I have good news. After several months of work
with the
AoIR and ACM, both institutions
have made public statements in support of the freedoms of scholars who
do work in online safety, misinformation, fact-checking, and other areas
facing pressure from governments (
AOIR statement,
ACM statement). Together with Rebekah Tromble and Sarah T. Roberts, we also published an article in
Science about
the importance of freedom of movement to free inquiry.
In
an article for the Union of Concerned Scientists,
I tell the story of a scholar in our community who has avoided risks at the
border by declining to travel, despite being in a computing field that
counts and rewards people for conference presentations. Under those
circumstances, when we review people’s CVs, we become unwitting
accomplices to censorship.
The good news? There are practical steps we can all take to counteract these forces, as I explain in the article. Sharing online is nice, but I also encourage you to share
via email and more private circulation with folks who
have a role in systems of funding, hiring, promotion, and retention.
I hope my article in the UCS helps inform and contextualize the situation and point to practical steps. If there's any other way this work can be
useful to you or people in our community, let me know.
I am so grateful to fellow AoIR members, to our President Sarah T. Roberts, and to the Executive Committee for your work on this, including my co-nominators, who include:
- Dr. Nathan Schneider, Department of Media Studies, University of Colorado Boulder
- Dr. Adrienne Massanari, School of Communication, American University
- Dr. David Nemer, Department of Media Studies, University of Virginia
- Dr. Alice E. Marwick, Data & Society Research Institute
- Dr. Mary L. Gray, Microsoft Research and the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, Indiana University