All posts by Virginia Portillo

WHAT KIND OF INTERNET DO CHIDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE WANT? OPPORTUNITIES, RISKS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

I was very pleased to present UnBias’ data at two great recent UK events that addressed children’s safety and wellbeing and children’s rights at: the NSPCC annual conference, ‘How safe are our Children? Growing up online’, 20th-21st June, in London and at the launch of the ‘Children, Rights and Childhood’ event, on 22nd June in Birmingham.

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Digital Democracy: Critical Perspectives in the Age if Big Data

Some of us attended a joint conference of the ECREA (European Communications Research and Education Association) Communication and Media Industries, on the 10th-11th November in Stockholm. About 100 people, mainly academics, researchers from NGOs and media consultants from Europe and the US, took part.

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Algorithmic discrimination: are you IN or OUT?

chosenoneA lot has been said about algorithms working as gatekeepers and making decisions on our behalf, often without us noticing it. I can surely find an example in my daily life where I do notice it and benefit from it. This happens when I use the “Discover Weekly” Spotify play-list. By comparing my listening habits to that of other users with similar but not identical choices, Spotify allows information on the fringes to be shared. It is thus “tailored” to my music taste, and it is incredibly accurate in predicting things I would like. Besides, it lets me discover new music and bands and in many occasions can also take me back in time with some tunes I have probably not listened to for a long time.

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