“There are many search terms for which the available relevant data is limited, non-existent, or deeply problematic. We call these “data voids.” Most of these searches are rare, but in the cases where people do search for these terms, search engines tend to return results that may not give the user what they want because of limited data and/or limited lessons learned through previous
-Michael Golebiewski and Danah Boyd, “Data Voids: Where Missing Data Can Be Easily Exploited.” Data & Society. May 2018
searches…In this paper, we want to offer some basic background on search engines before discussing the different types of data voids; the challenges that search engines face when they encounter queries over spaces where data voids exist; and the ways data voids can be exploited by those with ideological, economic, or political agendas.
Tag: internet
Interintellect
“Interintellect Salons are relaxed, evening-length, moderated discussions in video calls that anyone can join.
During an ii Salon you will be given a short reading list and some pointers, and invited to take part in an open-ended, facilitated, friendly and diverse exchange about a specific topic.”
—Interintellect
Buckslip
“Buckslip is a weekly-ish email letter (with companion extra bits) in which a few friends wander through the fucked-up landscape of all that we’re living through together now, and weave a few sensemaking threads from what we find. It started with a media and culture focus, but over the years it’s grown into something not quite exactly that. There’s too much else going on.
“Not just internet culture, but Culture, given the internet,” as one astute reader put it, and we like that framing. We do this for love, and for our own understanding, but along the way we’ve found a likeminded community of people who seem to appreciate us working it out in front of them?
–Buckslip
Attack, Reframe, Normalize and Politicize
The playbook is: Attack, reframe, normalize and politicize. The goal is not rational discussion but repetition. I could write a bot to make far right political comments in Internet forums, and people do. Which leaves the question: how should we respond to people whose ideas could algorithmically programmed and whose goal is repetition? One place to start is simply pointing out what is going on. There’s no point engaging with the content of what is being said because it’s being offered in bad faith.
href.cool: Links of the 2010s
“The AV Club did a list of ‘things’ [that happened in the 2010s]. I wanted to cover stuff that wasn’t on there. A lot happened outside of celebrities, Twitter and momentary memes. (We all obviously love @electrolemon, “double rainbow”, Key & Peele’s Gremlins 2 Brainstorm, 10 hr vids, etc.)
There is a master list of lists as well.
Hope for this list – get u mad & u destroy me & u blog in 2020.”
-https://href.cool/2010s/
Moab Truth
“But if at this stage of the game, given what we know about how social media work and about the incentives of the people who make TV, you’re still getting your dopamine rush by recycling TV-news clips and shouting at people on the Internet, you’re about as close to beyond hope as a human being gets. There is no point talking to you, trying to reason with you, giving you facts and the sources of those facts. You have made yourself invulnerable to reason and evidence. You’re a Moab truther in the making. So, though I do not in theory write anyone off, in practice I do. It’s time to give you up as a lost cause and start figuring out how to prevent the next generation from becoming like you.”
—Alan Jacobs, “on lost causes.” Snakes and Ladders. November 12, 2019
The 99 Things You Should Have Already Experienced On The Internet Unless You’re a Loser or Old or Something
Also, a listicle that will make those unfamiliar with certain elements of Internet culture feel like Kurtz in a few easy clicks. To ease you in, I’m going to suggest No. 7: Homestarrunner. Strong Bad Email is available on YouTube.
Starlink is a Very Big Deal
“Starlink, continuously spraying bits from the sky, disrupts this model completely. I don’t know of a better way to bring the unconnected billions online. SpaceX is on the way to becoming an internet service provider and, potentially, an internet company to rival Google and Facebook. I bet you didn’t see that coming.”
—Casey Handmer, “Starlink is a very big deal.” CaseyHandmer.WordPress.com. November 2, 2019
Hands down, the best technical overview or Starlink I’ve read.
Overly Attached Gen. Z
Hourly? Let’s just say there is much in this report that makes me very happy I did not to have to navigate my adolescent years during the “Internet Age.”
Modern Halloween Horror
cafebedouin.org 