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Algorithms of Oppression - #MetagameBookClub

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This is the Metagame Book Club, a scholarly community that provides and facilitates readings on the field of Game Studies, the analog or digital game-based learning method, and the gamified learning (gamification) method in education. We are a group of K-12 and College educators who are avid readers, dedicated researchers, and enthusiastic learners of theoretical writings and general discussions regarding games.

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Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

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Algorithmic Accountability Act of 2019 Bill Text.pdf

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Week 3

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Metagame Book Club: Algorithms of Oppression 3

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To increase intergovernmental coordination to identify and combat violent crime within Indian lands and of Indians.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Ms. Haaland (for herself, Ms. Davids of Kansas, Mr. Cole, Mr. Mullin, Ms. Gabbard, Mr. Kilmer, Ms. Moore, Ms. Bass, Mr. Cook, Mr. Gallego, Mr. Ruiz, Mr. Case, Mr. Grijalva, Mr. Kind, Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney of New York, and Mr. Smith of Washington) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Natural Resources, and in addition to the Committee on the Judiciary, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

To increase intergovernmental coordination to identify and combat violent crime within Indian lands and of Indians.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
This Act may be cited as the "Not Invisible Act of 2019".

(1) the National Institute of Justice reports more than 80 percent of American Indian and Alaska Native men and women have experienced violence in their lifetimes and more than 34 percent have experienced violence in the last year;

(2) the National Institute of Justice also estimates that 56 percent of American Indian and Alaska Native women experience sexual violence in their lifetimes;

(3) murder is the third leading cause of death among American Indian and Alaska Native women;

(4) populations that experience chronic unemployment, homelessness, substance abuse, severe poverty, and high rates of sexual violence and other crimes are at a higher risk of trafficking;

(5) American Indian and Alaska Native women and girls disproportionately experience the above risk factors;

(6) historical trauma has increased the vulnerability of American Indians and Alaska Natives to trafficking and other forms of violent crime;

(7) the Department of Justice has identified combating human trafficking as a priority; and

(8) reliable data on the prevalence of missing Native people, murdered Native people, and human trafficking within Indian lands and of American Indians and Alaska Natives is not available.

(1) the term "Committee" means the Department of the Interior and the Department of Justice Joint Advisory Committee on Reducing Violent Crime Against Native People established under section 5;

(2) the term "human trafficking" means act or practice described in paragraph (9) or paragraph (10) of section 103 of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 ( 22 U.S.C. 7102);

(3) the term "Indian" means a member of an Indian tribe; and

(4) the terms "Indian lands" and "Indian tribe" have the meanings given the terms in section 3 of the Native American Business Development, Trade Promotion, and Tourism Act of 2000 ( 25 U.S.C. 4302).

SEC. 4. Coordinator of Federal efforts to combat violence against Native people.

The Secretary of the Interior shall designate an official within the Office of Justice Services in the Bureau of Indian Affairs who shall-

(1) coordinate prevention efforts, grants, and programs across offices within the Bureau of Indian Affairs and with the Department of Justice related to the murder of, trafficking of, and missing Indians, including the Office of Justice Programs, the Office on Violence Against Women, the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, the Office of Tribal Justice, and other agencies of the Federal Government;

(2) in coordinating efforts, take into account the unique challenges of combating crime, violence, and human trafficking faced by tribal communities, tribal law enforcement, Federal law enforcement, and State and local law enforcement;

(3) work in cooperation with outside organizations with expertise in working with Indian tribes to provide victim centered and culturally relevant training to tribal law enforcement, Indian Health Service health care providers, tribal community members and businesses, on how to effectively identify, respond to and report instances of violent crime within Indian lands and of Indians; and

(4) report directly to the Secretary of the Interior.

SEC. 5. Establishment of the Department of the Interior and the Department of Justice Joint Advisory Committee on Reducing Violent Crime Against Native People.

(a) Establishment.-Not later than 120 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Interior, in coordination with the Attorney General, shall establish and appoint all members of an advisory committee on violent crime within Indian lands and of Indians.

(b) Membership.-

(1) COMPOSITION.-The Committee shall be composed of members whose diverse experience and backgrounds enable them to provide balanced points of view with regard to the duties of the Committee.

(2) SELECTION.-The Secretary of the Interior, in coordination with the Attorney General, shall appoint the members to the Committee, including representatives from-

(A) tribal law enforcement;

(B) the Office of Justice Services of the Bureau of Indian Affairs;

(C) State and local law enforcement in close proximity to Indian lands, with a letter of recommendation from a local tribal chair or tribal law enforcement officer;

(D) the Federal Bureau of Investigation's victim services division;

(E) the Department of Justice's Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit;

(F) the Office of Native American Programs of the Department of Housing and Urban Development;

(G) the Family Violence Prevention and Services Program of the Department of Health and Human Services;

(H) a Federal public defender within Indian lands with a letter of recommendation from a local tribal chair or tribal law enforcement officer;

(I) a tribal judge with experience in cases related to missing persons, murder, trafficking, or related cases;

(J) not fewer than 3 elected leaders of federally recognized Indian tribes, including 1 elected leader from a federally recognized Indian tribe located in Alaska;

(K) health care and mental health practitioners and counselors and providers with experience in working with Indian survivors of trafficking and sexual assault, with a letter of recommendation from a local tribal chair or tribal law enforcement officer;

(L) Indian advocacy organizations whose primary clients are Indians, focused on violence against women and children specifically in Indian lands;

(M) at least 1 Indian survivor of human trafficking;

(N) at least 1 family member of a missing Indian person;

(O) at least 1 family member of a murdered Indian person;

(P) the National Institute of Justice; and

(Q) the Indian Health Service.

(3) PERIODS OF APPOINTMENT.-Members shall be appointed for the life of the Committee.

(4) VACANCIES.-A vacancy in the Committee shall be filled in the manner in which the original appointment was made and shall not affect the powers or duties of the Committee.

(5) COMPENSATION.-Committee members shall serve without compensation.

(6) TRAVEL EXPENSES.-The Secretary of the Interior, in coordination with the Attorney General, shall consider the provision of travel expenses, including per diem, to Committee members when appropriate.

(1) RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE.-Not later than 18 months after the date of enactment of this Act, the Committee shall make recommendations to the Secretary of the Interior and Attorney General on actions the departments can take to help combat violent crime against Indians and within Indian lands, including the development and implementation of-

(A) successful strategies for identifying, reporting, and responding to instances of missing persons, murder, and human trafficking in Indian lands and of Indians;

(B) recommendations for legislative and administrative changes necessary to use programs, properties, or other resources funded or operated by the Department of the Interior and Department of Justice to combat the crisis of missing and murdered Indian people and human trafficking in Indian lands and of Indians;

(C) recommendations for tracking and reporting data on instances of missing persons, murder, and human trafficking in Indian lands and of Indians;

(D) recommendations for addressing staff shortages and open positions within relevant law enforcement agencies, including issues related to the hiring and retention of law enforcement officers; and

(E) recommendations for coordinating tribal, State, and Federal resources to increase prosecution of violent crime, including murder and human trafficking offenses and increase information sharing with tribal governments on violent crime investigations and prosecutions in Indian lands that were terminated or declined.

(2) BEST PRACTICES AND RECOMMENDATIONS.-

(A) IN GENERAL.-The Committee shall develop recommended best practices for Indian tribes and Federal, State, and local law enforcement officials in close proximity to Indian lands to follow-

(i) in combatting violent crime, including missing persons, murder, and human trafficking within Indian lands and of Indians; and

(ii) to address any gaps in services for Indian victims of violent crime.

(B) DEVELOPMENT.-The best practices shall be based on multidisciplinary and culturally relevant research, evidence-based models and programs and should consider the societal, economic, and other factors that contribute to violent crime within Indian lands and of Indians.

(C) CONTENT.-The best practices shall be user-friendly, culturally responsive in form and delivery, and include the following:

(i) Sample training materials.

(ii) Sample guidelines and recommendations, including-

(I) strategies to collect, document, and share information across systems and agencies;

(II) strategies to help agencies better understand the types of violent crime, the prevalence of violent crime in Indian lands and of Indians, and the degree of victim and family interaction with multiple systems; and

(III) strategies to improve coordination between law enforcement, victim service providers, victim advocates, and Indian communities to utilize their positions and resources in educating critical stakeholder groups and assisting victims and families.

(D) SECRETARIAL RESPONSE.-The Attorney General and the Secretary of the Interior shall submit a written response to the recommendations developed by the Committee to-

(i) the Committee;

(ii) the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate;

(iii) the Committee on Indian Affairs of the Senate;

(iv) the Committee on Natural Resources of the House of Representatives; and

(v) the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives.

(d) Reports.-Not later than 2 years after the date of enactment of this Act, the Committee shall-

(1) submit a report on the action of the Committee described in subsection (c) that includes the responses of the Department of the Interior and the Department of Justice to the recommendations of the Committee to-

(A) the Committee on Indian Affairs of the Senate;

(B) the Committee on Natural Resources of the House of Representatives;

(C) the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate; and

(D) the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives; and

(2) make the report under paragraph (1) publicly available both in a hard copy and online.

(e) FACA exemption.-The Committee shall be exempt from the Federal Advisory Committee Act (5 U.S.C. App.).

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To increase intergovernmental coordination to identify and combat violent crime within Indian lands and of Indians. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Ms. Haaland (for herself, Ms. Davids of Kansas, Mr. Cole, Mr. Mullin, Ms. Gabbard, Mr. Kilmer, Ms. Moore, Ms. Bass, Mr. Cook, Mr. Gallego, Mr. Ruiz, Mr. Case, Mr. Grijalva, Mr. Kind, Mrs.

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JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We begin today's show in Canada, where a devastating national inquiry has determined that the frequent and widespread disappearance and murder of indigenous girls and women is a genocide that the Canadian government itself is responsible for. This chilling conclusion was reported by the Canadian National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls at a ceremony on Monday with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the families of victims. Many in the audience held red flowers to commemorate the dead. This is Marion Buller, the chief commissioner of the inquiry, speaking at the ceremony, which was held at the Canadian Museum of History.

MARION BULLER: The significant, persistent and deliberate pattern of systemic racial and gendered human and indigenous rights violations and abuses, perpetuated historically and maintained today by the Canadian state, designed to displace indigenous people from their lands, social structures and governments, and to eradicate their existence as nations, communities, families and individuals, is the cause of the disappearances, murders and violence experienced by indigenous women, girls, 2SLGBTQQIA people, and this is genocide.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The inquiry issued 231 recommendations on how to address the deaths. At the same ceremony, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to conduct a thorough review of the report.

PRIME MINISTER JUSTIN TRUDEAU: Time and again, we have heard of their disappearance, violence or even death being labeled low priority or ignored. We have heard of their human rights being consistently and systematically violated. It is shameful. It is absolutely unacceptable. And it must end. ...

To the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls of Canada, to their families and to survivors, we have failed you. We will fail you no longer. In the days ahead, let us walk forward together as partners, hand in hand, as we right these wrongs and seek justice for the indigenous people of Canada.

The report follows decades of anguish and anger as indigenous communities have called for greater attention to the epidemic of dead and missing indigenous women, girls and two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex and asexual people. Fifteen hundred family members of victims and survivors gave testimony to the commission, painting a picture of violence, state-sanctioned neglect, and pervasive racist and sexist stereotypes that have led to nearly 1,200 indigenous women and girls to die or go missing between 1980 and 2012. That number could be a massive undercount: Indigenous activists say many deaths go unreported and unnoticed. The national inquiry was convened after the body of 15-year-old Tina Fontaine from the Sagkeeng First Nation was found in the Red River in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 2014.

For more, we're joined by two guests. In Ottawa, we're joined by Marion Buller, the chief commissioner of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. She is Cree and a member of the Mistawasis First Nation in Saskatchewan. Marion Buller is a retired indigenous judge, was British Columbia's first-ever female indigenous judge. And in Vancouver, we're joined by Robyn Bourgeois, a mixed-race Cree academic and activist. She is an assistant professor in the Centre for Women's and Gender Studies at Brock University, where her work focuses on indigenous feminism, violence against indigenous women and girls, and indigenous women's political activism and leadership.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Chief Commissioner Marion Buller, if you can start off by laying out for the world, for our global audience, how this inquiry began, this National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, and your chief findings? And how long did this take?

Our chief findings are, amongst others, the finding of genocide, as you've recorded earlier. We have also found that there have been human rights and indigenous rights violations perpetuated over generations. We have also found that governments have deliberately underfunded or improperly delivered services to indigenous people.

All across Canada, we found, as well, that indigenous women and girls are targeted by perpetrators of violence, targeted all across Canada. And so, there have to be changes to our criminal justice system and our judicial system to right those wrongs, to denounce and deter the horrendous amount of violence against indigenous women and girls. We have been told by perpetrators of violence that they target indigenous women and girls because they can. They can get away with it. Even if it gets to court, the sentence will just be a slap on the hand.

We've also heard about children be removed from their families. And we've made findings of fact about the children welfare system, that children are removed from families not because the parents are incompetent or negligent. It's because the parents are poor. And the parents are poor because the state delivery of services and because of the genocide that's been going on in Canada for generations now.

So, policing, criminal justice, child welfare, indigenous rights breaches and abuses, human rights abuses and violations-all of them-I think that's about the best summary I can give you in a short period of time.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Chief Commissioner Buller, could you talk about how the report was pulled together? It's over a thousand pages long. How did you compile the information during the process of your investigation?

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And when you talk about genocide, most people associate genocide against a particular group with conscious, deliberate actions of a government to directly kill or murder people. Could you talk about the legal understanding that you put together to declare that Canada has been involved in genocide?

The genocide that has occurred in Canada has been over generations of people-generations of human rights and indigenous rights violations; deliberate underfunding of services and programs to indigenous people; forcibly removing children from their families, children being removed and never being seen again by their own families, by their own communities; forced sterilization of women and girls. The list goes on. But from our perspective and from the legal definition, genocide can be over a long period of time of deliberate state action, that looks different from what we commonly think of as genocide. But it's genocide, legally, nonetheless.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I'd like to bring in Robyn Bourgeois, an assistant professor in the Centre for Women's and Gender Studies at Brock University. Welcome to Democracy Now! Your reaction to this report? Did you expect such a sweeping and damning condemnation of Canadian government policy?

I think-I get a sense from at least the folks that I've spoken to in the last day or so, that are indigenous, that this is a really-you know, it's about time that this has happened. And there's a kind of a sigh of relief. And, you know, we've always known this, and we've always argued this. And to hear it reiterated and emphasized and amplified, I think, by the final report is such a remarkable thing. I feel like, in some ways, as a survivor, been carrying that burden and that truth with me, it's been lifted off my shoulders now, because now there is this official document that backs it up.

And I think this will lead to some significant changes in our communities, because it moves this discussion to a whole 'nother level. There is no longer a place for government officials, for example, like former prime ministers of this country, who said, you know, "This isn't high on our radar," or "This doesn't matter," where it's, you know, the acts of single perpetrators and not a systemic problem. And now we have this report that says, no, this is absolutely genocidal, systematic violence perpetrated against indigenous peoples in this country.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I'd like to ask Chief Commissioner Buller, the comments by Prime Minister Trudeau at the press conference-were you able to have an extended conversation with him? And your sense of how-what your expectations are of the Canadian government moving forward on the conclusions of your report?

As a result of that terrible, terrible legacy, the survivors of residential school live with a variety of horrible, horrible issues-post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction issues, mental health issues. And this is passed on through generations. If the children didn't go, the parents would be jailed. In many cases, children were hidden in the bush, in the forest, by their parents so that they wouldn't have to go. And many children never came home.

This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we look at the deepening divide within the Democratic Party as the 2020 election heats up and calls for President Trump's impeachment continue. We'll speak with Ryan Grim, author of the new book We've Got People: From Jesse Jackson to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the End of Big Money and the Rise of a Movement. Stay with us.

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Damning Canadian Inquiry Calls the Murder and Disappearance of Indigenous Women & Girls Genocide

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A chilling national inquiry has determined that the frequent and widespread disappearance and murder of indigenous girls and women in Canada is a genocide that the government itself is responsible for.

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Week 2

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Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies

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Image from Computer History Museum via Lisa Nakamura (2014) Indigenous Circuits: Navajo Women and the Racialization of Early Electronic Manufacture

As scholars of color we know that understandings of race and racial inequalities have always been at the center of debates about technology, politics, and power. We designed this syllabus to provide a broader context for understanding current conversations around technology and democracy by centering the voices and scholarship of people of color. The set of readings included here focus primarily on racial formations in a U.S. context and provides curated introduction to the myriad ways that race has shaped aspects of our digital world-from the infrastructures and policies that support technological development, to algorithms and the collection of data, to the interfaces that shape engagement.

We then highlight the vast body of scholarship on how communities of color have deployed new media in ways that expand the public sphere, contest the status quo, and give voice to their creativity, passion, and desires. This syllabus represents research that has been foundational in developing the field of critical race and digital studies since its origins in the 1990s and cutting edge scholarship that can help us to tackle emerging changes and shifts in the media landscape. We invite anyone who is interested in the topic to check out the readings on the list.

Download here + print version here [set print settings as double-sided, short-edge binding]

Week 1: Early Internet Studies on Cyber-Race

Burkhalter, Byron. 1999. "Reading race online: Discovering Racial Identity in Usenet Communities." In Communities in Cyberspace, edited by Peter Kollack and Marc Smith, 60-75. London: Routledge.

Clack, Doris Hargrett. 1995. "Subject access to African American studies resources in online catalogs: issues and answers." Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 19, no. 2: 49-66.

Mitra, Ananda. 1997. "Diasporic Web sites: Ingroup and outgroup discourse." Critical Studies in Media Communication 14, no. 2: 158-181.

Everett, Anna. 2002. "The Revolution Will be Digitized: Afrocentricity and the Digital Public Sphere." Social Text 71, no. 21: 125-46.

Fair, Rhonda S. 2000. "Becoming the White Man's Indian: An Examination of Native American Tribal Web Sites." The Plains Anthropologist 45, no. 172: 203-213.

Kang, Jerry. 2000. "Cyber-race." Harvard Law Review 113, no. 5: 1130-1208.

Nakamura, Lisa. 2002. Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet. Routledge.

Nakamura, Lisa. 2008. Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet.Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Kendall, Lori. 1998. "Meaning and identity in 'cyberspace': The performance of gender, class, and race online." Symbolic Interaction 21, no. 2: 129-153.

Week 2: Foundations in Critical Race Theory and Media

Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. 1994. Racial formation in the United States. New York: Routledge.

Collins, Patricia Hill. 2000. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge.

hooks, bell. 1992. Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End Press.

Shohat, Ella and Robert Stam. 1994. Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media. New York: Routledge.

Hall, Stuart. 1997. Representation: Cultural representations and Signifying Practices. London: Sage.

Entman, Robert, and Andrew Rojecki. 2001. The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Gray, Herman. 2004. Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for Blackness. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Week 3: The Power of Technology and Infrastructure

Coleman, Beth. 2009. "Race as Technology." Camera Obscura 24, no. 170: 177-207.

Christian, Barbara. 1987. "The Race for Theory." Cultural Critique 6: 51-63.

Chun, Wendy Hui Kyong. 2009. "Race and/as Technology, or How to Do Things to Race." Camera Obscura 24, no. 1: 7-34.

Duarte, Marisa Elena. 2017. Network Sovereignty: Building the Internet Across Indian Country. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

McPherson, Tara. 2012. "U.S. Operating Systems at Mid-Century: The Intertwining of Race and UNIX." In Race After the Internet, edited by Lisa Nakamura and Peter Chow-White, 21-37. New York: Routledge Press.

Aouragh, Miriam. and Chakravartty, Paula. (2017) "Infrastructures of Empire: Towards a Critical Geopolitics of Media and Information Studies." Media, Culture and Society, 38 (4): 559-574.

Week 4: Bias in Algorithms, Interface, and Design

Friedman, Batya, and Helen Nissenbaum. 1996. "Bias in computer systems." ACM Transactions on Information Systems 14, no. 3: 330-347.

Keeling, Kara. 2014. "Queer OS." Cinema Journal 53, no. 2: 152-157.

Sweeney, Miriam. 2016. "The Ms. Dewey 'Experience': Technoculture, gender, and race." In Digital Sociologies, edited by Jessie Daniels, Karen Gregory and Tressie McMillan Cottom, 401-420. Bristol: Policy Press.

Boyd, danah. 2012. "White Flight in Networked Publics?: How Race and Class Shaped American Teen Engagement with MySpace and Facebook." In Race After the Internet, edited by Lisa Nakamura and Peter Chow-White, 203-222. New York: Routledge Press.

Broussard, Meredith. 2018. Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World. Boston: MIT Press.

Korn, Jenny Ungbha. 2018. "Equitable Cities Instead of Smart Cities: Race and Racism Within The Race For Smart Cities." Journal of Civic Media 1, no. 1: 34-45.

Noble, Safiya Umoja. 2018. Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. New York: New York University Press.

McIlwain, Charlton. 2017. "Racial formation, inequality and the political economy of web traffic". Information, Communication, and Society 20, no. 7: 1073-1089.

Week 5: Digital Methodologies and the Collection of Racial Data

Brock, Andre. 2016. "Critical technocultural discourse analysis." New Media & Society 20, no. 3: 1012-1030.

Bonilla, Yarimar and Max Hantel. 2016. "Visualizing Sovereignty: Cartographic Queries for the Digital Age." sx:archipelagos 1, no. 1.

Chow-White, Peter. 2012. "Genomic Databases and an Emerging Digital Divide in Biotechnology." In Race After the Internet, edited by Lisa Nakamura and Peter Chow-White, 291-309. New York: Routledge Press.

Sutherland, Tonia. 2017. "Making a Killing: On Race, Ritual, and (Re)Membering in Digital Culture." Preservation, Digital Technology and Culture 46, no. 1: 32-40.

Williams, Stacie M. and Jarrett M. Drake. 2017. "Power to the People: Documenting Police Violence in Cleveland." Critical Archival Studies 1, no. 2: 1-27.

Benjamin, Ruha. 2016. "Racial Fictions, Biological Facts: Expanding the Sociological Imagination through Speculative Methods." Catalyst 2(2).

Week 6: Critical Race Approaches to Digital Humanities

Bailey, Moya Z. 2011. "All the Digital Humanists Are White, All the Nerds Are Men, but Some of Us Are Brave." Journal of Digital Humanities 1, no. 1

McPherson, Tara. 2012. "Why Are the Digital Humanities So White? or Thinking the Histories of Race and Computation." In Debates in the Digital Humanities, edited by Matthew K. Gold, 139-160. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Lopez, Lori Kido and Konrad Ng. 2016. "Building Digital Bridges: Digital Humanities and the Transformation of Asian American Studies," In The Routledge Handbook of Asian American Studies, edited by Cindy I-Fen Chen, 305-317. New York: Routledge.

Bailey, Moya. 2015. "#transform(ing) DH Writing and Research: An Autoethnography of Digital Humanities and Feminist Ethics." DHQ: Digital Humanities Quarterly 9, no. 2.

Week 7: Bringing in Intersectional Approaches to Race, Gender, and Sexuality Online

Noble, Safiya Umoja and Brendesha Tynes. 2016. The Intersectional Internet: Race, Sex, Class and Culture Online. New York: Peter Lang

Korn, Jenny Ungbha. 2017. "Expecting penises in Chatroulette: Race, gender, and sexuality in anonymous online spaces." Popular Communication 15, no. 2: 95-109.

McGlotten, Shaka. 2016. "Black Data." In No Tea, No Shade: New Writings in Black Queer Studies, edited by E. Patrick Johnson. Durham: Duke University Press.

McGlotten, Shaka. 2013.Virtual Intimacies: Media, Affect, and Queer Sociality. Albany: SUNY Press.

Magnet, Shoshana. 2011. When Biometrics Fail: Gender, Race, and the Technology of Identity. Durham: Duke University Press.

Week 8: Activism and the Politics of Digital Difference

Nelson, Alondra. 2016.The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation after the Genome. Boston: Beacon Press.

Bonilla, Yarimar and Rosa, Jonathan. 2015. "#Ferguson: digital protest, hashtag ethnography, and the racial politics of social media in the United States." American Ethnologist 42, no. 1: 4-17.

Cho, Alexander. 2018. "Disruptive Joy: #BlackOutDay's Affirmative Resonances." In A Networked Self and Love. Ed. Papacharissi, Zizi. New York: Routledge. pp. 189-201.

Jackson, Sarah J. and Foucault Welles, Brooke. 2015. "Hijacking #myNYPD: Social Media Dissent and Networked Counterpublics." Journal of Communication 65, no. 6: 932-952.

Korn, Jenny Ungbha. 2015. "#FuckProp8: How Temporary Virtual Communities Around Politics and Sexuality Pop Up, Come Out, Provide Support, and Taper Off." In Hashtag Publics: The Power and Politics of Discursive Networks, edited by Nathan Rambukkana, 127-138. New York: Peter Lang.

Lindsey, Treva. 2015. "Post-Ferguson: A 'Herstorical' Approach to Black Violability." Feminist Studies 41, no. 1: 232-237

Martineau, Jarrett. 2015. "Rhythms of Change: Indigenous Resurgence, Technology and the Idle No More Movement" in More Will Sing Their Way to Freedom: Indigenous Resistance and Resurgence.

Week 9: Conversation and Networks on Twitter

Brock, Andre. 2012. "From the Blackhand Side: Twitter as a Cultural Conversation." Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 56, no. 4: 529-549.

Clark, Meredith. 2015. "Black Twitter: Building Connection through Cultural Conversation." In Hashtag Publics: The Power and Politics of Discursive Networks, edited by Nathan Rambukkana, 205-217. New York: Peter Lang.

Florini, Sarah. 2014. "Tweets, Tweeps, and Signifyin': Communication and Cultural Performance on 'Black Twitter'." Television and New Media 15, no. 3: 223-37.

Maragh, Raven. 2016. "Our Struggles are Unequal": Black Women's Affective Labor Between Television and Twitter." Journal of Communication Inquiry 40, no. 4: 351-369.

Jackson, Sarah. 2016. "(Re)Imagining Intersectional Democracy from Black Feminism to Hashtag Activism." Women's Studies in Communication 39, no. 4: 375-379.

Kuo, Rachel. 2016. "Racial Justice Activist Hashtags: Counterpublics and Discourse Circulation." New Media and Society 20, no. 2: 495-514.

Sharma, Sanjay. 2013. "Black Twitter? Racial Hashtags, Networks and Contagion." New Formations: A Journal of Culture/Theory/Politics 78 (1): 46-64.

Week 10: The Labor of Blogging as a Person of Color

Lopez, Lori. 2014. "Blogging while Angry: The Sustainability of Emotional Labor in the Asian American Blogosphere." Media, Culture & Society 36, no. 4: 421-436.

Pham, Minh-Ha T. 2015. Asians Wear Clothes on the Internet: Race, Gender, and the Work of Personal Style Blogging. Durham: Duke University Press.

Steele, Catherine Knight. 2018. "Black Bloggers and their Varied Publics: The Everyday Politics of Black Discourse Online." Television and New Media 19, no. 2: 112-127.

Brock, André, Kvasny, Lynette, Hales, Kayla. 2010. "Cultural Appropriations of Technical Capital: Black Women, Weblogs, and the Digital Divide." Information, Communication & Society 13, no. 7: 1040-59.

Cho, Alexander. 2017. "Default publicness: Queer youth of color, social media, and being outed by the machine." New Media and Society 20, no. 9: 3183-3200.

Week 11: Remediating Video through YouTube, Netflix and Digital Television

Christian, Aymar Jean. 2017. "The Value of Representation: Toward a Critique of Networked Television Performance." International Journal of Communication, 11: 1552-1574

Day, Faithe and Aymar Jean Christian. 2017. "Locating Black Queer TV: Fans, Producers, and Networked Publics on YouTube." Transformative Works and Cultures no. 24.

Havens, Tim. 2017. "The Algorithmic Audience and African American Media Cultures." FlowTV.

Rodriguez, Vittoria and Mary Beltran. 2016. "From the Bronze Screen to the Computer Screen: Latina/o Web Series and Independent Production." In The Routledge Companion to Latina/o Media, edited by Maria Elena Cepeda, Dolores Inés Casillas, 156-170. New York: Routledge.

Zimmerman, Arely. 2016. "Transmedia Testimonio: Examining Undocumented Youth's Political Activism in the Digital Age" International Journal of Communication 10: 1886-1906.

Week 12: Embodiment and Interaction in Video Games

Nakamura, Lisa. 2009. "Don't Hate the Player, Hate the Game: The Racialization of Labor in World of Warcraft." Critical Studies in Media Communication 2, no. 2: 128-144.

Higgin, Tanner. 2009. "Blackless Fantasy: The Disappearance of Race in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games." Games and Culture 4, no. 1: 3-26.

Gray, Kishonna. 2012. "Deviant bodies, stigmatized identities,and racist acts: examining the experiences of African-American gamers in Xbox Live." New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia 18, no. 4: 261-276.

Gray, Kishonna. 2012. "Intersecting Oppressions and Online Communities." Information, Communication and Society 15, no. 3: 411-428.

Behm-Morawitz, Elizabeth and David Ta. 2014. "Cultivating Virtual Stereotypes?: The Impact of Video Game Play on Racial/Ethnic Stereotypes." Howard Journal of Communications 25, no. 1: 1-15.

Shaw, Adrienne. 2012. "Do you identify as a gamer? Gender, race, sexuality, and gamer identity." New Media & Society 14, no. 1: 28-44.

LaPensée, Elizabeth. 2017. Thunderbird Strike. (Game)

Week 13: Diaspora and Minoritized Populations Across the Globe

Amrute, Sareeta. 2016.Encoding Race, Encoding Class: Indian IT workers in Berlin. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Lee, S. Heijin Lee. 2016. "Beauty Between Empires: Global Feminism, Plastic Surgery, and the Trouble with Self- Esteem." Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. 37(1): 1-31.

Royston, Reginold. 2017. "At Home, Online: Affective Exchange and the Diasporic Body in Ghanaian Internet Video." In Migrating the Black Body: Visual Culture and Diaspora. Raphael-Fernandez, H. and L. Raiford eds. Seattle: University of Washington Press

Mallapragada, Madhavi. 2014. Virtual Homelands: Indian Immigrants and Online Cultures in the United States. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Jacobs, Katrien. 2012. People's Pornography: Sex and Surveillance on the Chinese Internet. Intellect.

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Critical Race & Digital Studies Syllabus

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Image from Computer History Museum via Lisa Nakamura (2014) Indigenous Circuits: Navajo Women and the Racialization of Early Electronic Manufacture Edited & compiled by Lori Kido Lopez & Jackie Land As scholars of color we know that understandings of race and racial inequalities have always been at the center of debates about technology, politics, and...

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A woman's job application is rejected because of a recruiting algorithm that favors men's résumés. A girl dies by suicide after graphic images of self-harm are pushed up on her feed by social media algorithms. A black teen steals something and gets rated high-risk for committing future crime by an algorithm used in courtroom sentencing, while a white man steals something of similar value and gets rated low-risk.

In recent years, advances in computer science have yielded algorithms so powerful that their creators have presented them as tools that can help us make decisions more efficiently and impartially. But the idea that algorithms are unbiased is a fantasy; in fact, they still end up reflecting human biases. And as they become ever more ubiquitous, we need to get clear on what they should - and should not - be allowed to do.

In a new book, A Human's Guide to Machine Intelligence, Kartik Hosanagar, a University of Pennsylvania technology professor, argues we need an algorithmic bill of rights to protect us from the many risks AI is introducing into our lives, alongside the various benefits. People have called for such protections in the past, and in April, Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced the Algorithmic Accountability Act. If passed, it would require companies to audit their algorithms for bias and discrimination. Some AI experts praised it as a "great first step" but noted that it leaves a number of concerns unaddressed.

All this got me wondering: Which demands, exactly, belong on an algorithmic bill of rights?

So I reached out to 10 experts (including Hosanagar) who are at the forefront of investigating how AI risk is creeping into the mundane aspects of life as well as high-stakes fields like immigration, medicine, and criminal justice. I asked them each to name a protection the public needs enshrined in law.

Allow me to present the result: a crowdsourced algorithmic bill of rights.

Transparency: We have the right to know when an algorithm is making a decision about us, which factors are being considered by the algorithm, and how those factors are being weighted.
Transparency is the No. 1 concern on people's minds, judging by the responses I received. "We're not even fully aware of when an algorithm is being used to make decisions for us or about us," Hosanagar told me.

Say you're applying for a mortgage. You deserve to know: Is an algorithm being used to make a decision about you? Is that decision based solely on the information you put down on your application form, or are your social media posts and other data obtained from third-party sources also being used? How does the mortgage approval algorithm rate different factors - does it place the greatest weight on income, medium weight on education, and low weight on current address, for example?
Explanation: We have the right to be given explanations about how algorithms affect us in a specific situation, and these explanations should be clear enough that the average person will be able to understand them. Consent: We have the right to give or refuse consent for any AI application that has a material impact on our lives or uses sensitive data, such as biometric data.
Cathy O'Neil, the author of Weapons of Math Destruction, put it this way in an email: "In situations where our financial lives, our livelihood, or our liberty is at risk - so not in the case of every algorithm under the sun - we should know what attributes about us are being used [and] we should know how our 'scores' depended on the values of those attributes."
Freedom from bias: We have the right to evidence showing that algorithms have been tested for bias related to race, gender, and other protected characteristics - before they're rolled out. The algorithms must meet standards of fairness and nondiscrimination and ensure just outcomes.
Related to transparency is the demand for explainability. All algorithmic systems should carry something akin to a nutritional label laying out what went into them, according to Amy Webb, author of The Big Nine and founder of the Future Today Institute, which researches emerging technologies. "The terms of service for an AI application - or any service that uses algorithmic decision-making processes - should be written in language plain enough that a third grader can comprehend it," she said. "It should be available in every language as soon as the application goes live."

A demand for the right to consent has been gathering steam as more people realize that images of their faces are being used to power facial recognition technology. NBC reported that IBM had scraped a million photos of faces from the website Flickr - without the subjects' or photographers' permission. The news sparked a backlash. People may have consented to having their photos up on Flickr, but they hadn't imagined their images would be used to train a technology that could one day be used to surveil them. Some states, like Oregon and Washington, are currently considering bills to regulate facial recognition.
Feedback mechanism: We have the right to exert some degree of control over the way algorithms work. Portability: We have the right to easily transfer all our data from one provider to another. Redress: We have the right to seek redress if we believe an algorithmic system has unfairly penalized or harmed us.
The issue of consent extends well beyond that particular technology. Imagine you're applying for a new job. Your prospective bosses inform you that your interview will be conducted by a robot - a practice that's already in use today. Regardless of what they tout as the benefits of this AI system, you should have the right to give or withhold consent, according to MIT computer scientist Joy Buolamwini. "Permission must be granted," she said, "not taken for granted."
Algorithmic literacy: We have the right to free educational resources about algorithmic systems.
Like Buolamwini, who founded the Algorithmic Justice League to fight bias in automated decision-making systems, Yeshimabeit Milner is deeply concerned about AI that discriminates against people of color. As the founder and executive director of Data for Black Lives, Milner has drawn attention to problems with predictive policing (algorithmic systems for predicting where crime is likely to occur) and criminal risk assessments (algorithmic systems for predicting recidivism). Police officers and judges use both these systems to guide their decisions, despite evidence that they're biased against black people.
Independent oversight: We have the right to expect that an independent oversight body will be appointed to conduct retrospective reviews of algorithmic systems gone wrong. The results of these investigations should be made public.
Algorithmic bias can result when the initial data used to train an AI system isn't diverse enough (say, if it includes mostly white men) or if it reflects biased decisions authorities made in the past. For example, if officers overpoliced a certain neighborhood, yielding a high rate of arrests there, and that arrest data is used to train an AI, the system could end up reinforcing the old bias.

Explaining why it's so crucial for the law to protect against algorithmic bias, Milner said, "If a defendant is labeled 'high risk' by a recidivism algorithm, that can mean the difference between a fine and a prison sentence." She added that where discriminatory algorithms go unchecked, they extend the shelf life of racist public policy: "The harms caused by decades of redlining have been amplified by new forms of 'digital redlining' like credit scores and predictive policing. It is not a coincidence that the communities that were labeled hazardous on redlining maps in 1933 are the predictive policing hotspots of today."

The appropriate type and level of control we have over a given algorithm will depend on its specific use. But we should always be able to communicate with an algorithmic system that's making decisions for us. As Hosanagar explains in his book, "It can be as limited and straightforward as giving a Facebook user the power to flag a news post as potentially false; it can be as dramatic and significant as letting a passenger intervene when he is not satisfied with the choices a driverless car appears to be making."
Federal and global governance: We have the right to robust federal and global governance structures with human rights at their center. Algorithmic systems don't stop at national borders, and they are increasingly used to decide who gets to cross borders, making international governance crucial.
The big companies running our data through their algorithms - such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Microsoft - haven't generally made it easy for us to take back our data and opt out. Pedro Domingos, a University of Washington computer science professor, wants us to be able to transfer our data from one provider to another with one click. Without that portability, he said, "we risk being locked into one of the big providers, with increasingly negative consequences as the data becomes more important."

Too often, companies view their data as proprietary and don't want to release it to researchers for external audit. "Corporate secrecy laws are a barrier to due process," said Jason Schultz, the AI Now Institute's research lead for law and policy. "They contribute to the 'black box effect,' rendering systems opaque and unaccountable, making it hard to assess bias."

The right to redress - and all of the above rights - should supersede corporate secrecy laws that stand in the way of due process.

Because every citizen will be affected by algorithms, every citizen should have the opportunity to learn what algorithms are, how they work, and which risks they pose. Yet not everyone has the disposable income and time required to learn about them. Governments should offer this education for free.

Finland offers a promising example. Last year, the Nordic country announced plans to teach the basics of AI to 1 percent of its population - about 55,000 people - using a free online course called Elements of AI. The idea was to start with that relatively modest number and slowly build up. In short order, 140,000 people around the world registered for it (encouragingly, 40 percent were women). The scheme took off in part because it was pitched as a national challenge, and in part because it assured people with zero tech background that they could come to understand AI "with no complicated math or programming required," as the course website says. The program has since spread to Sweden.

Just as important as making sure algorithms are tested for bias before they're rolled out is making sure they're examined for unintended effects after they're used. Eric Topol, a physician and the author of Deep Medicine, told me too many algorithms are validated only on computers, not in real-world clinical environments. "We have already learned that there is a chasm between the accuracy of an algorithm, especially determined this way, and a favorable impact on clinical outcomes," he said, explaining that just because an algorithm appears to work great in a computer simulation doesn't mean it'll work as intended in all doctors' offices.

Topol believes that after implementation of the algorithm in a clinical practice, the results should be assessed and made available to doctors and patients.

The broader concept here is that we need to make sure problematic incidents are investigated after they occur. Ben Shneiderman, a computer science professor at the University of Maryland, argues that we need to create a National Algorithms Safety Board for this purpose.

"Other fields, like aviation safety, have come to understand that independent oversight helps to prevent deadly outcomes," Shneiderman told me. "Therefore, I have proposed a National Algorithms Safety Board, which would investigate deadly accidents, like the Boeing 737 Max and Tesla crashes."

Immigration is a high-stakes domain increasingly being guided by automated decision-making. In Europe, three countries are planning to test the use of AI lie detectors on asylum seekers at border patrol checkpoints. Even Canada, a country usually seen as refugee-friendly, is using AI to vet immigrants and refugees, sparking an outcry from human rights lawyers.

"The use of algorithms in migration can create a high-risk laboratory of technological experiments," Petra Molnar, a Toronto-based lawyer, told me. "The nuanced and complex nature of refugee and immigration decisions may be lost on these technologies." To keep algorithms from leading to serious breaches of human rights at the border, we need to promote international norms around them.

This raises the question: Who should be tasked with enforcing these norms? Government regulators? The tech companies themselves?

Inspired by Shneiderman's vision, Hosanagar advocates for the creation of an independent Algorithmic Safety Board, modeled on the Federal Reserve Board. Each country would have its own board at the federal level, and these boards would talk to one another and ensure there is some consistency across countries. Right now, some places have aggressive regulatory legislation (like the EU's General Data Protection Regulation), while in other countries there's almost no regulation at all. Hosanagar wants to see international coordination handled by a body modeled on the International Telecom Union, which governs cellphone communication.

He argues for a mix of government regulation and self-regulation from tech companies. We need both, in his opinion, because tech companies can't always be trusted to police themselves, and government regulators can't always understand the complexities of fast-developing AI technology by themselves.

How the algorithmic bill of rights was made

When I reached out to the 10 experts, some of them got back to me with more than one recommendation. But there was a lot of overlap between their ideas, so I streamlined them into the 10 demands listed above. Then I sent the completed bill to the experts so they could see what their peers had come up with and offer ideas for improvement.

Not every expert agreed with each and every item on the list. One or two took issue with specific recommendations, while others agreed with the broad strokes of all but had different ideas about how they should be implemented. Hosanagar, for example, said auditing doesn't need to be performed by an oversight body, but could instead be done "by any independent team, including another company or another team within the organization."

Finally, I want to emphasize that by its very nature, a bill of rights like this is a work in progress. AI is developing so fast that as time ticks on, we'll almost certainly become aware of the need for other protections from risks we haven't yet imagined. For now, having a concrete, if provisional, list of demands may help catalyze public conversation and action. If you believe something important has been left off the list, you're welcome to drop me a note.

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10 things we should all demand from Big Tech right now

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A woman's job application is rejected because of a recruiting algorithm that favors men's résumés. A girl dies by suicide after graphic images of self-harm are pushed up on her feed by social media algorithms. A black teen steals something and gets rated high-risk for committing future crime by an algorithm used in courtroom sentencing, while a white man steals something of similar value and gets rated low-risk.

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Week 1

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Metagame Book Club: Algorithms of Oppression

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Recommended Citation

Galliah, Shelly A. (2019) "Algorithms of oppression: Safiya Umoja Noble's powerful exploration of search engines' underlying hegemony and their racist, sexist practices.," The Liminal: Interdisciplinary Journal of Technology in Education: Vol. 1 : Iss. 1 , Article 9.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.du.edu/theliminal/vol1/iss1/9

DOWNLOADS

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Algorithms of oppression: Safiya Umoja Noble's powerful exploration of search engines' underlying hegemony and their racist, sexist practices.

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Recommended Citation Galliah, Shelly A. (2019) "Algorithms of oppression: Safiya Umoja Noble's powerful exploration of search engines' underlying hegemony and their racist, sexist practices.," The Liminal: Interdisciplinary Journal of Technology in Education: Vol. 1 : Iss. 1 , Article 9. Available at: https://digitalcommons.du.edu/theliminal/vol1/iss1/9 DOWNLOADS

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Algorithms of Oppression: Safiya Umoja Noble