“Google Bombs as a weapon in the hands of the counterpublics: The case of /r/fullcommunism”
Abstract: During the mapping of the subreddit ‘full_communism’, a specific practice has been revealed, in which the community frequently engages with: Google bombs. Used by digital activists and counterpublics to demonstrate opposition, Google bombs can signify a new way...
Blockchain- next step to ensure internet voting’s credibility?
Tsukuba -a Japanese city- is testing a blockchain based voting system to encourage citizens to vote on different municipal projects (O’Brian). It is a welcome move, a move that at first sight allows for a smoother and more secure...
Monopolies of Knowledge Facilitated by Black-Box Algorithms
Whether you search for something on Google or Twitter, or scroll down an Instagram or Facebook feed, a vast amount, if not a majority, of online content is present to users via algorithms. These algorithms, the code of which...
I’m a good person…seriously…just check my Kinditude!
My phone noisily vibrates on the empty train seat beside me, snapping me out of my daydream. A notification on my locked screen says “Remind to be kind!”. The grammar needs work, but the message is clear: I need...
Technology in the Workplace, Slack and Privacy Issues
(Figure 1, Screenshot of Slack website page. Source: Slack, 2018) 1)- Technology in the Workplace: “As innovations in technology continue to proliferate, employees working in the modern workplace have access to an ever-increasing number...
China’s Social Credit System could bring George Orwell’s 1984 character ‘Big Brother’ to life by allowing Big Data Surveillance to control Chinese public life
Any person who has seen the critically acclaimed Netflix show ‘Black Mirror’ will think the following is straight out of a dystopian futurology thriller. Unfortunately, the idea of every member in society being attributed a ‘social credit score’ based...
Cookie Monster: building awareness around free labour and data-exploitation
Introduction Users that roam the European Internet on a daily basis will have come across them countless of times. Each time a new website is visited it pops up in the middle of the screen or it rests in...
New Media Art(ifically) Intelligent and Algorithmic? An Exploration into the Potential of the ‘New’ in AI and Algorithms as Producing Artworks
Jeanelle Grech (jeanelle.grech@student.uva.nl) Goran Kusić (gogi.kusic@gmail.com) Marthe van de Graaff (marthe.van.de.graaff@student.uva.nl) New Media Research Practices Teacher: Inte Gloerich Introduction The notion that machines can mimic features of human cognition has intrigued the new media art world in recent years....
“Connecting the next generation.”?: Engaging young adults in political debates
Social media is a great way to reach a certain audience. To magnify the political spectrum, every political party has their social media page to share their opinions on different issues, update and connect to their audience and to...
Shaping Data Cities: The consequences of governmental institutions outsourcing urban planning processes to privatized data companies
Cityswipe – a public participation platform in urban planning More than half of the world’s population lives in cities, thus the debates that revolve around this topic are of primary importance for a sustainable future. The concept for smart...
Real Money on Virtual Items: A Visual Analysis of Fortnite Skins.
Long gone are the days when video game players were a marginal bunch of nerds. Thanks to the proliferation of high speed internet connections to many households, online multiplayer gaming has taken off massively, which has led to a...
Presearch: challenging the current framework of proprietary search engines and production of knowledge.
As the current proprietorship search engine providers are not open and fully transparent and their technologies are influenced by economic, political and social factors, the framework for information literacy becomes more and more complex. Distributed search engines aim to...