All SSIT members are invited to submit brief reports and updates about upcoming and completed presentations and activities you are part of that are relevant to SSIT!

As announced in a recent SSIT Blog Post, the location and date for ISTAS 2024, the flagship conference of the IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology (SSIT), was unveiled in the closing minutes of ISTAS 2023. The 2024 IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society will be held in Puebla, Mexico, from 18-20 September 2024, at the Universidad de Las Americas, Puebla (UDLAP).

This will be the first IEEE ISTAS conference to be held in Latin America. Jose Luis Vazquez Gonzalez of the Universidad de las Américas Puebla (UDLAP) will serve as conference chair, and Ignacio Castillo is the ISTAS 2024 Program Chair.

SSIT President Luis Kun noted, “IEEE Region 9 includes as its territory of operations Latin America (South, Central and part of North America) and the Caribbean. Multiple IEEE societies will be invited to co-sponsor this meeting. We look forward to seeing you in Puebla, Mexico.”

Stay tuned for more information in future newsletters and on the SSIT website!

IEEE ISTAS 2023 took place in Swansea University, Wales from 13 - 15 September 2023. The conference brought together contributions from a variety of perspectives, disciplines, and communities for the advancement of knowledge related to Technology and Analytics for Global Development.

We are pleased to report that 105 delegates participated in this first in-person ISTAS conference since before the COVID-19 pandemic, including representation from across Europe (Wales, Ireland, England, Scotland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden), the Middle East (Lebanon, Oman), Asia (Hong Kong, Japan), Africa (Kenya), and North America (Canada and the US).

Attendees were treated to an impressive roster of events; the wide scope of topics and rich range of perspectives allowed for in-depth and generative discussions, knowledge sharing, and community building around SSIT areas of interest. The Final Program included:

• Two pre-conference events on 12 September (a networking event organized by the IEEE Humanitarian Technologies Board [HTB] and the Public Interest Technology (PIT) for Innovation in Global Development Workshop),
• Four Keynote presentations (recordings of which are being prepared for circulation),
• Three Plenary Panels (focused on Climate Change, Public Safety Technologies, and Diversity Inclusion and Ethics),
• Three professional development workshops (sharing insight into IEEE Humanitarian Technology Board Best Practices, Indigenous Knowledge and Information Technology, and Innovation Strategy Development and Implementation)
• 43 paper presentations, which are being prepared for publication via IEEE Xplore;
• Valuable opportunities for socializing and networking, including at the conference Gala Dinner.

Recordings and synopses of several conference sessions are already available. If you were unable to make the trip to Wales, be sure to check out the following:

• Synopses by Terri Bookman of two plenary panels focused on climate change issues, which were organized and chaired by IEEE SSIT President Luis Kun, and feature a range of IEEE Society Presidents:
• Day 1 Panel: “IEEE Societies: Addressing Climate Change Challenges” (with Rakesh Kumar, IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society; Nita Patel, IEEE Computer Society; Metin Akay, IEEE EMBS; Manuel Delgado-Restituto and Victor Grimblatt (IEEE Circuits and Systems Society)
• Day 2 Panel: “Public Safety Technologies and Climate Change” (with Kamal Al-Haddad, Director, IEEE Division 6; Johann Marquez-Barja, IEEE Education Society; Mariusz Malinowski, IEEE Industrial Electronics Society; Alan Chong, IEEE Professional Communication Society; Steven (Zhaojun) Li, IEEE Reliability Society; Wei-Jen Lee, IEEE Program Director Climate Technologies Sustainability; and Sampathkumar Veeraraghavan, 2023 IEEE HKN)
• Recording of the HTB Keynote by Miriam Cunningham, titled “The Role of Engineering and Technological Innovation in Addressing Societal Challenges”
• Recording of the HTB Best Practices Workshop, featuring Prof. Dr. Juan A. Gómez-Pulido (IEEE Spain Section SIGHT), Prof Nizar Rokbani (IEEE Tunisia Section SIGHT), and Eduardo Audiche (IEEE UK and Ireland Section SIGHT)

Many thanks and huge congratulations to the IEEE ISTAS 2023 organizing team, whose tireless efforts ensured ISTAS 2023’s success:

• Denis Denehey (Conference Chair),
• Yogesh K. Dwivedi and Samuel Fosso Wamba (Conference Co-Chairs),
• Silvia Masiero, Ransome Bawack, and Miriam Cunningham (Technical Program Chairs)
• Fabio Caraffini (Publications Chair)
• Paul Jones and Howard Wolfman (Treasurers)
• Fred Boy and Laurie Hughes (Publicity/Outreach & Social Chairs)
• Siddhant Mohapatra and Christopher Patti (ISTAS23 Webmasters)

In addition, we acknowledge the generous support of the conference’s numerous sponsors. Technical co-sponsorship came from: IEEE Region 8, IEEE UK and Ireland Section, IEEE UK and Ireland SSIT Chapter and IEEE UK and Ireland Education Chapter. Financial support was provided by: Meet in Wales, IEEE Humanitarian Technologies, and Swansea University’s School of Management and Intensive Learning Academy.

A recording is now available for the IEEE TechEthics-hosted panel that took place last May at ETHICS-2023. Titled “4 + 1: The Impacts of Academia, Economics, Government and Civil Society on Sustainable Development,” the session identifies ways in which interactions between the education system, the economic system, governments and the public contribute to the advancement of a sustainable global environment. Watch it here on IEEE TV.

Following a horrific case of femicide in a small town in northeastern Bosnia in August 2023, where the perpetrator of the crime used social networks to directly broadcast the beating and murder of several people, Dr. Haris Hamidovic, SSIT DL, was invited by local Bosnian TV stations (Radio Free Europe and RTV TK) to talk about the risks of new technologies. Dr Hamidovic shared the basic message that we need to use technologies for good–but above all, we need to be good human beings.

A recording of the interview for RTV TK is available here.

This is the second installment of a new column introducing SSIT members to our Standards Committee. We are pleased to feature Working Group Chair Peter Reid, who heads the team working on the P7011 Standard for the Process of Identifying and Rating the Trustworthiness of News Sources.

Peter Reid, IEEE SSIT Standards Committee Working Group Chair (P7011)

What is this standard?
P7011 is the Standard for the Process of Identifying and Rating the Trustworthiness of News Sources. Its goal is to provide a semi-autonomous process to create and maintain news source ratings for purposes of public awareness. The process will be used to produce trustworthiness rating through a multi-faceted and multi-sourced approach.

Why is it important?
The issue of news site trustworthiness is a big social issue everywhere these days, especially with more users getting news via the internet and even traditional news channels are moving to publish on the internet. News sources, who can be individuals or organizations, can use some or all of the following techniques to provide news/information in a form that restricts the ability of readers to come to an informed view of an issue:

• Publish news article/s that contain claims that are known to be false or considered to be false by most experts in the field.
• Deliberately mis-quote people to alarm readers.
• Select and push news article/s to a reader that only presents one side of the discussion.
• Conflate issues and draw conclusions that will alarm readers.
• Use bots to distribute a large number of news articles with a particular bent to convince readers that the presented position has wide support.

What is a real-world example/case study of how this might help?
The proposed standard creates a system to which news sources can voluntarily register to submit their news articles for attribute analysis. The attributes that have been selected for analysis are:

• Quotes and how they are handled.
• Factual claims accuracy.
• References and how they are handled.
• Headline and news article correlation.
• Identity and transparency.
• News feed algorithm i.e., how news articles are selected for presentation to a reader.

The news articles submitted by a news source are collected till there is enough to perform an analysis. Each news item is scored against the attributes and a 5-level rating score for the news source is generated. The news source’s rating score is added to the news article as a watermark when it is distributed to the reader.

The proposed system will be able to help in two ways:

1. People will be able to filter news sources against their registration with this voluntary standard. At a minimum bots should be excluded through the registration system and only news sources managed by people will be received.
2. The 5-level rating score for news sources will provide an indication of the trustworthiness of the news sources. It is hoped that this indication will cause the reader to consider the trustworthiness of the news sources when deciding the veracity of the news article and whether to forward the news article to other recipients.

What stage is it at?
The standard is in the final drafting stage before going out to ballot by the wider standards community. It is expected that the standard will be submitted for ballot by April 2024.

What is the current geographical or disciplinary spread of your working members?
The current working group members come from Argentina, Australia, Jamaica, UK, and USA, and are involved in the following professions, business management, engineering, information technology, journalism, and law.

What type of people might be interested or well suited for this standards group?
Anyone who is interested in how news is presented and how this impacts society.

What triggered your own interest in this area?
Seeing the impact on society from the current methods of producing and distributing news.

Call to action
If you wish to help complete this work you can send an email to Working Group Chair, Peter Reid OAM, at [email protected] or IEEE Standards Association Program Manager, Christy Bahn, [email protected] to indicate your interest.

Thanks to a generous offer from an anonymous donor, all donations made to SSIT through the IEEE Foundation between now and 31 December 2023, will be matched, up to a total of US$5000. Donate now to double your impact!

SSIT brings together interdisciplinary communities to support and inform our understanding of:

• Sustainable Development & Humanitarian Technology
• Ethics and Human Values
• Technology Access
• Societal Impact of Technological Innovation
• Protecting the Planet
• Gender Equality and Social Inclusion

We work within the technology community, but draw our ideas from practitioners, researchers, inventors, policy makers, professionals and students across many fields. We also influence the direction of technology adoption and development, from awareness and concepts, to standards and professional practice.

These programs are making a difference! Funds will be invested in further strengthening and expanding:

• Standards development related to social impacts of AI, ethical design, human-robot interaction, and more
• International Chapter, Young Professional and Student Activities
• Conference and Distinguished Lecturer Programs addressing society’s most pressing issues
• related to technology
• Online Publishing and Education Programs

Ways to Contribute
Donate to SSIT online at https://ieeefoundation.org/ieee_ssit
You can make a gift to SSIT in honor or memory of someone who has touched your life

Note that donations to SSIT are managed by the IEEE Foundation, the philanthropic arm of IEEE. IEEE and the IEEE Foundation are U.S. 501(c)3 non-profit organizations. For more information contact: [email protected] or +1 732 465 5871.