As a social media user, we hope you are informed about things like: how social media works, how they influence your emotions and mental state, how your data gets used or abused, strategies in how people use social media, and how harassment and spam bots operate.

Now that we’ve looked at what capitalism is, let’s pick a particular example of a social media company (Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc.), and look at its decisions through a capitalism lens. 19.2.1. Surveillance Capitalism# Meta’s way of making profits fits in a category called Surveillance Capitalism. Surveillance capitalism began when internet companies started tracking user behavior data to make their sites more personally tailored to users. These companies realized that this data was something that they could profit from, so they began to collect more data than strictly necessary (“behavioral surplus”) and see what more they could predict about users. Companies could then sell this data about users directly, or (more commonly), they could keep their data hidden, but use it to sell targeted advertisements. So, for example, Meta might let an advertiser say they want an ad to only go to people likely to be pregnant. Or they might let advertizes make ads go only to “Jew Haters” (which is ethically very bad, and something Meta allowed). 19.2.2. Meta’s Business Model# So, what Meta does to make money (that is, how shareholders get profits), is that they collect data on their users to make predictions about them (e.g., demographics, interests, etc.). Then they sell advertisements, giving advertisers a large list of categories that they can target for their ads. The way that Meta can fulfill their fiduciary duty in maximizing profits is to try to get: More users: If Meta has more users, it can offer advertisers more people to advertise to. More user time: If Meta’s users spend more time on Meta, then it has more opportunities to show ads to each user, so it can sell more ads. More personal data: The more personal data Meta collects, the more predictions about users it can make. It can get more data by getting more users, and more user time, as well as finding more things to track about users. Reduce competition: If Meta can become the only social media company that people use, then they will have cornered the market on access to those users. This means advertisers won’t have any alternative to reach those users, and Meta can increase the prices of their ads. 19.2.3. How Meta Tries to Corner the Market of Social Media# To increase profits, Meta wants to corner the market on social media. This means they want to get the most users possible to use Meta (and only Meta) for social media. Before we discuss their strategy, we need a couple background concepts: Network effect: Something is more useful the more people use it (e.g., telephones, the metric system). For example, when the Google+ social media network started, not many people used it, which meant that if you visited it there wasn’t much content, so people stopped using it, which meant there was even less content, and it was eventually shut down. Network power: When more people start using something, it becomes harder to use alternatives. For example, Twitter’s large user base makes it difficult for people to move to a new social media network, even if they are worried the new owner is going to ruin it, since the people they want to connect with aren’t all on some other platform. This means Twitter can get much worse and people still won’t benefit from leaving it. Let’s look at a scene from the movie The Social Network (about the origins of Facebook), where Sean Parker (who created the music-sharing app Napster) talks to Facebook founders Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin about their strategy to grow Facebook: In that clip, you will notice strategies for trying to use the network effect (though they don’t call it that) by targeting specific users to try to make Facebook more desirable than competitors. They also discuss how they could start running ads now (making them a million dollars). But instead, if they don’t sell ads now (running the company at a loss) then they can maximize their growth. Then, when they have grown much larger and have enough network power, users won’t quit when they start selling ads later (and they’ll make a billion dollars). So, looking back at Meta’s goal (getting the most users possible to use Meta, and only Meta for social media), let’s look at some obstacles and how Meta tries to overcome these obstacles: Obstacle: Users don’t want ads on Facebook Solution: No ads until Facebook has attracted enough users (network power) so that users won’t leave when ads are introduced (Facebook introduced ads in 2007) Obstacle: People speak different languages Solution: Increase language support of Facebook so more people can use the site Obstacle: Not everyone has the internet Solution: Give them free internet, but push them to Facebook while doing so (called Free Basic) Obstacle: A competing company social media company has a user base (e.g., Instagram, Snapchat) Solution: Try to purchase the company, or copy their features

‘It’s on social media, so it’s public!’ one could argue as a case for people’s right to act like forensic analysts on social media, and that is true. But this justification is typically valid when a) the person posting is someone of note, like a celebrity or a politician, and b) when the stakes are even a little bit high. In most cases of normal-person canceling, neither standard is met. Instead, it’s mob justice and vigilante detective work typically reserved for, say, unmasking the Zodiac killer, except weaponized against normal people.

Before we talk about public criticism and shaming and adults, let’s look at the role of shame in childhood. In at least some views about shame and childhood1, shame and guilt hold different roles in childhood development: Shame is the feeling that “I am bad,” and the natural response to shame is for the individual to hide, or the community to ostracize the person. Guilt is the feeling that “This specific action I did was bad.” The natural response to feeling guilt is for the guilty person to want to repair the harm of their action. In this view, a good parent might see their child doing something bad or dangerous, and tell them to stop. The child may feel shame (they might not be developmentally able to separate their identity from the momentary rejection). The parent may then comfort the child to let the child know that they are not being rejected as a person, it was just their action that was a problem. The child’s relationship with the parent is repaired, and over time the child will learn to feel guilt instead of shame and seek to repair harm instead of hide.

So how can platforms and individuals stop themselves from being harassed? Well, individuals can block or mute harassers, but the harassers may be a large group, or they might make new accounts. They might also try to use the legal system, but online harassment is often not taken seriously, and harassers often use tactics that avoid being illegal. The platform itself sometimes can be helpful. Reporting harassment might result in the user being banned, or the platform might decide to take out entire problematic sections, such as when Reddit banned its most toxic subreddits, and found it reduced toxic behavior on the site overall. There are also other tools to help individuals that are getting harassment from a crowd. For example, the Twitter app “block-party” supports mass blocking and other advanced features.

Individual harassment (one individual harassing another individual) has always been part of human cultures, bur social media provides new methods of doing so. There are many methods by which through social media. This can be done privately through things like: Bullying: like sending mean messages through DMs Cyberstalking: Continually finding the account of someone, and creating new accounts to continue following them. Or possibly researching the person’s physical location. Hacking: Hacking into an account or device to discover secrets, or make threats. Tracking: An abuser might track the social media use of their partner or child to prevent them from making outside friends. They may even install spy software on their victim’s phone. Death threats / rape threats Etc. Individual harassment can also be done publicly before an audience (such as classmates or family). For example: Bullying: like posting public mean messages Impersonation: Making an account that appears to be from someone and having that account say things to embarrass or endanger the victim. Doxing: Publicly posting identifying information about someone (e.g., full name, address, phone number, etc.). Revenge porn / deep-fake porn Etc. 17.1.1. Reflections# Have you experienced or witnessed harassment on social media (that you are willing to share about)?

In her essay “The Great Offline,” Lauren Collee argues that this is just a repeat of earlier views of city living and the “wilderness.” As white Americans were colonizing the American continent, they began idealizing “wilderness” as being uninhabited land (ignoring the Indigenous people who already lived there, or kicking them out or killing them).

10.3.1. Who gets designed for# When designers and programmers don’t think to take into account different groups of people, then they might make designs that don’t work for everyone. This problem often shows up in how designs do or do not work for people with disabilities. But it also shows up in other areas as well. The following tweet has a video of a soap dispenser that apparently was only designed to work for people with light-colored skin.1 If you have ever had a problem grasping the importance of diversity in tech and its impact on society, watch this video pic.twitter.com/ZJ1Je1C4NW— Chukwuemeka Afigbo (@nke_ise) August 16, 2017 Similarly, Twitter looked into bias in how their automatic image cropping algorithm worked. 10.3.2. Who gets to be designers# In how we’ve been talking about accessible design, the way we’ve been phrasing things has implied a separation between designers who make things, and the disabled people who things are made for. And unfortunately, as researcher Dr. Cynthia Bennett points out, disabled people are often excluded from designing for themselves, or even when they do participate in the design, they aren’t considered to be the “real designers.” You can see Dr. Bennet’s research talk on this in the following Youtube Video: 10.3.3. Design Justice# We mentioned Design Justice earlier, but it is worth reiterating again here that design justice includes considering which groups get to be part of the design process itself. 1 If you can’t see the video, it shows someone with light skin putting their hand under a soap dispenser, and soap comes out. Then a person with dark skin puts their hand under a soap dispenser, and nothing happens. The person with dark skin then puts a white paper towel on their hand and then when they put their hand under the soap dispenser, soap comes out. When the person with dark skin takes off the white paper towel, the soap dispenser won’t work for them anymore. { requestKernel: true, binderOptions: { repo: "binder-examples/jupyter-stacks-datascience", ref: "master", }, codeMirrorConfig: { theme: "abcdef", mode: "python" }, kernelOptions: { kernelName: "python3", path: "./ch10_accessibility" }, predefinedOutput: true } kernelName = 'python3' previous 10.2. Accessible Design

There are several ways of managing disabilities. All of these ways of managing disabilities might be appropriate at different times for different situations. 10.2.1. Coping Strategies# Those with disabilities often find ways to cope with their disability, that is, find ways to work around difficulties they encounter and seek out places and strategies that work for them (whether realizing they have a disability or not). Additionally, people with disabilities might change their behavior (whether intentionally or not) to hide the fact that they have a disability, which is called masking and may take a mental or physical toll on the person masking, which others around them won’t realize. For example, kids who are nearsighted and don’t realize their ability to see is different from other kids will often seek out seats at the front of classrooms where they can see better. As for us two authors, we both have ADHD and were drawn to PhD programs where our tendency to hyperfocus on following our curiosity was rewarded (though executive dysfunction with finishing projects created challenges)1. This way of managing disabilities puts the burden fully on disabled people to manage their disability in a world that was not designed for them, trying to fit in with “normal” people. 10.2.2. Modifying the Person# Another way of managing disabilities is assistive technology, which is something that helps a disabled person act as though they were not disabled. In other words, it is something that helps a disabled person become more “normal” (according to whatever a society’s assumptions are). For example: Glasses help people with near-sightedness see in the same way that people with “normal” vision do Walkers and wheelchairs can help some disabled people move around closer to the way “normal” people can (though stairs can still be a problem) A spoon might automatically balance itself when held by someone whose hands shake Stimulants (e.g., caffeine, Adderall) can increase executive function in people with ADHD, so they can plan and complete tasks more like how neurotypical people do. Assistive technologies give tools to disabled people to help them become more “normal.” So the disabled person becomes able to move through a world that was not designed for them. But there is still an expectation that disabled people must become more “normal,” and often these assistive technologies are very expensive. Additionally, attempts to make disabled people (or people with other differences) act “normal” can be abusive, such as Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy for autistic people, or “Gay Conversion Therapy.” 10.2.3. Making an environment work for all# Another strategy for managing disability is to use Universal Design, which originated in architecture. In universal design, the goal is to make environments and buildings have options so that there is a way for everyone to use it2. For example, a building with stairs might also have ramps and elevators, so people with different mobility needs (e.g., people with wheelchairs, baby strollers, or luggage) can access each area. In the elevators the buttons might be at a height that both short and tall people can reach. The elevator buttons might have labels both drawn (for people who can see them) and in braille (for people who cannot), and the ground floor button may be marked with a star, so that even those who cannot read can at least choose the ground floor. In this way of managing disabilities, the burden is put on the designers to make sure the environment works for everyone, though disabled people might need to go out of their way to access features of the environment. 10.2.4. Making a tool adapt to users# When creating computer programs, programmers can do things that aren’t possible with architecture (where Universal Design came out of), that is: programs can change how they work for each individual user. All people (including disabled people) have different abilities, and making a system that can modify how it runs to match the abilities a user has is called Ability based design. For example, a phone might detect that the user has gone from a dark to a light environment, and might automatically change the phone brightness or color scheme to be easier to read. Or a computer program might detect that a user’s hands tremble when they are trying to select something on the screen, and the computer might change the text size, or try to guess the intended selection. In this way of managing disabilities, the burden is put on the computer programmers and designers to detect and adapt to the disabled person. 10.2.5. Are things getting better?# We could look at inventions of new accessible technologies and think the world is getting better for disabled people. But in reality, it is much more complicated. Some new technologies make improvements for some people with some disabilities, but other new technologies are continually being made in ways that are not accessible. And, in general, cultures shift in many ways all the time, making things better or worse for different disabled people. 1 We’ve also noticed many youtube video essayists have mentioned having ADHD. This is perhaps another job that attracts those who tend to hyperfocus on whatever topic grabbed their attention, and then after releasing their video, move on to something completely different. 2 Universal Design has taken some criticism. Some have updated it, such as in acknowledging that different people’s needs may be contradictory, and others have replaced it with frameworks like Inclusive Design..

There are many reasons, both good and bad, that we might want to keep information private. There might be some things that we just feel like aren’t for public sharing (like how most people wear clothes in public, hiding portions of their bodies) We might want to discuss something privately, avoiding embarrassment that might happen if it were shared publicly We might want a conversation or action that happens in one context not to be shared in another (context collapse) We might want to avoid the consequences of something we’ve done (whether ethically good or bad), so we keep the action or our identity private We might have done or said something we want to be forgotten or make at least made less prominent We might want to prevent people from stealing our identities or accounts, so we keep information (like passwords) private We might want to avoid physical danger from a stalker, so we might keep our location private We might not want to be surveilled by a company or government that could use our actions or words against us (whether what we did was ethically good or bad) When we use social media platforms though, we at least partially give up some of our privacy. For example, a social media application might offer us a way of “Private Messaging” (also called Direct Messaging) with another user. But in most cases those “private” messages are stored in the computers at those companies, and the company might have computer programs that automatically search through the messages, and people with the right permissions might be able to view them directly. In some cases we might want a social media company to be able to see our “private” messages, such as if someone was sending us death threats. We might want to report that user to the social media company for a ban, or to law enforcement (though many people have found law enforcement to be not helpful), and we want to open access to those “private” messages to prove that they were sent. 9.1.1. Privacy Rights# Some governments and laws protect the privacy of individuals (using a Natural Rights ethical framing). These include the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which includes a “right to be forgotten”, and the United State’s Supreme Court has at times inferred a constitutional right to privacy. Fig. 9.1 Privacy tracking settings prompt on wired.com. These prompts were added as part of following the EU’s new GDPR regulations.

While trolling can be done for many reasons, some trolling communities take on a sort of nihilistic philosophy: it doesn’t matter if something is true or not, it doesn’t matter if people get hurt, the only thing that might matter is if you can provoke a reaction. We can see this nihilism show up in one of the versions of the self-contradictory “Rules of the Internet:” 8. There are no real rules about posting … 20. Nothing is to be taken seriously … 42. Nothing is Sacred Youtuber Innuendo Studios talks about the way arguments are made in a community like 4chan: You can’t know whether they mean what they say, or are only arguing as though they mean what they say. And entire debates may just be a single person stirring the pot [e.g., sockpuppets]. Such a community will naturally attract people who enjoy argument for its own sake, and will naturally trend oward the most extremte version of any opinion. In short, this is the free marketplace of ideas. No code of ethics, no social mores, no accountability. … It’s not that they’re lying, it’s that they just don’t care. […] When they make these kinds of arguments they legitimately do not care whether the words coming out of their mouths are true. If they cared, before they said something is true, they would look it up. The Alt-Right Playbook: The Card Says Moops by Innuendo Studios While there is a nihilistic worldview where nothing matters, we can see how this plays out practically, which is that they tend to protect their group (normally white and male), and tend to be extremely hostile to any other group. They will express extreme misogyny (like we saw in the Rules of the Internet: “Rule 30. There are no girls on the internet. Rule 31. TITS or GTFO - the choice is yours”), and extreme racism (like an invented Nazi My Little Pony character). Is this just hypocritical, or is it ethically wrong? It depends, of course, on what tools we use to evaluate this kind of trolling. If the trolls claim to be nihilists about ethics, or indeed if they are egoists, then they would argue that this doesn’t matter and that there’s no normative basis for objecting to the disruption and harm caused by their trolling. But on just about any other ethical approach, there are one or more reasons available for objecting to the disruptions and harm caused by these trolls! If the only way to get a moral pass on this type of trolling is to choose an ethical framework that tells you harming others doesn’t matter, then it looks like this nihilist viewpoint isn’t deployed in good faith1. Rather, with any serious (i.e., non-avoidant) moral framework, this type of trolling is ethically wrong for one or more reasons (though how we explain it is wrong depends on the specific framework).

Before the internet, there were many activities that we would probably now call “trolling”, such as: Hazing: Causing difficulty or suffering for people who are new to a group Satire: (e.g., A Modest Proposal) which takes a known form, but does something unexpected or disruptive with it. Practical jokes / pranks

6.4. Personas, Code Switching, Context Collapse# The way we present ourselves to others around us (our behavior, social role, etc.) is called our public persona. We also may change how we behave and speak depending on the situation or who we are around, which is called code-switching. While modified behaviors to present a persona or code switch may at first look inauthentic, they can be a way of authentically expressing ourselves in each particular setting. For example: Speaking in a formal manner when giving a presentation or answering questions in a courtroom may be a way of authentically sharing your experiences and emotions, but tailored to the setting Sharing those same experiences and emotions with a close friend may look very different, but still can be authentic Different communities have different expectations and meanings around behavior and presentation. So what is appropriate authentic behavior depends on what group you are from and what group you are interacting with, like this gif of President Obama below: Fig. 6.6 President Obama giving a very different handshakes to a white man and a Black man (Kevin Durant). See also this Key & Peele comedy sketch on greeting differences with Jordan Peele playing Obama, and also Key & Peele’s Obama’s Anger Translator sketch.# Read/watch more about code-switching here: How Code-Switching Explains The World ‘Key & Peele’ Is Ending. Here Are A Few Of Its Code Switch-iest Moments Still, modifications of behavior can also be inauthentic. In the YouTube Video Essay: YouTube: Manufacturing Authenticity (For Fun and Profit!) by Lindsay Ellis, Ellis explores nuances in authenticity as a YouTuber. She highlights the emotional labor of keeping emotional expressions consistent with their public persona, even when they are having different or conflicted feelings. She also highlights how various “calls to action” (e.g., “subscribe to my channel”) may be necessary for business and can be (and appear) authentic or inauthentic. 6.4.1. Context Collapse# Since we have different personas and ways of behaving in different groups of people, what happens if different groups of people are observing you at the same time? For example, someone might not know how to behave if they were at a restaurant with their friends and they noticed that their parents were seated at the table next to them. This is phenomenon is called “context collapse.” On social media, context collapse is a common concern, since on a social networking site you might be connected to very different people (family, different groups of friends, co-workers, etc.). Additionally, something that was shared within one context (like a private message), might get reposted in another context (publicly posted elsewhere). 6.4.2. Reflection Questions# How do you notice yourself changing how you express yourself in different situations, particularly on social media? Do you feel like those changes or expressions are authentic to who you are, do they compromise your authenticity in some way?

As we talked about previously in a section of Chapter 2 (What is Social Media?), pretty much anything can count as social media, and the things we will see in internet-based social media show up in many other places as well. The book Writing on the Wall: Social Media - The First 2,000 Years by Tom Standage outlines some of the history of social media before internet-based social media platforms such as in times before the printing press: Graffiti and other notes left on walls were used for sharing updates, spreading rumors, and tracking accounts Books and news write-ups had to be copied by hand, so that only the most desired books went “viral” and spread Later, sometime after the printing press, Stondage highlights how there was an unusual period in American history that roughly took up the 1900s where, in America, news sources were centralized in certain newspapers and then the big 3 TV networks. In this period of time, these sources were roughly in agreement and broadcast news out to the country, making a more unified, consistent news environment (though, of course, we can point out how they were biased in ways like being almost exclusively white men). Before this centralization of media in the 1900s, newspapers and pamphlets were full of rumors and conspiracy theories. And now as the internet and social media have taken off in the early 2000s, we are again in a world full of rumors and conspiracy theories.

We’ve now looked at how different ways of storing data and putting constraints on data can make social media systems work better for some people than others, and we’ve looked at how this data also informs decision-making and who is taken into account in ethics analyses. Given all that can be at stake in making decisions on how data will be stored and constrained, choose one type of data a social media site might collect (e.g., name, age, location, gender, posts you liked, etc.), and then choose two different ethics frameworks and consider what each framework would mean for someone choosing how that data will be stored and constrained.

In that tweet, Nate Silver seems to be saying that conversations and views represented on Twitter are not representative of most people, thus devaluing the conversations and views expressed on Twitter. We also see this phrase used to say that things seen on social media are not authentic, but are manipulated, such as people only posting their good news and not bad news, or people using photo manipulation software to change how they look.