Social network sites downplayed the importance of interests and made friendship the organizing tenant of the genre.
also the rhetoric of cyberbullying and internet safety (like Frontline's Growing Up Online documentary in 2008) made parents wary of their kids connecting with strangers online. Supposedly kids overshared, they didn't care about privacy, and bad things happened to them. THe internet seemed like a scary place.
If a thousand flowers bloom, the vast majority of them will be beautiful.
is this like when David Weinberger suggests that the solution to too much information is more information?
We stop being so sensitive about speech
so do we just ignore violent threats and harassment?
your breast feeding photos aren’t welcome
might be referring to this, though FB has since changed their policies: http://fox40.com/2013/04/04/woman-feels-targeted-by-facebook-over-breastfeeding-advocacy-group/#ixzz2PWC4YI92
4chan
Recent school shootings and threats can be traced to 4chan posts. I think this article explains why 4chan values anonymity so much: https://digiom.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/moot-on-4chan-and-why-it-works-as-a-meme-factory/
social media companies alert federal authorities when they become aware of terrorist-related content on their sites
Not terrorist-related, but one unsettling example: http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/A-man-s-fake-Facebook-suicide-post-gets-him-6133231.php "A man's fake suicide post gets him detained"
CDN
content delivery network... akamai is a site that will store photos and videos for big websites like Facebook -- holding these assets until someone needs them. That way Facebook doesn't have to store so much content on its own servers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akamai_Technologies
white hat
The white hat represents ethical hacking whereas black hat is malicious hacking. The Black Hat Conference, where Jennifer Granick delivered this talk, is a meeting for information security professionals.
hooting into the pay phone and getting free calls home.
I think she might be referring to this: http://entertainment.omgfacts.com/news/10623/Cap-n-Crunch-used-to-include-a-prize-whistle-that-unintentionally-allowed-people-bypass-international-calling-fees-ab963-1
like whether you get a loan
seriously: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22630182.400-your-smartphones-secrets-could-help-you-bag-a-bank-loan#.VUdo7flViko A company called Cignifi is "studying how mobile data might be used to predict whether people will repay loans and how much money they will save. Their research has found that the time of day people make calls and the sorts of neighbourhoods they are calling can be useful indicators." o_0
Things will get decided by data-crunching computer algorithms and no human will really be able to understand why.
Some people would argue these algorithms would be more accurate, less prone to human error and biases. I really like this quote that addresses that point:
There are reasons to think that data-based character judgments are more reasonable. That is only true to a point: Algorithms do not fall from the sky. Algorithms are written by human beings. Even if the facts aren’t biased, design can be, and we could end up with a flawed belief that math is always truth. From http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/26/using-algorithms-to-determine-character/
Software programs are going to be deciding whether a car runs people over, or drives off a bridge.
I was confused by cars deciding to run people over. Is this what Granick is referring to? http://www.wired.com/2014/05/the-robot-car-of-tomorrow-might-just-be-programmed-to-hit-you/
At one point he says, "If we don’t like how our tools are giving us a view of the world, we have the power to change / rewire them. We can build better tools so that we have a way to encounter the breadth and creativity of what’s out there on internet." DO we really have this power? Who is the "we"? Who has power in our culture to build / rewire tools? Is it naive to think that changing the tool will change the mindset?
And your filter bubble is your own personal, unique universe of information that you live in online.
This description of the filter bubble makes it sound like a pretty nice place to be. How would you describe your "universe of information" that you're currently living in? what are the different sites in your universe?
there is no standard Google anymore
there is actually an ongoing lawsuit from the European Union regarding biases in Google's search algorithm: http://www.wsj.com/articles/google-responds-to-european-union-antitrust-charges-1440691150
If satire mistaken for news can get shared more on Facebook than real news, and you're totally unscrupulous about how you get your clicks, why not drop the satire pretense and just write fake news? "What we’ve seen emerge over the last year is a much more malicious breed," says Silverman, "which are not driven by trying to do comedy or satire, but by what kind of fake stuff can we spin up to get shares that earn us money."
This seems to be what defines hoaxes of the past from hoaxes today -- today there is much more money to be made from clicks -- it's not just for amusement and comedy.
Well, in fact, what we find is the mind can’t concentrate for 20 minutes productively
I have found this to be true...
we think in patterns
patterns are boring :)
You focus your attention by excluding anything that’s irrelevant.
Paying attention seems constraining and limiting, in these terms.
They ask how they are supposed to keep up with the overwhelming flood of information. I explain that social media is not a queue; it's a flow.
I think this passage really hits the point about how crap detection and attention are so similar. Paying attention online is about controlling the flow! i.e. having good filters, such as Twitter lists and finely tuned RSS readers like Feedly. But controlling the "flow" of information also means staying on the lookout for hoaxes and crap.
“Awkward moment when Rue is some black girl and not the little blonde innocent girl you picture,” she wrote. She cc’ed a friend on the tweet, @EganMcCoy. “That tweet was very telling, in terms of a mentality that is probably very widespread,” says Adam, speaking softly from his office high above Toronto’s downtown financial district. He doesn’t sound angry, but he also isn’t amused. The phrases “some black girl” and “little blonde innocent girl” are ringing in my head as he talks, as are thoughts about how the heroes in our imaginations are white until proven otherwise, a variation on the principle of innocent until proven guilty that, for so many minorities, is routinely upended. Adam tells me that, on the post featuring a screenshot of Alana’s tweet, he added, “Remember that word innocent? This is why Trayvon Martin is dead.” As he says it, I am thinking the same thing: of our culture’s association of whiteness with innocence, of a child described without an accompanying adjective, of a child rendered insignificant and therefore invisible because of his or her particular shade of skin.
white skin as the absence of color, as the default for a child
For today: Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 (PDFs posted on Blackboard)
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