DL 278
Show Me What I Only Know
Published: February 11, 2021 β’ π§ Newsletter
Welcome to Digitally Literate, issue #278. Your go-to source for insightful content on education, technology, and the digital landscape.
π Key Takeaways
- Content Moderation Crisis: Big Tech's deplatforming decisions spark debates about the future of social media governance
- Internet Health Focus: Mozilla's 2020 report reveals how internet health directly impacts human health and democracy
- Facebook's Supreme Court: New oversight board represents corporate attempt at independent content governance with $130M trust fund
- Epistemic Coup Warning: Surveillance capitalism threatens democracy through four-stage process from data appropriation to computational governance
Howdy there. This was a very busy, crazy week.
I helped submit two proposals for CS For All grants from NSF. The Digitally Literate team had some big news just after sending out last week's issue.
This week I also posted the following:
- Shape Of My Story - Learning Event #4 - Stories can be happy or a cautionary tale. They may offer us an opportunity for transformation. What is your story?
- Instructional Technology in Context: Building on Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives of a Professional Learning Community - A bit of research focusing on the development and validation of an instrument that examines digital literacy practices at our institution. We developed and validated an instrument, and then administered it to students....and faculty. We wanted to see what faculty thought about instructional technologies...and then what tech did students see/value in classes.
- First Principles Thinking - First principles thinking is the act of boiling a process down to the fundamental parts that you know are true and building up from there.
- Threshold Concepts - Fundamental building blocks of thoughts and beliefs critical for continued learning and participation in an area or within a community of practice.
If you haven't already, please subscribe if you would like this newsletter to show up in your inbox. Feel free to reach out and say hey at hello@digitallyliterate.net.
πΊ Watch
Twitter, Facebook and the Rules of What Can Be Said on Social Media (7:47)
Big Techβs deplatforming of former President Donald Trump has sparked a debate about the future of content moderation on social media. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) speaks with a disinformation and moderation expert about what comes next.
π Read
Mozilla's 2020 Internet Health Report
2020 taught us the hard way that internet health impacts human health. This year the Internet Health Report doubles down on solutions. They focus on the code, laws, and norms we need to make sure that the internet helps, rather than harms, humanity.
- We dug deep to examine some of the biggest stories playing out online: The racial inequities of data and algorithms. How gig work is trampling labor rights. And what meaningful transparency means for social media platforms.
- Over 100 experts and activists from around the world weigh in on what can be done to build a healthier internet.
- Our data visualization slideshow unpacks how life at the intersection of technology played out in an unforgettable year.
Inside the Making of Facebook's Supreme Court
Facebook has created an independent oversight board and gave it a trust fund large enough ($130 million) that it can probably be financially independent in perpetuity.
The initial board is a globally diverse group of well-credentialed people from across the spectrum. They control the organization, and Facebook has agreed to abide by their decisions.
It's not a court, it's a committee that is part of a corporation.
There are a lot of questions about Facebook and their intent. We will not know the full impact of these decisions until years from now. Listen to the latest episode of RadioLab for the full story.
YouTube Regrets Reporter extension
For years, journalists, researchers, and even former YouTube employees have been telling YouTube that they need to stop their recommendation engine from sending users down racist, conspiratorial, and other regrettable rabbit holes.
This browser extension allows you to quickly submit data to researchers trying to make sense of this rabbit hole. This is an excellent example of digitallly native research practices.
While on the subject, check out this research from Rebecca Lewis, Alice E. Marwick, and William Clyde Partin.
The Coup We Are Not Talking About
Shoshana Zuboff argues that we can have democracy, or we can have a surveillance society, but we cannot have both.
The epistemic coup proceeds in four stages. Each stage builds on the last:
- First: appropriation of epistemic rights, which lays the foundation for all that follows. Surveillance capitalism originates in the discovery that companies can stake a claim to peopleβs lives as free raw material for the extraction of behavioral data, which they then declare their private property.
- Second: sharp rise in epistemic inequality, defined as the difference between what I can know and what can be known about me.
- Third: introduces epistemic chaos (which we are living through now) caused by the profit-driven algorithmic amplification, dissemination and microtargeting of corrupt information, much of it produced by coordinated schemes of disinformation.
- Fourth: epistemic dominance is institutionalized, overriding democratic governance with computational governance by private surveillance capital. The machines know, and the systems decide, directed and sustained by the illegitimate authority and anti-democratic power of private surveillance capital.
Why do some species evolve to miniaturize?
Bigger isn't always better.
The island rule hypothesizes that species shrink or supersize to fill insular niches not available to them on the mainland.
Conversely, large species may find island living restrictive as there's less room or food when compared to their mainland nurseries. Because of this, evolution may select for smaller body sizes as such bodies require less energy, and therefore fewer resources, to survive and reproduce.
π¨ Do
Curate your online identities and accounts
This great resource from the Data Detox Kit will shine a light on your digital build-up, and give you concrete steps to dispose of unwanted accounts and search results today, making space for a new you tomorrow.
Show me slowly what I only
know the limits of
Dance me to the end of love
Leonard Cohen
π Navigation
Previous: DL 277 β’ Next: DL 279 β’ Archive: π§ Newsletter
Connected concepts:
- Digital Resilience Frameworks
- GameStop and Reddit Communities
- Reading Science and Literacy Debates
- Formative Assessment Strategies
Part of the π§ Newsletter archive documenting digital literacy and technology.
Soul. A sequel of sorts to Inside Out. The underworld score by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross is fantastic.
If that doesn't work for you, this interactive soundboard contains controls for "bartender working" and "people talking" to simulate the aural experience of being at your favorite bar.