Is Big Data Corrupting the U.S. Election Process?
September 18, 2019 | Molly Koslowski
As the 2020 election cycle ramps up, voters can expect a flurry of targeted advertisements fueled by big data on their doorsteps, inboxes and social media feeds. While microtargeting based on demographic information is not a new trend in campaign strategy, campaigns traditionally relied on analyzing voter behavior within broader categories such as age or gender before big data was easily accessible. Now, similarly to how the private sector employs data to target consumers, campaign strategists utilize data to micro-target specific voters through their advertising to fit the specific needs and goals of their candidate or platform. However, these practices may jeopardize the integrity of our electoral process.
The Assange Indictment: Threat to a Free Press?
July 8, 2019 | Bastiaan Vanacker
Last May, WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange was indicted on seventeen Espionage Act violations resulting from his procuring and publishing classified documents from Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning.
How One Globally-Centered Group is Tackling the Ethical Implications of Image-Based mHealth in Low Resource Settings
May 28, 2019 | Nikki Williams
As our world becomes increasingly digital, the technology of mobile health applications, or mHealth, is proliferating, helping to bring health care interventions and resources to communities across the globe. While people in developed nations might experience mHealth as an app to track their wellness or a kind of insurance app to make filing and tracking claims more convenient, mHealth takes an entirely different form in low-resource settings.
The Ethics of Digital Face-Swapping
April 25, 2019 | Benjamin van Loon
Digital face-swapping algorithms, or “deepfakes,” are the nascent domain of AI-powered technology that lets controllers supplant different faces on different bodies and put them in digital spaces where they don’t belong. Currently, few thinkpieces have really attempted to get at the heart of the ethical crises ignited by digital face-swapping: that ours is a culture dominated by the ethics of the visual. Deepfakes and other visually duplicitous technologies are the noxious discharge of an image-based socio-ethical paradigm motivated by pure aesthetics.
A Q & A with Dr. David Kamerer, Advisory Board Member
April 2, 2019
Dr. David Kamerer is an associate professor at Loyola University Chicago's School of Communication. In addition to being an advisory board member for the Center for Digital Ethics and Policy, Dr. Kamerer is the current program director for the university's Global Strategic Communication graduate program.
A Q & A with Dr. Florence M. Chee, Advisory Board Member
March 26, 2019
Dr. Florence M. Chee is an assistant professor of digital communication at Loyola University Chicago's School of Communication. Dr. Chee also serves as the director of the university's Social & Interactive Media Lab, as well as being a member of the advisory board for the Center for Digital Ethics and Policy.
