Librarians often object to Internet filters on the grounds that filters are prone to overblocking and underblocking. This argument implies that a significant problem with contemporary filters is that they are insufficiently fine-grained. In this article, we posit that present-day filters will always be conceptually capable of failure, regardless of how granular their content analysis becomes. This is because, we argue, objections to content are best understood as objections to problematic interactions between content and particular (...) knowers. We import the concept of the situated knower from feminist epistemology to capture the heterogeneous, socially embedded nature of patrons, about whom we cannot make blunt generalizations for filtering purposes. A successful filter would need information about these differently situated patrons, the content they seek, and the interactions between the two. We conclude that a genuinely successful Internet filter would therefore need to be both mind reading and fortune-telling. (shrink)

Controlling access to the Internet by means of filtering softwarehas become a growth industry in the U.S. and elsewhere. Its usehas increased as the mandatory response to the current plagues ofsociety, namely, pornography, violence, hate, and in general,anything seen to be unpleasant or threatening. Also of potentialconcern is the possible limitation of access to Web sites thatdiscuss drugs, without distinguishing advocacy from scientificand informed analysis of addiction. With the rise of an effectivecreationist movement dedicated to the elimination of evolutionarytheory (...) in the curriculum, it is to be expected that attempts willbe made to limit access to sites presenting such theories, incertain jurisdictions in the U.S. The current preferred method ofchoice to limit access is to filter content either by blockingaccess to specific Web sites, referred to by their URLs, or byusing a large set of keywords to prevent accessing sites thatcontain one or more of these words. Another more insidious schemeis to encourage or even require every Web site to rate itscontent along a number of dimensions, including violence,language, sexual explicitness, and nudity. Then individualbrowsers can be programmed to return references only to thosesites that fall below a pre-specified profile. The dangers forfree speech inherent in such schemes will be discussed. Effortsto produce legislation in the U.S. to mandate the use offiltering or rating programs will be described, as will somerecent court decisions involving their use in libraries. (shrink)

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe and explore the current state of internet regulation through content filters in Swedish public libraries. Design/methodology/approach Data was collected through an electronic survey directed to library managers of Sweden’s 290 main municipal libraries. 164 answers were returned, yielding a 57% response rate. The analysis comprises descriptive statistics for quantitative data and an activity theory approach with focus on contradictions for qualitative counterparts. Findings In total, 33% of the responding libraries (...) report having content filters; 50% have not; and a surprising 18% do not know. There is a strong correlation between internet misuse and positive attitudes towards filters, and, reversely, between lack of misuse and lack of active stances concerning filters. Rather than seeing this as weakness, the authors suggest that there is strength in a context-bound flexibility open to practical experience and weighting of values, ethics, legislation and local circumstances. More troublesome indications concern the high deferral of decision-making to local authorities (municipalities) whereby libraries are left with limited insight and influence. Research limitations/implications The situation calls for professional organisations to address political mandate questions, and educational programs to strengthen future information professionals’ knowledge of IT in general; filter issues in specific; and local authority decision-making. The study highlights the need of adequate information professional competences and mandates to decide on and oversee internet regulation. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first internationally published study on content filters in Swedish public libraries. (shrink)

In an earlier paper [Rational choice and AGM belief revision, _Artificial Intelligence_, 2009] a correspondence was established between the set-theoretic structures of revealed-preference theory (developed in economics) and the syntactic belief revision functions of the AGM theory (developed in philosophy and computer science). In this paper we extend the re-interpretation of those structures in terms of one-shot belief revision by relating them to the trichotomous attitude towards information studied in Garapa (Rev Symb Logic, 1–21, 2020) where information may be either (...) (1) fully accepted or (2) rejected or (3) taken seriously but not fully accepted. We begin by introducing the syntactic notion of _filtered belief revision_ and providing a characterization of it in terms of a mixture of both AGM revision and contraction. We then establish a correspondence between the proposed notion of filtered belief revision and the above-mentioned set-theoretic structures, interpreted as semantic _partial_ belief revision structures. We also provide an interpretation of the trichotomous attitude towards information in terms of the degree of implausibility of the information. (shrink)

It has been argued that the Internet and social media increase the number of available viewpoints, perspectives, ideas and opinions available, leading to a very diverse pool of information. However, critics have argued that algorithms used by search engines, social networking platforms and other large online intermediaries actually decrease information diversity by forming so-called “filter bubbles”. This may form a serious threat to our democracies. In response to this threat others have developed algorithms and digital tools to combat filter (...) bubbles. This paper first provides examples of different software designs that try to break filter bubbles. Secondly, we show how norms required by two democracy models dominate the tools that are developed to fight the filter bubbles, while norms of other models are completely missing in the tools. The paper in conclusion argues that democracy itself is a contested concept and points to a variety of norms. Designers of diversity enhancing tools must thus be exposed to diverse conceptions of democracy. (shrink)

People increasingly form beliefs based on information gained from automatically filtered Internet ‎sources such as search engines. However, the workings of such sources are often opaque, preventing ‎subjects from knowing whether the information provided is biased or incomplete. Users’ reliance on ‎Internet technologies whose modes of operation are concealed from them raises serious concerns about ‎the justificatory status of the beliefs they end up forming. Yet it is unclear how to address these concerns ‎within standard theories of knowledge (...) and justification. To shed light on the problem, we introduce a ‎novel conceptual framework that clarifies the relations between justified belief, epistemic responsibility, ‎action, and the technological resources available to a subject. We argue that justified belief is subject to ‎certain epistemic responsibilities that accompany the subject’s particular decision-taking circumstances, ‎and that one typical responsibility is to ascertain, so far as one can, whether the information upon which ‎the judgment will rest is biased or incomplete. What this responsibility comprises is partly determined by ‎the inquiry-enabling technologies available to the subject. We argue that a subject’s beliefs that are ‎formed based on Internet-filtered information are less justified than they would be if she either knew how ‎filtering worked or relied on additional sources, and that the subject may have the epistemic ‎responsibility to take measures to enhance the justificatory status of such beliefs.‎. (shrink)

The internet has considerably changed epistemic practices in science as well as in everyday life. Apparently, this technology allows more and more people to get access to a huge amount of information. Some people even claim that the internet leads to a democratization of knowledge. In the following text, we will analyze this statement. In particular, we will focus on a potential change in epistemic structure. Does the internet change our common epistemic practice to rely on expert (...) opinions? Does it alter or even undermine the division of epistemic labor? The epistemological framework of our investigation is a naturalist-pragmatist approach to knowledge. We take it that the internet generates a new environment to which people seeking information must adapt. How can they, and how should they, expand their repertory of social markers to continue the venture of filtering, and so make use of the possibilities the internet apparently provides? To find answers to these questions we will take a closer look at two case studies. The first example is about the internet platform WikiLeaks that allows so-called whistle-blowers to anonymously distribute their information. The second case study is about the search engine Google and the problem of personalized searches. Both instances confront a knowledge-seeking individual with particular difficulties which are based on the apparent anonymity of the information distributor. Are there ways for the individual to cope with this problem and to make use of her social markers in this context nonetheless? (shrink)

Purpose– This paper aims to consider selected results from the Arts and Humanities Research Council -funded “Managing Access to the internet in Public Libraries” project, from 2012-2014. MAIPLE has explored the ways in which public library services manage use of the internet connections that they provide for the public. This included the how public library services balance their legal obligations and the needs of their communities in a public space and the ethical dilemmas that arise.Design/methodology/approach– The researchers used (...) a mixed-method approach involving a review of the literature, legal analysis, a questionnaire survey and case studies in five public library authorities.Findings– UK public library services use a range of methods to regulate internet access. The research also confirms previous findings that filtering software is an ubiquitous tool for controlling access to and protecting library users from “inappropriate”, illegal and harmful internet content. There is a general, if sometimes reluctant, acceptance of filtering software as a practical tool by library staff, which seems to contrast with professional codes of ethics and attitudes in other countries. The research indicates that public library internet access will be a valued service for some time to come, but that some aspects of how public library services regulate internet access is currently managed can have socially undesirable consequences, including blocking legitimate sites and preventing users from accessing government services. Education could play a greater part in helping the general population to exercise judgement in selection of materials to view and use. This does not preclude implementing stricter controls to protect children, whilst allowing public libraries to continue providing a social good to those who are unable to otherwise participate in the digital age.Research limitations/implications– The response to the survey was 39 per cent meaning that findings may not apply across the whole of the UK. The findings of this study are compared with and supplemented by other quantitative sources, but a strength of this study is the depth of understanding afforded by the use of case studies.Originality/value– This paper provides both a quantitative and qualitative analysis of how internet access is managed in UK public libraries, including how library services fulfil their legal obligations and the ethical implications of how they balance their role in facilitating access to information with their perceived role as a safe and trusted environment for all members of their communities. The findings add to the international discussion on this issue and stimulate debate and policy making in the UK. (shrink)

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to explore Australian public and stakeholders views towards the regulation of the Internet and its content. The federal government called for submissions addressing their proposal, and this paper analyses these submissions for themes and provides clarity as to the Australian public and stakeholders key concerns in regards to the proposed policy. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses a qualitative approach to analyse the public consultations to the Australian Federal Government. These documents are (...) coded and analysed to determine negative and positive viewpoints. Findings – The research has shown, based upon the analysis of the consultation, that there was no public support for any of the measures put forward, that the Australian Federal Government in its response has not recognised this public feedback and instead has only utilised some of the qualitative feedback obtained through the public consultation process to try to justify its case to proceed with its proposals. Research limitations/implications – The study is focussed on Australia. Practical implications – The paper analyses a proposed national approach to filtering the content of the Internet and discussed the public reaction to such an approach. Social implications – The paper looks at how different parts of Australian society view Internet filtering in a positive or negative manner. Originality/value – The only study that directly looks at the viewpoint of the Australian public. (shrink)

In U.S. v. American Library Association (2003), the Supreme Court upheld the Child Internet Protection Act (CIPA), which mandated that libraries receiving federal funding for public Internet access install content-filtering programs on computers which provide that access. These programs analyze incoming content, and block the receipt of objectionable material, in particular pornography. Thus, patrons at public libraries are protected from unintentionally (or intentionally) accessing objectionable material, and, in the case of minors, from accessing potentially damaging material. At least, (...) that is the official story. In this paper, I develop three points. (1) I argue that CIPA and ALA are better read as examples of the enforcement of a regime of normative sexuality. The question of minors accessing pornography is only relevant to the official story insofar as it provides a rhetorically persuasive example of deviance from that normative regime. CIPAs full target includes information about topics such as homosexuality and contraception. (2) Rather than (or in addition to) punishing deviances directly, CIPA attempts to constitute a “public” in which such deviancy can never occur in the first place. Hence, the designation of a “public” space serves to domesticate alternative sexualities and to sanitize that space of sexual difference. (3) This interaction at the border of the public and private spheres offers an opportunity to reflect on and underscore the ways that subject formation and subjectivity are mediated through technological artifacts like the Internet. (shrink)

I started to think seriously about the ideas of augmented perception and personalized views of reality after reading a number of Internet messages containing proposals to introduce language standards for online communications. Frequently, people suggest restricting certain forms of expression or polishing the language of the posts to make them less offensive and more generally understandable.

The EU Kids Online project aims to enhance knowledge of the experiences and practices of European children and their parents regarding online risks and safety. A crucial research effort by the EU Kids Online network has been a survey in 25 European countries which targeted approximately 1,000 children per country. This article applies a cross-cultural values filter to the data that were gathered on parental mediation and the Internet in this survey. Our intention is to test whether Geert Hofstede’s (...) cross-national research results about national cultural values also apply to the EU Kids Online data on parental mediation. This implies studying collectivism versus individualism, low versus high power distance, masculinity versus femininity and low versus high uncertainty avoidance. We test whether differences between nations on these four dimensions correlate with differences between countries in parental mediation of the Internet and we test which European countries form clusters. (shrink)

In this work I analyze the phenomenon of political polarization on the internet. I argue that the approach centered on the filter bubble and echo chambers has shortcomings. To solve them, I propose the concept of artificial polarization. This concept refers to the process by which the expressive uses of communication, such as flaming or moral grandstanding, provoke fictitious forms of polarization. Recognizing the artificial polarization will allow a better understanding of the polarization processes in the network and their (...) effects on the democratic debate. (shrink)

To improve the understanding of film and television postproduction for college students in the era of intelligent media, a study is conducted on college students’ short video communication education and audience psychology based on the rapid development of virtual image and the Internet of Things. Primarily, the collaborative filtering algorithm is optimized and combined with the principle of Spark and Hadoop platforms as well as the IoT and virtual image technologies. Then, a hybrid computing model is proposed, and the (...) two algorithms are improved and combined, with 90,000 network video records as data samples. Finally, the push accuracy of the hybrid algorithm and the traditional algorithm is calculated and compared, and based on this, a questionnaire survey on the audience psychology of short video production is carried out for college students. The results show that the time user of the combined algorithm is always at least 0.4 s faster than that of a single algorithm and the running speed of the algorithm with five nodes is nearly 80% higher than the algorithm with a single node. The Spark algorithm with multinode has good versatility in image recording and processing of large groups of college students. When processing more than 100,000 image records, the deviation values of Spark and Hadoop with a single node exceeded 1.1, but the deviation value of the hybrid algorithm was still lower than 1.1. With the increase of data volume, the deviation values of the three algorithms are increasing. Compared with the traditional CFA algorithm, the optimized algorithm has a higher speed in processing data and is more accurate in content pushing. From the questionnaire survey of college students, it is found that contemporary college students are not active in learning knowledge of virtual images. Hence, it is concluded that colleges must carry out relevant courses based on short video communication education and strengthen the short video communication education of college students. A reference is provided for the development of college students’ short video communication education in the digital age. (shrink)

With the rapid development of the Internet, recommendation systems have received widespread attention as an effective way to solve information overload. Social tagging technology can both reflect users’ interests and describe the characteristics of the items themselves, making group recommendation thus becoming a recommendation technology in urgent demand nowadays. In traditional tag-based recommendation systems, the general processing method is to calculate the similarity and then rank the recommended items according to the similarity. Without considering the influence of continuous user (...) behavior, in this article, we propose a personalized recommendation algorithm based on social tags by combining the ideas of Markov chain and collaborative filtering. This algorithm splits the three-dimensional relationship of into two two-dimensional relationships of and. The user’s interest degree to the tags is calculated by the Markov chain model, and then the items corresponding to them are matched by the recommended tag set. The influence between tags is used to model the satisfaction of items based on the correlation between the tags contained in the matched items, and collaborative filtering is used to complete the sparse values when calculating the interest and satisfaction between user–tags and user–items to improve the accuracy of recommendations. The experiments show that in the publicly available dataset, the personalized recommendation algorithm proposed in this article has significantly improved in accuracy and recall rate compared with the existing algorithms. (shrink)

Language is a live organism and as every other living being develops and is enriched with new words and terms, which enter the life of society together with the new tool, i.e. they enter in and mix with the order of Albanian words. Such a thing is inevitable and in some cases even useful, but every word that is lined up in the order of Albanian words must be well filtered. “The introduction of new words and exclusion of old ones (...) is a natural process, and it happens in any language. This is what happened with the Greek borrowings in Latin, with the Arabic borrowings in Greek, with the Latin borrowings in many European languages, with the Persian borrowings in Turkish, with the Turkish borrowings in Albanian, etc.” - Prof. Hajri Shehu emphasizes in a scientific interview. In recent decades, with the expansion of the Internet, many foreign words began to enter and be used in the Albanian language. English took up more space than expected; in addition to penetrating through various tool notions, it also replaced centuries-old native words of Albanian. The paper has been divided into three parts and in each part an issue has been dealt with: the first part talks about the use of foreign words and the existing words in Albanian; the second part deals with the use of emoticons used instead of words and the third part deals with writing errors in the Albanian language. These are some of the issues that have created a great concern for the Albanian language in this century and they certainly need to be addressed seriously to prevent the dangers that may threaten it. (shrink)

his is a book to broaden the mind. It brings the reader into a world only vaguely imaginable and richly enlightens it with extraordinary attention to interesting historical details. It is beautifully written and endlessly interesting.

Avicenna : Logic Avicenna is one of the most important philosophers and logicians in the Arabic world. His logical works are presented in several treatises. Some of them are commentaries on Aristotle's Organon, and are presented in al-Shifa al-Mantiq, the logical part of … Continue reading Avicenna : Logic →.

The internet has become an ubiquitous epistemic source. However, it comes with several drawbacks. For instance, the world wide web seems to foster filter bubbles and echo chambers and includes search results that promote bias and spread misinformation. Richard Heersmink suggests online intellectual virtues to combat these epistemically detrimental effects . These are general epistemic virtues applied to the online environment based on our background knowledge of this online environment. I argue that these online intellectual virtues also demand a (...) particular view of cognitive integration. Online intellectual virtues are incompatible with a popular conception of extended minds proposed by Andy Clark and David Chalmers . I suggest that if we want to hold on to both a conception of online intellectual virtues and some conception of the extended mind, we have to accept a more gradual theory of cognitive integration along the lines of second-wave theories of the extended mind. (shrink)

There have been a number of studies examining the attitudes of librarians to ethical dilemmas, but few examining them in comparison with Library and Information Science students as we did in our study. According to that UK librarians and students in general hold surprisingly similar ethical attitudes. We expected the students to be more liberal, more willing to uphold idealistic principles, and given their student status, with attitudes balanced in favour of other students' and patrons' rights in terms of fees, (...) and accessibility, and copyright law. On the contrary, in many areas such as Internet filtering, looking at online erotic images, and removing books at the request of patrons, we found practitioners more liberal than the students. A reason for that might be that the students are keen to emulate what they perceive to be a conservative and mature outlook, i.e., a stance of responsibility, as a pressing concern for ILS students is likely to be the establishment of a career. Though there is a fair level of teaching ethical issues it seems to lead into a mediocre level of student awareness of basic issues or of the CILIP Code which is meant as a 'framework' to help information professionals 'manage the responsibilities and sensitivities which figure prominently in their work'. (shrink)

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of internet filtering, and its impact on marginalized groups including non‐governmental organizations, female activists, ethnic, and religious minorities, the younger generation and the increase of the digital divide in Iran.Design/methodology/approachThe paper raises two main questions: to what extent do information and communications technologies and in particular, the internet, promote freedom of speech, and gender equality in Iran? What is the impact of state censorship and ICT filtering on these (...) activities? To answer these research questions, the author uses narratives of the internet's usage along with a comparison study with other Middle Eastern countries to analyze the impact of ICTs on citizen's freedom of expression.FindingsThe paper argues that restrictions imposed on ICT tools and services by the Government of Iran which has been claimed to protect country's national security against the corruption and immorality imposed by Western countries not only affect the expansion of ICTs negatively but also civil liberties – thus increasing the digital divide internally, regionally, as well as on a global scale.Research limitations/implicationsAlbeit this research is limited to the case study of Iran, the author believes that lessens learned from the Iran's case study can be applied to other Islamic countries and in particular countries located in the Middle East region.Practical implicationsICT tools and services such as the internet and short message service are effective emancipatory media for citizens' participation and mobilization in democratic processes.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the existing knowledge and understanding of the impact of ICTs on freedom and democracy. (shrink)

This essay is a critique of LarryLessig's book, Code and other Laws ofCyberspace (Basic Books, 1999). Itsummarizes Lessig's theory of the fourmodalities of regulation in cyberspace: code,law, markets, and norms. It applies thistheory to the topics of privacy and speech,illustrating how code can undermine basicrights or liberties. The review raisesquestions about the role of ethics in thismodel, and it argues that ethical principlesmust be given a privileged position in anytheory that purports to deal with the shapingof behavior in cyberspace. Finally, (...) itproposes a philosophy of ethicalself-regulation instead of an over-reliance ongovernment policy to deal with certainimproprieties and negative externalities thattend to disrupt the Net. (shrink)

This article is an exercise in the virtue epistemology of the internet, an area of applied virtue epistemology that investigates how online environments impact the development of intellectual virtues, and how intellectual virtues manifest within online environments. I examine online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles (Nguyen 2020, Episteme 17(2), 141–61), exploring the conceptual relationship between these online environments and the virtue of open-mindedness (Battaly 2018b, Episteme 15(3), 261–82). The article answers two key individual-level, virtue epistemic questions: (Q1) How does (...) immersion in online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles affect the cultivation and preservation of open-mindedness, and (Q2) Is it always intellectually virtuous to exhibit open-mindedness in the context of online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles? In response to Q1, I contend that both online echo chambers and online epistemic bubbles threaten to undermine the cultivation and preservation of open-mindedness, albeit via different mechanisms and to different degrees. In response to Q2, I affirm that both a deficiency and an excess of open-mindedness can be virtuous in these online environments, depending on the epistemic orientation of the digital user. (shrink)

Recent conversation has blurred two very different social epistemic phenomena: echo chambers and epistemic bubbles. Members of epistemic bubbles merely lack exposure to relevant information and arguments. Members of echo chambers, on the other hand, have been brought to systematically distrust all outside sources. In epistemic bubbles, other voices are not heard; in echo chambers, other voices are actively undermined. It is crucial to keep these phenomena distinct. First, echo chambers can explain the post-truth phenomena in a way that epistemic (...) bubbles cannot. Second, each type of structure requires a distinct intervention. Mere exposure to evidence can shatter an epistemic bubble, but may actually reinforce an echo chamber. Finally, echo chambers are much harder to escape. Once in their grip, an agent may act with epistemic virtue, but social context will pervert those actions. Escape from an echo chamber may require a radical rebooting of one's belief system. (shrink)

The fact that Internet companies may record our personal data and track our online behavior for commercial or political purpose has emphasized aspects related to online privacy. This has also led to the development of search engines that promise no tracking and privacy. Search engines also have a major role in spreading low-quality health information such as that of anti-vaccine websites. This study investigates the relationship between search engines’ approach to privacy and the scientific quality of the information they (...) return. We analyzed the first 30 webpages returned searching “vaccines autism” in English, Spanish, Italian, and French. The results show that not only “alternative” search engines but also other commercial engines often return more anti-vaccine pages (10–53%) than Google (0%). Some localized versions of Google, however, returned more anti-vaccine webpages (up to 10%) than Google. Health information returned by search engines has an impact on public health and, specifically, in the acceptance of vaccines. The issue of information quality when seeking information for making health-related decisions also impact the ethical aspect represented by the right to an informed consent. Our study suggests that designing a search engine that is privacy savvy and avoids issues with filter bubbles that can result from user-tracking is necessary but insufficient; instead, mechanisms should be developed to test search engines from the perspective of information quality (particularly for health-related webpages) before they can be deemed trustworthy providers of public health information. (shrink)

Teens live in a complicated world. They are constantly bombarded by messages from their friends, parents, teachers, the internet, and their churches, and not all of these messages agree or line up with each other. How do students figure out who to listen to? How do they figure out what is true? Inklings on Philosophy and Worldview will show teens practical ways to filter out the wrong messages and focus on what is real. Using teachings from highly respected, loved, (...) and well-known writers, teacher Matthew Dominguez will show teens the power of story as he guides them through a study of world religions, philosophies, and worldview, and gives them a firm foundation to stand on as they prepare to face the world. (shrink)

Although the body has been the focus of much contemporary cultural theory, the models that are typically applied neglect the most salient characteristics of embodied existence—movement, affect, and sensation—in favor of concepts derived from linguistic theory. In _Parables for the Virtual_ Brian Massumi views the body and media such as television, film, and the Internet, as cultural formations that operate on multiple registers of sensation beyond the reach of the reading techniques founded on the standard rhetorical and semiotic models. (...) Renewing and assessing William James’s radical empiricism and Henri Bergson’s philosophy of perception through the filter of the post-war French philosophy of Deleuze, Guattari, and Foucault, Massumi links a cultural logic of variation to questions of movement, affect, and sensation. If such concepts are as fundamental as signs and significations, he argues, then a new set of theoretical issues appear, and with them potential new paths for the wedding of scientific and cultural theory. Replacing the traditional opposition of literal and figural with new distinctions between stasis and motion and between actual and virtual, _Parables for the Virtual _tackles related theoretical issues by applying them to cultural mediums as diverse as architecture, body art, the digital art of Stelarc, and Ronald Reagan’s acting career. The result is an intriguing combination of cultural theory, science, and philosophy that asserts itself in a crystalline and multi-faceted argument. _Parables for the Virtual_ will interest students and scholars of continental and Anglo-American philosophy, cultural studies, cognitive science, electronic art, digital culture, and chaos theory, as well as those concerned with the “science wars” and the relation between the humanities and the sciences in general. (shrink)

Currently, the Internet information and communication network has become an integral part of human life. People use social networks such as Twitter, VKontakte, Facebook, etc., to establish global contacts, exchange opinions, gain knowledge, etc. The active participation of not only individual users, but also information organizations in the entire world space makes it necessary to develop measures that correspond to modern trends in the development of information and communication technologies to ensure national security, in particular, the organization of events (...) related to countering the strengthening of ideas of extremism and terrorism. Countering the spread of aggressive information on the global network is an urgent problem of society and government agencies, this task is solved by filtering unwanted Internet resources. However, terrorist and extremist groups rationally use web technologies to perform various functions, including information dissemination, propaganda, fundraising and extremist missions. In such a situation, the Internet poses a threat to national security. In this paper, we investigate the issue of creating semantic analysis models to identify extremist messages in the Kazakh language. For the study, a proprietary text corpus was assembled and models based on bigrams and word input methods were proposed. According to the results of experiments, the proposed model shows the highest indicators for evaluating machine learning methods. (shrink)

Many scholars agree that the Internet plays a pivotal role in self-radicalization, which can lead to behaviours ranging from lone-wolf terrorism to participation in white nationalist rallies to mundane bigotry and voting for extremist candidates. However, the mechanisms by which the Internet facilitates self-radicalization are disputed; some fault the individuals who end up self-radicalized, while others lay the blame on the technology itself. In this paper, we explore the role played by technological design decisions in online self-radicalization in (...) its myriad guises, encompassing extreme as well as more mundane forms. We begin by characterizing the phenomenon of technological seduction. Next, we distinguish between top-down seduction and bottom-up seduction. We then situate both forms of technological seduction within the theoretical model of dynamical systems theory. We conclude by articulating strategies for combatting online self-radicalization. (shrink)

Online service providers —such as AOL, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter—significantly shape the informational environment and influence users’ experiences and interactions within it. There is a general agreement on the centrality of OSPs in information societies, but little consensus about what principles should shape their moral responsibilities and practices. In this article, we analyse the main contributions to the debate on the moral responsibilities of OSPs. By endorsing the method of the levels of abstract, we first analyse the moral responsibilities (...) of OSPs in the web. These concern the management of online information, which includes information filtering, Internet censorship, the circulation of harmful content, and the implementation and fostering of human rights. We then consider the moral responsibilities ascribed to OSPs on the web and focus on the existing legal regulation of access to users’ data. The overall analysis provides an overview of the current state of the debate and highlights two main results. First, topics related to OSPs’ public role—especially their gatekeeping function, their corporate social responsibilities, and their role in implementing and fostering human rights—have acquired increasing relevance in the specialised literature. Second, there is a lack of an ethical framework that can define OSPs’ responsibilities, and provide the fundamental sharable principles necessary to guide OSPs’ conduct within the multicultural and international context in which they operate. This article contributes to the ethical framework necessary to deal with and by endorsing a LoA enabling the definition of the responsibilities of OSPs with respect to the well-being of the infosphere and of the entities inhabiting it. (shrink)

Self-deceptive projects are frequently supported by our social environment, with others influencing both our motives and capacities for self-deception. Digital spaces offer even more opportunities for interactive self-deception. Digital platforms are incentivized to sort us and capture our engagement, and online users also have desires to be sorted and engaged. The execution of self-deception is partially offloaded to algorithms and social networks that filter our evidence, selectively draw our attention to evidence, offer rationalizations, and give us repetitive and emotion-laden feedback. (...) Nevertheless, this is not so different from what we find in offline environments. Further, most of this offloading of information processing is willingly accepted by users and is in line with their desires. As such, responsibility for any motivationally biased beliefs largely lies with the individual internet user. (shrink)

The nature of authority is shifting in online scholarly communication. This examination of the history and future of peer review argues that effective online communication requires the development of an open, community?oriented, post?publication system of peer?to?peer review, transforming peer review from a process focused on gatekeeping to one concerned with filtering the wealth of scholarly material made available via the Internet.

The tendency towards an increasing integration of the informational web into our daily physical world (in particular in so-called Ambient Intelligent technologies which combine ideas derived from the field of Ubiquitous Computing, Intelligent User Interfaces and Ubiquitous Communication) is likely to make the development of successful profiling and personalization algorithms, like the ones currently used by internet companies such as Amazon , even more important than it is today. I argue that the way in which we experience ourselves necessarily (...) goes through a moment of technical mediation. Because of this algorithmic profiling that thrives on continuous reconfiguration of identification should not be understood as a supplementary process which maps a pre-established identity that exists independently from the profiling practice. In order to clarify how the experience of one’s identity can become affected by such machine-profiling a theoretical exploration of identity is made (including Agamben’s understanding of an apparatus , Ricoeur’s distinction between idem - and ipse -identity, and Stiegler’s notion of a conjunctive–disjunctive relationship towards retentional apparatuses ). Although it is clear that no specific predictions about the impact of Ambient Intelligent technologies can be made without taking more particulars into account, the theoretical concepts are used to describe three general scenarios about the way wherein the experience of identity might become affected. To conclude, I argue that the experience of one’s identity may affect whether the cases of unwarranted discrimination resulting from ubiquitous differentiations and identifications within an Ambient Intelligent environment, will become a matter of societal concern. (shrink)

1. The Search Engine operators inform the users about the way in which the Search Engine works; particularly the basic criteria of ranking are explained. Also, the Search Engine operators describe which ways of manipulating websites lead to exclusion from the result lists in case of doubt.2. The Search Engine operators design their sites in the most transparent way. Contents whose position on the result list is due to a commercial arrangement are clearly marked.3. It is the intention of the (...) Search Engine opera-tors to protect children and youths from morally damaging contents. To this purpose, the opera-tors provide family filters and point out to the fact that filters do not guarantee absolute pro-tection for youths and that children should not use the internet without their parents´ supervision.4. Those sites which are regarded illegal according to national legislation will be excluded from the result lists as soon as the operators know about them and have access to the illegal sites on the index.5. For handling the users´ data there is the princi-ple of data-thriftiness.This “Code of Conduct” was developed by Carsten Welp. It was first published in: Marcel Machill and Carsten Welp : Wegweiser im Netz. Gütersloh: Bertelsmann Stiftung 2003. Republished and trans-lated by kind permission of Marcel Machill. (shrink)

The extent of Internet censorship in countries like China is regularly tested, but the testing methods used from within a censored country can entail risk for humans. A benevolent worm can be used for testing instead: the worm's self-replication, long the bane of suggested benevolent viruses and worms, is shown to be essential here. We describe the design of this benevolent worm, along with some other related applications for it. A technical, ethical, and legal analysis is provided.

The TikTok experience refers to a user’s interaction with the platform while scrolling through various videos. The user can change what they are viewing instantly on one screen much like a TV viewer, the only difference being that whatever is being watched is in the form of short videos made specifically for the platform. These videos vary in style and form and are made to be viewed within the platform itself. All the content that a user watches within the mobile (...) application, in the end, forms a longer, theoretically never-ending, video that is sometimes completely unrelated but more often similar through shared jokes, memes, and visual filters. This way of producing and viewing short-form videos as a whole is reminiscent of the way Everything Everywhere All At Once feels to the audience which is no surprise as many other forms of media and artworks are inspired by internet short-form video platforms such as TikTok. (shrink)

The tendency towards an increasing integration of the informational web into our daily physical world (in particular in so-called Ambient Intelligent technologies which combine ideas derived from the field of Ubiquitous Computing, Intelligent User Interfaces and Ubiquitous Communication) is likely to make the development of successful profiling and personalization algorithms, like the ones currently used by internet companies such as Amazon, even more important than it is today. I argue that the way in which we experience ourselves necessarily goes (...) through a moment of technical mediation. Because of this algorithmic profiling that thrives on continuous reconfiguration of identification should not be understood as a supplementary process which maps a pre-established identity that exists independently from the profiling practice. In order to clarify how the experience of one’s identity can become affected by such machine-profiling a theoretical exploration of identity is made (including Agamben’s understanding of an apparatus, Ricoeur’s distinction between idem- and ipse-identity, and Stiegler’s notion of a conjunctive–disjunctive relationship towards retentional apparatuses). Although it is clear that no specific predictions about the impact of Ambient Intelligent technologies can be made without taking more particulars into account, the theoretical concepts are used to describe three general scenarios about the way wherein the experience of identity might become affected. To conclude, I argue that the experience of one’s identity may affect whether the cases of unwarranted discrimination resulting from ubiquitous differentiations and identifications within an Ambient Intelligent environment, will become a matter of societal concern. (shrink)

Children of school age routinely gamer information from the Web-sites and homepages of the World Wide Web (WWW). For the foreseeable future increasing numbers of children will be doing more and more of this. These children will generally be in classrooms for much of the time, although their school-based learning will be supplemented by the use of home computers. The content and quality of information gathered by children will continue to be circumscribed by the demands of the curriculum and by (...) the parameters and guidelines provided by for example anti-pornography filtering software or, more positively, the National Grid for Learning.1 For the foreseeable future too, teachers will remain in a position to enable, guide and regulate children’s Internet use. It is and will be the job of teachers to help children to employ the resources of the WWW in order to become well informed, and to help them to reflect intelligently on the structures and processes involved, and on the significance of their learning to wider human concerns. But what specifically do children learn from using the WWW? Furthermore, is it possible that using the WWW and reflecting on the engagement with it could provide an opportunity for children to learn something new and significant? If so, what is it, and what is the role of teachers in this learning? (shrink)

This article reflects on the contemporary phenomenon of ‘fake news’ from a Schutzian perspective. Discerning the truth or falsity of an utterance – whether it is true, and therefore deemed ‘real’, or not and thus ‘fake’ –, calls for a framework for determining truth value. Thus, after a brief introduction, situating fake news within the history of strategic disinformation and propaganda, we analyze Schutz’s perspective on truth and rationality. Schutz’s concept of truth and rationality are centered around the paradigm of (...) social constructivism, which situates the production of objects of thought in its sociocultural context and considers these objects socially derived or mediated. Reality, from this angle, is tied to group consensus, and, thus, can be considered objectified knowledge within the in-groups to which the members belong. This view of reality seems to follow, essentially, the logic of internet phenomena, such as filter bubbles and echo-chambers. (shrink)

Streaming media server is the core system of audio and video application in the Internet; it has a wide range of applications in music recommendation. As song libraries and users of music websites and APPs continue to increase, user interaction data are generated at an increasingly fast rate, making the shortcomings of the original offline recommendation system and the advantages of the real-time streaming recommendation system more and more obvious. This paper describes in detail the working methods and contents (...) of each stage of the real-time streaming music recommendation system, including requirement analysis, overall design, implementation of each module of the system, and system testing and analysis, from a practical scenario. Moreover, this paper analyzes the current research status and deficiencies in the field of music recommendation by analyzing the user interaction data of real music websites. From the actual requirements of the system, the functional and performance goals of the system are proposed to address these deficiencies, and then the functional structure, general architecture, and database model of the system are designed, and how to interact with the server side and the client side is investigated. For the implementation of data collection and statistics module, this paper adopts Flume and Kafka to collect user behavior data and uses Spark Streaming and Redis to count music popularity trends and support efficient query. The recommendation engine module in this paper is designed and optimized using Spark to implement incremental matrix decomposition on data streams, online collaborative topic model, and improved item-based collaborative filtering algorithm. In the system testing section, the functionality and performance of the system are tested, and the recommendation engine is tested with real datasets to show the discovered music themes and analyze the test results in detail. (shrink)

Cell phone abuse amongst Japanese school students, including sex crimes and bullying, are commonly managed with filters and phone bans. Many believe these measures are more effective than moral education. Japanese teenagers therefore enter college without moral education in the Internet society, which can cause problems on campus: students plagiarizing from the Internet, or posting anonymous defamatory messages on bulletin boards. Japanese universities address these problems ineffectively. Problems are caused by both student ignorance of network ethics and (...) moral immatureness. Therefore, it is insufficient to provide only information ethics knowledge; students require a citizenship education to learn to build a moral community in the globalized network society. Here, the authors examine the effectiveness and difficulties in the practice of educating students to be moral subjects in such a society. Students are encouraged to debate ethical and practical issues, to express ethical remarks, and to understand the impact of their remarks. (shrink)

Children of school age routinely gamer information from the Web-sites and homepages of the World Wide Web (WWW). For the foreseeable future increasing numbers of children will be doing more and more of this. These children will generally be in classrooms for much of the time, although their school-based learning will be supplemented by the use of home computers. The content and quality of information gathered by children will continue to be circumscribed by the demands of the curriculum and by (...) the parameters and guidelines provided by for example anti-pornography filtering software or, more positively, the National Grid for Learning.1 For the foreseeable future too, teachers will remain in a position to enable, guide and regulate children’s Internet use. It is and will be the job of teachers to help children to employ the resources of the WWW in order to become well informed, and to help them to reflect intelligently on the structures and processes involved, and on the significance of their learning to wider human concerns. But what specifically do children learn from using the WWW? Furthermore, is it possible that using the WWW and reflecting on the engagement with it could provide an opportunity for children to learn something new and significant? If so, what is it, and what is the role of teachers in this learning? (shrink)

This paper discusses the “blended identity” of online rock fans to show that the standard dichotomy between anonymous and real life personas is an inadequate description of self-presentation in online communities. Using data from an ethnographic, exploratory study of an online community and comparison groups including interviews, an online questionnaire, fan discussion boards, and participant/observation, the research analyzes fan identity online and then offline. Rolling Stones fans often adopt names that illustrate their allegiance to the band, along with avatars. Issues (...) of gender and the technological change of software platform also affect types of online self-presentations and their construction. Fans engage in “role embracement”, merging their individual selves with the role of Stones fans, demonstrated by reactions of friends and family. Connections between offline and online settings occur, with band affiliation of fans expressed through choice of apparel offline, and usernames from online filtering into the offline interactions among fans. (shrink)

It is often suggested that we are equipped with a set of cognitive tools that help us to filter out unreliable testimony. But are these tools effective? I answer this question in two steps. Firstly, I argue that they are not real-time effective. The process of filtering, which takes place simultaneously with or right after language comprehension, does not prevent a particular hearer on a particular occasion from forming beliefs based on false testimony. Secondly, I argue that they are long-term (...) effective. Some hearers sometimes detect false testimony, which increases speakers’ incentives for honesty and stabilizes the practice of human communication in which deception is risky and costly. In short, filtering prevents us from forming a large number of beliefs based on false testimony, not by turning each of us into a high-functioning polygraph but by turning the social environment of human communication into one in which such polygraphs are not required. Finally, I argue that these considerations support strong anti-reductionism about testimonial entitlement. (shrink)

In this paper we introduce the notion of filter on the neutrosophic crisp set, then we consider a generalization of the filter’s studies. Afterwards, we present the important neutrosophic crisp filters. We also study several relations between different neutrosophic crisp filters and neutrosophic topologies. Possible applications to database systems are touched upon.