http://hdl.handle.net/10453/79091 Information Knowledge Management and Digital Studies Program 2026-04-12T07:16:09Z http://hdl.handle.net/10453/178362 Title: The nexus between porn and psychosocial/psychosexual well-being among gay and bisexual men Authors: Demant, D; Byron, P; Oviedo-Trespalacios, O; Saliba, B; Newton, JDA http://hdl.handle.net/10453/177194 Title: Labelling, shadow bans and community resistance: did meta's strategy to suppress rather than remove COVID misinformation and conspiracy theory on Facebook slow the spread? Authors: Johns, A; Bailo, F; Booth, E; Rizoiu, MA Abstract: In this paper, we ask how effective Meta's content moderation strategy was on its flagship platform, Facebook, during the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyse the performance of 18 Australian right-wing/anti-vaccination pages, posts and commenting sections collected between January 2019 and July 2021, and use engagement metrics and time series analysis to analyse the data, mapping key policy announcements against page performance. We combine this with content analysis of comments parsed from two public pages that overperformed in the time period. The results show that Meta's content moderation systems were partially effective, with previously high-performing pages showing steady decline. Nonetheless, some pages not only slipped through the net but overperformed, proving this strategy to be piecemeal and inconsistent. The analysis identifies trends that content labelling and ‘shadow banning’ accounts was resisted by these communities, who employed tactics to stay engaged on Facebook, while migrating some conversations to less moderated platforms. 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10453/176863 Title: Navigating uncertainty: public diplomacy vs. AI Authors: Di Martino, L; Ford, H Abstract: <jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Some have heralded generative AI models as an opportunity to inform diplomacy and support diplomats’ communication campaigns. Others have argued that generative AI is inherently untrustworthy because it simply manages probabilities and doesn’t consider the truth value of statements. In this article, we examine how AI applications are built to smooth over uncertainty by providing a single answer among multiple possible answers and by presenting information in a tone and form that demands authority. We contrast this with the practices of public diplomacy professionals who must grapple with both epistemic and aleatory uncertainty head on to effectively manage complexities through negotiation. We argue that the rise of generative AI and its “operationalization of truth” invites us to reflect on the possible shortcoming of AI’s application to public diplomacy practices and to recognize how prominent uncertainty is in public diplomacy practices.</jats:p> http://hdl.handle.net/10453/175853 Title: Oaths and the ethics of automated data: limits to porting the Hippocratic oath from medicine to data science Authors: Mannell, K; Fordyce, R; Jethani, S Abstract: This paper argues that the proposal for a ‘Hippocratic oath for data science’ is a severely limited form of data ethics for automated culture. Drawing on the oath used within medical professionalism, proponents as diverse as Wired and the European Data Protection Supervisor have argued for a Hippocratic oath for data science as a way of introducing a soft regulatory environment. In this paper, we analyse the history of the Hippocratic oath and the professions of medicine and data science to suggest that this proposal offers an individualized solution to systemic problems and, as such, is unlikely to be effective. We further argue that the proposal of the Hippocratic oath ignores the degree to which the profession of the physician is different from the profession of the data scientist in ways that limit the transfer of an ethical framework between them. In particular, we note that automated data access leads to a lack of clear professional identity among those who act as data stewards which, unlike in a medical context, makes it unclear how breaches of an oath would be adequately sanctioned. We also argue that, unlike in a medical context, harms can be difficult to define and have historically been poorly acknowledged, making it difficult to meaningfully take an oath to ‘do no harm’. We propose that in the context of data science, a Hippocratic oath would provide little substantial protection for users and largely penalize workers over companies while deferring responsibility away from those profiting from data extraction. The paper concludes by suggesting that the limits of the Hippocratic oath are significant to the point that other regulations should also be sought, although proposals for oaths have value as catalysts for cultural change within the technology industry. 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z