Rebecca MacKinnon

Liars beware, I am now Intermediate at Digital Investigation Techniques according to AFP and Google News Initiative. This course focused on tracking election disinformation and verifying climate claims. It was interesting to see how the course's tools could be used to examine past/current elections.

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Anti-democratic forces often co-opt those with vast wealth. That is starting to happen in America, creating a two-tiered economy of those tight with politicians and those trying to run real businesses. One casualty will be press freedom. My analysis:

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From Ludwig Oscuro Federigan, EMDRCM, CBP" "Since Trump's departure from office in 2021, the global climate narrative has undergone significant transformation. World leaders and organizations have increasingly acknowledged the urgent need for climate action, spurred by alarming scientific reports detailing the rising impacts of climate change, including extreme weather events, heat waves, rising sea levels and biodiversity loss. The catastrophic consequences of inaction have often eclipsed political uncertainties, motivating nations, cities and businesses to enhance their commitments to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and investing in RE." #donaldtrump #climatechange #renewableenergy #renewable https://lnkd.in/gT7yEgwh

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That one election we didn't see coming. Late last year, like many colleagues and friends working at the nexus of information and democracy, we started to plan for the 2024 super election year. We mapped elections, worked with partners to align our recommendations and actions, picked a few priorities. In January, we published our recommendations to ensure information integrity in times of elections. Some elections have already happened, some are feared, some have been postponed. But no one saw the French legislative elections coming. Not even a month after the EU elections, we are called back to the urns, in what some observers are calling the "most consequential French elections in decades". It is. This election will be a moment of truth for our country, regardless of what you think of President Macron's move. To some extent, it is also a moment of truth for the public debate and media landscape in France. Not only because we will have to learn the lessons of the last three weeks during which social media and political drama took a central part in shaping the debates, and potentially the outcome of the elections. But also because the new government will probably try to pass or reform laws on the information space that could stifle or promote freedom of expression and access to reliable information. A few hours before the "période de réserve" starting today at midnight, I will keep my commitment to abstain from any call to support such or such party or political movement. The only thing I would do is call on everyone to take a look at the programs and their alignment (or not) with our corpus of policy recommendations.

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How can we use Artificial Intelligence for strengthening democracy and transparency and outreach of our institutions? What needs to be done to boost citizen engagement and structured deliberative processes now in this political environment? We got together in the Network for Participation & Deliberation in Europe in Strasbourg upon invitation of the Council of Europe and exchanged practices, analyses (OECD's upcoming study on AI and citizen participation), make.org' presentation of Panoramic.ai and case studies (Baden-Wuerttemberg's impressive structural and practical advances in the field establishing an agency accompanying legislative proposals and academic evaluation) and looked into developing awareness raising measures in 2025 as a network. For the European Committee of the Regions, we could discuss plans of capacity building for the Young Elected Politicians for 2025 (another winter school with webinar and follow up) as well as the network of European councillors and how to link the local efforts to the European debate with the colleagues from the other institutions and organisations European Commission, OECD - OCDE, FIDE - Europe,Bertelsmann Stiftung, Deutscher Bundestag, Council of Europe, @Joint Research Centre, @Polish Sejm, @make.org. Many thanks to the host, in particular @Cornelia Perle from the Council of Europe and organisers Christian Huesmann, @Anna Renkamp and Dr. Angela Jain from Bertelsmann Stiftung and Yves Dejaeghere and Dr. Nabila Abbas from FIDE - Europe for the amazing work and the drive for this network. #YoungElectedLeaders #Democracy #Artificial Intelligence

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Coming in Sunday's Spokesman-Review... A 24-page special section containing 21 of my Further Review pages about elections, the history of elections, how the three branches of U.S. government work -- or, in some cases, how they DON'T work. And two pages promoting my book. Unless I'm mistaken, this will be the first mention in the paper of my upcoming Further Review hardcover book. I'm writing a sales pitch, how I converted newspaper pages into book pages and how to order. That will be on pages 2 and 3. But pages 4 through 24 will be an enormous, graphics-laden civics lesson! A few of the topics we'll be covering... > A history of broken campaign promises > Presidential approval ratings going back to WW2 > A history of -- and a look inside -- the White House > How the Electoral College works > The nature of complaints about the 2020 election results > The closest elections in U.S. history > What to expect on election night 2024 > The Presidential veto > America's spending habit > A history of Presidential health issues > The eight Presidents who died in office > The history of the Capitol > How the House is apportioned > Which party has been in control of the House and the Senate since 1900 > How much actual legislative work Congress has done > The Senate Filibuster -- how it works and how often it's been used > Voter turnout in the U.S. > Who appointed our Supreme Court justices > Why "Court Packing" didn't work for FDR in 1938 > The nature of Fake News All these pages have run in the Spokesman-Review over the past 5.5 years. Some required very little tweaking to bring them up to date. Others had to be rebuilt from scratch. If you're wondering how and why I've injured my wrist lately... well, this is a big reason. But, y'know, I think it's worth it. I'm awfully proud of the book. But this section, I feel, contains some of the very best work of my career. At some point, I'm told, the folks in Spokane will allow you to order two or three copies of this section. I'll post instructions when I get them. Man! This has been a BUSY fall!

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Throughout June, we join our partners globally in celebrating PRIDE, a month to honor and uplift the diverse voices and experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) people. Inclusion and equality are at the very core of democratic politics, and PRIDE presents an opportunity to highlight and reflect on the resilience and progress of our LGBTQI+ partners around the world, and the work that lies ahead. Over the past decade, we have seen illiberal governments and anti-democratic actors specifically target LGBTQI+ rights and queer communities, using these attacks as a tool to mobilize support for illiberal policies. As Over Zero says in a new report, “LGBTQ scapegoating is not random. It is not a natural consequence of polarization or an expected backlash to rights advancements, but rather a strategy to deepen divisions and erode democracy.” The global pushback on freedom of association and civil society, including Russia-style “foreign agent” laws, has generated more barriers for LGBTQI+ people to mobilize to protect themselves, provide essential services to their communities, and prevent the further erosion of their rights. Through our support to partners globally, NDI works for inclusive political participation and seeks to foster secure environments where sexual and gender diversity can be celebrated. This PRIDE Month, we celebrate the contributions of the LGBTQI+ community to our shared pursuit of a more just, democratic and inclusive world, and we recommit ourselves to the ongoing work of advancing LGBTQI+ rights as a central component of human rights for all.

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The overall thrust of this article--waning influence of legacy media--is not new, but it's an interesting read in the context of Trump's election victory. https://lnkd.in/gX3nQV6k

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The Unfinished Project of #Enlightenment What Jürgen Habermas’s sweeping history of Western #philosophy leaves out. by Brandon Bloch "No  one in the world feels the weakness of general characterizing more than I.” So lamented Johann Gottfried von Herder, towering figure of the German Enlightenment, in his 1774 treatise This Too a Philosophy of History for the Formation of Humanity. “One draws together peoples and periods of time that follow one another in an eternal succession like waves of the sea,” Herder wrote. “Whom has one painted? Whom has the depicting word captured?” For Herder, the Enlightenment dream of grasping human history as a seamless whole came up against the irreducible particularity of individuals and cultures. The German philosopher and social theorist Jürgen Habermas, among the most influential thinkers of our time, grapples with much the same problem in his new work, the title of which reverses the order of Herder’s terms: This Too a History of Philosophy. Published in German last September, Habermas’s History spans over 3,000 years and 1,700 pages. It marks the apogee of a singular career. Like his eighteenth-century precursor, Habermas seeks a thoroughgoing reconceptualization of the sweep of human history. “Philosophical problems,” he writes, are distinctive from merely “scientific” ones in their “synthetic force.” For Habermas, the fragmentation of modern life has hardly exhausted philosophy’s capacity for bold questions and architectonic structure. To be sure, the work pays homage to the legacy of postmodern critique. Wary of Herder’s pitfalls of “general characterizing,” Habermas eschews airy speculation for dense textual reconstruction. But this history of philosophy, no less than Enlightenment philosophies of history, is driven by a teleological intent, a principle that threads through history’s seeming randomness and contingency. For Herder, that principle was humanity’s “formation” (Bildung), a foundational concept of the German Enlightenment linking the moral development of the individual with the progress of civilization. For Habermas, it is instead a collective “learning process” (Lernprozess). History, in Habermas’s telling, is the story of humanity’s learning, a record of problems solved and challenges overcome. “New knowledge about the objective world” alongside “social crises,” he explains, create “cognitive dissonances.” These dissonances propel societies to adopt novel modes of understanding and interaction. ... https://lnkd.in/eBCMycfJ

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second episode now available too

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As we wait to hear who won the election, one thing is already clear: election disinformation has reached alarming levels. In the latest episode of Anti-Defamation League's extremely podcast, two experts in the field of disinformation, Dr. Claire Wardle of Cornell University and Scripps News National Correspondent Elizabeth Landers join extremely hosts Oren Segal and Jessica Reaves to break it down. Among the topics they discuss: ·     How the disinformation onslaught of 2024 differs from disinformation waves of past presidential elections ·     The latest AI tools being used to create fake images, video and audio aimed at swaying voters ·     The liar’s dividend—the phenomenon whereby, because disinformation and misinformation are so widespread and more people are unsure about what is and isn’t true, a liar can simply deny that something is real ·     The role of pre-bunking in reducing the spread of election falsehoods and deterring election denialism ·     What social media platforms should be doing to curb disinformation and why they’ve pulled back from doing so Check out the episode here.

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Delighted to be invited to contribute to Discourse Magazine's 'What's Coming in 2025?' For AI policy, there are no doubt countless trends to watch from regulatory activity in the states, to the work of the Trump White House's new AI Tsar. To pick just one development: Autonomous vehicle reform is among the most likely high-impact changes we see in the coming year. Already this tech both appears safe and is in active commercial operation. More critically, Elon Musk's unique interest in AV deregulation and sway with Trump could open the policy window to reform. https://lnkd.in/egZ3KGvr

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The dear reader will know that I respect the insights of Peggy Noonan. Below is her take on journalism. And although she does not make the analogy, her plea for America’s journalism is the same as our plea for America’s universities: keep the main thing the main thing, use your freedom of conscience to pursue truth. Professors and journalists are in the business of equipping our citizens to think, and act, responsibly—about any issue—as individuals living in community. They do so by telling an honest story, providing different perspectives to better understand truth, in order to do life better. From the article: “The purpose of journalism is to get the story and tell the story…What a serious purpose that is, to leave people less encased in themselves. All that is the purpose of journalism, forever and now. It is what a newspaper is for, to serve the public by finding out what’s really going on in all sectors and telling them, clearly… And the great thing for newspapers is if you get the story—if you are known to get the story, like the Washington Post in the Watergate years—you will be read. Because you will be needed. And if you are needed people will pay for you. If you are just following along with some agenda, you will be read by those who share that agenda, but no one else. And readership will plummet… It is good and worthy and necessary to have reporters and editors who come from different experiences, different classes, different cultural assumptions. But current ways of encouraging diversity seem to yield a great sameness in terms of class and viewpoint, and in any case diversity is a mission within a mission, it isn’t the mission itself, which is: Get the story, tell the story.” https://lnkd.in/ehWGvtiH

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💡 As the U.S. election gets closer, the question of trust sits at the forefront. With public confidence in government at historic lows, we increasingly turn to corporations to tackle societal issues. The Harvard Institute for Business in a Global Society is diving deep into this trust dynamic (and other election-related topics), sharing insights that couldn't be more relevant today. I admit to being a bit of a nerd regarding the topic of trust. If you are like me, here are some standout insights from their recent interview with Sandra Sucher: ➡ Trust in Leadership: More than ever, trust in presidential candidates plays a role in the election. ➡ Corporate Responsibility: With election topics close to home - think family care and immigration & work status - companies may need to step up support for their employees and teams. ➡ Internal Trust: Ignoring these themes could be costly. If companies don't adapt, employees' trust in their leaders and the companies they work for could take a hit, and engagement could be undermined. Dive into the details for yourself of this or other newsletters - they are super interesting! #edelmantrustbarometer #uselection2024 #corporatetrust

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Join me in conversation with Meme Styles (Taliaferro), MPA and Dwayne Wharton on Thursday, May 23rd at 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM EST for a webinar on CURE's new research brief: Fighting for Justice and Ourselves: Black Changemakers’ Pursuit of Equity and Well-Being. From a series of listening sessions hosted by CURE in January 2024, Black changemakers shared a vision for collective care, Black well-being and liberation experienced in all its forms. Community building and connection are at the heart of Black changemakers’ well-being. Black well-being is not just something to experience in the present moment, but a way to reimagine and reshape the future as a world where all people can truly thrive. Part of CURE’s new Embodied Justice program, the webinar will include discussion on: - How racial equity and justice work impacts the health and well-being of Black changemakers - The importance of Black-centered spaces to support trauma healing, burnout recovery, well-being and joy - Afro-futuristic visions of liberation and Black well-being that inspire Black changemakers  - What nonprofits and funders can do to support the sustainability and health of Black changemakers Check out the brief and register for the webinar at: https://lnkd.in/gT9NuUyu #RacialEquity #RacialJustice #EmbodiedJustice #CollectiveHealing #CommunityCare #CollectiveWellbeing #RacialJusticeJourney #Healing #Somatics #Mindfulness #Nonprofits

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What’s the one communication element that both U.S. Presidential candidates have both either missed or written-off. It is a simple tactic drawn from the Principles of Persuasion; namely, 👉Credibility 👉Common Ground 👉Evidence 👉Emotion. Can you guess which one has been most lacking in the 2024 Presidential campaign ? #trump #kamalaharris #mediatraining #strategicommunications #messaging #prtips #persuasion #undecideds https://lnkd.in/g67EbQ9a

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