Related papers: Improving Section 230, Preserving Democracy and Pr…
Expressions of dissent against authority are an important feature of most societies, and efforts to suppress such expressions are common. Modern digital communications, social media, and Internet surveillance and censorship technologies are…
Privacy preserving networks can be modelled as decentralized networks (e.g., sensors, connected objects, smartphones), where communication between nodes of the network is not controlled by an all-knowing, central node. For this type of…
Middleware, third-party software intermediaries between users and platforms, has been broached as a means to decentralize the power of social media platforms and enhance user agency. Middleware may enable a more user-centric and democratic…
Decentralized systems are a subset of distributed systems where multiple authorities control different components and no authority is fully trusted by all. This implies that any component in a decentralized system is potentially…
A decentralized online petition system enables individuals or groups to create, sign, and share petitions without a central authority. Using blockchain technology, these systems ensure the integrity and transparency of the petition process…
Decentralized social networks like Mastodon and BlueSky are trending topics that have drawn much attention and discussion in recent years. By devolving powers from the central node to the end users, decentralized social networks aim to cure…
We introduce and analyze a model for decentral- ized control. The model is broad enough to include problems such as formation control, decentralization of the power grid and flocking. The objective of this paper is twofold. First, we show…
Open data are held to contribute to a wide variety of social and political goals, including strengthening transparency, public participation and democratic accountability, promoting economic growth and innovation, and enabling greater…
While research continues to investigate and improve the accuracy, fairness, and normative appropriateness of content moderation processes on large social media platforms, even the best process cannot be effective if users reject its…
The advent of arXiv has revolutionized scientific communication. However, its cultural significance goes far beyond simply accelerating scholarly communication. The arXiv gave a powerful impetus to the democratization of science, freeing…
Peer review is a cornerstone of modern scientific endeavor. However, there is growing consensus that several limitations of the current peer review system, from lack of incentives to reviewers to lack of transparency, risks to undermine its…
In this paper, we discuss an important aspect of speech privacy: protecting spoken content. New capabilities from the field of machine learning provide a unique and timely opportunity to revisit speech content protection. There are many…
Moderation and blocking behavior, both closely related to the mitigation of abuse and misinformation on social platforms, are fundamental mechanisms for maintaining healthy online communities. However, while centralized platforms typically…
Security is one of the major concerns of modern communication systems. Users demand a secure communication environment that provides privacy to the people while they are sharing messages to anyone. Privacy is a prime concern nowadays. This…
This paper introduces a generalised opinion model that extends the standard DeGroot model by representing agents' opinions and influences as soft constraints rather than single real values. This allows for modelling scenarios beyond the…
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 is the most important law in the history of the internet. It is also one of the most flawed. Under Section 230, online entities are absolutely immune from lawsuits related to content…
Users are daily exposed to a large volume of harmful content on various social network platforms. One solution is developing online moderation tools using Machine Learning techniques. However, the processing of user data by online platforms…
Permisionless decentralized ledgers ("blockchains") such as the one underlying the cryptocurrency Bitcoin allow anonymous participants to maintain the ledger, while avoiding control or "censorship" by any single entity. In contrast,…
Electronic government (e-government) uses information and communication technologies to deliver public services to individuals and organisations effectively, efficiently and transparently. E-government is one of the most complex systems…
The AI development community is increasingly making use of hosting intermediaries such as Hugging Face provide easy access to user-uploaded models and training data. These model marketplaces lower technical deployment barriers for hundreds…