Tag Archives: talk

What World Are We Building?

This morning, I had the honor and pleasure of giving the Everett C. Parker Lecture in celebration of the amazing work he did to fight for media justice. The talk that I gave weaved together some of my work with youth (on racial framing of technology) and my more recent thoughts on the challenges presented by data analytics. I also pulled on work of Latanya Sweeney and Eric Horvitz and argued that those of us who were shaping social media systems “didn’t architect for prejudice, but we didn’t design systems to combat it either.” More than anything, I used this lecture to argue that “we need those who are thinking about social justice to understand technology and those who understand technology to commit to social justice.”

My full remarks are available here: “What World Are We Building?” Please let me know what you think!

“Teen Sexting and Its Impact on the Tech Industry” (my RWW talk)

In a cultural context where Congressman Anthony Weiner foolishly published salacious content on Twitter, it’s hard to ignore sexting as a cultural phenomenon. Countless adults send sexually explicit content to one another, either as acts of flirtation or more explicit sex acts. And yet, when teenagers do so, new issues emerge. Teen sexting gets complicated, especially when images or videos are involved, because it butts up against child pornography laws. Unfortunately, teens have been arrested on child pornography charges for taking or sharing images of themselves or their peers.

Teen sexting isn’t just an issue for parents, teens, and the law; it’s also a challenge for the tech industry. Because technology companies are required by law to work diligently to combat child pornography, sexting creates new challenges for them. In this talk for the Read Write Web 2WAY conference, I outline some of the challenges that the tech industry faces with respect to teen sexting. I also invite those in the tech industry to engage about this issue, either out of goodwill, monetary interest, or fear of legal liability.

“Teen Sexting and Its Impact on the Tech Industry”

“Networked Privacy” (my PDF talk)

Our contemporary ideas about privacy are often shaped by legal discourse that emphasizes the notion of “individual harm.” Furthermore, when we think about privacy in online contexts, the American neoliberal frame and the techno-libertarian frame once again force us to really think about the individual. In my talk at Personal Democracy Forum this year, I decided to address some of the issues of “networked privacy” precisely because I think that we need to start thinking about how privacy fits into a social context. Even with respect to the individual frame, what others say/do about us affects our privacy. And yet, more importantly, all of the issues of privacy end up having a broader set of social implications.

Anyhow, I’m very much at the beginning of thinking through these ideas, but in the meantime, I took a first pass at PDF. A crib of the talk that I gave at the conference is available here: “Networked Privacy”

Photo Credit: Collin Key

“Do you See What I See?: Visibility of Practices through Social Media”

Knowing that I was going to speak at two different events within a week of one another to distinctly different audiences needing to hear a similar message, I decided to craft one talk for both Supernova and Le Web. This talk is one of my more serious talks, looking at problematic practices in social media and inviting the audience to do something about it. Fundamentally, it’s a talk about visibility… about our ability to see what’s happening in the world thanks to the Internet. And about our needs to ask ourselves what kind of world we want to live in.

As always, I’ve made my crib available:

“Do you See What I See?: Visibility of Practices through Social Media”

If you’d prefer to listen to what I actually said (since I’m terrible at sticking to the crib), you might want to check out the video from Le Web or the video from Supernova (with the beautifully complementary talk by Adam Greenfield). Enjoy!

Web2.0 Expo Talk: Streams of Content, Limited Attention

I prepared a new talk today for Web2.0 Expo that I wanted to share with you:

“Streams of Content, Limited Attention: The Flow of Information through Social Media”

The talk is about the shifts in information flow thanks to new kinds of technology, focusing on some of the challenges that we face because of the shifts going on.

Unfortunately, my presentation at Web2.0 Expo sucked. The physical setup was hard and there was a live stream behind me. I knew something was wrong because folks started laughing in the audience. Unable to see anything (the audience, the stream), I found myself closing down. And so I collapsed and read the whole thing, feeling mega low on energy and barely delivering my points. Le sigh. I feel like I failed the audience so, if you were in the audience, I’m sorry. But hopefully you’ll get more out of reading the presentation than I got out of giving it.

danah boyd | apophenia

making connections where none previously existed