MAY CONTAIN MARKUP

By Herbert S. Dordick and Georgette Wang

The Information Society: A Retrospective View offers a comprehensive exploration of the evolution and impact of information and communication technologies on our world. From the early days of the internet to the current era of social media and artificial intelligence, this book delves into the complex interplay between technology, society, and culture. Readers will gain valuable insights into how the information age has shaped our lives, transformed industries, and redefined the way we connect and communicate. Engaging and thought-provoking, this retrospective provides a compelling overview of the key developments that have defined the information society as we know it today.

London. Sage. 1993. 174p.

By Jackson, Dean; Adler, William T.; Dougall, Danielle; Jain, Samir

From the document: "In March 2023, internet scholar Kate Klonick wrote a counterintuitive essay entitled 'The End of the Golden Age of Tech Accountability' in which she argues that '2021 was a heyday for trust and safety,' a time when tech companies felt public pressure to take a number of positive (if insufficient) self-regulatory steps. She laments that platforms are now backtracking as a result of economic headwinds and the failure of many governments to pass meaningful regulation while public outrage was at its peak. A few months later, in June 2023, the prominent technology journalist Casey Newton cited Klonick's argument in a newsletter, asking, 'Have we reached peak trust and safety?' The trends detailed in this report will probably tempt most readers to answer 'yes.' There are many reasons to be pessimistic about prospects for improvement. But improvement is possible if the field accepts that election disinformation is an environmental hazard to be managed, not a disease to be cured. Few signs in the near term point to huge gains in the health of the U.S. media ecosystem. Steps can be taken to protect and better support researchers, diminish the prevalence and severity of harm, achieve incremental improvements in tech accountability and transparency, and set up the trust and safety field for long-term success."

Center For Democracy And Technology. 2023. 108p.

United States. Department Of Homeland Security

From the document: "DHS has a vital mission: 'With honor and integrity, we will safeguard the American people, our homeland, and our values.' [...] DHS is committed to embodying the relentless resilience of the American people, ensuring a safe, secure, and prosperous homeland in a constantly evolving global environment. To adapt to the ever-changing landscape, the DHS IT community will equip the Department with secure and resilient capabilities. This will also promote interoperability, information sharing, and collaboration among DHS and its partners. [...] The DHS IT Strategic Plan FY2024-2028 enables the Department to set goals and support cross-functional and cross-organizational priorities to achieve our mission. This plan is intended as a guide to help define goals and objectives for the DHS workforce and support delivery of modern, innovative, and efficient services and solutions to safeguard the homeland. The DHS IT Community will align to these strategic goals to support our mission during the next five years. The plan will be executed collaboratively across DHS Headquarters, Agencies & Offices[.] The backbone of this plan and the most critical factor to its success will be the 5,000 talented and committed professionals that comprise the DHS IT workforce. This strategy ensures we continue to invest in our talented workforce and prepare our colleagues for the future in an ever-changing IT landscape. Moreover, much of this modernization plan originated from countless conversations, meetings, town halls, and site visits with the IT workforce across the Department."

Washington. DC. United States. Department Of Homeland Security 2023. 13p.

Edited by Shirley Leitch and Paul Pickering

Terrorism, global pandemics, climate change, wars and all the major threats of our age have been targets of online extremism. The same social media occupying the heartland of our social world leaves us vulnerable to cybercrime, electoral fraud and the ‘fake news’ fuelling the rise of far-right violence and hate speech. In the face of widespread calls for action, governments struggle to reform legal and regulatory frameworks designed for an analogue age. And what of our rights as citizens? As politicians and lawyers run to catch up to the future as it disappears over the horizon, who guarantees our right to free speech, to free and fair elections, to play video games, to surf the Net, to believe ‘fake news’?

Rethinking Social Media and Extremism offers a broad range of perspectives on violent extremism online and how to stop it. As one major crisis follows another and a global pandemic accelerates our turn to digital technologies, attending to the issues raised in this book becomes ever more urgent.

Canberra: Australian University Press, 2022. 194p.