28 Matching Annotations
  1. Last 7 days
  2. social-media-ethics-automation.github.io social-media-ethics-automation.github.io
    1. Jeremy Schneider [@J_Schneider]. Please know, if you’re someone who brings a book to the bar… nobody likes you. February 2022. URL: https://twitter.com/J_Schneider/status/1490416476569968643 (visited on 2023-12-10).

      I think this is an interesting case of public shaming because, in his apology thread, he explains some of the reasoning behind why he said what he said. He mentions how someone he knew told him he would bring a book to the bar to pick up girls, a performative act that doesn't illustrate who that person really is and shows how the book becomes a prop in that instance. I think, while the original tweet obviously is exaggerated and oversimplified, there are cases where someone reading a book in a bar, to pick up girls for example, would be seen as scummy by a large majority of people.

    1. For an example of public shaming, we can look at late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel’s annual Halloween prank, where he has parents film their children as they tell the parents tell the children that the parents ate all the kids’ Halloween candy. Parents post these videos online, where viewers are intended to laugh at the distress, despair, and sense of betrayal the children express. I will not link to these videos which I find horrible, but instead link you to these articles: Jimmy Kimmel’s Halloween prank can scar children. Why are we laughing? [r4] Jimmy Kimmel’s Halloween Candy Prank: Harmful Parenting? [r5] We can also consider events in the #MeToo movement as at least in part public shaming of sexual harassers (but also of course solidarity and organizing of victims of sexual harassment, and pushes for larger political, organizational, and social changes).

      I find it interesting how normalized public shaming is to the point where there are entire segments on a talk show that make fun of children for reacting in a completely normal way to the information they are receiving. It shocks me how normal it is, especially when they are targeting kids who would obviously be sad if their parents ate all of their Halloween candy which they worked all night to collect.

  3. Nov 2025
  4. social-media-ethics-automation.github.io social-media-ethics-automation.github.io
    1. Yes, You're Racist [@YesYoureRacist]. UPDATE: Cole White, the first person I exposed, no longer has a job 💁‍♂️ #GoodNightColeWhite #ExposeTheAltRight #Charlottesville. August 2017. URL: https://twitter.com/YesYoureRacist/status/896713553666871296 (visited on 2023-12-10).

      I think examples of harassment that take down people for racist or toxic behavior make it harder to argue against online harassment. It raises the question of what makes harassment justified and where should we draw the line?

    1. Social media then allows new ways for crowd harassment to occur. Crowd harassment includes all the forms of individual harassment we already mentioned (like bullying, stalking, etc.), but done by a group of people. Additionally, we can consider the following forms of crowd harassment: [Dogpiling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogpiling_(Internet) [q4]): When a crowd of people targets or harasses the same person. Public Shaming (this will be our next chapter) Cross-platform raids (e.g., 4chan group planning harassment on another platform [q5]) Stochastic terrorism [q6] The use of mass public communication, usually against a particular individual or group, which incites or inspires acts of terrorism which are statistically probable but happen seemingly at random. [q7] See also: An atmosphere of violence: Stochastic terror in American politics [q8]

      I think due to how interconnected society is because of social media, it allows for more harassment to occur. For example "cancel culture" could be considered a form of harassment as it includes dogpiling and public shaming. I find it interesting how easy it is to get canceled because there are so many things that can be deemed offensive to so many different people.

  5. social-media-ethics-automation.github.io social-media-ethics-automation.github.io
    1. BBC. Reddit apologises for online Boston 'witch hunt'. BBC News, April 2013. URL: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-22263020 (visited on 2023-12-08).

      I feel like I vaguely remember hearing about this and the disaster that the internet detectives on Reddit caused. Oftentimes especially with high profile cases, people post false information that they heard from other comments and other people with no verification of the information they are providing. For example, recently, with the d4vd case, people would post wrong information a lot of the time on comment sections and automatically assuming there was a lot of evidence to convict him.

    1. Wikipedia [p12]: Is an online encyclopedia whose content is crowdsourced. Anyone can contribute, just go to an unlocked Wikipedia page and press the edit button. Institutions don’t get special permissions (e.g., it was a scandal when US congressional staff edited Wikipedia pages [p13]), and the expectation that editors do not have outside institutional support is intended to encourage more people to contribute. Quora [p14]: An crowdsourced question and answer site. Stack Overflow [p15]: A crowdsourced question-and-answer site specifically for programming questions. Amazon Mechanical Turk [p16]: A site where you can pay for crowdsourcing small tasks (e.g., pay a small amount for each task, and then let a crowd of people choose to do the tasks and get paid). Upwork [p17]: A site that lets people find and contract work with freelancers (generally larger and more specialized tasks than Amazon Mechanical Turk. Project Sidewalk [p18]: Crowdsourcing sidewalk information for mobility needs (e.g., wheelchair users).

      I feel like Wikipedia is a perfect example of crowdsourcing on the internet, because it is an online database that relies on volunteer editors to make articles on an infinite amount of topics. I was unaware of the scandal where a US congressional staff edited Wikipedia pages, but that's interesting because it raises questions on who can edit Wikipedia articles and how the website can enforce editors are not editing sources with a lot of bias.

  6. social-media-ethics-automation.github.io social-media-ethics-automation.github.io
    1. ShiningConcepts. r/TheoryOfReddit: reddit is valued at more than ten billion dollars, yet it is extremely dependent on mods who work for absolutely nothing. Should they be paid, and does this lead to power-tripping mods? November 2021. URL:

      I find it really interesting how so many sites rely on volunteer moderators to moderate their platforms. When analyzing Reddit's moderating nature, I think it makes sense for moderators to be volunteer as there are many different subreddits created by people, and the moderators are people that are passionate about the topic of the subreddit. If there were moderators that were paid, would they be paid through Reddit? There are thousands of different subreddits with a different amount of people, so would every single moderator be paid by Reddit?

    1. Wikipedia [o5] is an online encyclopedia that is crowdsourced by volunteer editors. You can go right now and change a Wikipedia page’s content if you want (as long as the page isn’t locked)! You can edit anonymously, or you can create an account. The Wikipedia community gives some editors administrator access [o6], so they can perform more moderation tasks like blocking users or locking pages. Editors and administrators are generally not, paid, though they can be paid by other groups if they disclose and fill out forms [o7] Wikipedia exists in multiple languages (each governed somewhat independently). When looking at the demographics of who writes the English Wikipedia articles, editors of Wikipedia skew heavily male [o8] (around 80% or 90%), and presumably administrators skew heavily male as well. This can produce bias in how things are moderated. For example, Donna Strickland had no Wikipedia page before her Nobel. Her male collaborator did [o9]:

      I find it interesting how a large majority of the editors and writers of Wikipedia are male, and I was wondering why that is. Because of the skewed demographics, there is bound to be bias in Wikipedia articles, regardless of whether the author wants it or not. I've always heard not to use Wikipedia for any sources on research assignments because of the volunteer nature of the site.

  7. social-media-ethics-automation.github.io social-media-ethics-automation.github.io
    1. Catherine Liao, Rita and Shu. Great Wall of porn obscures China protest news on Twitter. TechCrunch, November 2022. URL: https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/28/great-wall-of-porn-obscures-china-protest-news-on-twitter/ (visited on 2023-12-08).

      This article discusses the huge wave of spam and porn that flooded Chinese social media in 2022 after Elon Musk fired the Twitter/X staff in charge of moderating anti-propaganda. I think this is interesting because the article explains all the spam was due to the Chinese government trying to hide the fact there were protests erupting throughout the country pushing back against the draconian COVID-19 response from the government.

    1. Another category is content that users or advertisers might find offensive. If users see things that offend them too often, they might leave the site, and if advertisers see their ads next to too much offensive content, they might stop paying for ads on the site. So platforms might put limits on language (e.g., racial slurs), violence, sex, and nudity. Sometimes different users or advertisers have different opinions on what should be allowed or not. For example, “The porn ban of 2018 was a defining event for Tumblr that led to a 30 percent drop in traffic and a mass exodus of users that blindsided the company” [n3].

      I think this is a difficult area of content to moderate because it is so difficult to know what every person may find offensive and how to make sure they do not see this content. For example, while it has gotten better, Instagram reels I find shows a lot more offensive content, such as graphic or racist content, than other short-form media sites like TikTok, and personally, it has led to me using TikTok more than Instagram reels.

  8. social-media-ethics-automation.github.io social-media-ethics-automation.github.io
    1. Amanda Baughan. Make Peace with Social Media. Medium, May 2022. URL: https://amandabaughan.medium.com/make-peace-with-social-media-113877582006 (visited on 2023-12-08).

      I remember during the COVID-19 pandemic there was a YouTube channel run by John Krasinski called "Some Good News." It focused on the positives in the world during a time when everyone was focused on negative news, such as the COVID death toll and infection rate. During a time when it was easy to feel isolated and hopeless, this channel was a light in the darkness. This channel relates to the positive side of social media and using it to find community rather than always focusing on the negatives.

    1. Doomscrolling is: “Tendency to continue to surf or scroll through bad news, even though that news is saddening, disheartening, or depressing. Many people are finding themselves reading continuously bad news about COVID-19 without the ability to stop or step back.”

      I find this definition of doomscrolling interesting because that is not how I would define or use the term doomscrolling. I always thought doomscrolling was just scrolling on short-form media content for long periods of time without a break, which I believe is the most common way that people my age use the term. I think it's cool to see how the term originated during the COVID-19 pandemic and how it has evolved since then.

  9. social-media-ethics-automation.github.io social-media-ethics-automation.github.io
    1. Meme. December 2023. Page Version ID: 1187840093. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Meme&oldid=1187840093#Etymology (visited on 2023-12-08).

      I find the origins of the term meme very interesting because I had never really considered how the term was coined. According to the article, meme is short for mimeme which means "imitated thing," and is also modeled after the word "gene." However, the explanation for the word meme makes sense because it's a piece of media that evolves and adapts through time and is shared by people. Furthermore, I found it surprising how the term was coined by Dawkins in 1976, long before the internet became widely available and accessible.

    1. When physical mail was dominant in the 1900s, one type of mail that spread around the US was a chain letter [l7]. Chain letters were letters that instructed the recipient to make their own copies of the letter and send them to people they knew. Some letters gave the reason for people to make copies might be as part of a pyramid scheme [l8] where you were supposed to send money to the people you got the letter from, but then the people you send the letter to would give you money. Other letters gave the reason for people to make copies that if they made copies, good things would happen to them, and if not bad things would, like this:

      I think this is interesting because it reminds me of copypastas that can be found on the internet. Sometimes, there will be a TikTok in my feed that is of the same nature, urging people to repost and use the audio for good luck. I did not know chain letters were a thing and it's really interesting to see how they are carried over in the digital age.

  10. Oct 2025
  11. social-media-ethics-automation.github.io social-media-ethics-automation.github.io
    1. Elon Musk [@elonmusk]. Trashing accounts that you hate will cause our algorithm to show you more of those accounts, as it is keying off of your interactions. Basically saying if you love trashing *that* account, then you will probably also love trashing *this* account. Not actually wrong lol. January 2023. URL: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1615194151737520128 (visited on 2023-12-07).

      I think this is interesting because this tweet is saying that Twitter thrives off of any kind of engagement, even negative engagement. I think it's interesting how Elon Musk does not make measures to foster a more positive environment on Twitter, instead telling people that they should not stop trashing certain accounts if they don't want their recommendations to be accounts that they would trash.

    1. What people near you have been liking, interacting with, or hovering over (they can find your approximate location, like your city, from your internet IP address, and they may know even more precisely) This perhaps explains why sometimes when you talk about something out loud it gets recommended to you (because someone around you then searched for it). Or maybe they are actually recording what you are saying and recommending based on that. Phone numbers or email addresses (sometimes collected deceptively [k1]) can be used to suggest friends or contacts. And probably many more factors as well!

      I find it really surprising that social media companies can use the search history from the people around me to recommend me content. By constantly finding content that is relevant to what I was talking about in real life, social media websites can keep me engaged. It's honestly a little dystopian; it makes it seem like every single social media company knows everything about your life and is manipulating you into engaging with their platform.

    1. 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.

      I think it's interesting how, with how much society emphasizes progressiveness and inclusivity, there are still many instances in society where people with disabilities are excluded. Reading this section of the chapter made me realize how complex it is to accommodate for everyone when designing buildings and other social structures.

    1. Emma Bowman. After Data Breach Exposes 530 Million, Facebook Says It Will Not Notify Users. NPR, April 2021. URL: https://www.npr.org/2021/04/09/986005820/after-data-breach-exposes-530-million-facebook-says-it-will-not-notify-users (visited on 2023-12-06).

      Sometime before August 2019, Facebook's database was breached and the personal information of 530 million people was stolen and made public. I find it shocking that the company can decide not to notify their users that their information was stolen.

  12. social-media-ethics-automation.github.io social-media-ethics-automation.github.io
    1. From a security perspective there are many risks that a company faces, such as: Employees at the company misusing their access, like Facebook employees using their database permissions to stalk women [i10] Hackers finding a vulnerability and inserting, modifying, or downloading information. For example: hackers stealing the names, Social Security numbers, and birthdates of 143 million Americans from Equifax [i11] hackers posting publicly the phone numbers, names, locations, and some email addresses of 530 million Facebook users [i12], or about 7% of all people on Earth

      I find it shocking that the personal information that you willingly give to social media platforms can be so easily stolen and posted publicly on the internet. That is a huge breach of trust as people put their trust into these companies to save and protect their personal information.

    1. For example, social media data about who you are friends with might be used to infer your sexual orientation [h9]. Social media data might also be used to infer people’s: Race Political leanings Interests Susceptibility to financial scams Being prone to addiction (e.g., gambling) Additionally, groups keep trying to re-invent old debunked pseudo-scientific (and racist) methods of judging people based on facial features (size of nose, chin, forehead, etc.), but now using artificial intelligence [h10].

      I find it interesting how social media data can be used to infer a variety of different characteristics and personality traits about the people that use it. I never would have expected social media data can reveal how susceptible a person is to financial scams or how prone to addiction a person can be.

  13. social-media-ethics-automation.github.io social-media-ethics-automation.github.io
    1. Spaghetti-tree hoax. November 2023. Page Version ID: 1187320430. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spaghetti-tree_hoax&oldid=1187320430 (visited on 2023-12-05).

      I think it's interesting how this was an early form of trolling long before the internet was even around. I've never thought about how trolling was around before the internet, but I think humans have always messed with each other for their own entertainment. I think with the creation of the internet however, trolling has become more prevalent and more harmful because the "spaghetti-tree hoax" was a harmless joke played on April Fool's day. Oftentimes today, trolling goes a lot farther and is a lot more mean-spirited.

    1. Some reasons people engage in trolling behavior include: Amusement: Trolls often find the posts amusing, whether due to the disruption or emotional reaction. If the motivation is amusement at causing others’ pain, that is called doing it for the lulz [g6]. Gatekeeping: Some trolling is done in a community to separate out an ingroup from outgroup (sometimes called newbies or normies). The ingroup knows that a post is just trolling, but the outgroup is not aware and will engage earnestly. This is sometimes known as trolling the newbies. Feeling Smart: Going with the gatekeeping role above, trolling can make a troll or observer feel smarter than others, since they are able to see that it is trolling while others don’t realize it. Feeling Powerful: Trolling sometimes gives trolls a feeling of empowerment when they successfully cause disruption or cause pain.** Advance and argument / make a point: Trolling is sometimes done in order to advance an argument or make a point. For example, proving that supposedly reliable news sources are gullible by getting them to repeat an absurd gross story [g5]. Punish or stop: Some trolling is in service of some view of justice, where a person, group or organization is viewed as doing something “bad” or “deserving” of punishment, and trolling is a way of fighting back

      I think it's interesting how so much of internet culture is centered around "trolling" which is an inherently negative practice with the sole purpose of provoking people and drawing out reactions. Since so much of the internet is anonymous, I think that it teaches people that they do not have consequences for their actions and can therefore act in any way they want, which explains why trolling is so popular.

  14. social-media-ethics-automation.github.io social-media-ethics-automation.github.io
    1. lonelygirl15. November 2023. Page Version ID: 1186146298. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lonelygirl15&oldid=1186146298 (visited on 2023-11-24).

      I find it interesting how once the authenticity of the stories were called into question, people started to care less and got upset at the creator. If a story is entertaining, why should it matter that it's fictional?

    1. How do you think about the authenticity of the Tweets that come from Trump himself? Do you think it matters which human typed the Tweet? Does the emotional expression (e.g., anger) of the Tweet change your view of authenticity?

      I think it's interesting how normalized it is for a popular figure like the president to have their own social media manager. To me, it feels less personal knowing that every tweet a celebrity tweets is not actually their own thoughts and opinions.

  15. social-media-ethics-automation.github.io social-media-ethics-automation.github.io
    1. 4chan. November 2023. Page Version ID: 1186572457. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=4chan&oldid=1186572457 (visited on 2023-11-24).

      While I have never used 4chan before or even been on the website, I have always known it as a social media platform with very little moderation where anything goes. I find it interesting how, despite how long it's been since its inception and the reputation it has gotten for being a website that breeds toxicity and hate, it is still very active. I also find it interesting how active it is considering how aged the site looks and how much friction it has.

    1. The book Writing on the Wall: Social Media - The First 2,000 Years [e1] 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

      I found this interesting because I have never considered how graffiti and books would be social media, but it makes sense. In the world of the internet, so much more media types can be spread and go "viral," so it's interesting to think about how much more work it was for a piece of media to go viral before the internet was created.

  16. social-media-ethics-automation.github.io social-media-ethics-automation.github.io
    1. Shannon Bond. Elon Musk wants out of the Twitter deal. It could end up costing at least $1 billion. NPR, July 2022. URL: https://www.npr.org/2022/07/08/1110539504/twitter-elon-musk-deal-jeopardy (visited on 2023-11-24).

      I find this article interesting because while Elon Musk claimed he wanted to back out of the Twitter deal because of the plethora of bots, it seems to be an excuse to allow him to back out. Additionally, while this seems to be an excuse to allow him to back out of the deal, legal experts determined it would be an "uphill battle," and may not be grounds to back out of the deal.

    1. So all data that you might find is a simplification. There are many seemingly simple questions that in some situations or for some people, have no simple answers, questions like: What country are you from? What if you were born in one country, but moved to another shortly after? What if you are from a country that no longer exists like Czechoslovakia? Or from an occupied territory? How many people live in this house? Does a college student returning home for the summer count as living in that house? How many words are in this chapter? Different programs use different rules for what counts as a “word” [d19] E.g., this page has “2 + 2 = 4”, which Microsoft Word counts as 5 words, and Google Docs counts as 3 words.

      I find the simplification of data very interesting, because that is an aspect of coding that I have never really considered before. Even in our everyday lives, information is being simplified in a way that is easy for people to process and digest, so why should coding be any different? In particular, the examples of the complexity of even simple questions like "what country are you from" was interesting because I had never really considered the complexities behind questions like that.