Meta, TikTok and YouTube may finally have to start sharing data with researchers
A Senate hearing this week and a new law in Europe show how “transparency” advocates are winning
the Platform Transparency and Accountability Act, was introduced in December by (an ever-so-slightly) bipartisan group of senators.
“YouTube, TikTok, Telegram, and Snapchat represent some of the largest and most influential platforms in the United States, and they provide almost no functional transparency into their systems. And as a result, they avoid nearly all of the scrutiny and criticism that comes with it.”
When we do hear about what happens inside a tech company, it’s often because a Frances Haugen-type employee decides to leak it.
Cruz expressed great confusion about why he got relatively few new Twitter followers in the days before Elon Musk said he was going to buy it, but then got many more after the acquisition was announced.
The actual explanation is that Musk has lots of conservative fans, they flocked back to the platform when they heard he was buying it, and from there Twitter’s recommendation algorithms kicked into gear.
As usual, though, Europe is much further ahead of us. The Digital Services Act, which regulators reached an agreement on in April, includes provisions that would require big platforms to share data with qualified researchers. The law is expected to go into effect by next year. And so even if Congress dithers after today, transparency is coming to platforms one way or another. Here’s hoping it can begin to answer some very important questions.
https://www.iste.org/explore/computational-thinking-and-data-analysis-go-hand-hand
Tip 1: Think about what can be analyzed?
Tip 2: Determine age-appropriate activities and adjust from there.
Tip 3: Give opportunities for practice.
Tip 4: Help students sift through data.
Data Practices
https://www.cnet.com/news/privacy/india-orders-vpn-companies-to-collect-and-hand-over-user-data/
A new government order will force virtual private networks to store user data for five years or longer.
The directive isn’t limited to VPN providers. Data centers and cloud service providers are both listed under the same provision. The companies will have to keep customer information even after the customer has canceled their subscription or account.
India has a history of applying a heavy hand to online activity.
In April, India banned 22 YouTube channels. In 2021, Facebook, Google Twitter ended a tense stand-off with the Indian government when they largely complied with the government’s expanded control over social media content in the country. In 2020, the country banned over 200 Chinese apps, including TikTok, and ultimately banned 9,849 social media URLs.
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2022-04-29-can-the-metaverse-improve-learning-new-research-finds-some-promise
A new study co-authored by Richard Mayer,
The study took place with about 100 middle school students taking a brief “virtual field trip” to learn about climate science. Some students experienced the field trip while wearing a VR headset, while others watched the same material in standard video on a computer screen.
“higher ratings of presence, interest, and enjoyment,”
The paper noted an obvious logistical benefit to virtual field trips over getting on a bus for an in-person outing. “Virtual field trips make it possible to experience things that are too expensive, dangerous, or impossible in the real world,” it says. The experiment did not address the difference in educational value between a real-world field trip and a virtual one.
for programs like nursing, pharmacy and medicine, VR seems promising for teaching some skills, as a piece of a broader curriculum that includes in-person hands-on learning as well.
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2022-03-28-can-personalized-learning-be-scaled-to-ease-teacher-burdens-and-close-achievement-gaps
McGraw Hill Plus, a new tool, Focusing first on math and then expanding to ELA and science, its objective is to make personalized learning scalable.
Smith: The modern classroom sits at the intersection of blended learning, competency-based learning and personalized learning.
reimagine instructional time and use technology to scale personalized learning.
First, pulling data into one place is the key fundamental driver that will change the teacher workflow. Second, we need to manipulate that data into some advanced data visualization tools, so it’s easy for teachers to understand and use. Third, we need to be able to visualize student performance and take action on it.
Using these data analytics, we can drive personalized learning based on student performance. And the last thing is the automation of teacher workflow.
eachers get data visualization from different sources, such as an adaptive software solution like our ALEKS program, our Redbird Mathematics, or our recently acquired Achieve3000 Literacy.
Google, Meta, and others will have to explain their algorithms under new EU legislation
The Digital Services Act will reshape the online world
https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/23/23036976/eu-digital-services-act-finalized-algorithms-targeted-advertising
The EU has agreed on another ambitious piece of legislation to police the online world.
- argeted advertising based on an individual’s religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity is banned. Minors cannot be subject to targeted advertising either.
- “Dark patterns” — confusing or deceptive user interfaces designed to steer users into making certain choices — will be prohibited. The EU says that, as a rule, canceling subscriptions should be as easy as signing up for them.
- Large online platforms like Facebook will have to make the working of their recommender algorithms (used for sorting content on the News Feed or suggesting TV shows on Netflix) transparent to users. Users should also be offered a recommender system “not based on profiling.” In the case of Instagram, for example, this would mean a chronological feed (as it introduced recently).
- Hosting services and online platforms will have to explain clearly why they have removed illegal content as well as give users the ability to appeal such takedowns. The DSA itself does not define what content is illegal, though, and leaves this up to individual countries.
- The largest online platforms will have to provide key data to researchers to “provide more insight into how online risks evolve.”
- Online marketplaces must keep basic information about traders on their platform to track down individuals selling illegal goods or services.
- Large platforms will also have to introduce new strategies for dealing with misinformation during crises (a provision inspired by the recent invasion of Ukraine).
hese tech companies have lobbied hard to water down the requirements in the DSA, particularly those concerning targeted advertising and handing over data to outside researchers.
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more on edpuzzle in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=edpuzzle