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News, Events and Highlights from Princeton CITP Research at the Intersection of Technology and Society
CITP HIGHLIGHTS
CITP Launches the Digital Witness Lab, a Research Hub Led by Investigative Data Journalist
Surya MattuPrinceton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy is excited to announce the launch of the Digital Witness Lab — an innovative research laboratory where engineers design software and hardware tools to track the inner workings of social media platforms and help journalists expose how they exploit users’ privacy, and aid in the spread of misinformation and injustices globally.
Based at CITP’s Sherrerd Hall oRce, the Lab is led by Surya Mattu, an award-winning data engineer and journalist whose most recent project with The Markup produced “Facebook Is Receiving Sensitive Medical Information from Hospital Websites,” an investigative news story that revealed 33 hospital websites and seven health system patient portals were collecting patients’ sensitive patient data through Facebook’s Meta Pixel code.
Most journalists don’t know how algorithms make decisions because that information is hidden in proprietary software and apps, and companies have no obligation to share that data, said Mattu, who was most recently a University of Michigan Knight-Wallace Fellow. “Injustice often lurks in the shadows of digital platforms.”
The Digital Witness Lab bypasses such obstacles by building custom software and hardware to capture data from these platforms, said Mattu. His Zrst undertaking at CITP is WhatsApp Watch — a project in which engineers will monitor public WhatsApp groups to document the spread of misinformation.
“We are excited to welcome Surya into the Princeton CITP community,” said Tithi Chattopadhyay, the Center’s executive director. “We look forward to building relationships with journalists and newsrooms that don’t have access to the types of digital tools Surya has a record of developing to support the critical work of investigative reporters."
JOBS ALERT
CITP has an opening for a new professor, and several positions for our Fellows Program. Find the positions and links to the applications below:
Assistant, Associate, or Full professor with a solid research background and strong collaborative skills. The deadline to apply is December 1.
The CITP Fellows Program is taking applications for each of its three tracks — Postdoctoral Research Associate, Visiting Professional, and Microsoft Visiting Research Scholar. Applicants may apply to one or more tracks on the Princeton University hiring page. Click on the drop-down box that says “Filter By Academic Unit,” then click on “Center for Information Technology Policy” to access the applications.
Have a bachelor’s degree? Consider becoming a CITP Emerging Scholar!
CITP is hiring two Senior Research Specialists for our Emerging Scholars program, which is designed to train college graduates who need additional coursework or research experience before applying to a highly competitive Ph.D. program, or a competitive position in the government, non-proZt or private sectors. Emerging Scholar positions are two-year, salaried jobs, and beneZts-eligible. Emerging Scholars are designated at Princeton with the title, “Senior Research Specialist.”
Emerging Scholars participate in intensive research at CITP, take classes and receive mentoring from renowned Princeton faculty and academics. Applicants must have a bachelor’s degree by the time their appointment begins in computer science, sociology, economics, political science, psychology, public policy, information science, communication, philosophy, or other technology policy discipline. For full consideration, apply online by the January 9, 2023 deadline.
“Injustice often lurks in the shadows of digital platforms.”
CITP graduate student Varun Nagaraj Rao presented An Audit of Images Used by Job Advertisers on Facebook — a poster (above) representing his work with CITP faculty member, Aleksandra Korolova, assistant professor of computer science and public affairs, at the second ACM Conference on Equity and Access in Algorithms, Mechanisms, and Optimization (EAAMO'22) at George Mason University, October 69. Researchers Nagaraj Rao and Korolova examined the demographics of people whose images were used in Facebook job ads to show that by selecting speciZc types of images, advertisers were able to circumvent Facebook’s prohibition against gender and/or race-based advertising.
CITP Emerging Scholar Christelle Tessono co-authored AI Oversight, Accountability and Protecting Human Rights, Comments on Canada’s Proposed ArtiZcial Intelligence and Data Act. The paper outlines Zve key recommendations to guide Canadian lawmakers in the crafting of legislation around artiZcial intelligence systems under the ArtiZcial Intelligence and Data Act. It also calls for independent oversight over the AI market, public input into the regulatory process, and human rights and privacy protections.
CITP Faculty Professor Arvind Narayanan, a 2022-23 visiting senior research scientist at the Knight 1st Amendment Institute at Columbia University, has announced “Optimizing for What? Algorithmic AmpliZcation and Society,” a spring symposium at Columbia scheduled for April 27-28, 2023. Narayanan, a co-organizer of the event, invites researchers, journalists, legal scholars and other stakeholders to submit papers interrogating digital platform algorithms and design. A 250-word abstract is due by January 3. Additional details on submitting drafts can be found in Columbia’s call for papers
As part of his work at Columbia, Professor Narayanan, has authored An Introduction to My Project: Algorithmic ampliZcation and society, a November 2 article published by the Knight 1st Amendment Institute. The article is also featured on CITP's Freedom To Tinker blog
Special CITP Event with Eszter Hargittai
Join us at Bendheim House, 26 Prospect Avenue, on Wednesday, November 30, from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m., to discuss Connected in Isolation: Digital Privilege in Unsettled Times — a book by CITP Fellow Eszter Hargittai that examines disparities in digital skills that the pandemic laid bare. Hargittai will be joined by SPIA professors Keith Wailoo and Andy Guess, and CITP's Tithi Chattopadhyay.
CALENDAR ITEMS
CITP’s weekly seminar series is held most Tuesdays, from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., at 306 Sherrerd Hall. For more information, email Jean Butcher. Upcoming talk topics and speakers are as follows:
November 8: Author Kathy Kleiman, a former visiting research scholar at CITP, will discuss her book, Proving Ground: The Untold Story of the Six Women Who Programmed the World’s First Modern Computer.
November 15: Lessons From the Edge: What Rural Connectivity Teaches Us About Next-Generation Networks with Shaddi Hasan, an assistant professor of computer science at Virginia Tech
November 29: “My AI Must Have Been Broken”: How AI Stands to Reshape Human Communication, with Mor Naaman, a professor of information science at Cornell Tech
December 6: The Black Box of Information Access: Measuring People’s Algorithm Skills, with CITP Fellow Eszter Hargittai
Wednesday, November 9: CITP Graduate Student Sayash Kapoor will discuss his paper, Leakage and the Reproducibility Crisis in ML-based Science, at the University of Exeter Institute of Data Science and ArtiZcial Intelligence Seminar Series, from 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. EST (1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. United Kingdom time).
Wednesday, November 9: Former CITP Research Fellow Ben Zevenbergen will
present Agile Ethics: Designing an ML Model for Video Generation, from 12 noon to 1:20 p.m. Zevenbergen, an ethics and policy advisor at Google Responsible Innovation, will moderate a fast-paced role-play workshop designed to simulate the methods tech professionals use to address ethical problems. Teams will encounter a rapidly-developing ethical problem in their design for a video generation product and be challenged to make choices, defend their positions, and get scored on how well they accomplish their goals. This event is open to all undergraduates and graduate students. Register at the event page.
Wednesday, November 9: CITP’s Works in Progress (WiP) Reading Group meets 11 a.m. to 12 noon at 008 Sherrerd Hall. Yuhan Liu, a Ph.D. student with Princeton HCI will present on independent food delivery platforms. To participate remotely, email CITP graduate student Ben Kaiser for the Zoom link. WiP is open to any Princeton aRliate, including faculty, staff and undergraduate and graduate students.
Thursday, November 10: CITP’s Security & Privacy Reading Group meets 10 a.m.
Thursday in Sherrerd 008. CITP Graduate Student Anne Kohlbrenner will present SoK: Understanding the Prevailing Security Vulnerabilities in TrustZone-assisted TEE Systems by Cerdeira et al. The group will discuss the extent to which researchers can expect the execution of future work to take place in safe and veriZable environments. University students, postdocs, and fellows are welcome. To join remotely, email CITP Postdoctoral Research Associate Sarah Scheper for the Zoom link.
Friday, November 11: Princeton’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and CITP present the Korhammer Seminar Series – Yongdae Kim, KAIST: Unpatched Vulnerabilities in Cellular Standards, 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m., in B25 EQuad.
TECH TALKS
CITP Postdoctoral Research Associate Shazeda Ahmed was a panelist at the September 15 Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art where she discussed the use of emotion recognition technology in China. Ahmed was also quoted in From East Berlin to Beijing, surveillance goes in circles, a story published in the October 26 edition of Financial Times that cited her appearance at the event. (A video recording can be viewed above.)
CITP Interim Director Prateek Mittal and Executive Director Tithi Chattopadhyay participated in an October 27 live-streamed discussion with Dr. Carla Hayden, the 14th Librarian of Congress, about How Digital Policy Impacts Diversity and Access in Communities. The three discussed digital policy issues, including protecting the privacy of citizens at libraries, digital access, and the evolving nature of libraries. Watch the full discussion on the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs' YouTube channel
An October 5 talk that CITP Graduate Student Sayash Kapoor gave on Leakage and the Reproducibility Crisis in ML-based Science, as part of the Data Science Institute seminar series in Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, can now be viewed on YouTube.
KUDOS
CITP researchers participated in a roundtable discussion with U. S. Secretary of Homeland Security John Tien during a November 2 workshop hosted by the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. Tien tweeted that Princeton University and CITP “are on the cutting edge: tackling real world problems for the betterment of our society.”
ALUMNI NEWS
Former CITP Fellow Orestis Papakyriakopoulos was quoted in Election disinformation is moving from TikTok to WhatsApp and beyond in Brazil’s election, a story in the October 28 edition of Coda Story.
The Center for Information Technology Policy is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, interdisciplinary hub where researchers study the impact of digital technologies on society with the mission of informing policymakers, journalists, academics, other researchers, and the public for the good of society. CITP's programming includes a Technology and Society undergraduate certificate, a Tech Policy Clinic, a Public Interest Technology Summer Fellowship, and an Emerging Scholars in Technology program.
CITP is an initiative of Princeton University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS)
CITP is an initiative of Princeton University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) and the School of Public and International Afairs (SPIA)
This newsletter is written and designed by CITP Communications Manager Karen Rouse. Send questions, comments or suggestions to CITPComms@princeton.edu.
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