more of a watercolorist’s approach to the truth. When Fingal tried to correct his claim that Las Vegas had thirty-four licensed strip clubs—a source indicated that it was thirty-one—D’Agata said that he liked the “rhythm” of thirty-four. Their epistolary tussle was expanded into a book in 2012.

Not long ago, Radcliffe arrived at the offices of this magazine, wearing a maroon cap and a green jacket and clutching a latte. He had come to try his own hand at fact-checking, with the help of The New Yorker’s fact-checking department."

Jamal Khashoggi: What the Arab world needs most is free expression; The Washington Post, October 17, 2018

Jamal Khashoggi, The Washington Post;

Jamal Khashoggi: What the Arab world needs most is free expression

 

"A note from Karen Attiah, Global Opinions editor

I received this column from Jamal Khashoggi’s translator and assistant the day after Jamal was reported missing in Istanbul. The Post held off publishing it because we hoped Jamal would come back to us so that he and I could edit it together. Now I have to accept: That is not going to happen. This is the last piece of his I will edit for The Post. This column perfectly captures his commitment and passion for freedom in the Arab world. A freedom he apparently gave his life for. I will be forever grateful he chose The Post as his final journalistic home one year ago and gave us the chance to work together.

I was recently online looking at the 2018 “Freedom in the World” report published by Freedom House and came to a grave realization. There is only one country in the Arab world that has been classified as “free.” That nation is Tunisia. Jordan, Morocco and Kuwait come second, with a classification of “partly free.” The rest of the countries in the Arab world are classified as “not free.”

As a result, Arabs living in these countries are either uninformed or misinformed. They are unable to adequately address, much less publicly discuss, matters that affect the region and their day-to-day lives. A state-run narrative dominates the public psyche, and while many do not believe it, a large majority of the population falls victim to this false narrative. Sadly, this situation is unlikely to change."

Gartner picks digital ethics and privacy as a strategic trend for 2019; TechCrunch, October 16, 2018

Natasha Lomas, TechCrunch; Gartner picks digital ethics and privacy as a strategic trend for 2019

"Analyst Gartner, best known for crunching device marketshare data; charting technology hype cycles; and churning out predictive listicles of emergent capabilities at software’s cutting edge has now put businesses on watch that as well as dabbling in the usual crop of nascent technologies organizations need to be thinking about wider impacts next year — on both individuals and society. 

Call it a sign of the times but digital ethics and privacy has been named as one of Gartner’s top ten strategic technology trends for 2019."

The Most Important Skills for the 4th Industrial Revolution? Try Ethics and Philosophy.; EdSurge, October 6, 2018

Tony Wan, EdSurge; The Most Important Skills for the 4th Industrial Revolution? Try Ethics and Philosophy.

"[Patrick] Awuah [founder and president of Ashesi University College in Ghana], a MacArthur Fellowship recipient, continued: “If humans are designing machines to replace humans, versus helping them get work done, then that will change the structure of humanity to something that we have never seen. I’ve not read any history books where whole societies were not working. This is why it’s so important to have history and philosophy as part of the curriculum for somebody who's being educated as an engineer.”

In the United States, increased interest in technology and computer-science related career has correlated with a precipitous drop in the proportion of humanities majors at colleges. For Goodman, that’s one of his biggest worries for the future. “We’re entering a time when schools are eliminating programs in humanities, and philosophy departments are becoming an endangered species.”

“We need to be educating people so they are productive and employable,” Awuah later added. “But we also need to be educating people so that they’re creating a society that is livable and social, where human interaction is important.”"

Announcing a Competition for Ethics in Computer Science, with up to $3.5 Million in Prizes; Mozilla, October 10, 2018

Mozilla; Announcing a Competition for Ethics in Computer Science, with up to $3.5 Million in Prizes 

"With great code comes great responsibility.

Today, computer scientists wield tremendous power. The code they write can be used by billions of people, and influence everything from what news stories we read, to what personal data companies collect, to who gets parole, insurance or housing loans

Software can empower democracy, heighten opportunity, and connect people continents away. But when it isn’t coupled with responsibility, the results can be drastic. In recent years, we’ve watched biased algorithms and broken recommendation engines radicalize users, promote racism, and spread misinformation.

That’s why Omidyar Network, Mozilla, Schmidt Futures, and Craig Newmark Philanthropies are launching the Responsible Computer Science Challenge: an ambitious initiative to integrate ethics and accountability into undergraduate computer science curricula and pedagogy at U.S. colleges and universities, with up to $3.5 million in prizes."

Do We Need To Teach Ethics And Empathy To Data Scientists?; Forbes, October 8, 2018

Kalev Leetaru, Forbes; Do We Need To Teach Ethics And Empathy To Data Scientists?

[Kip Currier: A thought-provoking and timely piece, especially as I'm presently writing a chapter on research ethics for my ethics textbook and was just reviewing and thinking about the history of informed consent and Institutional Review Boards-cum-Human-Research-Protection-Offices. Medical ethics lapses like those involving Henrietta Lacks and the Tuskegee Syphilis Study are potent reminders of the concomitant imperative for ethics oversight and informed consent vis-a-vis digital age research.]

"The growing shift away from ethics and empathy in the creation of our digital future is both profoundly frightening for the Orwellian world it is ushering in, but also a sad commentary on the academic world that trains the data scientists and programmers that are shifting the online world away from privacy. How might the web change if we taught ethics and empathy as primary components of computer science curriculums?

One of the most frightening aspects of the modern web is the speed at which it has struck down decades of legislation and professional norms regarding personal privacy and the ethics of turning ordinary citizens into laboratory rats to be experimented on against their wills. In the space of just two decades the online world has weaponized personalization and data brokering, stripped away the last vestiges of privacy, centralized control over the world’s information and communications channels, changed the public’s understanding of the right over their digital selves and profoundly reshaped how the scholarly world views research ethics, informed consent and the right to opt out of being turned into a digital guinea pig.

It is the latter which in many ways has driven each of the former changes. Academia’s changing views towards IRB and ethical review has produced a new generation of programmers and data scientists who view research ethics as merely an outdated obsolete historical relic that was an obnoxious barrier preventing them from doing as they pleased to an unsuspecting public."

Matthew Shepard, whose 1998 murder became a symbol for the gay rights movement, will be interred at Washington National Cathedral; The Washington Post, October 11, 2018

Michelle Boorstein, The Washington Post; Matthew Shepard, whose 1998 murder became a symbol for the gay rights movement, will be interred at Washington National Cathedral

[Kip Currier: A powerful story, particularly appropos today on National Coming Out Day (see here and here), affirming every human being's right to dignity, respect, and equality.]

"When Matthew Shepard died on a cold night 20 years ago, after being beaten with a pistol butt and tied to a split-rail wood fence, his parents cremated the 21-year-old and kept his ashes, for fear of drawing attention to a resting place of a person who was a victim of one of the nation’s worst anti-gay hate crimes.

But now with the anniversary of their son’s murder approaching on Friday, the Shepards have decided to inter his remains inside the crypt at Washington National Cathedral, where gay-equality activists say they can be a prominent symbol and even a pilgrimage destination for the movement. Although the cause of LGBT equality has made historic advancements since Shepherd was killed, it remains divisive in many parts of a country reembracing tribalism of all kinds.

The 1998 killing of Shepard, a University of Wyoming student, by two young men in a remote area east of Laramie, Wyo., was so horrific that his name is on the federal law against bias crimes directed at LGBT people."

Research ethics: are we minimizing harm or maximizing bureaucracy?; University Affairs/Affaires Universitaires, October 8, 2018

Karen Robson and Reana Maier, University Affairs/Affaires Universitaires; Research ethics: are we minimizing harm or maximizing bureaucracy?

"Researchers working with human subjects in North America and beyond are very familiar with ethics protocols required by institutions of higher education, protocols rightly put in place to minimize harm to research participants.

In Canada, individual higher education institutions have ethical jurisdiction over the research conducted within their walls and by their employees, although these operations are guided by the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS). First published in 1998 by the three main federal research funding agencies, the TCPS requires that all university research involving human subjects be approved by a research ethics board (REB) and outlines the principles to be upheld in assessing the ethical merits of an application, though no standardized process of application or evaluation is given. It is understandable that universities, following the TCPS, want to put steps in place to minimize the harm researchers may cause to potential participants.

In recent years, however, the Canadian ethics process seems to have become more of an exercise in bureaucracy than a reasonable examination of the harm posed by research, and we fear this process will prevent actual research from occurring...

We are obviously not arguing against the existence of ethics protocols or REBs, but we believe that ethics sprawl is discouraging researchers rather than protecting participants. The fetishization of rules and bureaucratic process in ethics review and a blanket worst-case scenario approach is a drain on researchers’ time and resources in return for – what? Do we have any evidence that this level of procedural minutiae is providing improved protection of research participants or preventing unethical research? We might want to consider taking a page from our colleagues south of the border: the National Science Foundation has, as of 2017, abolished the need for institutional research board ethical approval on all projects deemed “low risk.”"

The founder of Craigslist is funding a competition to make computer science more ethical; Quartz, October 10, 2018

Simone Stolzoff, Quartz; The founder of Craigslist is funding a competition to make computer science more ethical

"What have you been doing to help promote democracy recently?

Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist, has certainly been doing his part. His invention may have helped decimate classified-advertising revenue for print newspapers, but last month, he gave $20 million to a team of experienced journalists to investigate the power of Big Tech. In June, he gave $20 million to the CUNY journalism program, so the next generation of journalists can do the same. And today (Oct. 10), he announced he’s helping to fund a new competition called The Responsible Computer Science Challenge to incorporate more ethical training into undergraduate computer science curricula.

The initiative, which was incubated by Omidyar Network, and is also backed by Mozilla, and Schmidt Futures, is soliciting proposals from professors and graduate students about how to make ethics a central part of a software engineer’s education. A panel of independent judges will award up to $3.5 million in prizes to the winners.

The competition couldn’t come at a better time."

Canadian Medical Association leaves international group after president plagiarizes past president’s speech; Retraction Watch, October 8, 2018

Retraction Watch; Canadian Medical Association leaves international group after president plagiarizes past president’s speech

 

[Kip Currier: Quick question: How do you know if the scientific papers you're reading, and perhaps relying upon, represent "good" science or have been discredited? Enter Retraction Watch.

While working on a Research Misconduct chapter for my ethics textbook, I was reminded of Retraction Watch from one of my Information Ethics course's lectures. Retraction Watch is a project of its parent organization, The Center for Scientific Integrity, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, supported by grants like the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

The Mission of The Center for Scientific Integrity is "to promote transparency and integrity in science and scientific publishing, and to disseminate best practices and increase efficiency in science."

One of the Center's 4 goals is a freely accessible "database of retractions, expressions of concern and related publishing events, generated by the work of Retraction Watch."

Exploring some of the content areas on the Retraction Watch site, I was enticed to check out the so-called "Retraction Watch Leaderboard"--billed by Retraction Watch as their "unofficial list" ranking individuals by the number of papers that have been retracted. Not a list one wants to make! An interesting gender-based observation by Retraction Watch, which bears further study and elucidation:

"We note that all of the top 30 are men, which agrees with the general findings of a 2013 paper suggesting that men are more likely to have papers retracted for fraud."

Another good-to-know-about section of Retraction Watch is its "Top 10 Most Highly Cited Retracted Papers"...Here's looking at you, Andrew Wakefield--still "in the house", presently at #2, for your 1998 invalidated autism/vaccines paper co-authored with 12 other researchers (!), not retracted until 12 years later in 2010 (!), and, as of October 9, 2018, cited 499 times after retraction (!):

"Ever curious which retracted papers have been most cited by other scientists? Below, we present the list of the 10 most highly cited retractions. Readers will see some familiar entries, such as the infamous Lancet paper by Andrew Wakefield that originally suggested a link between autism and childhood vaccines. You’ll note that many papers — including the #1 most cited paper — received more citations after they were retracted, which research has shown is an ongoing problem."

Retraction Watch also reports examples of plagiarism, as evinced by this October 8, 2018 story about the incoming World Medical Association (WMA) President, Leonid Eidelman, delivering a speech that was, allegedly, a "mashup" of remarks from the 2014 past WMA President's speech to the WMA, an MIT press release, and a telemedicine company's website. Quite a patchwork quilt of "creative" unattributed sourcing. Canadian Medical Association leaves international group after president plagiarizes past president’s speech."]

Jamal Khashoggi chose to tell the truth. It’s part of the reason he’s beloved.; The Washington Post, October 7, 2018

David Ignatius, The Washington Post; Jamal Khashoggi chose to tell the truth. It’s part of the reason he’s beloved.

[Kip Currier: As I've mentioned to a few people lately--including my book editor, as I finish up a chapter on truth for my ethics textbook--this is a particularly challenging time to tackle the topics of truth, facts, news, and information assessment. The example of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi--"disappeared" and presumed killed--painfully demonstrates both the importance of and potentially deadly stakes for those committed to promoting freedom of expression and truth telling, in the furtherance of human rights, equality, and democratic values.]

"George Orwell titled a regular column he wrote for a British newspaper in the mid-1940s “As I Please.” Meaning that he would write exactly what he believed. My Saudi colleague Jamal Khashoggi has always had that same insistent passion for telling the truth about his country, no matter what.

Khashoggi’s fate is unknown as I write, but his colleagues at The Post and friends around the world fear that he was murdered after he visited the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last Tuesday...

Khashogggi [sic] understood that he could keep his mouth shut and stay safe, because he had so many friends in the royal family. But it simply wasn’t in him.

Khashoggi wrote a column for the Post last year in which he described seeing some of his friends arrested and struggling with his conscience. “I said nothing. I didn’t want to lose my job or my freedom. I worried about my family. I have made a different choice now,” he wrote. He had made a decisive break with Mohammed bin Salman , choosing exile and honesty in his writings. His simple four-word explanation: “We Saudis deserve better.”"

From Orwell to ‘Little Mermaid,’ Kuwait Steps Up Book Banning; The New York Times, October 1, 2018

Rod Nordland, The New York Times;
From Orwell to ‘Little Mermaid,’ Kuwait Steps Up Book Banning

"At a bookstore in Kuwait City, the proprietor showed off a secret cupboard full of contraband books behind the cash register and a basement storeroom with even more. “It’s a cliché that book banning helps book sales,” she said. “As a bookseller, I can tell you I would much rather have the books out on display.”

The bookseller did have a banned copy of “Zorba the Greek” on display, discretely, since it could result in a minimum fine of about $1,650 if Ministry of Information inspectors saw it. She said she was not too worried. “You can always spot them when they come in,” she said. “You can tell they’re not readers.”"

We Need To Examine The Ethics And Governance Of Artificial Intelligence; Forbes, October 4, 2018

Nikita Malik, Forbes; We Need To Examine The Ethics And Governance Of Artificial Intelligence

"Who determines whether this technology can save lives, for example, versus the very real risk of veering into an Orwellian dystopia?

Take artificial intelligence systems that have the ability to predicate a crime based on an individual’s history, and their propensity to do harm. Pennsylvania could be one of the first states in the United States to base criminal sentences not just on the crimes people are convicted of, but also on whether they are deemed likely to commit additional crimes in the future. Statistically derived risk assessments – based on factors such as age, criminal record, and employment, will help judges determine which sentences to give. This would help reduce the cost of, and burden on, the prison system.

Risk assessments – which have existed for a long time - have been used in other areas such as the prevention of terrorism and child sexual exploitation." 

The push to create AI-friendly ethics codes is stripping all nuance from morality; Quartz, October 4, 2018

Olivia Goldhill, Quartz; The push to create AI-friendly ethics codes is stripping all nuance from morality

"A paper led by Veljko Dubljević, neuroethics researcher at North Carolina State University, published yesterday (Oct. 2) in PLOS ONE, claims to establish not just the answer to one ethical question, but the entire groundwork for how moral judgements are made.

According to the paper’s “Agent Deed Consequence model,” three things are taken into account when making a moral decision: the person doing the action, the moral action itself, and the consequences of that action. To test this theory, the researchers created moral scenarios that varied details about the agent, the action, and the consequences."

Data Science Institute prepares students for ethical decision-making; The Cavalier Daily (University of Virginia), October 4, 2018

Zoe Ziff, The Cavalier Daily (University of Virginia); Data Science Institute prepares students for ethical decision-making

"The University's Data Science Institute recently incorporated the new Center for Data Ethics and Justice — founded by the University’s Bioethics Chair Jarrett Zigon — in an effort to ramp up its focus on ethics in analysis and interpretation of data. This partnership has created a new course for graduate data science students that specifically addresses ethical issues related to the handling of data and advancement in technology. 

The DSI — located in Dell 1 and Dell 2 — is a research and academic institute that offers masters programs in data science as well as dual degrees in partnership with the Darden School of Business, the Medical School and the Nursing School. 

Phillip Bourne — director of the DSI and professor of biomedical engineering — regards ethics as a pillar of their graduate program. He said few data scientists have formal training in ethics, and the partnership with the Center will equip students with the tools to make ethical decisions throughout their careers. 

The Center brings a redefined course to the Master’s of Science in Data Science that is specifically designed for tackling ethical problems in the data science field."

Publishers Escalate Legal Battle Against ResearchGate; Inside Higher Ed, October 4, 2018

Lindsay McKenzie, Inside Higher Ed; Publishers Escalate Legal Battle Against ResearchGate

"The court documents, obtained by Inside Higher Ed from the U.S. District Court in Maryland, include an “illustrative” but “not exhaustive list” of 3,143 research articles the publishers say were shared by ResearchGate in breach of copyright protections. The publishers suggest they could be entitled to up to $150,000 for each infringed work -- a possible total of more than $470 million.

This latest legal challenge is the second that the publishers have filed against ResearchGate in the last year. The first lawsuit, filed in Germany in October 2017, is ongoing. Inside Higher Ed was unable to review court documents for the European lawsuit.

The U.S. lawsuit is the latest development in a long and increasingly complex dispute between some academic publishers and the networking site."

Why you need a code of ethics (and how to build one that sticks); CIO, September 17, 2018

Josh Fruhlinger, CIO; Why you need a code of ethics (and how to build one that sticks)

"Importance of a code of ethics

Most of us probably think of ourselves as ethical people. But within organizations built to maximize profits, many seemingly inevitably drift towards more dubious behavior, especially when it comes to user personal data. "More companies than not are collecting data just for the sake of collecting data, without having any reason as to why or what to do with it," says Philip Jones, a GDPR regulatory compliance expert at Capgemini. "Although this is an expensive and unethical approach, most businesses don’t think twice about it. I view this approach as one of the highest risks to companies today, because they have no clue where, how long, or how accurate much of their private data is on consumers."

This is the sort of organizational ethical drift that can arise in the absence of clear ethical guidelines—and it's the sort of drift that laws like the GDPR, the EU's stringent new framework for how companies must handle customer data, are meant to counter."