EMRE KIZILKAYA

Macron remarks are notable- some quotes: "We have been incredibly naive in entrusting our democratic space to social networks that are controlled either by large American entrepreneurs or large Chinese companies, whose interests are not at all the survival or proper functioning of our democracies."

The Un-Mattering of People: The Present and Near-Future of Surveillance Capitalism and the Fate of Care in Healthcare The encroachment of surveillance capitalism into healthcare takes place as healthcare becomes increasingly industrialized.

A great discussion paper by Montori et al. for @harvard-carr-ryan.bsky.social.

They warn that surveillance capitalism is reshaping healthcare into a system focused on data rather than people, enabling Big Tech to commodify human experience and consolidate power:

www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/carr...

CEO pay is up 1,094% since 1978, while worker pay is up just 26%.

Why do we always hear "we can't afford to pay our workers more" but never "we can't afford to pay our CEO more"?

I stumbled upon this on the interwebs today:

I'm honored to share that my Ph.D. thesis, 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐴𝑙𝑔𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑚𝑖𝑐 𝑉𝑒𝑖𝑙: 𝐴𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑇𝑟𝑢𝑠𝑡, 𝐴𝐼 𝐵𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑆𝑝𝑜𝑡𝑠, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐷𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑔𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝐻𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛-𝐶𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑁𝑒𝑤𝑠 𝑅𝑎𝑛𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔, has been accepted.

My deepest gratitude goes to all my mentors, including my advisor Professor Kerem Rizvanoglu. I’ll share more about the findings soon.

Digital Rights Across Borders: EU vs. US on Consumer Data Protection

Latest from my fellows at ‪@harvard-carr-ryan.bsky.social‬ :

🎧 ‪@lexzard.bsky.social‬ on #DMA in a podcast with Prof Mathias Risse: www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/carr...

📄 ‪@sebasmartl.bsky.social‬ on "Algorithmic #Discrimination in Latin American Welfare States": www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/carr...

📢Important read : OFE Publishes Landmark Study Calling for Funding Europe’s Open Digital Infrastructure through an EU Sovereign Tech Fund (EU-STF)

👉Read President of EOSA Daniel Stenberg's statement of support and OFE's full report here : europeanopensource.academy/news/stateme...

"One of my favorite things about America is my constitutional right to make fun of the powerful," #Colbert once proudly said in 2015 after reporting a Turkish man faced two years in jail for comparing President Erdoğan to Gollum from The Lord of the Rings: www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3Sv...

Turkey detains hundreds of Erdogan opponents in pursuit of 'octopus' of corruption Tayyip Erdogan's main political opponents have faced an unprecedented crackdown that has seen more than 500 detained in just nine months, according to a Reuters review of a sprawling investigation that has accelerated dramatically in recent days.

"Not since a series of coups in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s have such high-profile political leaders been removed from office on the basis of as yet unpublished evidence, which suspects' lawyers dismiss as fabricated."

Reuters analysis on what is happening in #Turkey: www.reuters.com/world/middle...

To paraphrase a sentiment often attributed to Max Planck (and more accurately to Thomas Kuhn):

Truth never triumphs, its opponents just die out.

"I've been under arrest for three months, stripped of my freedom because, as a communications professional, I managed election campaigns. Let me be clear: Winning an election is not a crime. There is no such offense in Turkish law," says Necati Ozkan, an aide to the jailed Istanbul Mayor Imamoglu.

On the Occasion of Commencement: What Harvard is to the World The views expressed below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights or Harvard Kennedy School. These perspectives have been presented to enc...

"Accumulations of wealth, talent, and influence as we find them at places like Harvard are justified only if utilized to make things better, especially for people who could never attend such places."

Mathias Risse's new @harvard-carr-ryan.bsky.social commentary: www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/carr...

The MAHA Report Cites Studies That Don’t Exist The Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” report misinterprets some studies and cites others that don’t exist, according to the listed authors.

This is what happens when you put internet conspiracy theorists in charge of major government departments.

YouTube video by MSNBC Harvard professor Laurence Tribe reacts to Trump’s latest attacks on Harvard University

Harvard professor Laurence Tribe reacts to Trump’s latest attacks on Harvard University

@lawrenceodonnell.msnbc.com is joined by Harvard Constitutional Law Professor Laurence Tribe who sounds off on Trump’s attempts to block international students from the university.

WATCH:

With nearly all of Harvard Chan School’s direct federal grants terminated, we are relying on philanthropy to power our research and support our educational programs. Every gift, regardless of size, advances our vision of health, dignity, and justice for every human. Support our work: hsph.me/whygive

Photo of students in graduation robes walking past rows of empty chairs under a tent with international flags, including Switzerland, Sweden, Sri Lanka, Spain, South Africa, and Singapore displayed in the background. The overlaid text states: To our international students: At this difficult time we will do everything we can to support you.

Harvard Chan School students come from 74 nations. They are curious, compassionate, and driven to make a difference.

To our valued community of international students, a message from Harvard President Alan Garber: www.harvard.edu/president/ne...

The results show that language models, trained mostly on WEIRD data, fail to capture cultural cognitive differences. Greater cultural diversity in training and evaluation is essential to reduce bias and improve global applicability.

Our Man in Rome: On the Extraordinary Fact that an American Was Elected Pope, and What it Means for Human Rights The views expressed below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy or Harvard Kennedy School. These perspectives have been presented to e...

New @harvard-carr-ryan.bsky.social #Commentary by Mathias Risse:

The election of American-born Pope Leo XIV represents a historic convergence of Catholic social teaching, human rights advocacy, & a renewed form of American soft power on the global stage. #PopeLeoXIV #HumanRights #SoftPower

Some important notes on this paper:

a. It's a preprint (I couldn't find a peer-reviewed published version).

b. The analysis appears to focus on GPT models, not necessarily all LLMs.

c. The LLM landscape has evolved rapidly since 2023.

Research suggests the similarity between large language model and human responses declines for typical cognitive tasks as you move away from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies.

More in this 2023 paper from Harvard biologists: doi.org/10.31234/osf...

#News:

Musk's #X has restricted the jailed opposition leader's account in #Turkey.

Legal experts criticize the platform's dubious statement which downplayed its role that boosts #censorship.

It's incompetence at best, if not malice.

I wrote in more detail here: www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

Two jobs may lower the odds of dying from Alzheimer's disease — but why? - Harvard Health Researchers have found that the risk of death due to Alzheimer's disease is markedly lower in taxi and ambulance drivers compared with hundreds of other occupations. And the reason could be that th...

Driving a taxi or ambulance may help ward off the most common type of dementia.

It may be related to an enlarged hippocampus which manages spatial memory.

However, this benefit did not seem to extend to others with jobs involving navigation, like pilots:

www.health.harvard.edu/blog/two-job...

I contributed to "Trump 100 Days," a discussion paper series by the @harvard-carr-ryan.bsky.social that examines the early trajectory of his second presidency.

Read the full report, with contributions from Harvard faculty, fellows, and affiliates: www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/defaul...

“It is difficult to understand what could be meant by the objective character of an #experience, apart from the particular point of view from which its subject apprehends it.” — Thomas Nagel

Opinion | Turkey’s People Are Resisting Autocracy. They Deserve More Than Silence. The world’s democracies can speak up to make Erdogan’s life less comfortable.

New York Times: Turkey’s People Are Resisting Autocracy. They Deserve More Than Silence. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/27/o...

Patriots’ Day: Resisting the King in 1775, Resisting “the King” in 2025 The views expressed below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy or Harvard Kennedy School. These perspectives have been presented to e...

On #PatriotsDay, @harvard-carr-ryan.bsky.social Director Mathias Risse draws a powerful line from resisting the King in 1775 to resisting "the king" today. The core value? Nondomination.

A timely reflection on American ideals & current threats against democracy: www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/carr...

While acknowledging imperfection is a necessary first step, the pressing question remains: Will #Google turn these words into concrete action to support #journalism (or at the very least, avoid undermining it) particularly in countries like Turkey, where #democracy & press freedom is under threat?

“It’s only when we get this kind of feedback that we start to think, ‘Oh, maybe that is going on there,’” he said, adding that “algorithmic work... is never finished,” and he “will accept criticism” because “we don’t always get it right,” promising to relay this feedback “to the team.” ++

When I recently questioned Richard Gingras, former Global Vice President for News at Google and now Senior Advisor, about recent evidence on their algorithmic bias favoring disinformation & hate speech over independent journalism, he said he was unaware of the specific situation in Turkey. +

Why Turkey’s democratic future matters for the world My arrest in the government’s attempt to crush dissent shows how important the stability of my country is

"Democratic solidarity around the world is now essential to building our shared future. The global wave of democratic backsliding may have begun in Turkey. I believe the pushback will begin here, too," Istanbul Mayor Imamoglu writes for the Financial Times from a prison: www.ft.com/content/4bf4...