Wednesday, February 03, 2021
In 2020, the world faced a severe rise in disinformation and misinformation. According to a study by Newsguard , nearly one-fifth of engagement among the top 100 news sources on social media came from sources deemed generally unreliable. The U.N. secretary-general and the director-general of the World Health Organization have declared that we are currently fighting an international “infodemic” — an overabundance of information, both online and offline, that includes deliberate attempts to...
Friday, January 29, 2021
Censorship. Denying free speech. Fomenting an insurrection. Deplatforming. These are just some of the recent accusations directed at social media platforms by lawmakers who either think these companies are doing too much — or aren’t doing enough — to stop problematic material from being circulated on their sites. Under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, “interactive computer services” like Twitter and Facebook can remove or moderate user material that the platforms deem obscene or...
Wednesday, January 20, 2021
When Ann Marie Bledsoe Downes attended the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, the college’s Indian Legal Program was one of only a few of its kind that focused on enrolling and retaining Native American students, recruiting Native faculty and expanding the number of Indian law courses. “That commitment was the key to my success,” said Bledsoe Downes , who has been named deputy solicitor for Indian Affairs in the U.S. Department of the Interior. “Now, the Indian...
Tuesday, January 05, 2021
Arizona State University is pleased to announce that Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO of New America, has joined ASU as a distinguished professor of practice. Slaughter, former director of policy planning for the U.S. Department of State, the first woman to hold that position, will be teaching a course based in Washington, D.C., on international organizations for the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law and Thunderbird School of Global Management at ASU. Sanjeev Khagram , director general and dean of...
Friday, December 18, 2020
Over the past decade, authoritarianism has been slowly rising in the West, warns journalist and historian Anne Applebaum, who contends that democracy is under siege, and that defending it will be harder than most assume, as political systems with radically simple beliefs are inherently appealing, especially when they benefit the loyal, to the exclusion of everyone else. Applebaum’s observations are detailed in her newest book, “Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism,”...
Wednesday, December 16, 2020
On Dec. 8, Future Tense and Arizona State University’s Convergence Lab CDMX hosted a binational discussion on how institutions of higher education have been addressing the many challenges presented by COVID-19. ASU President Michael Crow and Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey President David Garza joined the virtual event to compare notes on the lessons of 2020 and explore how universities can continue adapting their design and innovating to create a better future for...
Wednesday, December 16, 2020
Over the past year, New America’s Resource Security team — a program dedicated to exploring the balance between natural resources and human security — and Arizona State University's Ten Across Initiative , which engages communities along the I-10 corridor on the most urgent global issues of the 21st century, have been researching the effects of climate change and talking to those directly impacted on a daily basis. During a virtual discussion hosted by Future Tense on Dec. 2, five...
Friday, November 20, 2020
This week, Arizona State University President Michael Crow spoke about the impact of immigration on higher education institutions at the National Immigration Forum’s virtual conference “Leading the Way 2020,” a multiday conference attended by a variety of influential speakers who engaged in critical conversations about one of the most pressing challenges our country faces: immigration. Crow sat on a panel with Dan L. Boone, president at Trevecca Nazarene University, to discuss the higher...
Monday, November 16, 2020
Democracies have been getting worse at governing for our long-term interest, or so concluded two-thirds of the audience for “Governing for the Future,” a recent Future Tense webinar focused on how we can use science fiction, storytelling and imagination to contend with the problems of the 21st century and plan for the long term. Science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson, Peter Schlosser , vice president and vice provost of Arizona State University's Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures...
