Social Media's Role in the US Election

All Tech is Human Series #5: with Dipayan Ghosh & Vera Zakem

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Details from the original livestream event put on by All Tech is Human

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Action Items & Takeaways

What should we do?

1. Hold companies accountable to transparency and privacy

2. The conversation needs to include civil society on these issues

3. Incorporate international perspectives to capture geopolitical insights

4. CS students wanting to learn how to be more responsible technologists:

   1. Critical thinking, harm mitigation, bias mitigation, speculative creation

   2. Take classes like data ethics, AI ethics, etc..

   3. Expose yourself to discussions on responsible tech

How do we regulate?

1. Self-regulation is not going to work anymore (Dipayan)

   1. Still allows them to exploit from ad industry without accountability from the government

2. We need to start thinking of the public interest, not the industry’s interest

3. How to bridge the gap between officials in power and impassioned civil society

   1. Inform, educate, and provide evidence

   2. Bring data and evidence and case studies to show to elected officials, congress, global representatives, etc.. for motivation and justification

Important Thoughts & Takeaways from the Livestream:

• Social Media’s Role

  • Inform the public

  • To mobilize the population (e.g., get people to get out there and vote)

  • To promote and help with media literacy (to build a thriving democracy)

• People who don’t use social media - how are they impacted?

  • Information spreads from those they know who are on social media sharing things (Friends and family)

  • Power of mainstream media -- it’s more polarized and politicized now

    • Even though these kinds of people aren’t going to social media for news and information, their news is still likely biased and polarized in some way

• How to promote and help with privacy goals for social media conversations

  • Should we pay for facebook?

    • CON: privacy as a luxury rather than a right

    • PRO: we are no longer the product

• How social media is a gatekeeper:

  • Social Media -- monopolized by one of three companies

    • Each of 3 companies has more than 50% market share, in some cases more than 90% of market share

      • Suggests that these companies are becoming monopolies (natural monopolies)

  • They are also gatekeepers in the sense that you have to accept their terms or go home, because there are no alternatives that are widely used

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Annotated Resources

Resources From Dipayan Gosh (guest speaker from this episode):

1. Twitter: @ghoshd7

2. Terms of Disservice (Dipayan’s book)

Resources From Vera Zakem (guest speaker from this episode):

1. Twitter: @Verleza

2. Zakem Global Strategies

Legal protections and policies related to social media sites:

1. Section 230 (mentioned by Dipayan)

2. Everything you need to know about Section 230

3. The 1st Amendment

Ways Social Media has influenced democracy:

1. What was the Arab Spring and how did it spread? (mentioned by Vera)

2. At Hearing, Republicans Accuse Zuckerberg and Dorsey of Censorship (mentioned by Dipayan)

Podcasts & Other Relevant Media:

1. The Arab Spring: A Year Of Revolution

2. Mark Zuckerberg, Let Me Pay for Facebook (mentioned by David)

3. Twitter Trust and Safety Advisers Say They’re Being Ignored

4. UN tackles ‘infodemic’ of misinformation and cybercrime in COVID-19 crisis

5. What Does It Mean For Social Media Platforms To "Sell" Our Data?

6. All Tech is Human: Responsible Tech Guide

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Do you have any more action items or takeaways that you’d like to share that are related to this topic? Any resources you’d like to include in this list? We’d love to hear from you! Feel free to leave your thoughts in a comment below (you can post your comment by hovering over the bottom-right corner of the comment box).