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Re: [kictanet] Talk to NCIC Day 1: Users and Fake News
by Ali Hussein 16 Aug '17

16 Aug '17

Listers I will attempt to address these questions. *(a) Why is there an increase in the prevalence of Fake News recently?* Fake News is not a new phenomena. We can trace the origins of Fake News to the origins of Propaganda. Originally the word Propaganda was derived from a new administrative body of the Catholic church (congregation) created in 1622, called the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide (Congregation for Propagating the Faith), or informally simply Propaganda. Its activity was aimed at "propagating" the Catholic faith in non-Catholic countries. Propaganda is information that is not objective and is used primarily to influence an audience and further an agenda, often by presenting facts selectively to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information. So, looking at this from a wider perspective we have simply replaced the word Propaganda with Fake News. More importantly the advent of the Internet and Social Media has 'democratized' Propaganda and simply renamed it Fake News. Leading up to the second world war the Nazi Regime of Germany went to the unprecedented extent of creating a Ministry of Propaganda. The Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda, RMVP or Propagandaministerium) was a Nazi government agency to enforce Nazi ideology. This is probably the most infamous use of Fake News the world ever and in history. That is the extent of how detrimental the use of Fake News can be - 6 million jews were killed. Closer to home we know what happened in Rwanda during and before the Genocide. >From where I sit, the biggest culprits of Fake News the world over are State Players as opposed to individuals. And more often than not it is used for very specific political reasons. Let's look at the situation in Kenya today and the use of deep analytics, big data and hyper targeting of prospective voters to influence people's views and hence voting patterns. The two major proponents in this election are both guilty of super negative messaging using the above mentioned. My humbly take then on this issue is that NCIC should do the following:- 1. Work with the big players in the Digital Marketing Space (Facebook, Google, Twitter, Marketing Services Agencies, Major Brands and influencers) to come up with a Best Practice Manual on how to:- a) Dissuade players from using Fake News to influence audiences. b) Explaining to players what constitutes Fake News and the negative effects it has. c) Education, Education, Education on what constitutes Fake news and how not to (1) get influenced by them through detecting them and (2) spread them. *(b) What is the role of different categories of users in combating Fake News?* The onus is on us as different players to understand and combat this new Propaganda paradigm. The days of State Players being the only ones able to use Propaganda as a tool is long gone. One thing I'd advise is for us to help NCIC and other regulators to upgrade their regulatory tools to take into cognisance the New Digital Reality. *(c) Have Kenyans given up or are there good practices in combating Fake News?* Global Players like Google and Facebook are doing a lot in this area. We can learn from them. We as Kenyans should fight the Fake News phenomenon irrespective of who is propagating it. I fear however that this is easier said than done because unfortunately Fake News, like almost everything else in this country, takes on Ethnic and Political dimensions. *(d) Is Fake News a manifestation of deeper societal issues and if so, are there ways of combating it other than resolving the societal issues?* As a society we need to look deep into ourselves and ask where we are going as a country. We are more fragmented as a people than we are at independence. Fake News is just a mirror of who we are as a people and as a country. Our leaders are a reflection of us. If you want to see what is wrong with this country look no further than the Mirror. *(e) We have Bloggers who are seen as influencers. Do they have a higher duty when communicating?* Each and everyone of us is an Influencer. At home with your kids, at work with your colleagues, in the streets with your fellow Kenyans online with your followers, fans and connections. What you say and do influences. The 'Pen' is a more powerful tool than a gun. Use it wisely. Lastly, NCIC Vision and Mission is as below:- *Vision* A peaceful, united, harmonious and integrated Kenyan society *Mission* Develop and sustain processes that alleviate all forms of ethnic discrimination and promote diversity through knowledge creation, capacity building, advocacy and pertinent policy development I ask them. *What is the score card since you were inaugurated with the new constitution and how can we all as Kenyans help you to help us achieve the Vision?* Regards *Ali Hussein* *Principal* *Hussein & Associates* Tel: +254 713 601113 Twitter: @AliHKassim Skype: abu-jomo LinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim <http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim> 13th Floor , Delta Towers, Oracle Wing, Chiromo Road, Westlands, Nairobi, Kenya. Any information of a personal nature expressed in this email are purely mine and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the organizations that I work with. On Wed, Aug 16, 2017 at 10:02 AM, kanini mutemi via kictanet < kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote: > Good morning Listers, > > Let me start of by thanking NCIC for their willingness to engage on this > issue. We look forward to a a great discussion and pragmatic proposals. > > We had a discussion on this during the PRE KIGF ONLINE DISCUSSION DAY 2- > FAKE NEWS DURING ELECTIONEERING. > <https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxmvjvsBlX3dUmVfS3IyaTdkZ0U/view> > I will say at that time, the impact of Fake News was not apparent. Times > have since changed as we have now witnessed numerous 'Fake News' posts > which go viral within minutes. Following the election results, posts on > alleged instances of violence and of government action in parts of the > country have dominated social media platforms. On several occasions, > government officials, media houses and diligent citizens have come forward > to denounce these posts as 'Fake News'. Photos that were first presented as > true accounts of the situation on the ground were later discovered to be > old photos of past events. At the same time, there have been instances > where posts were quickly dismissed as 'Fake News' even when there was > evidence later on that they were indeed factual reports. There is therefore > a need for us to navigate through this issue carefully. > > Just for the record, it was agreed previously that the definition we are > working with is Fake News refers to disinformation which GG aptly put as: *fabricated > news that has no basis in fact, but is presented as being factually > accurate. * > > With this in mind, I invite you to engage on the questions below: > > > > > *(a) Why is there an increase in the prevalence of Fake News recently?* > > > > *(b) What is the role of different categories of users in combating Fake > News?* > > > > *(c) Have Kenyans given up or are there good practices in combating Fake > News?* > > > *(d) Is Fake News a manifestation of deeper societal issues and if so, are > there ways of combating it other than resolving the societal issues?* > > *(e) We have Bloggers who are seen as influencers. Do they have a higher > duty when communicating?* > > > -- > *Mercy Mutemi*. > > > > > _______________________________________________ > kictanet mailing list > kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke > https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet > Twitter: http://twitter.com/kictanet > Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KICTANet/ > > Unsubscribe or change your options at https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/ > mailman/options/kictanet/info%40alyhussein.com > > The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform > for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and > regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT > sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development. > > KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors > online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, > share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do > not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications. > >

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Talk to NCIC on hate speech, fake news and social media
by Grace Githaiga 15 Aug '17

15 Aug '17

Listers Further to our production of the policy brief on Internet Shutdowns in which we called on the relevant authorities to uphold the freedom of expression during elections, the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) https://www.cohesion.or.ke/ whose overall objective is to encourage national cohesion and integration, reached out to us to us today. Their main concern is that some social media users have gone overboard in heightening emotions through sharing of false information, fake news and what is considered hate speech. As KICTANet, we can contribute to possible interventions in such away as to moderate some of these conversations. In the same way that we have engaged with other partners, we propose a moderated discussion with NCIC for three days (tomorrow Wednesday 16 to Friday 18, August 2017). This discussion may also be to offer the Commission your suggestions on possible approaches. The NCIC team that includes staff and some commissioners have been subscribed here. So they are listening! This will be followed by a face to face meeting sometime next week, where the NCIC team will respond to concerns that you may wish to further raise with them, or simply listen to your recommendation. We will advise you on the date and venue in due course. Day 1 Introduction Fake news is essentially fabricated news that has no basis in fact, but is presented as being factually accurate. The electioneering period in Kenya saw a rapid spread of fake news that manifested itself in several ways on the internet. These included content on websites or social media pages that was outright false, deliberately misleading, manipulated, fabricated, or with made-up sources, fake websites that mimic legitimate ones etc. Unfortunately, several social media users have fallen prey to this type of news and have ended up sharing such information without verification. This was for example, evident in the events that followed the announcement of presidential results, where the rapid spread of unverified information, including hate speech, that heightened fear, anxiety and tension across the country, reminiscent of the 2007 post-election period. While Kenya’s Constitution enshrines freedom of expression, it also limits this right to exclude incitement to violence, hate speech and advocacy for incitement that is discriminatory or that constitutes ethnic incitement, vilification of others or incitement to cause harm. According to section 13 of the NCIC Act, the offence of hate speech is committed when a person uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or displays any written material; publishes or distributes written material; presents or directs the performance the public performance of a play; distributes, shows or plays, a recording of visual images; or provides, produces or directs a programme, which is threatening, abusive or insulting or involves the use of threatening, abusive or insulting words or behavior commits an offence if such person intends thereby to stir up ethnic hatred, or having regard to all the circumstances, ethnic hatred is likely to be stirred up. the penalty is fine not exceeding one million shillings or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years or to both. The rise in disinformation on the Internet in Kenya brings to fore the challenges of regulating social media platforms and content in general. This is a global problem and the current problem in Kenya provides an opportunity for actors to contribute to this discussion. The problem can be assessed from different angles. At the basic level are users who contribute to the Internet economy by having online presences. However, when they produce and share disinformation, whether with good or bad intention, they make the Internet a toxic space and their actions can have dangerous effects offline. At a second level are platforms where the content is shared. The rise in use of the platforms therefore makes public policy advocates interrogate the role of the platforms in combating the spread of such content and therefore preventing offline harm. Finally, there are regulators and government agencies in Kenya that were established to regulate aspects of communication technologies and promote national cohesion in Kenya. The current situation has seen affected Kenyans look up to them to provide leadership at this critical time. The rise of fake news and hate speech was discussed on KICTANet in the runup to the annual Kenya IGF in July 2017. The magnitude of the problem however requires experts to come together and not only help Kenyans understand the problem but also offer solutions on how best to resolve the problem, both in the immediate and long term. Suggested Questions Day One: Users and Fake News * Why is there an increase in the prevalence of fake news recently? * What is the role of different categories of users in combating fake news? * Have Kenyans given up or are there good practices in combating fake news? * Is fake news a manifestation of deeper societal issues and if so, are there any ways to combat it other than resolving the societal issues? * We have Bloggers who are seen as influencers. Do have a higher duty when communicating? Day Two: Platform Responsibility * What should platforms such as Facebook and Google be doing to reduce the effect of fake news? * Is Kenya’s problem so unique that it requires localised solutions by platforms? * What is the role of media in combating fake news? * Is the Kenyan media doing enough? Day Three: Government Agencies and Regulator * Given the effect of fake news in Kenya, does it cross the “red line”. In other words, is fake news illegal if it leads to incitement? * Do the two main agencies NCIC and CA have sufficient mandate to combat fake news? * If not, is it time we regulated social media use? How? Best regards Githaiga, Grace Co-Convenor Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) Twitter:@ggithaiga Tel: 254722701495 Skype: gracegithaiga Alternate email: ggithaiga(a)hotmail.com Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gracegithaiga www.kictanet.or.ke "Change only happens when ordinary people get involved, get engaged and come together to demand it. I am asking you to believe. Not in my ability to bring about change – but in yours"---Barrack Obama.

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Fake News and the Kenyan General Election
by Eric Mugendi 14 Aug '17

14 Aug '17

Hello Listers, I had a chat with Andile Masuku of Africa Tech Roundup <http://africantechroundup.com> one day before the General Election on how fake news has influenced public sentiment. Do have a listen. https://soundcloud.com/african-tech-round-up/kenya-general-election-2017-th… Regards, Eric Eric Mugendi about.me/mugendi [image: Eric Mugendi on about.me] <http://about.me/mugendi>

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Re: [kictanet] Sarahah Application, perfect recipe for cyber bullying?
by Gladys Muthie 13 Aug '17

13 Aug '17

http://m.indiatoday.in/lite/story/sarahah-app-is-a-reflection-of-everything… On Aug 12, 2017 10:42 AM, "WANGARI KABIRU via kictanet" < kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote: Blessed Saturday! Let's get into social-democracy now in the political space! Read on... Blessings. Regards/Wangari --- Pray God Bless. 2013Wangari circa - "Being of the Light, We are Restored Through Faith in Mind, Body and Spirit; We Manifest The Kingdom of God on Earth". *http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2017/08/facebook_now_offers_constituent_services_what_could_go_wrong.html?wpsrc=newsletter_futuretense&sid=588c6e69a227621a258b46be <http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2017/08/facebook_now_…>* A Civics Lesson for Facebook <http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2017/08/facebook_now_…> Why there’s reason to be wary of the social network’s new democratic-minded tools. As CEO Mark Zuckerberg laid out in a sizable manifesto <https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-zuckerberg/building-global-community/10…> earlier this year, Facebook has grand ambitions to create a platform that goes beyond just connecting family and friends. More than social media, it wants to create the social infrastructure that powers communities from niche interest groups to nations. But can tools to improve civic engagement from a clickbait-driven company really be good for democracy? As part of its new Town Hall project <https://www.facebook.com/townhall>, Facebook recently unveiled three new features <http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2017/06/09/facebook_s_three_new_fea…> aimed at linking government representatives with the citizens they’re elected to serve. The first, constituent badges, enables users to voluntarily identify themselves (via address verification) as residents of a particular district. Politicians will then be able to see these badges, allowing them to determine whether, say, a commenter on their page resides in the area they represent. The second, district targeting, will allow elected officials to create posts and polls soliciting feedback that will only be visible to their constituents. Finally, there’s constituent insights <http://thehill.com/policy/technology/336719-facebook-boosts-civic-image-wit…>, which will permit politicians to view and comment on news stories that are popular in their political districts. Whether by intention or accident, Facebook seems to be designing democracy in its own clickbait-driven image. This all sounds nice on the surface. After all, it seems like Facebook finally is beginning to acknowledge its political influence, a role it initially rejected <http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/11/10/mark_zuckerberg_says_fak…> in the aftermath of the 2016 election. And it’s seemingly channeling that power for public benefit by making it easier for constituents to engage with elusive politicians. Yet, there’s reason to stop short of lauding the social media network’s attempts to better our representative government. Not only is it unclear whether these tools will actually foster meaningful engagement, it’s also questionable whether private companies like Facebook—even if they’re well-meaning—should be trusted to keep democracies’ best interests at heart. Get Future Tense in your inbox. For starters, whether by intention or accident, Facebook seems to be designing democracy in its own clickbait-driven image. The Town Hall tools all revolve around attention: They encourage both politicians and users to find ways to better grab one another’s eyeballs (to use the social media term of art). But the kind of attention Facebook demands from us—incessantly chasing what’s trending, viral, getting clicks—rarely works in favor of the long-term public interest. Think of Donald Trump, obsessively monitoring his ratings and flitting to whatever message gets a rise from his base. Such messaging may get attention, but it’s not what’s best for the American people. Yet this kind of frenetic attention baiting is essential to Facebook’s business model. It’s not hard to imagine a scenario in which these new tools end up pushing politicians to primarily focus on the whims or dank memes of the day, instead of heeding to the more substantial issues. I’m also concerned about the assumptions about human behavior and demographics that Facebook appears to be making with these features. For one, the Town Hall tools assume that what people read and share on the social media platform makes for a reasonably good representation of what they want their politicians to be concerned about. But there’s little reason to believe this is true. Users often post articles that they dislike, disagree with, find hilariously stupid—I certainly do. But it’s unlikely <https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/29/facebook-doesnt-underst…> that Facebook will be successfully categorizing these posts <https://medium.com/@baditaflorin/understanding-facebook-reactions-using-sen…> as such before they share them with politicians. Does what you read when you’re slacking off at work actually represent the big issues you’re concerned about, or is it just what happens to catch your eye at 4:30 p.m. on a Friday? Is a news story important just because it happens to be trending? What’s more, we don’t actually control what we see in our Facebook feed; Facebook does. Unlike a newspaper or magazine that shows readers stories the editorial board deems significant, Facebook’s algorithm is designed to show stories it thinks an individual user *wants *to view <http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/cover_story/2016/01/how_facebook_s…>. The website simply isn’t that motivated to get you to eat your vegetables (if vegetables are “dry foreign affairs stories with large words”). Its interests lie in keeping you scrolling endlessly through your feed. Research has shown that this filtering distorts the content that people see <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/16/facebook-bias-bubble-us-ele…>, possibly creating damaging filter bubbles <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/22/social-media-election-fa…> and further polarizing politics <https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2015/05/13/political-polarization-o…>. It also gives Facebook outsize control over what media it chooses to promote—a state of affairs that benefits the company but may not always benefit you. This distortion isn’t just coming from the company, either. As Facebook itself admitted <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/27/facebook-report-governme…>, governments and other actors have exploited the platform to spread misinformation. The company’s efforts to eradicate this issue are still at an early stage <https://www.recode.net/2017/4/14/15306220/facebook-fake-news-deleting-spam-…>, and from the limited information provided, it’s not hard to imagine these propaganda bots and digital information warriors gaming the address-verification system and pretending to be constituents. The second big assumption that the Town Hall tools idea makes is that Facebook users are reasonably representative of the actual opinions of the population. Except this isn’t a sure thing: There’s ample evidence <https://hbr.org/2013/04/the-hidden-biases-in-big-data> that privileged groups are more “visible” in big data sets (for example, people with regular internet access are more likely to be engaged in social media than those without). While 68 percent of U.S. adults use Facebook—making it the most widely used social media platform in the country <http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/social-media/>—these users are more likely to be young, low-income, and female. Bias may also impact who actually uses and engages with Facebook’s Town Hall tools. Just 9 percent of social media users say that they regularly discuss or comment on politics, and only 25 percent of social media users follow political figures <http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/10/25/political-content-on-social-media/>. Users concerned with privacy may not feel comfortable handing over sensitive information like their home address to the company (with <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/16/facebook-moderators-iden…> good <http://www.reuters.com/article/net-us-facebook-security-idUSBRE95K18Y201306…> reason <http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2017/03/the_geofeedia…>), even if it means they can’t be verified as a constituent. Others may feel pressured to disclose their private information as a prerequisite for interacting with their representatives. While Facebook likely could correct for these biases, it might not want to; after all, the company directly benefits from more users and more user data. Finally, Facebook makes a third problematic assumption: that elected officials and their teams are capable of sifting out important, policy-actionable items from a constant, minimally curated stream of what their constituents are reading and posting. It’s a worldview with an exceptionally optimistic perspective on the filtering abilities of most people—let alone politicians. It’s not just the barrage of data that’s the issue, but the fact that it’s also essentially meaningless if it can’t be properly analyzed. Considering there are entire industries of highly trained professionals who spend their careers trying to do this—and still regularly get things wrong—what makes Facebook think these tools will be anything but a distraction for elected officials? Beyond thinking about how these tools might influence the responsiveness of politicians to their constituents, it’s also worth considering the motivations of the politicians themselves. During the 2016 election, for example, the Trump campaign worked to dissuade potential Clinton supporters from turning out through something called “dark posts” <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/07/12/the-investigatio…>—in this case, targeted negative ads that were invisible to anyone but the recipient, obscuring them from public scrutiny. It remains unclear how much of a difference, if any, these posts made on the outcome. But the tactic is unlikely to go away—and may be made more powerful by leveraging the social media platform’s Town Hall tools by enabling politicians to better tailor their messaging to constituents’ particular pain points. Elected officials might also be able to gain an advantage over potential electoral challengers, as it doesn’t appear that Facebook offers similar tools to candidates yet. Has the company gamed out these unpleasant but realistic possibilities? We don’t know because Facebook isn’t transparent about its processes or about its overarching goals with these recent forays into democracy building. And it’s important to remember that it *doesn’t have to be.* It’s a publicly held company whose primary responsibility is to its shareholders. It’s not a representative government. Nor is it a public utility. Though it may be using lofty press releases and Zuckerberg’s not-so-subtle appearances at Iowa truck stops to promote a new, civic-minded image, it has no obligation to be inclusive or representative, or to do what’s best for citizens. This does not mean Facebook is evil or ill-intentioned; it simply means that Facebook can only be what it is. As Donald Trump is proving, you can’t run government like a real estate business. We shouldn’t run government like a social media company, either. *This article is part of **Future Tense* <http://www.slate.com/futuretense>*, a collaboration among **Arizona State University* <http://www.asu.edu/?feature=research>*, **New America* <http://www.newamerica.org/>*, and **Slate**. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, **follow us on Twitter* <http://www.twitter.com/futuretensenow>* and sign **up for our weekly newsletter* <http://link.slate.com/join/3qk/newslettersignup>*.* _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet Twitter: http://twitter.com/kictanet Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KICTANet/ Unsubscribe or change your options at https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/ mailman/options/kictanet/gmuthie2%40gmail.com The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development. KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.

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Coding Boot Camps Won’t Save Us All
by WANGARI KABIRU 12 Aug '17

12 Aug '17

We are certainly here...With "coding schools" coming up locally and some opting for them or out of higher education. For educationists and the labour market; Is accreditation, recognition really relevant? Are they a band-aid, add on professional skills versus the actual education pathway. Blessings! Regards/Wangari --- Pray God Bless. 2013Wangari circa - "Being of the Light, We are Restored Through Faith in Mind, Body and Spirit; We Manifest The Kingdom of God on Earth". http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2017/08/coding_boot_c… Coding Boot Camps Won’t Save Us All 456156 A couple of recent closures prove that there are no shortcuts in education. Coding boot camps were supposed to be the next big thing in higher education, promising a compressed, career-focused alternative to traditional graduate school. In the past five years, startups offering these programs have raised millions in investment and won praise from policymakers as an innovative way to prepare (or retrain) workers for the jobs of the digital future.The enchantment around the model appears to be wearing off, though. In July, Dev Bootcamp, one of the largest and earliest coding boot camp providers,announced it would close because leaders could not find a sustainable business model. Just a few days later, another pioneer in the space, the Iron Yard, said it would also shut down this year.“I haven’t talked to a ton of coal miners who have done a boot camp and become developers.”Liz Eggleston, co-founder of Course ReportDespite their high-tech subject matter and slick Silicon Valley messaging, most boot camps take a decidedly old-fashioned approach to instruction—focusing on in-person classrooms and high student-to-faculty ratios. But because they lack accreditation, their students aren’t eligible for federal financial aid. “We’ve determined that we simply cannot reach a sustainable business model without compromising our mission of delivering a high-quality coding education that remains accessible to a diverse population of students,” leaders of Dev Bootcamp said in their farewell statement. The statement from Iron Yard cited “challenges of a nascent market” and “the demands facing all institutions in the higher education marketplace.” Get Future Tense in your inbox. That doesn’t mean the rest of the boot camps are doomed. In fact, there are at least 95 other coding boot camp companies in the U.S., and some say they are still growing. But it should bring a dose of realism to what had been a narrative of unending growth and the idea that somehow boot camps were a silver bullet for what ails higher education.“The problem with education is that we keep coming back to this one-size-fits-all approach,” says Adam Enbar, CEO of Flatiron School, who insists that he’s seeing “more demand than ever” for his company’s programs. Rhetoric around coding schools has suggested that they present an easy way to teach anyone to code, regardless of background. Flatiron, he says, has crafted its main program to be highly selective, and it runs a longer program with a different curriculum for those with less familiarity with coding. “There’s no model that fits everyone,” he says. And by the same logic, he says, no one can make a blanket statement that boot camp programs as a group can’t work.“What we really see in these boot camps is a lot of career changers,” says Liz Eggleston, co-founder of Course Report, which researches and runs reviews of coding boot camps. While there’s plenty of talk these days of retraining blue-collar workers for “new collar” jobs in tech, that hasn’t been the norm at coding boot camps. “I haven’t talked to a ton of coal miners who have done a boot camp and become developers.” More typical, she says, is someone who already holds a college degree and wants to move from the marketing department of a high-tech firm to the development team.Jessica Dembe is a good example. She graduated from the Iron Yard’s D.C. campus in January, seeing it as a “high-risk, high-reward gamble” that the training would let her jump a few rungs in her career ladder. “I wasn’t making a lot of money at my old job” as a research assistant at a consulting firm, she says. “I thought, If I could make this work, I could make a good deal more in a new position.” So she saved up roughly six months’ worth of living expenses and quit her job, thanks in part to support from a parent, and enrolled in the three-month program, which cost her about $12,000 after a diversity scholarship and a discount.She says she did her homework before plunking down that kind of cash. “At first I was really skeptical about it,” she says of the boot camp idea. For a few months she tried teaching herself with free online resources, and she even attended a hackathon for people trying to learn coding, but felt she wasn’t getting what she needed. A mentor at work had completed the Iron Yard program and recommended it, and she sought out other graduates to see if it had helped them land the kind of job she wanted. “I don’t make rash decisions,” she jokes.Dembe was “shocked” to learn the school was now closing, but she’s happy she went—after all, she found a job six weeks after graduation. If the boot camp business was so precarious, though, she wonders why the schools often occupy pricey real estate: The campus she attended was just a few blocks from the White House, for instance.When making their pitch to students, coding boot camps don’t usually talk about amenities. They often stress one number: job placement rates. Several boot camp companies have joined efforts to independently verify the percentage of students who get jobs in the field soon after graduating, such as the Council on Integrity in Results Reporting, formed by a group of boot camps, and a broader quality-control framework proposed by Entangled Solutions, a consulting firm.Neither Dev Bootcamp nor the Iron Yard joined such efforts, as their competitor Flatiron School is quick to point out. “They just weren’t releasing transparent data,” says Enbar. The Flatiron CEO isn’t part of the CIRR or Entangled framework, either, but says the company releases independently verified employment rates. “The line is being drawn around quality,” he says.Another giant in the space, General Assembly, believes success will come down to the strength of providers’ relationships with employers to create a reliable pipeline to employment. “Our vision was never, ‘Let’s build a boot camp,’ ” says Jake Schwartz, co-founder and CEO of General Assembly. “The idea was: Can we build a new way to think about people’s careers and how to build people’s careers?”Some evidence suggests that many employers aren’t yet convinced of the educational merits of coding boot camps. A report in Bloomberg in December even suggests a boot camp diploma could be seen as disqualifying.Back when Dev Bootcamp was flying high, one of its co-founders, Dave Hoover, gave an interview to a networking site for entrepreneurs that inadvertently betrayed a dirty little secret of the coding boot camp model. He said the most valuable thing a mentor gave him at a startup he worked for: You don’t need to know everything. What you need to do is be the guy who knows how to find the answer. That was eye-opening because it made me realize, especially as a software developer, you don’t have to know everything, but thanks to Google and search technology and all the online resources we have, the answers are just a few seconds away. Some academic critics of boot camps argue that the companies represent a shift to requiring workers to pay more of the bill for their own training, and one that falls disproportionately on low-income or underrepresented groups. Tressie McMillan Cottom, an assistant professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy, recently made that argument on her blog: “Boot camps are a tax paid by suitably credentialed workers who do not have enough capital (economic, social, or cultural) to enter a high status field of work in which some job is undergoing an actual or projected short-term demand bubble,” she wrote.Boot camp leaders often take pains to distance themselves from an earlier generation of for-profit education providers like Corinthian Colleges, which shuttered after a federal investigation found that the company misrepresented to students the percentage of graduates who landed jobs. But legacy for-profit players had pushed into the nascent boot camp space: In fact, Dev Bootcamp was acquired by Kaplan in 2015, and the Iron Yard had been purchased that same year by Apollo Education Group—which also owns University of Phoenix. (Disclosure: Slate is a subsidiary of Graham Holdings Co., which also owns Kaplan and is an investor in EdSurge.)Top CommentCouldn't community colleges offer the same type of immersive short term course, but far cheaper and with accreditation? I would think if this were possible they'd be all over it. What am I missing? More... The lasting legacy of education boot camps may end up being found on traditional campuses. Several colleges are trying the boot camp approach, even in other fields like health care and political science. In fact, many upstart coding schools are now partnering with those old-fashioned campuses they were intent on replacing.Future Tense is a collaboration amongArizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.

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A Civics Lesson for Facebook - social network’s new democratic-minded tools
by WANGARI KABIRU 12 Aug '17

12 Aug '17

Blessed Saturday! Let's get into social-democracy now in the political space! Read on... Blessings. Regards/Wangari --- Pray God Bless. 2013Wangari circa - "Being of the Light, We are Restored Through Faith in Mind, Body and Spirit; We Manifest The Kingdom of God on Earth". http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2017/08/facebook_now_… A Civics Lesson for Facebook Why there’s reason to be wary of the social network’s new democratic-minded tools. As CEO Mark Zuckerberg laid out in a sizable manifesto earlier this year, Facebook has grand ambitions to create a platform that goes beyond just connecting family and friends. More than social media, it wants to create the social infrastructure that powers communities from niche interest groups to nations. But can tools to improve civic engagement from a clickbait-driven company really be good for democracy?As part of its new Town Hall project, Facebook recently unveiled three new features aimed at linking government representatives with the citizens they’re elected to serve. The first, constituent badges, enables users to voluntarily identify themselves (via address verification) as residents of a particular district. Politicians will then be able to see these badges, allowing them to determine whether, say, a commenter on their page resides in the area they represent. The second, district targeting, will allow elected officials to create posts and polls soliciting feedback that will only be visible to their constituents. Finally, there’s constituent insights, which will permit politicians to view and comment on news stories that are popular in their political districts.Whether by intention or accident, Facebook seems to be designing democracy in its own clickbait-driven image.This all sounds nice on the surface. After all, it seems like Facebook finally is beginning to acknowledge its political influence, a role it initially rejected in the aftermath of the 2016 election. And it’s seemingly channeling that power for public benefit by making it easier for constituents to engage with elusive politicians.Yet, there’s reason to stop short of lauding the social media network’s attempts to better our representative government. Not only is it unclear whether these tools will actually foster meaningful engagement, it’s also questionable whether private companies like Facebook—even if they’re well-meaning—should be trusted to keep democracies’ best interests at heart. Get Future Tense in your inbox. For starters, whether by intention or accident, Facebook seems to be designing democracy in its own clickbait-driven image. The Town Hall tools all revolve around attention: They encourage both politicians and users to find ways to better grab one another’s eyeballs (to use the social media term of art). But the kind of attention Facebook demands from us—incessantly chasing what’s trending, viral, getting clicks—rarely works in favor of the long-term public interest. Think of Donald Trump, obsessively monitoring his ratings and flitting to whatever message gets a rise from his base. Such messaging may get attention, but it’s not what’s best for the American people. Yet this kind of frenetic attention baiting is essential to Facebook’s business model. It’s not hard to imagine a scenario in which these new tools end up pushing politicians to primarily focus on the whims or dank memes of the day, instead of heeding to the more substantial issues.I’m also concerned about the assumptions about human behavior and demographics that Facebook appears to be making with these features. For one, the Town Hall tools assume that what people read and share on the social media platform makes for a reasonably good representation of what they want their politicians to be concerned about. But there’s little reason to believe this is true. Users often post articles that they dislike, disagree with, find hilariously stupid—I certainly do. But it’s unlikely that Facebook will be successfully categorizing these posts as such before they share them with politicians. Does what you read when you’re slacking off at work actually represent the big issues you’re concerned about, or is it just what happens to catch your eye at 4:30 p.m. on a Friday? Is a news story important just because it happens to be trending?What’s more, we don’t actually control what we see in our Facebook feed; Facebook does. Unlike a newspaper or magazine that shows readers stories the editorial board deems significant, Facebook’s algorithm is designed to show stories it thinks an individual user wants to view. The website simply isn’t that motivated to get you to eat your vegetables (if vegetables are “dry foreign affairs stories with large words”). Its interests lie in keeping you scrolling endlessly through your feed. Research has shown that this filtering distorts the content that people see, possibly creating damaging filter bubbles and further polarizing politics. It also gives Facebook outsize control over what media it chooses to promote—a state of affairs that benefits the company but may not always benefit you.This distortion isn’t just coming from the company, either. As Facebook itself admitted, governments and other actors have exploited the platform to spread misinformation. The company’s efforts to eradicate this issue are still at an early stage, and from the limited information provided, it’s not hard to imagine these propaganda bots and digital information warriors gaming the address-verification system and pretending to be constituents.The second big assumption that the Town Hall tools idea makes is that Facebook users are reasonably representative of the actual opinions of the population. Except this isn’t a sure thing: There’s ample evidence that privileged groups are more “visible” in big data sets (for example, people with regular internet access are more likely to be engaged in social media than those without). While 68 percent of U.S. adults use Facebook—making it the most widely used social media platform in the country—these users are more likely to be young, low-income, and female.Bias may also impact who actually uses and engages with Facebook’s Town Hall tools. Just 9 percent of social media users say that they regularly discuss or comment on politics, and only 25 percent of social media users follow political figures. Users concerned with privacy may not feel comfortable handing over sensitive information like their home address to the company (with good reason), even if it means they can’t be verified as a constituent. Others may feel pressured to disclose their private information as a prerequisite for interacting with their representatives. While Facebook likely could correct for these biases, it might not want to; after all, the company directly benefits from more users and more user data.Finally, Facebook makes a third problematic assumption: that elected officials and their teams are capable of sifting out important, policy-actionable items from a constant, minimally curated stream of what their constituents are reading and posting. It’s a worldview with an exceptionally optimistic perspective on the filtering abilities of most people—let alone politicians. It’s not just the barrage of data that’s the issue, but the fact that it’s also essentially meaningless if it can’t be properly analyzed. Considering there are entire industries of highly trained professionals who spend their careers trying to do this—and still regularly get things wrong—what makes Facebook think these tools will be anything but a distraction for elected officials?Beyond thinking about how these tools might influence the responsiveness of politicians to their constituents, it’s also worth considering the motivations of the politicians themselves. During the 2016 election, for example, the Trump campaign worked to dissuade potential Clinton supporters from turning out through something called “dark posts”—in this case, targeted negative ads that were invisible to anyone but the recipient, obscuring them from public scrutiny. It remains unclear how much of a difference, if any, these posts made on the outcome. But the tactic is unlikely to go away—and may be made more powerful by leveraging the social media platform’s Town Hall tools by enabling politicians to better tailor their messaging to constituents’ particular pain points. Elected officials might also be able to gain an advantage over potential electoral challengers, as it doesn’t appear that Facebook offers similar tools to candidates yet. Has the company gamed out these unpleasant but realistic possibilities?We don’t know because Facebook isn’t transparent about its processes or about its overarching goals with these recent forays into democracy building. And it’s important to remember that it doesn’t have to be. It’s a publicly held company whose primary responsibility is to its shareholders. It’s not a representative government. Nor is it a public utility. Though it may be using lofty press releases and Zuckerberg’s not-so-subtle appearances at Iowa truck stops to promote a new, civic-minded image, it has no obligation to be inclusive or representative, or to do what’s best for citizens.This does not mean Facebook is evil or ill-intentioned; it simply means that Facebook can only be what it is. As Donald Trump is proving, you can’t run government like a real estate business. We shouldn’t run government like a social media company, either.This article is part of Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.

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KICTANet Preliminary Observations on Technology Deployment in Kenya's General Election 2017
by Mutungi Joel 11 Aug '17

11 Aug '17

Thanks a lot for the report. On Fri, Aug 11, 2017 at 2:01 PM, <kictanet-request(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote: > Send kictanet mailing list submissions to > kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > kictanet-request(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke > > You can reach the person managing the list at > kictanet-owner(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of kictanet digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. > > KICTANet Preliminary Observations on Technology Deployment in > Kenya?s General Election 2017 (Grace Githaiga) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2017 10:50:48 +0000 > From: Grace Githaiga <ggithaiga(a)hotmail.com> > To: "kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke" <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> > Subject: [kictanet] KICTANet Preliminary Observations on Technology > Deployment in Kenya?s General Election 2017 > Message-ID: > <DB6P189MB045593A92F2D87934479257EB4890@DB6P189MB0455. > EURP189.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM> > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" > > Listers > > Greetings. > > Please find attached an interim report on KICTANet's observation on the > technology deployment of the electoral process from a user end perspective. > We are working an elaborate report and will share in due course. > > We thank all our observers and all members who contributed to all the > discussions on the topic of technology use in the elections. > > Best regards > > > Githaiga, Grace > > > > Co-Convenor > Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) > Twitter:@ggithaiga > Tel: 254722701495 > Skype: gracegithaiga > Alternate email: ggithaiga(a)hotmail.com<mailto:ggithaiga@hotmail.com> > Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gracegithaiga > www.kictanet.or.ke > > "Change only happens when ordinary people get involved, get engaged and > come together to demand it. I am asking you to believe. Not in my ability > to bring about change ? but in yours"---Barrack Obama. > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > ---------------------- > > Grace Githaiga > > Twitter: @ggithaiga > > Skype: gracegithaiga > > Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gracegithaiga > > > ...the most important office in a democracy is the citizen. So, you see, > that?s what our democracy demands. It needs you!----Barrack Obama. >

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Research Report: Free Basics in Real Life - “poor internet for poor people” or "offering some web experience"
by WANGARI KABIRU 10 Aug '17

10 Aug '17

https://advox.globalvoices.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/FreeBasicsinRealL… https://advox.globalvoices.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/KENYA.pdf "Facebook’s Free Basics program aims to help bridge the digital divide through a mobile-basedplatform that allows users to connect to a handful of online services free of charge. In a visionstatement for the program, Facebook surmises that “[by] introducing people to the benefits of theinternet” they will help justify the cost of mobile data and thereby “bring more people online andhelp improve their lives.”The program has been the subject of controversy since its inception, reviving the debate overopen access and the digital divide. Digital rights experts have argued that the program violatesnetwork neutrality, brings an imbalance to local content and mobile subscription markets, andcreates a “poor internet for poor people” that does not allow users to truly explore and discover theglobal internet.1 Others have praised it for offering users some degree of experience with the web,and for incentivizing operators to make mobile data more affordable for more customers...." --Read on! Blessed day Regards/Wangari --- Pray God Bless. 2013Wangari circa - "Being of the Light, We are Restored Through Faith in Mind, Body and Spirit; We Manifest The Kingdom of God on Earth".

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IEBC Website - Polling stations with no GSM Coverage
by John Kieti 09 Aug '17

09 Aug '17

Hi Listers, Been checking the IEBC website since Friday morning - Observing persistent outage of the main section www.iebc.or.ke (voter status section still reliably accessible voterstatus.iebc.or.ke). Not very good timing for service outages. Been hopeful the main site will be back sooner. Anyways am looking for the list of 11,155 polling stations without network coverage as per the attached summary. Supposedly it is on the website. Anyone with the itemised list? Best regards -- John Kieti Phone: +254-735-764242 // +254-722-764242 Twitter: @johnKieti // Skype: jkieti Blog: gmeltdown.com <http://www.gmeltdown.com> // LinkedIn: https://ke.linkedin.com/in/*kieti* <https://ke.linkedin.com/in/kieti> The ordinary just won't do

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Request for information on technology deployment during elections
by Grace Githaiga 08 Aug '17

08 Aug '17

Listers We hope that you have and continue to perform your civic duty. In today's elections, technology systems deployment is at three levels: a) Voters were registered using the Biometric Voter Registration system (BVR). b) At the polling centres, voters will be identified at first instance using Electronic Voter Identification system (EVID). c) After votes are counted, results will be transmitted using the Results Transmission System (RTS). Note: The EVID and the RTS is the SAME system. The tablet for identifying voters is the SAME tablet for scanning and transmitting results and which is referred to as the Integrated Elections Management Systems (IEMS). Apart from the above systems, the public will also access election related information through communication systems, especially the Internet. KICTANet has been observing certain features on IEBC’s use of technology, and other related aspects to access to information. KICTANet is today observing the use of the two systems (EVID and RTS). The Network will additionally continue to observe access to election information during the period. We request your participation in this survey. We provide a link to a document which we are using as a guide for observers during the election. The guide covers five activities namely: opening of the polling station and set up; voter identification and assisted voters; vote counting procedures; tallying procedures; and closing procedures. Here is the link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/198xRPeUMoNsYPLn2rhCtZhTkxd3AxFJVgOFKwKxSje… Yourparticipation iscompletelyvoluntaryandallofyourresponseswillbekept anonymous in the report that KICTANet will produce as a result of this process. As always, we highly appreciate your time and contribution. Asanteni sana. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Co-Convenor Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) Twitter:@ggithaiga Tel: 254722701495 Skype: gracegithaiga Alternate email: ggithaiga(a)hotmail.com Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gracegithaiga www.kictanet.or.ke "Change only happens when ordinary people get involved, get engaged and come together to demand it. I am asking you to believe. Not in my ability to bring about change – but in yours"---Barrack Obama.

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