Wissenschaftlicher Beirat für Familienfragen beim Bundesfamilienministerium: (Vor-)Geschichte, Funktionen und Tätigkeit in der Politikberatung

Zusammenfassung Der vorliegende Beitrag bietet einen Überblick auf die lange, wechselvolle Geschichte des Wissenschaftlichen Beirats für Familienfragen, die von unterschiedlichen Phasen der Beratungstätigkeit mit jeweils auch unterschiedlicher Kooperationsintensität zwischen Beirat und Ministerium geprägt war. Im Mittelpunkt steht die Satzung von 1970, die für das besondere (Selbst-)Verständnis des Beirats sowie seine Funktion innerhalb der bundesrepublikanischen Politikberatung entscheidend ist. Die Autoren zeigen aber auch auf, wie sich der Beirat den gegenwärtigen Herausforderungen in der sog. Mediendemokratie stellt und geben einen Ausblick auf mögliche Zukunftsfelder der Politikberatung in der Familienpolitik. Abstract: Scientific Advisory Board on Family Affairs at the Ministry: History, Functions and Activities in Political Consultancy This article provides an overview of the long, eventful history of the Scientific Advisory Board on Family Affairs, which was characterized by different phases of advisory work, each with different levels of cooperation between the Advisory Board and the Ministry. The focus is on the statute of 1970, which determines the particularity and (self-)conception of the advisory board and its function within the Federal Republic’s political consulting. However, the authors also illustrate how the Advisory Board is facing the current challenges in so-called media democracy and give a perspective on possible future fields of advisory activity in family policy.

How News May Affect Markets’ Complex Structure: The Case of Cambridge Analytica

The claim of Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm, that it was possible to influence voting behavior by using data mined from the social platform Facebook created a sudden fear in its users of being manipulated; consequently, even the market price of the social platform was shocked.We propose a case study analyzing the effect of this data scandal not only on Facebook stock price, but also on the whole stock market. To such a scope, we consider 15-minutes prices and returns of the set of the NASDAQ-100 components before and after the Cambridge Analytica case. We analyze correlations and Mutual Information among components finding that assets become more correlated and their Mutual Information grows higher. We also observe that correlation and Mutual Information are mutually increasing and seem to follow a master curve. Hence, the market appears more fragile after the Cambridge Analytica event. In fact, as it is well-known in finance, an increase in the average value of correlations augments the systemic risk (i.e., all the market can collapse as a whole) and decreases the possibility of allocating a safe investment portfolio.

Post Cambridge Analytica Fallout: Observing Facebook Users Awareness Regarding Data Security

In early 2018, Cambridge Analytica, a UK based political consulting group, was in the middle of the spotlight regarding its activity collecting Facebook users’ personal data. The data was harvested without users’ consent and was used to influence voter opinion to support a presidency campaign. This event triggered numerous movement aimed to inform and motivate the public to be concern of the use of their data in social media. However, whether these actions have raised the awareness of social media users is yet to be investigated. The objective of this paper is to harvest the awareness of social media users in Indonesia. We’ve performed a survey and collected answers from 312 responders who actively use social media in everyday life. The result shows that most of the responders have a low awareness regarding the event and its impact to social media industry. Over 24% of our responders have heard of the event and only 7% of the responders were able to describe the event correctly. Moreover, most of these users did not aware how their profile information in social media may be used to achieve commercial or political purpose by social media industry or collaborating third party without their consent.

A Failure to Regulate? The Demands and Dilemmas of Tackling Illegal Content and Behaviour on Social Media

The proliferation and user uptake of social media applications has brought in its wake a growing problem of illegal and harmful interactions and content online. Recent controversy has arisen around issues ranging from the alleged online manipulation of the 2016 US presidential election by Russian hackers and ‘trolls’, to the misuse of users’ Facebook data by the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica (Hall 2018; Swaine & Bennetts 2018). These recent issues notwithstanding, in the UK context, ongoing concern has focused in particular upon (a) sexually-oriented and abusive content about or directed at children, and (b) content that is racially or religiously hateful, incites violence and promotes or celebrates terrorist violence. Legal innovation has sought to make specific provision for such online offences, and offenders have been subject to prosecution in some widely-publicised cases. Nevertheless, as a whole, the business of regulating (identifying, blocking, removing and reporting) offending content has been left largely to social media providers themselves. This has been sustained by concerns both practical (the amount of public resource that would be required to police social media) and political (concerns about excessive state surveillance and curtailment of free speech in liberal democracies). However, growing evidence about providers’ unwillingness and/or inability to effectively stem the flow of illegal and harmful content has created a crisis for the existing self-regulatory model. Consequently, we now see a range of proposals that would take a much more coercive and punitive stance toward media platforms, so as to compel them into taking more concerted action. Taking the UK as a primary focus, these proposals are considered and assessed, with a view to charting possible future configurations for tackling illegal social media content.

Lawsuits may be key to tighter US data privacy rules

Significance The move comes after Facebook suspended a UK political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, following allegations on March 18 that it improperly obtained personal data on 50 million Facebook users that was subsequently used in political campaigns. The incident has reignited the debates in the United States and elsewhere on online privacy, targeted messaging and whether tech firms are now too powerful to be left to regulate themselves. Impacts First Amendment considerations will limit any efforts to control online political advertising in the United States. Accusations that Facebook facilitated foreign meddling in elections will dog it more than allegations of improper acquisitions of user data. Internal criticism of Facebook's practices by employees, former employees and investors may be greater agents for change than lawmakers.