MIMS challenge the distinction of public and private online spaces. By placing MIMS such as WhatsApp at the intersection of two technical lineages- that of Mobile Messaging Services and of Instant Messaging Services (such as ICQ and IRC), we distil lessons for research and law enforcement from both.

This keynote was delivered at ADMS symposium on July 14 2023. It goes into what we mean by Civic Tech and Alternative visions for tech in the age of AI.

This is adapted from the keynote delivered at ADMS symposium on July 14 2023

The care of archives, the scale of ML

Why we archive, despite all odds

Scraping is an important tool for researching digital platforms, but the legal ground of doing this work in India are undefined.

Informed Interventions on misinformation require greater contextual story telling. Social media archives are an important resource in the process.

The documentary The Social Dilemma describes why content goes viral on social media but doesn't account for virality on WhatsApp

Content moderation on social media has been in public scrutiny recently. Takedowns often have unintended consequences which archival projects like Tattle can address. But archival projects are also susceptible to the kind of abuse that necessitates takedowns.

A tool to increase discoverability and reach of fact checked content.

This blog discusses some of the challenges faced, and related design decisions that Tattle has taken in implementing one of it’s goals- the creation of a globally accessible archive of multi-media messages circulated on chat apps.

Shell Server is the single point of contact for all the different services that tattle builds. This blog post describes the system architecture and lists resources helpful to anyone looking to contribute to the Shell Server.