AoIR 2018

The third speaker in this AoIR 2018 session is Martina Mahnke, who is approaching algorithms from a human rather than technical perspective. Indeed, the term algorithm is often used to avoid explaining exactly how automated systems function, and what logics them embed; the study of algorithms from the user’s or programmer’s view has a considerably shorter history to date.

The next speaker at AoIR 2018 is Noemi Festic, whose focus is on algorithmic content selection processes by automated systems. This includes search applications, recommendation systems, and a broad range of other automated tools; these govern user behaviour by limiting and shaping activities but thereby also provide a space for new forms of engagement.

The first paper in the final session at AoIR 2018 today is SeongJae Min, who is interested in the role of algorithms in determining what we are exposed to on social media; the major finding from his research is that people’s choices matter at least as much as algorithmic shaping.

The final speaker in this AoIR 2018 session is Aram Sinnreich, whose interest is in the continuing consequences of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) – and in particular its anti-circumvention elements that criminalise the bypassing of copyright protection mechanisms such as encryption, even in contexts where ‘fair use’ exceptions apply.

The next speaker in this AoIR 2018 session is Andrea Alarcon, whose focus is on Mark Zuckerberg’s Internet.org project. Its aim was to provide free basic Internet service around the world, especially for people who were within the Web’s reach but remained unconnected with it; access to Facebook itself was deeply baked into this initiative, and this generated significant accusations of building a walled garden.

The next AoIR 2018 speaker is Nathalie Maréchal, who focusses on digital rights technology: any kind of hardware or software that improves users’ privacy, access to information, and freedom of expression. This threatens government and corporate control of information flows in an age of surveillance capitalism, and is therefore also controversial; it challenges the networked authoritarianism that is beginning to take hold in many countries around the world.

The next session at AoIR 2018 starts with Efrat Daskal, who begins with a brief review of the development of the digital rights discourse since the original UN Declaration of Human Rights. Human rights in the digital age have developed especially since 2000, and especially the Internet Rights and Principles Charter of 2014 has made an important contribution. This enshrined the rights to access to information and technology, privacy and safety, and freedom of speech.

The final speakers in this AoIR 2018 session are Emma von Essen and Joakim Jansson, whose focus is on online hate speech towards women and foreigners, and the role of anonymity in enabling the expression of such hate; her project’s interest is especially in the Swedish context, and it hopes to predict the expression of hateful ideas.

Next up in this AoIR 2018 session is Julia deCook, who shifts our focus to Reddit – and particular its /r/TheRedPill men’s rights activism (MRA) space. MRA has grown in recent years, and represents a particularly virulent and misogynist form of male hegemony; Reddit’s TheRedPill forum plays an important role as a hub for this online community, which focusses on hypermasculinity, pick-up artistry, and anti-feminist topics.

The next speaker in this AoIR 2018 session is Luke Heemsbergen, whose interest is in the evolution of radical leaking online, after the initial WikiLeaks moment. Originally, circa 2007, the platform suggested the possibility of a new form of radical transparency, yet for WikiLeaks itself that moment subsequently passed because of the way it has evolved further; other, more recent platforms have stepped into that breach to offer alternative models, however.