Papers by Shaul A Duke
Telematics and Informatics, 2025
Recent scholarship has shown that digital infrastructures most often have a very slow demise and ... more Recent scholarship has shown that digital infrastructures most often have a very slow demise and linger on for years after they start deteriorating. Moreover, this perplexing endurance comes despite apparent acts of erosion in the value they offer to groups of users. How can we understand the long tail of digital infrastructures in decline? How do digital infrastructures manage to retain groups of users despite deterioration in the utility that the platform provides them? This paper offers the term 'hollow infrastructures' as a partial explanation to these questions, and will suggest that certain groups of users and third parties are complicit in keeping a façade of functionality, and thus unintentionally confuse those who encounter these declining platforms. Yet the end result is a lack of efficiency and a drain on resources for those using these hollow infrastructures. This will be done by analyzing the case study of Facebook and Israeli civil society organizations. This analysis is based on a qualitative research project that included content analysis of website and Facebook pages, and 31 interviews.
European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, 2024
Surveillance & Society , 2023
The shift to novel forms of artificial intelligence (such as machine learning) has also marked th... more The shift to novel forms of artificial intelligence (such as machine learning) has also marked the shift to industrial-scale surveillance practices, due to these AI tools being extremely data-hungry. This piece examines the linkage between the two phenomena and charts the ethical consequences. It calls for a much more measured way of weighing the benefits of the development of AI tools, against their cost in the form of proliferation of both the means and products of surveillance.
Ethics and Information Technology
Developers are often the engine behind the creation and implementation of new technologies, inclu... more Developers are often the engine behind the creation and implementation of new technologies, including in the artificial intelligence surge that is currently underway. In many cases these new technologies introduce significant risk to affected stakeholders; risks that can be reduced and mitigated by such a dominant party. This is fully recognized by texts that analyze risks in the current AI transformation, which suggest voluntary adoption of ethical standards and imposing ethical standards via regulation and oversight as tools to compel developers to reduce such risks. However, what these texts usually sidestep is the question of how aware developers are to the risks they are creating with these new AI technologies, and what their attitudes are towards such risks. This paper asks to rectify this gap in research, by analyzing an ongoing case study. Focusing on six Israeli AI startups in the field of radiology, I carry out a content analysis of their online material in order to examine these companies’ stances towards the potential threat their automated tools pose to patient safety and to the work-standing of healthcare professionals. Results show that these developers are aware of the risks their AI products pose, but tend to deny their own role in the technological transformation and dismiss or downplay the risks to stakeholders. I conclude by tying these findings back to current risk-reduction recommendations with regards to advanced AI technologies, and suggest which of them hold more promise in light of developers’ attitudes.
Trust and Transparency in an Age of Surveillance, 2022
The term transparency lives a double life. On the one hand it has the clean-cut image – of a univ... more The term transparency lives a double life. On the one hand it has the clean-cut image – of a universal standard of proper forms of operation in a free society – that seems to be accepted by most; yet on the other hand it has a rougher image of a power move that tries to expose its target to scrutiny and undermine some of its actions. My task in this paper is to differentiate between the two and to analyse the dynamics of the much less studied ‘imposed transparency’ strand, which comes into play in cases in which a pre-existing social conflict is present, which in turn dictates a low-level of trust between the relevant parties to begin with. In such situation, when the parties do not trust each other, transparency is almost always forced by one party on the other (via surveillance) and almost never willingly adopted by either party. Among other things I am interested in: the reasons why individuals/organizations turn to imposed transparency as a political strategy, the ways imposed transparency is carried out and the identity of those who tend to use it, the ways the targets of imposed transparency react to it, the degree these targets tend to accept imposed transparency or resist and evade it, the dynamics that mutual attempts of imposed transparency create, the role that power asymmetries and social domination have in such attempts, and the effectiveness of forcing transparency in order to achieve one’s goal.
Surveillance & Society, 2021
This article tackles one of the latest-but nonetheless baffling-displays of public apathy towards... more This article tackles one of the latest-but nonetheless baffling-displays of public apathy towards surveillance: that of much of the Israeli public towards the decision to recruit the Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet) to do COVID-19 contact tracing during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The case of a secretive state agency being authorized to do surveillance on its citizens for a strictly non-security-related matter seems to realize many of the dangers that surveillance/privacy scholars warn about with regards to surveillance expansion, function creep, and the creation of a surveillance state. I contribute to existing literature about apathy towards surveillance and the privacy paradox by offering the term "nontargets" as an explanation. This term suggests that, alongside social groups that are likely to be targeted by a given surveillance application, there are certain recognizable nontargets that most likely will not bear the brunt of the surveillance, at least not in the short-and medium-term, and thus do not fear it. In the case at hand, which is examined using a qualitative context-bound study, I suggest that Jewish-Israelis are such a nontarget group with regards to this novel Shin Bet surveillance, which explains a significant part of their apathy towards it.
Surveillance & Society, 2019
This article offers a definition and explores the dynamics of database-driven empowering surveill... more This article offers a definition and explores the dynamics of database-driven empowering surveillance. That is, it focuses on surveillance from below that is directed at powerful institutions or groups for the benefit of the marginalized, using a database as its main facilitator. By examining six Israeli NGOs working for the protection of Palestinian human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, I am able to break down the database-driven empowering surveillance process of amassing and disseminating information, to identify its mechanism of action, and to highlight its limiting and enabling factors. This scrutiny in turn helps shed light on the capacity of NGOs to effectively monitor powerful institutions: to surveil from below in spaces with pervasive top-down surveillance; to surveil in territories under the control of the surveillance subjects; to impact policy on polarized issues; and to enforce human rights. Empowering surveillance emerges from this article as a process that requires those carrying it out to maintain a delicate balance between using a forceful mechanism against those monitored, and being highly dependent on third parties with coercive power – often from the same organizations being monitored – to exact the desired deterring effect.
Current Sociology, 2018
During his short-lived but highly productive career, C. Wright Mills put forth a vision for how s... more During his short-lived but highly productive career, C. Wright Mills put forth a vision for how sociology should be done. Two central directives can be gleaned from this vision: to tackle macro social theory issues by doing large-scope research; to achieve scholastic independence by doing non-administrative research. One might ask if Mills is sending scholars on a mission impossible. Analysing these two concepts in terms of both their merits and applicability, the present article indeed identifies a conflict between them, highlighted by what emerges as Mills' own failure to realize this vision. After deeming these directives worthy goals, the article seeks to determine whether technological advances in the social sciences have the potential to allow both directives to be fulfilled at once. What is shown is that while the technology is ripe to enable autonomous big studies, its implementation by institutional and individual agents severely impedes the vision's realization.
Critical Sociology, 2016
Contemporary sociology seems to have extreme reservations about the significance of vote-motivate... more Contemporary sociology seems to have extreme reservations about the significance of vote-motivated responsiveness – ordinary people’s reputed influence on policy in democratic settings – both in general and especially when it comes to the masses’ role in endorsing policies with repressive outcomes. Those texts that do acknowledge the masses’ role in policymaking deal almost exclusively with the struggle of the lower-classes for emancipation/equalization, and rarely delve into broad social groups’ contribution to repressive policies. The repressive-responsiveness hypothesis suggested here is used to reexamine the case of internal Jewish ethnic politics in Mandatory Palestine. I argue that ethnic politics of this period can only be thoroughly understood once responsiveness to the majoritarian Ashkenazi workers’ interests is incorporated, thus suggesting that the use of democratic procedures was central to Mizrahi marginalization in that period.
Books by Shaul A Duke
Palgrave, 2017
This book examines a basic assumption behind most of the critical, progressive thinking of our ti... more This book examines a basic assumption behind most of the critical, progressive thinking of our times: that trade unions are necessarily tools for solidarity and are integral to a more equal and just society. Shaul A. Duke assesses the trade union's potential to promote equality in ethnically and racially diverse societies by offering an in-depth look into how unions operate; how power flows between union levels; where inequality originates; and the role of union members in union dynamics. By analyzing the trade union's effects on working-class inequality in Palestine during 1920-1948, this book shifts the conventional emphasis on worker-employer relations to that of worker-worker relations. It offers a conceptualization of how strong union members directed union policy from below in order to eliminate competition, often by excluding marginalized groups. The comparison of the union experiences of Palestinian-Arabs, Jewish-Yemeni immigrants, and Jewish women offers a fresh look into the labor history of Palestine and its social stratification.
Book Reviews by Shaul A Duke
Journal of Ethics and Emerging Technologies, 2022
Davenport and Miller's book "Working with AI: Real stories of human-machine collaboration" (MIT P... more Davenport and Miller's book "Working with AI: Real stories of human-machine collaboration" (MIT Press, 2022) is focused on showing and analyzing how AI is currently implemented in various organizations across the globe. This by itself makes it an interesting contribution to current scholarship, since so much of what is written about emerging technologies either focuses on technologies that have not yet been commercially deployed, or mixes present and future, making it at times hard to discern where the line between what exists in the present ends and what may come to exist in the future begins. Davenport and Miller's focus on the present allows for a much more grounded debate about the social implications of AI technologies on humans, since instead of projecting either utopian or dystopian schemes on the future, the book deals with processes that are occurring today, that pose ethical challenges today, and that are having impact on humans today. Another important feature that sets this book apart is the richness of cases that the two authors bring to the table. The book offers no less than twenty-nine case studies, from different economic sectors, with different application types, and from different corners of the world (specifically from North America and Asia). Each case study includes a concise, yet very informative, depiction of an application of an AI technology (or sometimes a combination of a few AI technologies) in a certain organization. The authors skillfully offer sufficient description to make the ways in which the AI is used in each case clear, yet without going into too many details which might render the text tedious. All in all, this richness of case studies culminates in quite an informative text. Thus, if you are interested in how AI is currently deployed in a specific field, you will, most probably, find a relevant case study in this book. Moreover, within the mix of AI applications discussed in the book, you can also find some of the more ethically challenged applications, such as in the fields of healthcare and policing, which may appeal specifically to scholars who focus on risks within AI. Unfortunately, the book's rigor with regards to depicting the current applications of AI by various organizations in a variety of settings, is not matched by a high level of analysis of each case, or of the general trends that emerge from them. Its problematic research method, its apparent lack of interdisciplinary outlook, and its adoption of the business-world narrative regarding AI, severely handicap it, and its ability to get a good read of the social implications and ethical challenges of AI technologies. Therefore, while I found the depictions of each case quite interesting, I found the debates that followed and the conclusions that the authors asked to draw from each case somewhat limited and flawed. With regards to methods, the initial idea of the two authors seems rather solid: to study the application of these AI technologies from the "frontline"; that is from the perspective of
Surveillance & Society, 2022
Surveillance & Society, 2021
Surveillance scholars are still-to this day and despite surveillance's growing visibility and the... more Surveillance scholars are still-to this day and despite surveillance's growing visibility and the significant body of work that this field has produced-being asked the "so what?" question. That is, we are being questioned over the significant effects that surveillance practices have on people's lives, with a clear insinuation that the effects are mostly absent, neutral, or benign. While surveillance scholars have offered up what can be considered "a list" of effects that these practices have on people's lives, this list has to be constantly updated in order to encompass the variety and depth of ways in which surveillance makes a difference. Digital vigilantism, which is the main term that the book Introducing Vigilant Audiences centers around, is one such significant effect. Digital vigilantism has several possible definitions, one of them being "the process whereby citizens collectively take action, in the online realm, against other citizens they feel offended by or who have opposing views about an issue" (26). This term, and the somewhat overlapping "digilantism" term, are different from common practices of trolling in that the actions here are aimed at promoting values or political goals and are done in cooperation with others, not individualistically. Still, digital vigilantism encompasses quite a wide range of operation, spanning from social media attacks on North American celebrities (25-48) to online combat against hate speech in the US (215-258) and Slovenia (187-213) to exposure and denunciation of school violence in Morocco (161-186) to moral policing of what vigilante attackers consider "social deviance" in Russia (107-127)-to name just some of the examples that this book contains. Indeed, Introducing Vigilant Audiences does a great job of delivering on the promise to introduce the relatively novel topic of digital vigilantism and its breadth of application to contemporary readers. With its twelve chapters and array of authors from across the globe, it is packed with relevant case studies that provide evidence of the recurrent dynamics that such vigilantism creates, and of the diverse forms it may take according to the different contexts in which it is practiced. The richness of empirical examples makes this edited book a fascinating read and reduces the need for prior familiarity with theories in this field (which makes it suitable for undergraduate students). While I believe this book may be interesting for many scholars of racial and ethnic studies, social movements studies, and technology and society, surveillance scholars in particular can benefit from it by learning how surveillance practices are used in order to promote social and political goals.
Teaching Documents by Shaul A Duke
YouTube, 2022
Shoshana Zuboff's 2019 book-The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The fight for a human future at t... more Shoshana Zuboff's 2019 book-The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power-is one of the most influential books written in the fields of: surveillance studies, privacy studies, and AI studies in the last two decades. Its ambitious aims, insights, and bold statements enticed both scholars and laypeople alike to either skim through it, or read it, in an attempt to get a grasp of our current situation with regards to emerging surveillance technologies and their effect upon society. As such, it deserves close scrutiny that will try to: highlight its strong points, analyze its weak points, and deduce what can be confidently said about surveillance capitalism after the critiques. This three-part analysis is an attempt to offer such critique.
Part one of this critique is dedicated to the strong points and things we should live with.
YouTube, 2022
Shoshana Zuboff's 2019 book-The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The fight for a human future at t... more Shoshana Zuboff's 2019 book-The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power-is one of the most influential books written in the fields of: surveillance studies, privacy studies, and AI studies in the last two decades. Its ambitious aims, insights, and bold statements enticed both scholars and laypeople alike to either skim through it, or read it, in an attempt to get a grasp of our current situation with regards to emerging surveillance technologies and their effect upon society. As such, it deserves close scrutiny that will try to: highlight its strong points, analyze its weak points, and deduce what can be confidently said about surveillance capitalism after the critiques. This three-part analysis is an attempt to offer such critique.
Part two of this critique is dedicated to the weak points in Zuboff's book.
YouTube, 2022
Shoshana Zuboff's 2019 book-The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The fight for a human future at t... more Shoshana Zuboff's 2019 book-The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power-is one of the most influential books written in the fields of: surveillance studies, privacy studies, and AI studies in the last two decades. Its ambitious aims, insights, and bold statements enticed both scholars and laypeople alike to either skim through it, or read it, in an attempt to get a grasp of our current situation with regards to emerging surveillance technologies and their effect upon society. As such, it deserves close scrutiny that will try to: highlight its strong points, analyze its weak points, and deduce what can be confidently said about surveillance capitalism after the critiques. This three-part analysis is an attempt to offer such critique.
Part three of this critique is dedicated to the take home points from Zuboff's book, after we internalize the critiques .
Introduction to Surveillance (video course), 2021
This is a learn-from-examples video, and it deals with two major forms of video-driven surveillan... more This is a learn-from-examples video, and it deals with two major forms of video-driven surveillance: closed-circuit TV (CCTV) and empowering surveillance videos. This video explains how each type works; explains what the desired and unintended effects are; goes into the history of both forms of surveillance; and sheds light on what surveillance scholars learned about their respective effectiveness.
Introduction to Surveillance, 2020
This is the first lesson of the ‘Introduction to Surveillance’ video course. Besides giving a sho... more This is the first lesson of the ‘Introduction to Surveillance’ video course. Besides giving a short overview of the surveillance field, and accounting for the popularity of surveillance studies, this video focuses mainly on offering an up-to-date (as of 2020) definition of the term surveillance.
Introduction to Surveillance (video course), 2020
This is a learn-from-examples video, part of an ‘Introduction to Surveillance’ video course, and ... more This is a learn-from-examples video, part of an ‘Introduction to Surveillance’ video course, and it deals with two major and long-lasting forms of top-down database-driven surveillance: credit cards and loyalty cards. This video explains the main features of surveillance that is carried out with the help of databases; connects the technological aspects to the social aspects; reviews some of the history and the insights surrounding credit cards and loyalty cards; and gives a brief overview of some of the critiques that were offered by surveillance scholars with regards to these two types of cards and of electronic surveillance generally.
Drafts by Shaul A Duke
YouTube, 2022
Intuitively the idea that tech giants may actually be vulnerable to social action taken against t... more Intuitively the idea that tech giants may actually be vulnerable to social action taken against them seems mistaken. Tech giants, as the name states explicitly, are giants. Huge corporations, with lots of managers and professionals working diligently to increase the size and reach of the corporation, with obscene amounts of money to spend, with tentacles spread into a variety of economic sectors and revenue streams, and with hundreds of millions of users and customers. If we take all these elements together, taking these giants head on seems more a practice in futility, than anything else. A hopeless cause, and a waste of energies. Still, delving a little bit deeper into the cases of these tech giants reveals a different, more complex picture. While a number of elements make them somewhat immune to social action taken against them, other elements actually make them vulnerable and easy targets. In this video I will assess elements working in both directions, and try to determine if such struggles against tech giant are worthwhile.
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Papers by Shaul A Duke
Books by Shaul A Duke
Book Reviews by Shaul A Duke
Teaching Documents by Shaul A Duke
Part one of this critique is dedicated to the strong points and things we should live with.
Part two of this critique is dedicated to the weak points in Zuboff's book.
Part three of this critique is dedicated to the take home points from Zuboff's book, after we internalize the critiques .
Drafts by Shaul A Duke
Part one of this critique is dedicated to the strong points and things we should live with.
Part two of this critique is dedicated to the weak points in Zuboff's book.
Part three of this critique is dedicated to the take home points from Zuboff's book, after we internalize the critiques .