What are the Alternatives?
Thu, Mar 26
If you really wanted to do something about social media besides complaining about it, what could you do? Today we'll explore some projects, both old and new, that give us a path forward. This involves everything from open source software to amateur radio, with some virtuous computer hackers thrown in to help us out.
We have three main in-class learning goals. By the end of lecture today you will:
- Look at communities of amateurs, non-profits, and startups developing technological alternatives to global social media platforms.
- Examine platform ideas that are not global in nature, instead supporting smaller communities.
- Appreciate unconventional software and hardware that can be used to build new networks both within the Internet and external to it.
The slides for today's lecture.
Read This:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation highlights two open source projects, Spritely and Veilid, that anyone can use to write fully peer-to-peer applications
Barath Raghavan and Bruce Schneier describe a A Bold New Plan for Preserving Online Privacy and Security in IEEE Spectrum
Do This:
Writing Reflection 07
See the instructions posted on the assignment's page.
This writing reflection is due on 3/31 at 5pm.
This Week's Dialogue Group Meeting
Find at least one hour to meet with your group to discuss the prompt of the week: Identify key features of four different social media platforms (your choice) and consider if these features uphold or violate your chosen virtues. This is the first part of the technical inquiry piece of your design pattern creation process.
Schedule your group meeting for next week. The new prompt is: Do the features of social media that you have identified uphold or violate your chosen virtues? This is the second part of the technical inquiry piece of your design pattern creation process.
Watch This:
(Click into YouTube for the last video; preview is disabled, but the video can be watched on YouTube)