Tag Archives: Social networks

Ciclo de charlas en Chile sobre inteligencia artificial, trabajo y redes sociales

Estoy muy emocionada y feliz de empezar un ciclo de charlas en Chile, principalmente en Santiago y Talca, con Antonio A. Casilli este mes de enero. Agradezco mucho a la Embajada de Francia en Chile, al Instituto Francés de Chile, y a la Fundación Teatro a Mil por esta oportunidad maravillosa. Gracias también a Juana Torres Cierpe y a Francisca Ortiz Ruiz por su ayuda en contactar con colegas, amigos y estudiantes de Chile.

Empezaremos por una charla titulada “Plataformas digitales, trabajo en línea y automatización tras la crisis sanitaria”, que tendrá lugar el día lunes 16 de enero a las 12:00 hrs en la sede de la CUT (1 oriente # 809, Talca). En esta charla presentaremos nuestras investigaciones sobre el fenómeno del micro-trabajo fuertemente precarizado que se desarrolla en las plataformas digitales. Agradezco mucho a la profesora Claudia Jordana Contreras y a la Escuela de Sociología de la Universidad Católica del Maule por la organización de este evento.

El martes 17 enero 2023, 11:00, hablaré de “Inteligencia artificial, transformaciones laborales y desigualdades: El trabajo de las mujeres en las plataformas digitales de ‘microtareas” en el Instituto de Sociología de la Universidad Católica y con el Quantitative and Computational Social Science Research Group. Gracias a Mauricio Bucca que ha organizado este evento. Estaremos en la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Campus San Joaquín.

El martes 17 por la tarde (a las 17:000 hrs), hablaré de “Ética de la inteligencia artificial y otros desafíos para la investigación sobre redes sociales” como parte de la Escuela de Verano del Centro de Investigación en Complejidad Social, Universidad del Desarrollo. Agradezco a Jorge Fábrega Lacoa y sus colegas para la organización.

El martes 17 a las 10:000 hrs, también habrá una ponencia de Antonio Casilli en el evento Congreso Futuro: “Trabajo global y inteligencia artificial. Los ‘ingredientes humanos’ ed la automatización” (Teatro Oriente, Pedro de Valdivia 099, Providencia).

El viernes 20 de enero 2023, a las 10:00 hrs, Antonio y yo hablaremos juntos de “El trabajo detrás de la inteligencia artificial y la automatización en América Latina” en un taller internacional organizado por la Universidad de Chile – con Pablo Pérez (gracias por la organización!) y Francisca Gutiérrez, sala 129, FASCO, Av. Ignacio Carrera Pinto 1045, Ñuñoa.

Sigue un evento organizado por el Instituto Francés, “La noche de las ideas”:

Viernes 20 enero 2023, 20:00 hrs, Centro cultural La Moneda, Noche de las Ideas, Santiago — Paola Tubaro “Automatización: ¿El fin del humano?” (con con Denis Parra y Javier Ibacache, Plaza de la Ciudadanía 26, Santiago).

Sabado 21 enero 2021, 16:00 hrs, Centro cultural La Moneda, Noche de las Ideas, Santiago — Antonio Casilli “¿Qué esconde la inteligencia artificial?” (con José Ulloa, Constanza Michelson y Paula Escobar, Plaza de la Ciudadanía 26, Santiago).

El miércoles 26 de enero 2023, a las 18:30 hrs en Santiago, habrá la presentación del libro de Antonio Casilli, “Esperando a los robots. Investigación sobre el trabajo del clic” (LOM, 2021) (con Paulo Slachevsky, Librería del Ulises Lastarria, José Victorino Lastarria 70, local 2, Paseo Barrio Lastarria).

Todos los eventos son gratuitos. Para la Noche de las Ideas y el Congreso Futuro, es necesario inscribirse online.

Pathways in Network Science

I’m happy and honoured to speak today at the “Pathways in Network Science” online seminar of the Women in Network Science (WiNS) group.

Pathways in Network Science aims to give the stage to women and nonbinary researchers in network science to share their career paths or some pertinent aspects of it. Presentations can be a summary of the research topics explored along a speaker’s career path or even an autobiographical presentation about how opportunities and challenges influenced her aspirations and impacted her career path. It can also include discussing gender-related challenges and experience with individual strategies and/or systemic changes.

I’ll talk about myself in terms of mobility – both geographic and disciplinary – and the challenges and opportunities it represented. I’ll also talk about resilience – or how network science helped me to make true my dream of devoting my life to research. I’ll mention impact – or how to think of the place of science in society, and how network research can lead to positive change. I’ll conclude with the challenges ahead – and how they are not only scientific, but also deeply human and social.

The visualization of personal networks

I am pleased to co-organize with Vincent Lorant of UCLouvain a special session on “The visualization of personal networks” at the forthcoming INSNA Sunbelt conference (12-16 July 2022, Cairns, Australia, and online).

Personal network data collection methods allow describing the composition and the structure of an individual’s (hereafter ego) social network. This method has been implemented in different domains such as migration, drug use, mental health, aging, education, and social welfare. Over the last years, these data have also been used to provide respondents with visualizations of their personal network, using different algorithms and customizing results through computer assisted data collection. Visualization gives valuable feedback to the respondent, improves data validity and may trigger positive behavioural changes, notably in vulnerable individuals or groups. Yet, visualization is not a free lunch. Recent research has evidenced the ethical dilemmas of providing such feedback to individuals: ego’s social life is being exposed, the researcher may be exposed as well, and such feedback may imply some contractual exchanges or therapeutic implications that require attention.

This session aims to describe the stakes of different visualization approaches to personal networks with different populations. We welcome qualitative and quantitative papers addressing issues related to the implementation of visualization or reports of personal networks in terms of techniques, levels of respondent’s satisfaction with visualization, conditions under which visualization is recommended or discouraged, and effects of the personal network visualization for the respondent.

More information on the conference and the submission process is available here.

Networks in the digital organization

This week, I was pleased and honoured to give a keynote speech at wonderful EUSN2021 (European Social Networks 2021) conference. The event was originally planned in beautiful Naples, but was unfortunately moved online because of pandemic-induced uncertainties.

In my talk, I endeavoured to reconcile the tradition of research on social and organizational network analysis – in which I have been trained, and which constitutes the specialism of most participants to EUSN conferences – with the nascent literature on digital platform labour. Indeed, organizational network studies have shaped my (and many other colleagues’) understanding of how social ties and structures drive collective action and shape its outcomes. However, contemporary computing technologies breed novel sociabilities and organizational modes that disrupt established practices and knowledge. In particular, the emergence of digital platforms as market intermediaries constitutes a puzzle for network researchers. These emerging organizational structures loosen individual-organization links, fragment production processes, individualize sub-contracting, extend competition beyond the local level, and threaten jobs with AI-fuelled automation. My question then is: in these environments where isolation dominates and collaboration fades, how do social networks operate, if at all? And how can we, as researchers, apprehend them?

In my talk, I discussed how digital platforms, and the transformations of work processes they trigger, challenge some of the key tenets of organizational network analysis. Yet there is still much to learn from this tradition, and the limited overlaps with the nascent literature on platforms reveal facets that neither of them, alone, could capture. This analysis also confirms that overall, technology-enabled platform intermediation restrains sociability and limits interactions, but specific cases where networking has been possible highlight the fundamental advantages it brings to workers.

On this basis, I outlined directions for future research and policy action.

Many thanks to the organizers who still did a wonderful job despite the online-only mode, and to all attendees for inspiring questions and feedback.

HDR Paola Tubaro

(English version below)

J’ai le plaisir d’annoncer la soutenance de mon habilitation à diriger des recherches en sociologie intitulée :

Décrypter la société des plateformes: Organisations, marchés et réseaux dans l’économie numérique.

Cette soutenance aura lieu le mercredi 11 décembre 2019 à Sciences Po Paris, 9 rue de la chaise, salle 931, à 10h00.

Si vous souhaitez venir, merci de confirmer votre présence grâce à ce lien car les personnes externes à Sciences Po ne pourront pas accéder à la salle si elles ne sont pas annoncées.


Le jury sera composé de :

  • M. Gilles Bastin, Professeur des universités, IEP de Grenoble (rapporteur)
  • M. Rodolphe Durand, Professeur, HEC Paris
  • M. Emmanuel Lazega, Professeur des universités, IEP de Paris (garant et rapporteur)
  • Mme Béatrice Milard, Professeure des universités, Université de Toulouse Jean Jaurès (rapporteure)
  • M. José Luís Molina González, Professeur, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
  • M. Tom A.B. Snijders, Professeur, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

La soutenance sera suivie d’un pot. 

Résumé

Le manuscrit original conceptualise la récente montée en puissance des platesformes numériques selon trois dimensions principales : leur nature de dispositifs de coordination alimentés par les données, les transformations du travail qui en découlent, et les promesses d’innovation sociétale qui les accompagnent. L’ambition globale est de décortiquer le rôle de coordination de la plateforme et sa position à l’horizon de la dualité classique entreprise – marché. Il s’agit aussi de comprendre précisément comment elle utilise les données pour ce faire, où elle amène le travail, et comment elle gère des projets d’innovation sociale. Je prolonge cette analyse pour faire apparaître la continuité entre la société actuelle dominée par les plateformes et la « société organisationnelle », montrant que les plateformes sont des structures organisées qui distribuent les ressources, produisent des asymétries de richesse et de pouvoir, et repoussent l’innovation sociale vers la périphérie du système. Je discute des implications de ces tendances pour les politiques publiques, et propose des pistes pour la recherche future. 


I am pleased to announce the defense of my habilitation to direct research in sociology entitled:


Decoding the platform society: Organizations, markets and networks in the digital economy


This defense will take place on Wednesday, 11 December 2019 at Sciences Po Paris, 9 rue de la chaise, room 931, at 10am.


If you wish to attend, please confirm your presence through this link because people who are external to Sciences Po will be denied access to the room if they are not announced.

Members of the jury are:

  • Prof. Gilles Bastin, IEP de Grenoble (referee)
  • Prof. Rodolphe Durand, HEC Paris
  • Prof. Emmanuel Lazega, IEP de Paris (advisor and referee)
  • Prof. Béatrice Milard, Université de Toulouse Jean Jaurès (referee)
  • Prof. José Luís Molina González, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
  • Prof. Tom A.B. Snijders, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

There will be drinks after the defense.


Abstract

The original manuscript conceptualizes the recent rise of digital platforms along three main dimensions: their nature of coordination devices fueled by data, the ensuing transformations of labor, and the accompanying promises of societal innovation. The overall ambition is to unpack the coordination role of the platform and where it stands in the horizon of the classical firm – market duality. It is also to precisely understand how it uses data to do so, where it drives labor, and how it accommodates socially innovative projects. I extend this analysis to show continuity between today’s society dominated by platforms and the “organizational society”, claiming that platforms are organized structures that distribute resources, produce asymmetries of wealth and power, and push social innovation to the periphery of the system. I discuss the policy implications of these tendencies and propose avenues for follow-up research.

Call for papers: “Recent Ethical Challenges in Social Network Analysis”

Submissions are now invited for a special section of the journal Social Networks on “Recent Ethical Challenges in Social Network Analysis” (guest-edited by myself with Antonio A. Casilli, Alessio D’Angelo, and Louise Ryan).

Research on social networks raises formidable ethical issues that often fall outside existing regulations and guidelines. State-of-the-art tools to collect, handle, and store personal data expose both researchers and participants to new risks. Political, military and corporate interests interfere with scientific priorities and practices, while legal and social ramifications of studies of personal ties and human networks come to the surface.

The proposed special section aims to critically engage with ethics in research related to social networks, specifically addressing the challenges that recent technological, scientific, legal and political transformations trigger.

Following a successful workshop on this topic that was held in December 2017 in Paris, we welcome submissions that critically engage with ethics in research related to social networks, possibly based on reflective accounts of first-hand experiences or case studies, taken as concrete illustrations of the general principles at stake, the attitudes and behaviors of stakeholders, or the legal and institutional constraints. We are particularly interested in novel, original answers to some unprecedented ethical challenges, or the need to re­interpret norms in ambiguous situations.

The full Call for Papers is available here.

More than complex: large and rich network structures

I co-organize this Satellite to the NETSCI2018 Conference in Paris, 12 June 2018. We are now accepting submissions of proposals for presentations.

Information on the Satellite

In traditional research paradigms, sociology handles small but rich networks where the richness of network attributes is derived from the specific buildup of the data collection process. In the sociological approach, differences among nodes and edges are key to describe network properties and the ensuing dynamical social processes. Instead, the complex systems tradition deals with large but poor networks. Assuming statistical equivalence of graph entities, a mean field treatment serves to describe the aggregate properties of the network. Today’s network datasets contain an unprecedented quantity of relational information at all, and between all, the possible levels: individuals, social groups, political structures, economical actors, etc. We finally deal with large and rich network structures that expose the implicit limitations of the two abovementioned approaches: the traditional methods from social science cannot be upscaled because of their algorithmic complexity and those from complex systems lose track of the complex nature of the actors, their relationships and their processes. This workshop has the aim of developing an interdisciplinary reflection on how methods from social science could be upscaled to large network structures and on how methods from complex systems could be downscaled to deal with small heterogeneous structures.

We are proud that five prominent international scholars are our invited speakers: Camille Roth, SciencesPo Paris; Matthieu Latapy, LIP6UPMC Paris; Alessandro Lomi, ETH Zurich; Fariba Karimi, GESIS Cologne; Noshir Contractor, Northwestern University.

Contributions

We invite abstracts of published or unpublished work for contributed talks to take place at the satellite symposium. We expect a broad range of topics to be covered, across theory, methodology, and application to empirical data, relating to an interdisciplinary reflection on how methods from social science could be upscaled to large network structures and on how methods from complex systems could be downscaled to deal with small heterogeneous structures.

Submission can be made through our website.

Submissions are required to be at most 650 words long and should include the following information: title of the talk, author(s), affiliation(s), email address(es), name of the presenter, abstract. Papers or submissions longer than 1 page will not be accepted.

Important dates

Abstract submission deadline is March 25, 2018. Notification of acceptance will be no later than April 23, 2018.

All participants and accepted speakers will have to register through the NETSCI2018 website.

Rethinking ethics in social-network research


File 20171211 15358 w51s6s.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1
Social links.
civilservicelocal/Pixabay

Antonio A. Casilli, Télécom ParisTech – Institut Mines-Télécom, Université Paris-Saclay et Paola Tubaro, Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS)

Fueled by increasingly powerful computing and visualization tools, research on social networks is flourishing. However, it raises ethical issues that largely escape existing codes of conduct and regulatory frameworks. The economic power of large data platforms, the active participation of network members, the spectrum of mass surveillance, the effects of networking on health, the place of artificial intelligence: so many questions in search of solutions.

Social networks, what are we talking about?

The expression “social network” has become common, but those who use it to refer to social media as Facebook or Instagram often ignore its origin and its true meaning. The study of social networks precedes the advent of digital technologies. Since the 1930s, sociologists have been conducting surveys to describe the structures of relationships that unite individuals and groups: their “networks”. These include, for example, advice relationships between employees of a company, or friendship ties between students in a school. These networks can be represented as points (students) united by lines (links).

Figure 1 : a social network of friendship ties between students in a school. Circles = girls, triangles = boys, arrows = ties.
J.L. Moreno, Who shall survive? 1934.

Before any questioning on the social aspects of Facebook and Twitter, this research shed light on, for example, marital role segregation, importance of “weak ties” in job search, informal organization of firms, diffusion of innovations, formation of business elites, social support for the sick or elderly. Designers of digital platforms such as Facebook have picked up some of the analytical principles on which these works were based, developing them with the mathematical theory of graphs (though often with less attention to the social issues involved).

Early on, researchers in this field realized that the traditional principles of research ethics (focusing on informed consent of study participants and anonymization of data) were difficult to ensure. By definition, social networks research is never about a single individual, but about relationships between this individual and others  –  their friends, relatives, collaborators or professional advisors. If the latter are reported by the respondent but are not themselves included in the study, it is difficult to see how their consent could be obtained. What’s more, results can be difficult to anonymize, in that visuals are sometimes disclosive even in the absence of personal identifiers.

Ethics in the digital society: a minefield

Academics have long been thinking about these ethical difficulties, to which a special issue of the prestigious Social Networks journal was dedicated as far back as 2005. Today, researchers’ dilemmas are exacerbated by the increased availability of relational data collected and exploited by digital giants like Facebook or Google. New problems arise as the boundaries between “public” and “private” spheres become confused. To what extent do we need consent to access messages that digital service users send to their contacts, their “retweets”, or their “likes” on their friends’ walls?

These sources of information are often the property of commercial enterprises, and the algorithms they use likely bias observations. For example, can we interpret in the same way a contact created spontaneously by a user, and a contact created as a result of an automated recommendation system? In short, the data do not speak for themselves, and before thinking about their analysis, we must question the conditions of their use and the methods of their production. They largely depend on the software architectures imposed by platforms as well as their economic and technical choices. There is a real power asymmetry between platforms  –  often the property of large multinational companies  –  and researchers  –  especially those working in the public sector, and whose objectives are misaligned with investors’ priorities. Negotiations (if possible at all) are often difficult, resulting in restrictions to proprietary data access  –  particularly penalizing for public research.

Other problems arise as a researcher may even use paid crowdsourcing to produce data, using platforms like Amazon Mechanical Turk to ask large numbers of users to complete a questionnaire, or even to download their online contact lists. But these services raise numerous questions in terms of workers’ rights, working conditions and appropriation of the product of work. The resulting uncertainty hinders research that could otherwise have a positive impact on knowledge and on society at large.

Availability of online communication and publication tools, which many researchers are now seizing, increases the likelihood that research results may be diverted for political or business purposes. If the interest of military and police circles for the analysis of social networks is well known (Osama Bin Laden was allegedly located and neutralised following the application of social network analysis principles), these appropriations are more frequent today, and less easily controllable by researchers. A significant risk is the use of these principles to suppress civic and democratic movements.

Figure 2 : Simulation of the structure of an Al-Qaeda network. Courtesy of the authors.
Kouznetsov A., Tsvetovat M., Social Network Analysis for Startups, 2011

The role of the researcher

Restrictions and prohibitions would likely aggravate the constraints that already weigh on researchers, without helping them overcome these obstacles. Rather, it is important to create conditions for trust and enable researchers to explore the full extent and importance of online and offline social networks  –  allowing them to capture salient economic and social phenomena while remaining respectful of people’s rights. Researchers should take an active role, participating in the co-construction of an adequate ethical framework, grounded in their experience and self-reflective attitude. A bottom-up process involving academics as well as citizens, civil society associations, and representatives of public and private research organizations could then feed these ideas and thoughts back to regulators (such as ethics committees).

Antonio A. Casilli, Associate professor Télécom ParisTech, research fellow Centre Edgar Morin (EHESS)., Télécom ParisTech – Institut Mines-Télécom, Université Paris-Saclay et Paola Tubaro, Chargée de recherche au LRI, Laboratoire de Recherche Informatique du CNRS. Enseignante à l’ENS, Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS)

La version originale de cet article a été publiée sur The Conversation.