No result found
2019-01-01
AlgorithmWatch;
This is the first comprehensive study regarding the state of automated decision-making in Europe. Experts have looked at the situation at the EU level but also in 12 Member States: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands Poland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK. They assessed not only the political discussions and initiatives in these countries but also present a section "ADM in Action" for all states, listing examples of automated decision-making already in use.
2020-06-12
American Academy of Arts and Sciences;
"Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century" is the work of the US national and bipartisan Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship, convened by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. It presents 31 recommendations – across political institutions, political culture, and civil society – which are the product of two years of work and nearly 50 listening sessions with Americans around the country, which sought to understand how American citizens could obtain the values, knowledge, and skills to become better citizens. Collectively, the recommendations lay the foundation for an essential reinvention of the American democracy supported by the increasement of citizens' capacity to engage in their communities.
2019-11-20
Dangerous Speech Project;
Every day, internet users encounter hateful and dangerous speech online, and some of them choose to respond directly in order to refute or undermine it. We call this counterspeech. Only a few studies have attempted to measure the effectiveness of counterspeech directly, and as far as we know, this is the first review of relevant literature.We've collected and reviewed related articles from a range of fields including political science, sociology, countering violent extremism, and computational social science. These articles do not all use the term "counterspeech," but they shed light on various features of successful counterspeech, for example, qualities that make speakers/authors more influential in online interactions or the extent to which pro- and anti-social behavior is contagious on the internet.
2020-06-17
Dangerous Speech Project;
In its early life the internet inspired optimism that it would improve the world and its people, but that has been supplanted by alarm about harmful, often viral words and images. Though the vast majority of online content is still innocuous or beneficial, the internet is also polluted by hatred: some individuals and groups suffer harassment or attacks, while others are exposed to content that inspires them to hate or fear other people, or even to commit mass murder.Hateful and harmful messages are so widespread online that the problem is not specific to any culture or country, nor can such content be easily classified under terms like "hate speech" or "extremism": it is too varied. Even the people who produce harmful content, and their motivations for doing so, are diverse. Online service providers (OSPs) have built systems to diminish harmful content, but those are inadequate for the complex task at hand and have fundamental flaws that cannot be solved by tweaking the rules, as the companies have been doing so far. The stakeholders who have the least say in how speech is regulated are precisely those who are subject to that regulation: internet users. "I've come to believe that we shouldn't make so many important decisions about speech on our own," Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO and a founder of Facebook, wrote last year. He is correct.Daunting though the problem is, there are many opportunities for improvement, but they have been largely overlooked. The widespread distress about it is itself an opportunity, since that means millions of people are paying attention, and it will take broad participation to build online norms against harmful content. Such mass participation is neither far-fetched nor unfamiliar: many beneficial campaigns and social movements have been born and developed thanks to mass participation online.This paper offers a set of specific proposals for better describing harmful content online and for reducing the damage it causes, while protecting freedom of expression. The ideas are mainly meant for OSPs since they regulate the vast majority of online content; taken together they operate the largest system of censorship the world has ever known, controlling more human communication than any government. Governments, for their part, have tried to berate or force the companies into changing their policies, with limited and often repressive results. For these reasons, this paper focuses on what OSPs should do to diminish harmful content online.The proposals focus on the rules that form the basis of each regulation system, as well as on other crucial steps in the regulatory process, such as communicating rules to platform users, giving multiple stakeholders a role in regulation, and enforcement of the rules.
2020-06-01
West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI);
The world is today confronted to a new threat; the novel Coronavirus infection (Covid-19). The virus first broke in China in November 2019, and has since swept across countries, overwhelmed health facilities and brought economies to their knees. As of 2nd June, 2020, the coronavirus is known to have infected more than 6 million people across the globe, claimed over 350 000 lives, and poses an existential threat to humanity.
2019-07-01
West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI);
Across the world, a girl becomes a child wife every two seconds. Annually, 15 million girls marry before the age of 18, making 41,000 girls a day. It has been estimated that an extra 1.2 billion girls will be married by 2050. To reverse this soaring trend, drastic steps need to be taken. Internationally, child marriage is considered as a violation of the girl child's rights and protection.
2019-05-31
West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI);
In the last two decades, civil society has made significant strides in giving communities a voice to challenge governments and be involved in governance processes. The 2011 Arab-Spring, a by-product of such process proved effective and sustainable in toppling tyranny in North Africa. The observable trend has been that the contribution and participation of civil society both in the implementation of their mandate and in the digital space is heavily restricted as a result of government interference, persecution and retaliation. This has resulted in the forced suspension of civil society organisations, unwarranted raids, shut down and the arrest of human rights activists such as Bobi Wine of Uganda and members of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions of Zimbabwe.
2020-06-25
Macrothink Institute;
A number of activities in workplaces, such as such as those including cutting, grinding, sanding, drilling, loading or demolishing products that contain silica, can produce respirable particles of crystalline silica dust that are small enough to inhale. Inhalation of crystalline silica can cause silicosis which is incurable. Work practices are critical to prevent the condition from occurring and safe work practices are as relevant to workplaces as they are to training environments. This study considers methods of risk control and training practices such that silicosis is prevented. Training requirements are profiled in a vocational education and training setting and must include: crystalline silica hazards and health risks, including silicosis; effective use controls; use and maintenance of personal protective equipment, including Respiratory Protective Equipment; safe waste disposal; and, practices for personal decontamination. The training environment must be designed in a manner to allow for engineering controls, such as on-tool water suppression or on-tool dust extraction, to be utilised.
2020-06-03
Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law;
For this report, we analyzed data from two nationwide election surveys regarding the 2018 election: the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, a 60,000-person survey on Election Day experiences, and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission's Election Administration and Voting Survey, which asks administrators detailed questions about how they conduct elections. We also interviewed nearly three dozen state and local election administrators. Further, we examined the electoral statutes on the books in every state in the nation to understand the sources of disparate wait times in 2018 and develop policy recommendations for lawmakers and election officials ahead of 2020. Some previous research has investigated the relationship between wait times and electoral resources — specifically polling places, voting machines, and poll workers. 8 But no prior study has examined the relationship on a nationwide scale.
2020-02-20
Open Society Foundations;
The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union is a legally binding document that contains a list of human rights recognised by the European Union (EU). It could become a powerful tool available to influence policy makers or serve as a basis for litigation. Individuals can use judicial and political mechanisms to hold EU institutions, and in certain circumstances member countries, to account when they fail to comply with the Charter. The Charter can also be used to pressure decision makers to bring policies and legislation under development in line with human rights standards. This background paper explains when and how the Charter can be used by advocates at national and EU level.
2020-03-04
Open Society Foundations;
Tajikistan's current laws regarding drug users and drug policy are a cumbersome mix of recently adopted international obligations and regressive provisions dating back to the Soviet period. With support from the Open Society Global Drug Policy Program and the Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation-Tajikistan, representatives from the country's Ministry of Health, Drug Control Agency, and civil society organizations analyzed existing drug legislation and bylaws with the aim of identifying areas for improvement.
2020-06-25
Candid;
With limited resources and immense challenges, now more than ever human rights grantmakers and advocates are asking critical questions about the human rights funding landscape: Where is the money going? What are the gaps? Who is funding what? The Advancing Human Rights research tracks the evolving state of human rights philanthropy by collecting and analyzing grants data to equip funders and advocates to make more informed and effective decisions. Human Rights Funders Network (HRFN) and Candid lead the research, in partnership with Ariadne–European Funders for Social Change and Human Rights, and Prospera–International Network of Women's Funds.In 2017, the research found that 849 foundations awarded 25,229 human rights grants totaling $3.2B to 13,819 recipients around the world, 28% of which was reported as flexible general support.
