Category: social media

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What’s up with GameStop?

In case you haven’t heard, the video game store GameStop has been the talk of the town, especially if your town is an “online reading club” called Reddit. If you’re wondering what that quote is all about, enjoy this short video tweet.

Okay, that was fun, but seriously, what’s going on. Without getting bogged down in the complexities of wall street shenanigans, one lesson to take away from #gamestopgate is the enormous power of collective action organized by online forums (in this case Reddit) and the larger social media communities that jumped into the pool.

Here’s a more detailed explanation…

Robinhood democratized stock trading for the masses, and social media gave them a way to communicate and organize around a trending topic. This kind of power, rarely available to the average consumer, will become more and more common as the internet becomes injected into every area of life. Last year it was crowd-sourced journalism and police reform. This week it is “short squeezing” a video game stock and the hedge fund investors who were betting on its demise. Next month it may be decentralized healthcare and vaccine distribution. Every service that was formerly controlled by titans and elites can be disrupted by internet-empowered citizens with either a common goal or grievance. Hold on to your hats.

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Bernie Sure Gets Around

Have you seen Bernie Sanders recently? How could you miss him? He’s everywhere…including in my classroom.

Bernie Sanders sitting in on my Media & Society class

Of course Bernie wasn’t a student in my Media & Society class from last fall, but that’s what’s so fun about this meme. It is instantly recognizable, relatable, and can be adapted to almost any setting. And Bernie’s body language is also open to interpretation. His pose could be read as bored, sad, or grumpy. And don’t forget the mittens.

According to RollingStone magazine, the photo was taken by Brendan Smialowski, a former sports photojournalist from Connecticut who documents politics for wire service Agence France-Presse. And according to Wired magazine, the Bernie meme is an indication of a “cultural reset”… a defining moment when you can feel a change or shift is happening. And this change came with a bit of levity. According to Wired, “The internet has had some good ones [memes] over the past four or five years, but often, amidst the political bickering, it’s been hard to know when to interject with a joke. On Wednesday morning, people let ’em rip—and suddenly the thing keeping everyone warm was laughter.”

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Big Tech, Political Polarization, and the Assault on Democracy

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Zuboff and Why We’re Polarized by Klein

I’ve been catching up on some reading over the holiday break and two books that caught my attention are proving to be quite helpful to understanding the recent events in our nation’s capitol. What we’re witnessing is shocking, but not surprising, to those who have paid attention to the ever-increasing power exerted by Big Tech over every detail of our lives, including our political identities.

Big Tech is shorthand for the companies that control much of our everyday lives through their use of software and hardware designed to capture and hold our attention. And speaking of attention, if I were to add another recent title that addresses this concern it would be The Attention Merchants, by Tim Wu.

By gathering the massive amount of data generated every minute of every day by billions of users, these companies have tapped into a resource that they have turned against us to predict and control our future behavior. Siloing, creation of filter bubbles, nudging users towards certain behaviors, shadow-banning (and now more overt actions to disenfranchise users) are just some of the ways that Big Tech is meddling in the political process. If that sounds like a radical conspiracy theory to you, I urge you to read these books and then we can have a conversation.

And while all of us can agree that what transpired this past week in the halls of congress was both dangerous and disgusting, reasonable people continue to disagree about how to respond to controversial political speech on the leading tech platforms. The ban of the President of the United State by numerous platforms, regardless of your opinions about Trump himself, is cause for concern and should not be taken lightly.

Similarly while the attack on right-wing alternative platforms, e.g. Parler, by Amazon, Apple and Google, may feel like a reasonable and perfectly legal response to unhinged speech that calls for political violence, the danger is to further marginalize and force underground a movement that has enormous popular support.

I’m not suggesting that racists, white-nationalists, and anarchists should have a seat at the table, but I am suggesting that unelected leaders of a few massive tech companies cannot be trusted to make decisions about who gets to participate in our political discourse. This time they may appear to be on your side, but what about when the tables are turned? We’ve given these tech platforms enormous power over the future of our democracy…and that makes me very concerned.

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Big Numbers for Democracy, and Baby Shark

It is Friday morning, November 6th, and we still don’t know who the next President of the US will be. Several states have razor-thin margins and will likely require recounts before the lawsuits can be resolved. According to all estimates, the total number of votes cast is higher than any presidential election in about 100 years (as a percent of the population).

In other news, and I do mean OTHER, Baby Shark has now had more views on YouTube than any other video. With more than 7 BILLION views, the catchy tune has delighted preschoolers (and annoyed more than a few adults) all over the world. As reported by the New York Times, the video bumped Despacito from the top spot.

These facts may be unsurprising to anyone with young kids: The children-focused parts of YouTube are among its most lucrative. A Pew study found that videos featuring children received nearly three times as many views on average than other types of videos posted by high-subscriber channels.

The Times continued…

Repetition is one reason. Children do not get tired of watching the same video over and over. Four of the top 10 most watched YouTube videos are children’s programming. And last year, the highest earning YouTuber was 9-year-old Ryan Kaji, who reviews new toys and games on his channel. He earned $26 million in 2019

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Section 230 is Under Attack

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law passed during the Clinton administration, is under attack from both the left and the right. President Trump wants to revise Section 230 because of what he believes is unfair throttling of conservative news by liberal tech platforms. And liberal legislators want to revise Section 230 to make it more difficult to post “hate speech” on these same platforms.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg have been blamed for everything wrong about these leading social media platforms. We could debate whether they deserve the blame, but we can’t deny that they are caught between a rock and a hard place. One one hand, they love Section 230 because it removes corporate responsibility for content published on their platforms by users. On the other hand, they worry about the future of a platform that could becomes a free-for-all without any ability to control the most poisonous content. They want to be free to limit obscene pornography, dangerous speech, libel, and other content not protected by the 1st Amendment, but they don’t want to be responsible for damage that might be caused by speech that comes close, without crossing, the line. According to the Recode website…

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced that his agency would “move forward with a rulemaking to clarify” the meaning of Section 230, which gives internet platforms like Facebook and Twitter immunity from lawsuits over content their users provide. That is to say, if someone defames you in a tweet, you can sue the Twitter user but not Twitter itself. This 25-year-old law is what allows websites that rely on third-party content to exist at all. It also allows those sites to moderate that content as they see fit, which has been a source of ire for conservatives who believe they are being censored when Facebook bans them, YouTube demonetizes them, or Twitter appends fact-checks to their tweets.

The most recent fuss over Section 230 involves Hunter Biden’s laptop that was left with a computer repair shop. The shop owner turned the contents of the hard drive over to an attorney with connections to former NYC major Rudy Giuliani, who turned the information over the the New York Post, a tabloid newspaper with a less-than-sterling reputation. The last-minute release of Hillary Clinton’s emails by Wikileaks, (amplified by James Comey and the FBI), just days before the 2016 election is believed to have been a factor leading to the election of President Donald Trump, and social media platforms don’t want to facilitate a repeat of that outcome. Twitter prevented sharing of the New York Post’s stories based on the idea that the data was obtained by hacking, (not technically accurate), but a few days later apologized for not communicating more clearly and then reversed their policy. Facebook continues to restrict sharing on their platform because they claim that they are unable to verify the accuracy of the claims alleged by the NY Post.

As you can see, there is no easy solution to this dilemma…and many other current debates. Facebook just recently announced they will take a tougher stance on holocaust denialism, anti-vaccine posts, and QAnon conspiracy pages. But this is a slippery slope for platforms. Once you begin deciding what is true and appropriate and permissible, you open yourself to criticism from all sides.

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Is Twitter’s Cropping Algorithm Racially Biased?

Recent reports are suggesting that the algorithm that controls image cropping on the Twitter app does not respond to images of dark-skinned people in the same way it does for light-skinned people. According to the TNW website, people have been noticing cropping anomalies that may have to do with the color of the featured person’s skin-tones. If you read the article, you’ll see that the jury is still out on accusation of bias, but it does raise interesting questions about our reliance on AI (Artificial Intelligence) software and how the results may reflect unconscious bias of the programmers.

While the concern about bias by Twitter’s algorithm may be unfounded, it raises additional questions about AI and facial recognition software. According to The Next Web, “Light skin bias in algorithms is well documented in fields ranging from healthcare to law enforcement.”

If you want to know more about implicit bias, see this website and take a test (I recommend the Skin-tone IAT). You may find that the best place to begin the war against bias is not Twitter’s AI software, but our own “natural intelligence.”

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The Social Network: 10 Years Later

Ten years ago today David Fincher’s movie about the founding of Facebook hit the theaters. The Social Network was a box-office success raking in nearly $225 million worldwide and earning a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Movie poster from Wikipedia

According to Wikipedia, ” At the 83rd Academy Awards, it received eight nominations, including for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Eisenberg, and won three: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Film Editing. It also received awards for Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Original Score at the 68th Golden Globe Awards. In 2016, it was voted 27th among 100 films considered the best of the 21st century by 117 international film critics.”

If you’ve never watched the movie, here’s the storyline from its IMDb webpage…

On a fall night in 2003, Harvard undergrad and computer programming genius Mark Zuckerberg sits down at his computer and heatedly begins working on a new idea. In a fury of blogging and programming, what begins in his dorm room soon becomes a global social network and a revolution in communication. A mere six years and 500 million friends later, Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire in history… but for this entrepreneur, success leads to both personal and legal complications.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1285016/

The main characters involved in the early days of Facebook have gone on to make their fortunes in the tech business. Some have denounced Zuckerberg and what Facebook have become. You can read more about their exploits here.

The Social Network is a movie, adapted from a 2009 book, about social media, that you can watch on your TV (via Netflix)…oh, and it won the Academy Award for Best Original Score. What could be more illustrative of media convergence than that?

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That’s Unbelievable

Have you found yourself wondering just what to believe? Biased and agenda-driven journalism, disinformation campaigns on social media and widespread conspiracy theories make it nearly impossible for the average media consumer to know what to believe. Our brain and heart are in a constant battle, or so it seems, to sort out facts and feelings. Our natural inclination to think fast instead of slow is part of the problem. But so is our inclination to confirmation bias and its various manifestations. These cognitive deficiencies rob us of our ability to be rational and make us more likely to fall for faulty logic.

Like many memes featuring a celebrity, it’s safe to assume that the celebrity is NOT in any way associated with the message contained therein.

This is a time of great uncertainty and conspiracy theories are thriving: 9/11 was an inside job, vaccines cause autism, the Clintons have had political opponents murdered, Antifa members are setting wildfires in the Pacific Northwest, and Covid-19 is a bio-weapon developed in a lab. These are just a few of the recent conspiracy theories that are widely dismissed as untrue. 1

Media literacy is one of the goals that I hope to achieve with the Media & Society class. And by “achieve” I don’t necessarily expect fluency after a 14-week course but rather an appreciation for the idea of media literacy and a foundational understanding of what it means to be an informed consumer and producer of media content. So much of what we know (or think we know) is based on the media we consume. And like food consumption, media consumption can be improved with a few simple practices.

  • Eat slowly (chew before swallowing)
  • Avoid junk food (e.g., sources lacking credibility)
  • Add fiber/roughage (difficult-to-digest material that actually cleanses the digestive system)
  • Practice occasional fasting (a constant connection to the information stream can be toxic)
  • Don’t share found food unless you know what you’re doing ( those mushroom may be tasty, magic, or deadly).2

With conspiracy theories so prevalent we need to be extra vigilant avoid becoming a believer, or worse, an evangelist for conspiracy theories and disinformation.

1 Worth noting that the phrase “conspiracy theory” is also a rhetorical device used to discredit an idea or belief that someone else holds. If I think your belief is unfounded, calling it a conspiracy theory is my way of dismissing your view as irrational. Take, for example, the idea that Trump’s behavior and interactions with Ukraine amounted to an abuse of power. While some (mostly Democrats) believe that the President’s actions justified impeachment, his supporters dismissed their accusations as a conspiracy theory.

2 If you’re not a mycologist, eating that fungi may change your status from “fun guy” to “dead guy.”

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Cancel Culture Just Got Real

A Letter on Justice and Open Debate

Remember the saying “live and let live”? Another variation was, “to each his own.” Those were quaint ideas. I suppose the latest iteration is “you do you” or something to that effect. However you choose to express it, the idea is to give individuals personal space to hold their own opinions, ideas, preferences, and even actions (to a point) without judgement or condescension. Those days are long gone.

You may have heard the phrase “cancel culture” bandied about in conversation. Depending on who’s wielding it, the phrase itself can be a put-down intended to stifle an opposing view. But at its core the idea of cancel culture is the illiberal or fundamentalist notion that opinions and ideas outside of the accepted norm must be squelched. Fundamentalism is another useful idea to explain what’s going on. Fundamentalism is often used to describe religious extremism, and in fact the Taliban and other extreme religious groups demonstrate the kind of intolerance that we’re talking about. One might even think of this current movement as a type of religious adherence to modern tenets of “faith” that privilege feelings and identity over contrary facts. Cancel culture results in speakers being disinvited or shouted down. It results in reporters and editors being dismissed from their jobs for writing or publishing something that is interpreted as hurtful. It results in academics and researchers being reprimanded for researching or teaching ideas that have fallen out of favor among the “woke” class.

A very recent example of this “illiberal” mindset can be seen in the reaction to A Letter on Justice and Open Debate, to be published in the October edition of Harper’s magazine. A firestorm of controversy erupted when it became apparent that the letter, and its signatories, transgressed the bounds of accepted thought…which, of course, was inevitable since the letter was intended to push back on narrow-minded views of what is acceptable discourse. Jesse Singal, one of the signers of the letter, wrote an interesting piece in Reason that makes this point. Twitter has been abuzz with opinions on the letter and the fallout from both conservative and progressive points of view.

This debate is really about the conflict between traditional liberals and those to their left who have prioritized social justice reforms. Freddie de Boer addresses the tension between those who traditionally support free speech and those who see free speech as an unfortunate feature/bug that allows their adversaries a platform. But ultimately, like most cultural debates, it comes down to power. Who has it, who wants it, and how traditional and new media can be harnessed to shape the narratives that tip the balance.

Sources:
* https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/
* https://reason.com/2020/07/08/the-reaction-to-the-harpers-letter-on-cancel-culture-proves-why-it-was-necessary/
* https://fredrikdeboer.com/2020/07/07/ending-the-charade/

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