Sweeney ‘will save the world from know-how run amok’, says Joan DonovanDirector of Analysis on the Shorenstein Middle and an Affiliate Adjunct Lecturer on the Tech Lab. “She not solely teaches ethics and values in know-how, however she additionally reveals college students how you can create know-how that has social which means past monetization.” Donovan, who’s an professional in media manipulation and disinformation campaigns, says, “I’ve been in a position to sit in on a number of of her lessons the place college students debate the actual problems with know-how design, not simply from a important perspective. They need to prototype issues to make issues work with out ignoring the inconvenient fact. Expertise is each a course of and a product, helpful and dangerous, and most significantly, intentional design can mitigate the dangers.”
Kathy PhamPham, a senior fellow on the Shorenstein Middle and affiliate of the Public Curiosity Expertise Lab, additionally factors out how Sweeney is uniquely suited to steer the lab, along with her background as a pc scientist and former chief know-how officer on the Federal Commerce Fee. “Once I consider Dr. Sweeney, I consider the embodiment of public curiosity know-how,” Pham says. As a pc scientist herself—who was appointed deputy chief know-how officer on the Federal Commerce Fee in 2021—Pham attracts inspiration from Sweeney, who she says has been a pioneer within the area for a few years, “rethinking how know-how impacts democracy.” Pham explains, “She’s held all of those positions. She brings a depth of expertise that’s distinctive.”
Drawing on his deep and different expertise and data, Sweeney has positioned the lab as a hub for connecting with different public-interest know-how initiatives. For instance, it’s a part of the Public Curiosity Expertise College Community, which consists of about 50 universities the place college students and school members do such a work. The lab additionally sponsors the Expertise Science Analysis Community, which is made up of researchers from throughout the nation who examine know-how and society points, host occasions, prepare college students, and publish analysis. Researchers within the community contribute to Journal of technological sciencesof which Sweeney is the founding editor.
By the Public Curiosity Expertise Lab, college students, workers and school have developed a spread of instruments and platforms that clear up public issues, from bettering voting safety to serving to individuals with out web entry plan their vaccinations to understanding how giant social media corporations form conversations.
Credit score Monitoring for Elections
One software that Sweeney is happy about is VoteFlare. The thought got here to him in 2016 in considered one of his “Save the World” lessons when college students requested how they might empower voters throughout the political spectrum. Sweeney, working with Harvard PhD scholar Jinyan Zang and Information Privateness Lab researcher Ji Su Yoo, found how straightforward it was for fraudsters to alter voter registration info, doubtlessly disrupting elections. A Expertise Science paperThey shared their findings: In 2016, web sites in 35 states and Washington, D.C. had been susceptible to voter id theft, through which imposters might alter voter registration info. All they wanted was a couple of key items of knowledge, a lot of which is publicly viewable or accessible by means of knowledge brokers or darknet marketplaces.
Sweeney and his college students questioned how they might clear up this drawback. The answer they developed is VoteFlare, a software that Sweeney likens to credit score monitoring for voting info. Individuals who join the VoteFlare app are notified by a “sign” within the type of a textual content message, cellphone name or e mail if their info adjustments on-line, to allow them to take corrective motion if obligatory.
VoteFlare was efficiently examined within the 2020 Georgia runoff election and was additionally used within the 2022 Texas main. The workforce plans to roll it out throughout the nation forward of the final election, notably in areas the place voter suppression is a threat. Josh Visnaw, VoteFlare’s challenge lead, says the software “empowers people to deal with points earlier than it’s too late, making certain they can take part within the democratic course of.” He says, “We envision this know-how complementing the good-faith efforts of election officers and civil society teams throughout the nation as we method the 2022 midterm elections.”
