This is actually a really helpful thing to read right now, because for my group project I'm attempting to detect content on Bluesky that promotes eating disorders/disordered eating habits. It's a good reminder at least for my Dream version of the program I'm creating that only scanning keywords allows for loopholes.

This reminds me of ED twitter a lot, where young women (usually) post their bodies and ask for honest critiques of their body to worsen their own perception of their body. I think its an incredibly harmful, and often overlooked, form of sel-fharm because people see it as just being young and on social media.

Recently, I've been seeing white millennials rebrand AAVE as Gen Z slang. This is disheartening for a number of reasons, as it's both a theft of language as well as it is reducing AAVE to "kid speak", which infantilizes and discredits the cultural significance of the phrases.

This example of virality, though sort of devastating since it relied on bullying a young girl, was huge evidence that in internet terms cancelling or bullying can end up actually uplifting creators further. Rebecca Black was able to capitalize off of this fame and is now a pretty established singer and DJ.

When I first started reading this section, I was prepared to argue that we shouldn't downplay crazy theories just because they're crazy (content like that will always exist). However, I had no idea that these sorts of videos were being peddled to people prone to believing it. On one hand, it's a matter of prioritizing interests and creating a good algorithm. I'm not entirely sure about my ethical stance on this.

I've found that in recent years, Youtube's algorithm has gone from what I remember to be really successful (at least in my early teens) to really boring. I'm constantly recommended content I would never watch and even have a hard time finding good reccomended/related videos to ones I am interested in.

I think it's incredibly important that accessible designs are designed or at least heavily contributed to by designers with the disability being designed for. I thought it was super interesting that they aren't considered to be the real designers, and I wonder if its because of a cycle of not valuing the contributions of differently abled people.

I really relate to this, and have always felt that traditional higher education pathways are often incredibly difficult for neurodivergent people. It often feels punishing and confusing to be a student with ADHD, as the structures just weren't built for us.

Profit always comes first, and being able to sell collected data and make money from targeted ads and increased revenue is huge. It's hard to put any trust in a big social media company when we know their end goal is always to exploit their base for money.

This part of the reading reminds me of the leak from the Tea app, which was an app where women could upload their IDs to verify their gender and then share information about male romantic partners. The server/database of information was left completely opened and unprotected by the creator, who had no background knowledge in cybersecurity.

It might be overly cynical of me, but I can't help but feel blasé about how much data Google has collected on me. I feel at this point that cybersecurity is so hard to obtain for the average person, and I've almost given up.

This is fascinating to me, and a really important thing to know as we see a (sort of) new epidemic of young audiences being preyed on by streamers who promote gambling services. Sponsored ad-reads of big streamers promoting these services have been found to promote addictive behavior in young people.

I've always loved this aspect of K-pop fandom. While these fandoms have intense histories of harassing and attacking people (usually when they express negative opinions on their favorite artists) they have mobilized many times for good causes. I think this is a really useful way to organize and protest in the digital space.

In a lot of male-dominated fields, this mindset is the reality for women. Whether it's female streamers/gamers being oversexualized or women facing sexual exploitation in the workforce, this kind of rule reflects a larger attitude towards women.

This part of the reading reminded me of rainbow washing, where companies feign support for LGBTQ communities during pride month by plastering rainbows on merch or branding. Most of the time, these companies are merely profiting off of the queer people they're exploiting without supporting any off their causes. Often, these companies are funded or donating to anti-LGBTQ organizations, too. I think it's really important for consumers to recognize the empty support.

I was thinking about this tweet from the moment I started reading this chapter, and I'm so glad it found its way into the reading. This is one of the best examples of this phenomenon. This disgusting tweet and others like it are a huge part of the foundation of MAGA propaganda.

I think that likes, comments, shares and recent activities should be immediately accessible. I think that within the share feature users should have access to multiple different methods of sharing (copy link, send on iMessages, etc.)

One example I can think of for pernicious ignorance is an art influencer on social media doing a paid ad for an AI company. Even though AI is a huge threat to other artists, the influencer I saw either chose to disregard or avoid learning this fact. Their promotion of it only encourages their fans (who are likely also artists or interested in the subject) to support AI that could put them out of jobs.

I think seeing bot activity for me, at least before taking this class, felt completely detached from human activity. When I notice content that seems like it was produced by a bot, my mind doesn't jump at all to the programming of said bot, and merely shoos away any attempt to care about it.

This idea is really fascinating to me. I love the idea of using technology like this for good, to shine light and hold corporations accountable. It truly never occurred to me that a bot could be used in this way.