Luddite. December 2023. Page Version ID: 1189255462. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Luddite&oldid=1189255462 (visited on 2023-12-10)

In the first chapter of our book we quoted actor Kumail Nanjiani on tech innovators’ lack of consideration of ethical implications of their work. Of course, concerns about the implications of technological advancement are nothing new. In Plato’s Phaedrus [u1] (~370BCE), Socrates tells (or makes up[1]) a story from Egypt critical of the invention of writing: Now in those days the god Thamus was the king of the whole country of Egypt, […] [then] came Theuth and showed his inventions, desiring that the other Egyptians might be allowed to have the benefit of them; […] [W]hen they came to letters, This, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit. Thamus replied: […] this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality. In England in the early 1800s, Luddites [u2] were upset that textile factories were using machines to replace them, leaving them unemployed, so they sabotaged the machines. The English government sent soldiers to stop them, killing and executing many. (See also Sci-Fi author Ted Chiang on Luddites and AI [u3])

Margaret Kohn and Kavita Reddy. Colonialism. In Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman, editors, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, spring 2023 edition, 2023. URL: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2023/entries/colonialism/ (visited on 2023-12-10).

Colonialism in Tech# The tech industry is full of colonialist thinking and practices, some more subtle than others. To begin with, much of the tech industry is centralized geographically, specifically in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, California. The leaders and decisions in how tech operates come out of this one wealthy location in a wealthy nation. Then, much of tech is dependent on exploiting cheap labor, often in dangerous conditions, in other countries (thus extracting the resource of cheap labor, from places with “inferior” governments and economies). This labor might be physical labor, or dealing with dangerous chemicals, or the content moderators who deal with viewing horrific online content. Tech industry leaders in Silicon Valley then take what they made with exploited labor, and sell it around the world, feeling good about themselves, believing they are benefitting the world with their “superior” products. 20.2.1. Example: One Laptop Per Child# An example of how this can play out is the failed One Laptop Per Child [t24] (OLPC) project. In late 2005, tech visionary and MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte [introduced a] $100 laptop would have all the features of an ordinary computer but require so little electricity that a child could power it with a hand crank OLPC’s $100 laptop was going to change the world — then it all went wrong [t25] OLPC wanted to give every child in the world a laptop, so they could learn computers, believing he would benefit the world. But this project failed for a number of reasons, such as: The physical device didn’t work well. The hand-powered generator was unreliable, the screen too small to read. OLPC was not actually providing a “superior” product to the rest of the world. When they did hand out some, it didn’t come with good instructions. Kids were just supposed to figure it out on their own. If this failed, it must be the fault of the poor people around the world. It wasn’t designed for what kids around the world would actually want. They didn’t take input from actual kids around the world. OLPC thought they had superior knowledge and just assumed they knew what people would want. In the end, this project fell apart, and most of tech moved on to whatever next big idea to save the world.

Merriam-Webster. Definition of CAPITALISM. December 2023. URL: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/capitalism (visited on 2023-12-10).

Related Terms# Here are a few more terms that are relevant to capitalism that we need to understand in order to get to the details of decision-making and strategies employed by social media companies. Shares / Stocks Shares or stocks are ownership of a percentage of a business, normally coming with getting a percentage of the profits and a percentage of power in making business decisions. Companies then have a board of directors who represent these shareholders. The board is in charge of choosing who runs the company (the CEO). They have the power to hire and fire CEOs For example: in 1985, the board of directors for Apple Computers denied Steve Jobs [s3] (co-founded Apple) the position of CEO and then they fired him completely CEOs of companies (like Mark Zuckerberg of Meta) are often both wage-laborers (they get a salary, Zuckerberg gets a tiny symbolic $1/year) and shareholders (they get a share of the profits, Zuckerberg owns 16.8%) Free Market [s4] Businesses set their own prices and customers decide what they are willing to pay, so prices go up or down as each side decides what they are willing to charge/spend (no government intervention) See supply and demand [s5] What gets made is theoretically determined by what customers want to spend their money on, with businesses competing for customers by offering better products and better prices Especially the people with the most money, both business owners and customers Monopoly [s6] “a situation where a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular thing” Monopolies are considered anti-competitive (though not necessarily anti-capitalist). Businesses can lower quality and raise prices, and customers will have to accept those prices since there are no alternatives. Cornering a market [s7] is being close enough to a monopoly to mostly set the rules (e.g., Amazon and online shopping) 19.1.2. Socialism# Let’s contrast capitalism with socialism: Socialism [s8], in contrast is a system where: A government owns the businesses (sometimes called “government services”) A government decides what to make and what the price is the price might be free, like with public schools, public streets and highways, public playgrounds, etc. A government then may hire wage laborers [s2] at predetermined rates for their work, and the excess business profits or losses are handled by the government For example, losses are covered by taxes, and excess may pay for other government services or go directly to the people (e.g., Alaska uses its oil profits to pay people to live there [s9]). As an example, there is one Seattle City Sewer system, which is run by the Seattle government. Having many competing sewer systems could actually make a big mess of the underground pipe system. 19.1.3. Accountability in Capitalism and other systems# Let’s look at who the leaders of businesses (or services) are accountable for in capitalism and other systems. Democratic Socialism (i.e., “Socialists[1]”)# With socialism in a representative democracy (i.e., “democratic socialism”), the government leaders are chosen by the people through voting. And so, while the governmental leaders are in charge of what gets made, how much it costs, and who gets it, those leaders are accountable to the voters. So, in a democratic socialist government, theoretically, every voter has an equal say in business (or government service) decisions. Note, that there are limitations to the government leaders being accountable to the people their decisions affect, such as government leaders ignoring voters’ wishes, or people who can’t vote (e.g., the young, non-citizens, oppressed minorities) and therefore don’t get a say. Capitalism# In capitalism, business decisions are accountable to the people who own the business. In a publicly traded [s10] business, that is the shareholders. The more money someone has invested in a company, the more say they have. And generally in a capitalist system, the rich have the most say in what happens (both as business owners and customers), and the poor have very little say in what happens. When shareholders buy stocks in a company, they are owed a percentage of the profits. Therefore it is the company leaders’ fiduciary duty [s11] to maximize the profits of the company (called the Friedman Doctrine [s12]). If the leader of the company (the CEO) intentionally makes a decision that they know will reduce the company’s profits, then they are cheating the shareholders out of money the shareholders could have had. CEOs mistakenly do things that lose money all the time, but doing so on purpose is a violation of fiduciary duty. There are many ways a CEO might intentionally lower profits unfairly, such as by having their company pay more than necessary when buying something from the CEO’s friend’s company. But even if a CEO decides to reduce profits for a good reason (e.g., it may be unethical to overwork the employees), then they are still violating their fiduciary duty, and the board of directors might fire them or pressure them into prioritizing profits above all else. For example, the actor Stellan Skarsgård complained that in the film industry, it didn’t matter if a company was making good movies at a decent profit. If there is an opportunity for even more profit by making worse movies, then that is what business leaders are obligated to do: “When raw market forces come in, [movie] studios start being run by companies that don’t care if they’re dealing in films or toothpaste so long as they get their 10% [return]. When AT&T took over Time Warner, it immediately told HBO to become lighter and more commercial. They were always making money. But not enough for an investor.” Stellan Skarsgård [s13] Or as another example, if the richest man in the world offers to buy out a social media site for more than it’s worth [s14], then it is the fiduciary duty of the leaders of the social media site to accept that offer. It doesn’t matter if it is clear that this rich man doesn’t know what he is doing and is likely to destroy the social media site, and potentially cause harm to society at large; the fiduciary duty of the company leaders is to get as much money as possible to their shareholders, and they can’t beat being overpaid by the richest man in the world. Rejecting that deal would be cheating the stockholders out of money. CEOs of social media companies, under pressure from the board of directors, might also make decisions that prioritize short-term profits for the shareholders over long-term benefits, leading to what author Corey Doctorow calls the “Enshittification” of platforms (See his article: The ‘Enshittification’ of TikTok: Or how, exactly, platforms die. [s15]. Privately owned [s16] businesses or organizations are a little different in that the owner (or owners) have full say on what happens, and are free to make it as unprofitable or profitable as they want. Though, if the private ownership of the business was purchased with loans [s17], then they have some responsibilities to the lenders. Other Accountability Models# Besides the privately owned and publicly traded businesses in capitalism, and government services in socialism, there are other accountability models as well. For example: In a publicly funded organization, non-profit organization, or crowd-funded project (e.g., Wikipedia [s18], NPR [s19], Kickstarter projects [s20], Patreon creators [s21], charities), the investors (or donors) are not investing in profits from the organization, but instead are investing in the product or work the organization does. Therefore the responsibility to investors is not to make profits but to do the work investors are paying for. In this model, the more money someone invests or donates, the more say they have over what the organization does (like capitalism and unlike democratic socialism). For example, when buying groceries, you might be prompted to let the grocery store take an extra $5 from you to give to a charity that gives food to the needy. Then the grocery store corporation will give $5 to the charity and look good for doing so. But the corporation also gets $5 more say in how the charity operates (and they can pressure the charity to not do anything that hurts the corporation’s profits, and thus look charitable without violating their fiduciary duty)[2]. In a consumer co-operative [s22] businesses and organizations, the customers of the business have a say in how the business is run, and therefore the leaders are accountable to the customers. So if the customers want the business to do something that can only be done by treating the employees poorly, then the business leaders are obligated to follow the customer’s demands. If the company makes excess profits, that money is sent out to the customers. An example of a consumer co-operative is the outdoor recreation gear store REI [s23]. In a worker co-operative [s24] businesses and organizations, the employees at the company are the people who have a say in how the business is run, and therefore the leaders are accountable to the employees (rather than vice-versa). Since the business leaders are controlled by the workers, this is a system where the workers control the means of production [s25] (e.g., they control the factories, offices or other business resources). If the business makes excess profits, that money is sent out to the employees. 19.1.4. Reflection Questions# In what ways do you see capitalism, socialism, and other funding models show up in the country you are from or are living in? [1] Advocates for socialism are often referring to democratic socialism. This is different than “National Socialists” which is shortened to “Nazi [s26],” and is a form of Fascism [s27]. While Nazis do have government leaders deciding on what gets made and who gets it, that is because it is a totalitarian dictatorship run by one person (e.g., Adolf Hitler), who is accountable to no one [s28]. Nazis historically have been very opposed to socialism [s29], and have a mixed relationship with capitalism [s30]. What Nazis are primarily concerned with is “cleansing” [s31] their nation from people who aren’t part of the “true people” [s32]. So their goal is to identify all the “undesirable” people (e.g., Jewish people, Roma people, queer people, disabled people, etc.), and take their stuff, and then deport or murder them in a genocide. From an ethics perspective, we’d like to state that Nazis (and other Fascists) are very bad. [2] To give a concrete example: Albertsons Companies, Inc., which owns of some of the largest US grocery store chains (Albertsons, Safeway, ACME, etc.) [s33], created their own non-profit charity organization Nourishing Neighbors [s34], which they donate to and they ask customers to donate to at checkout. Then Albertsons’ Nourishing Neighbors non-profit can donate to local food charities of their own selection, and exclude “political organizations or activities” and “advocacy programs” [s35]. This doesn’t mean that these charities and the people in them aren’t doing good things, but the fiduciary duty of Albertsons Companies, Inc. and corporate control over Nourishing Neighbors will limit, for better or worse, what things this money goes toward. { requestKernel: true, binderOptions: { repo: "binder-examples/jupyter-stacks-datascience", ref: "master", }, codeMirrorConfig: { theme: "abcdef", mode: "python" }, kernelOptions: { name: "python3", path: "./ch19_capitalism" }, predefinedOutput: true } kernelName = 'python3'

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# 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 childhood[1], shame and guilt hold different roles in childhood development [r1]: 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 [r1], 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.

Constance Grady. Chrissy Teigen’s fall from grace. Vox, June 2021. URL:

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 [q1]: Publicly posting identifying information about someone (e.g., full name, address, phone number, etc.). Revenge porn / deep-fake porn Etc.

Crowdsourcing. December 2023. Page Version ID: 1188348631. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Crowdsourcing&oldid=1188348631#Historical_examples (visited on 2023-12-08). [p5] WIRED. How to Not Embarrass Yourself in Front of the Robot at Work. September 2015

When tasks are done through large groups of people making relatively small contributions, this is called crowdsourcing. The people making the contributions generally come from a crowd of people that aren’t necessarily tied to the task (e.g., all internet users can edit Wikipedia), but then people from the crowd either get chosen to participate, or volunteer themselves. When a crowd is providing financial contributions, that is called crowdfunding (e.g., patreon [p1], kickstarter [p2], gofundme [p3]). Humans have always collaborated on tasks, and crowds have been enlisted in performing tasks long before the internet existed [p4]. What social media (and other internet systems) have done is expand the options for how people can collaborate on tasks. 16.1.1. Different Ways of Collaborating and Communicating# There have been many efforts to use computers to replicate the experience of communicating with someone in person, through things like video chats, or even telepresence robots [p5]]. But there are ways that attempts to recreate in-person interactions inevitably fall short and don’t feel the same. Instead though, we can look at different characteristics that computer systems can provide, and find places where computer-based communication works better, and is Beyond Being There [p6] (pdf here [p7]). Some of the different characteristics that means of communication can have include (but are not limited to): Location: Some forms of communication require you to be physically close, some allow you to be located anywhere with an internet signal. Time delay: Some forms of communication are almost instantaneous, some have small delays (you might see this on a video chat system), or have significant delays (like shipping a package). Synchronicity: Some forms of communication require both participants to communicate at the same time (e.g., video chat), while others allow the person to respond when convenient (like a mailed physical letter). Archiving: Some forms of communication automatically produce an archive of the communication (like a chat message history), while others do not (like an in-person conversation) Anonymity: Some forms of communication make anonymity nearly impossible (like an in-person conversation), while others make it easy to remain anonymous. -Audience: Communication could be private or public, and they could be one-way (no ability to reply), or two+-way where others can respond. Because of these (and other) differences, different forms of communication might be preferable for different tasks. For example, you might send an email to the person sitting next at work to you if you want to keep an archive of the communication (which is also conveniently grouped into email threads). Or you might send a text message to the person sitting next to you if you are criticizing the teacher, but want to do so discretely, so the teacher doesn’t notice.

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15.1.1. No Moderators# Some systems have no moderators. For example, a personal website that can only be edited by the owner of the website doesn’t need any moderator set up (besides the person who makes their website). If a website does let others contribute in some way, and is small, no one may be checking and moderating it. But as soon as the wrong people (or spam bots) discover it, it can get flooded with spam, or have illegal content put up (which could put the owner of the site in legal jeopardy). 15.1.2. Untrained Staff# If you are running your own site and suddenly realize you have a moderation problem you might have some of your current staff (possibly just yourself) start handling moderation. As moderation is a very complicated and tricky thing to do effectively, untrained moderators are likely to make decisions they (or other users) regret. 15.1.3. Dedicated Moderation Teams# After a company starts working on moderation, they might decide to invest in teams specifically dedicated to content moderation. These teams of content moderators could be considered human computers hired to evaluate examples against the content moderation policy of the platform they are working for. 15.1.4. Individuals moderating their own spaces# You can also have people moderate their own spaces. For example: when you text on the phone, you are in charge of blocking numbers if you want to (though the phone company might warn you of potential spam or scams) When you make posts on Facebook or upload videos to YouTube, you can delete comments and replies Also in some of these systems, you can allow friends access to your spaces to let them help you moderate them. 15.1.5. Volunteer Moderation# Letting individuals moderate their own spaces is expecting individuals to put in their own time and labor. You can do the same thing with larger groups and have volunteers moderate them. Reddit does something similar where subreddits are moderated by volunteers, and Wikipedia moderators (and editors) are also volunteers. 15.1.6. Automated Moderators (bots)# Another strategy for content moderation is using bots, that is computer programs that look through posts or other content and try to automatically detect problems. These bots might remove content, or they might flag things for human moderators to review.

Spamming. December 2023. Page Version ID: 1187995774. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spamming&oldid=1187995774 (visited on 2023-12-08).

What Content Gets Moderated# Social media platforms moderate (that is ban, delete, or hide) different kinds of content. There are a number of categories that they might ban things: 14.1.1. Quality Control# In order to make social media sites usable and interesting to users, they may ban different types of content such as advertisements, disinformation, or off-topic posts. Almost all social media sites (even the ones that claim “free speech”) block spam [n1], mass-produced unsolicited messages, generally advertisements, scams, or trolling. Without quality control moderation, the social media site will likely fill up with content that the target users of the site don’t want, and those users will leave. What content is considered “quality” content will vary by site, with 4chan considering a lot of offensive and trolling content to be “quality” but still banning spam (because it would make the site repetitive in a boring way), while most sites would ban some offensive content. 14.1.2. Legal Concerns# Social media sites also might run into legal concerns with allowing some content to be left up on their sites, such as copyrighted material (like movie clips) or child sexual abuse material (CSAM). So most social media sites will often have rules about content moderation, and at least put on the appearance of trying to stop illegal content (though a few will try to move to countries that won’t get them in trouble, like 8kun is getting hosted in Russia). With copyrighted content, the platform YouTube is very aggressive in allowing movie studios to get videos taken down, so many content creators on YouTube have had their videos taken down erroneously [n2]. 14.1.3. Safety# Another concern is for the safety of the users on the social media platform (or at least the users that the platform cares about). Users who don’t feel safe will leave the platform, so social media companies are incentivized to help their users feel safe. So this often means moderation to stop trolling and harassment. 14.1.4. Potentially Offensive# 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].

Anya Kamenetz. Facebook's own data is not as conclusive as you think about teens and mental health. NPR, October 2021. URL: https://www.npr.org/2021/10/06/1043138622/facebook-instagram-teens-mental-health (visited on 2023-12-08). [m2] Anya Kamenetz. Selfies, Filters, and Snapchat Dysmorphia:

Some people view internet-based social media (and other online activities) as inherently toxic and therefore encourage a digital detox [m6], where people take some form of a break from social media platforms and digital devices. While taking a break from parts or all of social media can be good for someone’s mental health (e.g., doomscrolling is making them feel more anxious, or they are currently getting harassed online), viewing internet-based social media as inherently toxic and trying to return to an idyllic time from before the Internet is not a realistic or honest view of the matter. In her essay “The Great Offline,” [m7] 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). In the 19th century, as wilderness tourism was taking off as an industry, natural landscapes were figured as an antidote to the social pressures of urban living, offering truth in place of artifice, interiority in place of exteriority, solitude in place of small talk. Similarly, advocates for digital detox build an idealized “offline” separate from the complications of modern life: Sherry Turkle, author of Alone Together, characterizes the offline world as a physical place, a kind of Edenic paradise. “Not too long ago,” she writes, “people walked with their heads up, looking at the water, the sky, the sand” — now, “they often walk with their heads down, typing.” […] Gone are the happy days when families would gather around a weekly televised program like our ancestors around the campfire! But Lauren Collee argues that by placing the blame on the use of technology itself and making not using technology (a digital detox) the solution, we lose our ability to deal with the nuances of how we use technology and how it is designed: I’m no stranger to apps that help me curb my screen time, and I’ll admit I’ve often felt better for using them. But on a more communal level, I suspect that cultures of digital detox — in suggesting that the online world is inherently corrupting and cannot be improved — discourage us from seeking alternative models for what the internet could look like. I don’t want to be trapped in cycles of connection and disconnection, deleting my social media profiles for weeks at a time, feeling calmer but isolated, re-downloading them, feeling worse but connected again. For as long as we keep dumping our hopes into the conceptual pit of “the offline world,” those hopes will cease to exist as forces that might generate change in the worlds we actually live in together. So in this chapter, we will not consider internet-based social media as inherently toxic or beneficial for mental health. We will be looking for more nuance and where things go well, where they do not, and why.

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Biological evolution is how living things change, generation after generation, and how all the different forms of life, from humans to bacteria, came to be. Evolution occurs when three conditions are present: Replication (with Inheritance) An organism can make a new copy of itself, which inherits its characteristics Variations / Mutations The characteristics of an organism are sometimes changed, in a way that can be inherited by future copies Natural Selection Some characteristics make it more or less likely for an organism to compete for resources, survive, and make copies of itself When those three conditions are present, then over time successive generations of organisms will: be more adapted to their environment divide into different groups and diversify stumble upon strategies for competing with or cooperating with other organisms.

Zack Whittaker. Facebook won't let you opt out of its phone number 'look up' setting. TechCrunch, March 2019. URL: https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/03/facebook-phone-number-look-up/ (visited on 2023-12-07).

When social media platforms show users a series of posts, updates, friend suggestions, ads, or anything really, they have to use some method of determining which things to show users. The method of determining what is shown to users is called a recommendation algorithm, which is an algorithm (a series of steps or rules, such as in a computer program) that recommends posts for users to see, people for users to follow, ads for users to view, or reminders for users. Some recommendation algorithms can be simple such as reverse chronological order, meaning it shows users the latest posts (like how blogs work, or Twitter’s “See latest tweets” option). They can also be very complicated taking into account many factors, such as: Time since posting (e.g., show newer posts, or remind me of posts that were made 5 years ago today) Whether the post was made or liked by my friends or people I’m following How much this post has been liked, interacted with, or hovered over Which other posts I’ve been liking, interacting with, or hovering over What people connected to me or similar to me have been liking, interacting with, or hovering over 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! Now, how these algorithms precisely work is hard to know, because social media sites keep these algorithms secret, probably for multiple reasons: They don’t want another social media site copying their hard work in coming up with an algorithm They don’t want users to see the algorithm and then be able to complain about specific details They don’t want malicious users to see the algorithm and figure out how to best make their content go viral

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Many of the disabilities we mentioned above were permanent disabilities, that is, disabilities that won’t go away. But disabilities can also be temporary disabilities, like a broken leg in a cast, which may eventually get better. Disabilities can also vary over time (e.g., “Today is a bad day for my back pain”). Disabilities can even be situational disabilities, like the loss of fine motor skills when wearing thick gloves in the cold, or trying to watch a video on your phone in class with the sound off, or trying to type on a computer while holding a baby.

Right to privacy. November 2023. Page Version ID: 1186826760. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Right_to_privacy&oldid=1186826760 (visited on 2023-12-05).

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” [i1] (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.

Web tracking. October 2023. Page Version ID: 1181294364. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Web_tracking&oldid=1181294364 (visited on 2023-12-05).

Social media platforms collect various types of data on their users. Some data is directly provided to the platform by the users. Platforms may ask users for information like: email address name profile picture interests friends Platforms also collect information on how users interact with the site. They might collect information like (they don’t necessarily collect all this, but they might): when users are logged on and logged off who users interact with What users click on what posts users pause over where users are located what users send in direct messages to each other Online advertisers can see what pages their ads are being requested on, and track users [h1] across those sites. So, if an advertiser sees their ad is being displayed on an Amazon page for shoes, then the advertiser can start showing shoe ads to that same user when they go to another website. Additionally, social media might collect information about non-users, such as when a user posts a picture of themselves with a friend who doesn’t have an account, or a user shares their phone contact list with a social media site, some of whom don’t have accounts (Facebook does this [h2]). Social media platforms then use “data mining” to search through all this data to try to learn more about their users, find patterns of behavior, and in the end, make more money.

lonelygirl15. November 2023. Page Version ID: 1186146298. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lonelygirl15&oldid=1186146298 (visited on 2023-11-

These needs may not always be as obvious in highly individualized societies, like Post-Enlightenment Europe and the United States. The possibility for self-reliance has been created in part by making certain things dependable and institutionalized. You can go get yourself food without feeling like you have to trust anyone because you can just go to the store (which has to adhere to corporate legal requirements) and buy food (the supply of which is made stable by complex networks of growing, manufacturing, and transportation, covered by the assurances of FDA-compliant labeling) from people who work there (and are subject to labor laws and HR regulations, which, if they are not followed, means the staff person does not get paid, so their wellbeing depends on them doing their job). The need to trust other people is obscured by the many institutions that we have created. Institutions have ways, sometimes, of getting around human whims and surprises. But at the end of the day, it is still hugely important to us that we feel clear about who can be trusted, and for what.

Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. November 2023. Page Version ID: 1186577416. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Assassination_of_Martin_Luther_King_Jr.&oldid=1186577416#Alleged_government_involvement (visited on 2023-12-05).

Disruption and provoking reaction# Trolling is when an Internet user posts inauthentically (often false, upsetting, or strange) with the goal of causing disruption or provoking an emotional reaction. When the goal is provoking an emotional reaction, it is often for a negative emotion, such as anger or emotional pain. When the goal is disruption, it might be attempting to derail a conversation (e.g., concern trolling [g4]), or make a space no longer useful for its original purpose (e.g., joke product reviews), or try to get people to take absurd fake stories seriously [g5].

Mark R. Cheathem. Conspiracy Theories Abounded in 19th-Century American Politics. URL: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/conspiracy-theories-abounded-19th-century-american-politics-180971940/ (visited on 2023-11-24).

Mark R. Cheathem. Conspiracy Theories Abounded in 19th-Century American Politics. URL: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/conspiracy-theories-abounded-19th-century-american-politics-180971940/ (visited on 2023-11-24).

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 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 [e2]. 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.

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 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 [e2]. 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.

witter. November 2023. Page Version ID: 1187856185. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter (visited on 2023-12-01).

Steven Tweedie. This disturbing image of a Chinese worker with close to 100 iPhones reveals how App Store rankings can be manipulated. February 2015. URL:

Bots, on the other hand, will do actions through social media accounts and can appear to be like any other user. The bot might be the only thing posting to the account, or human users might sometimes use a bot to post for them. Note that sometimes people use “bots” to mean inauthentically run accounts, such as those run by actual humans, but are paid to post things like advertisements or political content. We will not consider those to be bots, since they aren’t run by a computer. Though we might consider these to be run by “human computers” who are following the instructions given to them, such as in a click farm:

In my example, we use two translators: The English-French speaker and the French-Arabic speaker. Then in order for me to communicate with the Arabic speaker, we pass our message to the translators, and they communicate with each other using French as an intermediate language. So messages will be translated from English to French and then to Arabic one way, and from Arabic to French to English the other.

Being and becoming an exemplary person (e.g., benevolent; sincere; honoring and sacrificing to ancestors; respectful to parents, elders and authorities, taking care of children and the young; generous to family and others). These traits are often performed and achieved through ceremonies and rituals (including sacrificing to ancestors, music, and tea drinking), resulting in a harmonious society.