Open thread: killing tech boogeymen

We all use the Internet to find information and connect with other people, often without considering how the platforms we rely on for news, entertainment, and community accomplish these feats. CITAP studies how everything from politics to economics to design choices to the uses (intended and un-) of these tools shape our society and lives. When we do think about these tools, they can feel like algorithmic black boxes—forces we fear but can’t control.

Understanding these tools gives people and communities power to define their own digital ecosystems. To be humans rather than users. In 2021, CITAP is launching a public education series to reshape this conversation, demystify technology, and put these tools and platforms in context.

We’ve been talking about the misconceptions we’d most like to take on, including:

• Microtargeting: what it can and can’t do

• Filter bubbles: how much they do or don’t influence our news consumption

• Disinformation: are the lies what’s polarizing us?

Other potential topics include putting current tech stories in a fuller context, like:

• How past conspiracy theories died out

• Dark participatory culture and the origins of false narratives

• Doing your own research: how our search terms shape the results we find

What other topics do you wish had a great explainer for? What tech boogeymen are ripe for a classic Scooby-Doo reveal? This post is open for discussion on Substack, so please weigh in!

Can I swear on here?

Last week, Bitch Media released its Bitch 50 list for 2020. CITAP honorees included Tressie McMillan Cottom and the 8 to Abolition campaign co-led by Rachel Kuo. In their own words:

We’d be hard-pressed to identify many bright spots amid the unrelenting pain, devastation, and inhumanity that has characterized 2020. But one emerging beacon is a reinvigorated abolition movement that has galvanized mainstream discussions of police brutality, state violence, and racism in the United States both past and present. The 8ToAbolition campaign has become one of the movement’s most crucial voices: one that demystifies the concept of abolition itself and urges us to rethink law-enforcement and criminal-justice systems that function very differently depending on where you live and what you look like.

In 2017, McMillan Cottom’s book Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy, helped us all better understand the predatory nature of for-profit colleges. In 2019, her National Book Award-nominated essay collection, THICK: And Other Essays, brought her relatable approach to sociological inquiry to an even broader audience—something we should all recognize for the unique gift that it is.

Changing Minds

In a post-election interview with WNYC, Zeynep Tufekci talked about the downsides of election modeling and how she changed her mind about their role in political journalism after being an early cheerleader for the tools.

Recent publications and appearances

Laura March analyzes the reviews and engagement on Facebook’s page for the “Silent Sam” Confederate statue in “Rebel reviewers: Social media review pages as sites of Confederate memorial discourses.”

“Part of it stems from a larger distrust in institutions and access to information, part of it is linked to the overall opaqueness of the platforms.” – Francesca Tripodi talked about conservatives’ distrust of Facebook and Twitter with USA Today.

“We also overlook how much effort goes into maintaining a MAGA worldview—and therefore overlook how annoying it is when we accuse them of not thinking critically, failing at media literacy, and generally being stupid. As Francesca Tripodi shows, this just isn’t accurate.” – Whitney Philips offers notes in Wired on how to talk to people who believe disinformation claims about election fraud.

Any regulation of digital tools or services will have very long tentacles into many industries beyond tech: Matt Perault joined a panel at Brookings to discuss potential antitrust cases and other regulatory approaches in tech.

Due out later this month, Research Exposed: How Empirical Social Science Gets Done in the Digital Age includes a chapter from Deen Freelon on “When Social Media Data Disappear” and his adventures working to reconstruct a dataset of tweets sent by Russian Internet Research Agency accounts after their accounts were taken down. The chapter is available through Amazon’s “Look Inside” preview.

Speaking of disappearing data, this article isn’t from the CITAP community but offers an excellent peek into the complexities of protest journalism and how ephemerality threatens documentation of current social justice movements.

Coming soon

On Thursday, December 10, Daniel Kreiss will join a Stanford panel on tech, social media, and the 2020 election.