DOCSLIB.ORG

A Conversation with Andrew Culp

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
A Conversation with Andrew Culp Andrew Culp (with Anirban Baishya) Data, Media, Ethics: A Conversation with Andrew Culp “Networks are not just for the counter-culture anymore, they are how the military plans war, companies do business, and governments cast their influence.” Andrew Culp teaches Media History and Theory in the MA Program in Aesthetics and Politics and the School of Critical Studies at CalArts. He is the author of Dark Deleuze (University of Minnesota Press, 2016) which has been translated into Spanish, Japanese and German. His research theorizes the ambivalent effects of network culture from the anti-globalization movements to the monetization of social relations of the Web 2.0 sharing economy. In this piece, Culp shares his thoughts on datafication, tech culture, and the emerging horizons of technocratic governmentality. Anirban Baishya (AB): The term “big-data” gets a moral philosophy to a science of government as thrown around almost as if it were a magical thing. the Physiocrats argue for the connection between But, as Craig Dalton and Jim Thatcher put it: “‘Big value and price. The consequence is more than a data’ has big precursors, earlier knowledges that set data-driven approach to commerce, it constitutes the stage and helped define the nature and needs a science in which the market speaks a truth that that present-day ‘big data’ realizes.” So, what exactly verifies governmental practice. Perhaps even more is different about big data (or what’s the BIG in big importantly, this is also the time of Adolphe data)? Quetelet, father of “social physics” and the birth of l’homme moyen (“the average man”). The point I Andrew Culp (AC): Big Data is an intensification of am making is that when looking at the history of our “information society,” as it has been called since data, of course one will find devices for producing the 1960s. But as you say, it has many precursors. knowledge, but upon close inspection, there will One way to locate its antecedents is to follow also be a whole theory of truth. Foucault’s inquiry into “what has counted as truth?”. Flash forward to today, and I would like to And more specifically, the practices of knowledge ask the same type of questions. Drilling down production that he called verediction. But whereas into the information society would lead one to the in Foucault’s time, marketing firms previously contemporary “truth-telling” power of Big Data: the employed psychoanalysts to divine the unconscious formalization of the positivist social sciences (at the desires of the masses, today, information analysts expense of other forms of expertise), the triumph now coax out patterns that can only be seen from of behavioralism with its accompanying theory of inside a dataset. Putting it in another way: isn’t the the subject, and computation along with its mode of promise of Big Data just a new speaking subject problem-solving. The post-war Keynesian fantasy after the Death of the Human? was automation, with the machines doing all the In his lectures on neoliberalism, Foucault finds work. Our post-crash Neoliberal fantasy can no a curious moment in the middle of the eighteenth longer imagine a world without work—or to repeat century when economics transforms from being that slogan from the ‘70s that has become even Small Media and Everday Life: Digital Media Beyond Big Data 31 Anirban Baishya, editor, Spectator 39:2 (Fall 2019): 31-38. DATA, MEDIA, ETHICS more popular today: it is easier to imagine the end everyday thinking. Not only will it act as a virtual of the world than the end of capitalism. Perhaps we subject, with “the algorithm” suggesting to them are already in that very apocalypse, a world of Big people to date, books to read, or jobs to work, Data where the machines do all the thinking. There, but a means to discuss the truth about healthcare, human interpretation is no longer necessary because manufacturing, policing, transportation, education, copious amounts of data are readily available and and science. self-transparently true—a veritable libertarian technocratic fantasy. AB: What media objects would we not have But before I oversell the idea, it is equally without Big Data? Over the past years, Variety important to note that there are already quite a few has held Big-Data Summits and platforms such as chinks in its armor. The social sciences are currently YouTube, Google, Facebook and Netflix routinely going through a reproducibility crisis, aided in part collect user data to predict user preferences through by Big Data. The trick of machine learning is found algorithms, or to target ads. Is “big-data” a vehicle in its ability to locate interesting patterns. But as for other media, or are we at a point, historically, recent scandals have revealed, those patterns often when we can think of data itself as a media-form? express a quality of the dataset and not the reality on which they are meant to be modeling. The problem AC: A lot of true Big Data is never seen as so much that arises here is not one of true believers but of of it is proprietary information internal to the dependency. To specify, it is not just the information corporate world, sensitive information protected processing problem of “garbage-in, garbage-out,” it by government privilege, or research data never is the result of privileging forms of knowledge that used by more than a fewer researchers. When can be only be produced through certain technical translated from the database into something more means—here, I’m thinking of systems where the appropriate for humans, it is most often represented “truth” of a process begins to overwhelm any single through graphs, charts, or maps—still one of the actor’s ability to override it, as with Terry Gilliam’s areas driving Big Data is climate change research. Brazil. This is perhaps the greatest social risk of Though many of their datasets are not big enough Big Data: even in instances where it is completely to technically be Big Data, there is a media whose unreliable, it continues to be used because of history is intimately tied up with it: Geographic dependence on the kind of truth it speaks. Information Systems and geo-spatial research more broadly. Exemplary projects include Million Dollar AB: So, what changes when the rhetoric of big-data Blocks. slips into our everyday, habitual use of networked But in terms of the entertainment industry, technologies and what consequences does big data which seems more central to your question, Web have for our larger understanding of media culture 2.0 has given us even weirder Big Data-adjacent in the present? media, such as Instagram star Lil Miquela, the chatlogs of racist Microsoft chatbot Tay, 23andMe AC: Here’s one idea that continues the Foucauldian genetic analysis, interactive surveillance maps, line of thought that every society has analogies it psychedelic DeepMind images, Deepfake and takes as the foundation of truth. Genetics has long other AI-generated faces, and more. If one expands served this role, with everyday people arguing that the category to include all media that exists only something must be true “because it’s in my DNA”— through the network-massification effect of the which they mean both literally and metaphorically, web, it would include meme aesthetics, social sometimes at the same time. It becomes perfected media-specific discourses & subjectivities, video in the television show CSI, whose forensic science game narrative logic, streamer video conventions, became so convincing to general audience that it crowd-funded retro reboots, and much more. And led to a measurable “CSI-effect” in real trial juries finally, there is a whole category of media that who expected all detective work to be as equally preexists Big Data and the web but is marketed as persuasive. As Big Data becomes similarly self- new. Journalists have very recently talked about how miraculating, people will commonly lean on it in self-styled visionaries have appropriated gendered 32 FALL 2019 CULP media like the Slimfast diet shake through products prefigured by lefty development as part of the anti- like Soylent as essential components for efficient globalization movement, such as Indymedia or “biohacking,” with its accompanying analytics of how the underlying model for Twitter came from counting, measuring, representing, and modifying the SMS-based protest app, TXTMob). As this behavior. Most remarkable is how close the early generation of Web 2.0 companies evolved convergence is for a doctor’s diagnosis for disordered and responded to venture capitalist demands for eating and the data analytics of the quantified self. coherent business models, their roles clarified: What is new about Big Data’s role in all of this? they were landlords of a new sort. But instead of As you say: prediction. But also, extrapolation. This demanding rent, they monetize user-generated is something Artificial Intelligence and Machine content in return for use of their site as a “platform.” Learning gets from its forefather, cybernetics. As this monetization started driving the priorities Cybernetics was itself born from the mind of MIT of more users (formal and informal), so changed mathematician Norbert Wiener, who was working the type of content that they produced. Fortunately, on automatic anti-aircraft guns during World War the web is still a chaotic enough place that the 2. Media makers are using data-driven techniques profit motive does not drive everything, but it is to similarly target audiences. It works on a few influencing more and more the type of content different levels. Identifying trend lines is the core of that is being produced. For example, because of Web 2.0 business model for companies looking to the massive amount of money being poured into monetize collecting data, which sell to information the “alt-light” (Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson) right brokers like Acxiom.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Disinformation, and Influence Campaigns on Twitter 'Fake News'
    Disinformation, ‘Fake News’ and Influence Campaigns on Twitter OCTOBER 2018 Matthew Hindman Vlad Barash George Washington University Graphika Contents Executive Summary . 3 Introduction . 7 A Problem Both Old and New . 9 Defining Fake News Outlets . 13 Bots, Trolls and ‘Cyborgs’ on Twitter . 16 Map Methodology . 19 Election Data and Maps . 22 Election Core Map Election Periphery Map Postelection Map Fake Accounts From Russia’s Most Prominent Troll Farm . 33 Disinformation Campaigns on Twitter: Chronotopes . 34 #NoDAPL #WikiLeaks #SpiritCooking #SyriaHoax #SethRich Conclusion . 43 Bibliography . 45 Notes . 55 2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This study is one of the largest analyses to date on how fake news spread on Twitter both during and after the 2016 election campaign. Using tools and mapping methods from Graphika, a social media intelligence firm, we study more than 10 million tweets from 700,000 Twitter accounts that linked to more than 600 fake and conspiracy news outlets. Crucially, we study fake and con- spiracy news both before and after the election, allowing us to measure how the fake news ecosystem has evolved since November 2016. Much fake news and disinformation is still being spread on Twitter. Consistent with other research, we find more than 6.6 million tweets linking to fake and conspiracy news publishers in the month before the 2016 election. Yet disinformation continues to be a substantial problem postelection, with 4.0 million tweets linking to fake and conspiracy news publishers found in a 30-day period from mid-March to mid-April 2017. Contrary to claims that fake news is a game of “whack-a-mole,” more than 80 percent of the disinformation accounts in our election maps are still active as this report goes to press.
    [Show full text]
  • S:\FULLCO~1\HEARIN~1\Committee Print 2018\Henry\Jan. 9 Report
    Embargoed for Media Publication / Coverage until 6:00AM EST Wednesday, January 10. 1 115TH CONGRESS " ! S. PRT. 2d Session COMMITTEE PRINT 115–21 PUTIN’S ASYMMETRIC ASSAULT ON DEMOCRACY IN RUSSIA AND EUROPE: IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY A MINORITY STAFF REPORT PREPARED FOR THE USE OF THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION JANUARY 10, 2018 Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations Available via World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 28–110 PDF WASHINGTON : 2018 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001 VerDate Mar 15 2010 04:06 Jan 09, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 5012 Sfmt 5012 S:\FULL COMMITTEE\HEARING FILES\COMMITTEE PRINT 2018\HENRY\JAN. 9 REPORT FOREI-42327 with DISTILLER seneagle Embargoed for Media Publication / Coverage until 6:00AM EST Wednesday, January 10. COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS BOB CORKER, Tennessee, Chairman JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland MARCO RUBIO, Florida ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire JEFF FLAKE, Arizona CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware CORY GARDNER, Colorado TOM UDALL, New Mexico TODD YOUNG, Indiana CHRISTOPHER MURPHY, Connecticut JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming TIM KAINE, Virginia JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts ROB PORTMAN, Ohio JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon RAND PAUL, Kentucky CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey TODD WOMACK, Staff Director JESSICA LEWIS, Democratic Staff Director JOHN DUTTON, Chief Clerk (II) VerDate Mar 15 2010 04:06 Jan 09, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 S:\FULL COMMITTEE\HEARING FILES\COMMITTEE PRINT 2018\HENRY\JAN.
    [Show full text]
  • Weaving the Dark Web: Legitimacy on Freenet, Tor, and I2P (Information
    The Information Society Series Laura DeNardis and Michael Zimmer, Series Editors Interfaces on Trial 2.0, Jonathan Band and Masanobu Katoh Opening Standards: The Global Politics of Interoperability, Laura DeNardis, editor The Reputation Society: How Online Opinions Are Reshaping the Offline World, Hassan Masum and Mark Tovey, editors The Digital Rights Movement: The Role of Technology in Subverting Digital Copyright, Hector Postigo Technologies of Choice? ICTs, Development, and the Capabilities Approach, Dorothea Kleine Pirate Politics: The New Information Policy Contests, Patrick Burkart After Access: The Mobile Internet and Inclusion in the Developing World, Jonathan Donner The World Made Meme: Public Conversations and Participatory Media, Ryan Milner The End of Ownership: Personal Property in the Digital Economy, Aaron Perzanowski and Jason Schultz Digital Countercultures and the Struggle for Community, Jessica Lingel Protecting Children Online? Cyberbullying Policies of Social Media Companies, Tijana Milosevic Authors, Users, and Pirates: Copyright Law and Subjectivity, James Meese Weaving the Dark Web: Legitimacy on Freenet, Tor, and I2P, Robert W. Gehl Weaving the Dark Web Legitimacy on Freenet, Tor, and I2P Robert W. Gehl The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England © 2018 Robert W. Gehl All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. This book was set in ITC Stone Serif Std by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available. ISBN: 978-0-262-03826-3 eISBN 9780262347570 ePub Version 1.0 I wrote parts of this while looking around for my father, who died while I wrote this book.
    [Show full text]
  • What's a Patent Owner To
    Winter 2018 Vol. 16, Issue 1 A review of developments in Intellectual Property Law Motions to Amend at the PTAB after Aqua Products, Inc. v. Matal – What’s a Patent Owner to Do? By Andrew W. Williams, Ph.D. conducted by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board shifting to the patent owner, however, was In 2011, Congress enacted (“PTAB” or “Board”) that analyzed statistics in not found in either the statute or the rules the America Invents Act and all IPRs, CBMs, and PGRs. The third and most promulgated by the Patent Office. Instead, the created new mechanisms recent iteration included data through the Fiscal PTAB interpreted its regulations in an early to challenge issued claims Year 2017 (which ended on September 30, decision, Idle Free Sys., Inc. v. Bergstrom, Inc.1 at the Patent Office. The 2017). The first thing this study revealed is that In Idle Free, the PTAB indicated that the burden goal was to expeditiously motions to amend were filed in only 275 out is on the patent owner to show “a patentable resolve issues of patent of 2,766 completed trials, or 10%. The Board distinction over the prior art of record and also validity in response to the counted a trial as “completed” when it was prior art known to the patent owner.”2 The public outcry that validity terminated due to settlement, when there was Board subsequently relaxed the patent owner’s challenges in the federal courts were too a request for adverse judgement, when it was burden in MasterImage 3D, Inc. v.
    [Show full text]
  • FCJ-156 Hacking the Social: Internet Memes, Identity Antagonism, and the Logic of Lulz
    The Fibreculture Journal issn: 1449-1443 DIGITAL MEDIA + NETWORKS + TRANSDISCIPLINARY CRITIQUE issue 22 2013: Trolls and the Negative Space of the Internet FCJ-156 Hacking the Social: Internet Memes, Identity Antagonism, and the Logic of Lulz Ryan M. Milner College of Charleston Abstract: 4chan and reddit are participatory media collectives undergirded by a “logic of lulz” that favours distanced irony and critique. It often works at the expense of core identity categories like race and gender. However, the logic need not be entirely counterproductive to public discourse. Provided that diverse identities find voice instead of exclusion, these sites may facilitate vibrant, agonistic discussion instead of disenfranchising antagonism. In order to assess this potential for productive agonism, I undertook a critical discourse analysis of these collectives. Emphasising the image memes they produce, I evaluated discourses on race and gender. Both race and gender representations were dominated by familiar stereotypes and partial representations. However, while dissenting perspectives on race were repressed or excluded, dissenting perspectives on gender were vocalised and contested. The ‘logic of lulz’ facilitated both dominance and counter, each articulated with heavy reliance on irony and critique. This logic ambiguously balanced agonism and antagonism, but contestation provided sharper engagement than repression. 62 FCJ-156 fibreculturejournal.org Ryan M. Milner ‘A troll exploits social dynamics like computer hackers exploit security loop- holes…’ (Adrian Chen, 2012 October 12) In October 2012, reddit – a popular link aggregation service and public discussion forum – was embroiled in a prominent controversy. Adrian Chen, a journalist for the news site Gawker, had just revealed the ‘offline’ identity of Violentacrez, one of reddit’s ‘most reviled characters but also one if its most beloved users’ (Chen, 2012 October 12).
    [Show full text]
  • Silk Road: After Being Closed Twice, Can the Brand Ever 'Rise Again?'
    GDPO Situation Analysis January 2015 Silk Road: After being closed twice, can the brand ever ‘rise again?’ Alois Afilipoaie and Patrick Shortis Since 2011 the Silk Road marketplace has been known as the flagship brand of Dark Net markets. For a long time it was the cornerstone of illicit trade over the Dark Net, despite being shut down by the FBI in October 2013 its successor Silk Road 2.0 was created in a month and quickly outgrew its predecessor. On November 6th 2014, the Silk Road 2.0 was closed in an international law enforcement operation dubbed ‘Operation Onymous’1. Despite being taken down twice by law enforcement, the Silk Road was both a pathfinder and a trend-setter in the world of Dark Net markets. As a brand it will never be forgotten and may possibly continue to rise repeatedly as a hidden service on the Tor network, however as a marketplace the damage done by two busts may have finally put an end to its viability as a popular destination for those looking to engage in illicit trade. The Silk Road marketplace (February 2011–October 2013) Founded in February 2011, The Silk Road marketplace2 created the most popular brand of any Dark Net market. Media attention in a 2011 article by Gawker writer Adrian Chen shot it to internet fame. Initially it sold a plethora of illicit items including drugs and weapons. Eventually it refined its identity as a market with libertarian philosophies and an ethical approach to its wares, it removed weapons from its listings as well as ‘anything whose purpose is to harm or defraud’, giving it an ethical edge over its competitors that many users enjoyed.
    [Show full text]
  • Yale Information Society Project
    Yale Information Society Project House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology “Algorithms: How Companies’ Decisions About Data and Content Impact Consumers” November 29, 2017 Written Remarks of Kate Klonick Yale Law School Information Society Project* Chairman Blackburn, Ranking Member Doyle, and Members of the Subcommittee: Every day millions of people around the world post pictures, videos, and text to online speech platforms, but not everything that is posted remains there. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube actively curate the content that is posted by their users through a mix of algorithmic and human processes, broadly termed content moderation. Until recently, how and why these platforms made these decisions on user speech was largely opaque. For two years I have interviewed over three-dozen former and current executives and content moderation workers at these companies in an effort to better understand how and why these platforms regulate content. This written testimony borrows heavily from my Article summarizing those findings1 and attempts to clarify a few major points about content moderation, including: • The vast majority of content moderation of user content (roughly estimated at over 90%) is done by trained human content moderators who review content only after it has been flagged by platform users and not by algorithms, contrary to this hearing’s title. • While users at sites like Facebook are given a public set of “Community Standards” guiding what kind of content is posted on the site, a separate much more detailed, and much more regularly updated set of internal rules is used by human moderators in making their decisions.
    [Show full text]
  • A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS of GREENTEXT STORIES Agustin
    ABSTRACT FROM READERLY TO WRITERLY (AND BACK AGAIN): A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF GREENTEXT STORIES Agustin Morado IV, M.A. Department of English Northern Illinois University, 2016 Philip Eubanks, Director Greentext stories, a relatively new genre of short fiction, emerged from the image board site 4chan in early 2010. Although 4chan is known for its off-color, offensive humor, the popularity of greentext stories on the imageboard as well as on other websites warrants a serious rhetorical analysis. Drawing primarily on ideas from Collin Gifford Brooke, Roland Barthes, Kenneth Burke, and Carolyn Miller, greentext stories are first posted to 4chan as part of a performative dialogue, creating threads which are large writerly texts made of smaller readerly ones; this offers anonymous 4chan users, who tend to be outsiders from mainstream society, a way to identify with each other through shared stories. As users share notable stories on more mainstream sites, Ridolfo and DeVoss’s idea of rhetorical velocity takes over, allowing one’s text to be reappropriated and even recomposed by another. This process allows the genre to creatively rewrite popular stories based on established archetypes. The way in which greentext stories spread and are rewritten raises key questions of authorship and copyright and how far one can go in appropriating and rewriting the work of others, including for profit, as is seen with recently published collections of greentext stories. As the genre continues to spread, it is certainly possible that claims in authorship will
    [Show full text]
  • Virtue Ethics Nikki Coffey Tousley University of Dayton
    University of Dayton eCommons Religious Studies Faculty Publications Department of Religious Studies 2011 Virtue Ethics Nikki Coffey Tousley University of Dayton Brad Kallenberg University of Dayton, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://ecommons.udayton.edu/rel_fac_pub Part of the Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons, Ethics in Religion Commons, Practical Theology Commons, and the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons eCommons Citation Tousley, Nikki Coffey nda Kallenberg, Brad, "Virtue Ethics" (2011). Religious Studies Faculty Publications. Paper 59. http://ecommons.udayton.edu/rel_fac_pub/59 This Encyclopedia Entry is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Religious Studies at eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Religious Studies Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. The document here is the authors’ accepted manuscript for the following publication: Tousley, Nikki Coffey and Kallenberg, Brad J. “Virtue Ethics.” In Dictionary of Scripture and Ethics, edited by Joel Green, Jacqueline Lapsley, Rebekah Miles and Allen Verhey. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011. Virtue Ethics Brad J. Kallenberg If a burglar is breaking into the house, it is too late to begin lifting weights. Underneath the humor, there is a truism: You are always becoming the person you are. This truism is the basis for a model of ethics.1 1. What is Virtue Ethics? It is sometimes helpful to think about moral situations as having three logical moments: Agent(s) perform Action(s) that result in Outcome(s). One brand of ethics treats outcomes as the most important consideration in determining right and wrong (e.g., utilitarianism).
    [Show full text]
  • Fake News: the Commoditization of Internet Speech
    Vojak: Fake News: The Commoditization of Internet Speech Vojak.FakeNews.camera ready (Do Not Delete) 5/16/2018 11:11 AM NOTE FAKE NEWS: THE COMMODITIZATION OF INTERNET SPEECH TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ........................................................................... 124 I. WHAT IS FAKE NEWS? ............................................................ 128 A. Accidental – Viral Fake News .................................... 130 B. Accidental – Irresponsible Media .............................. 134 C. Intentional – Fake News as an Agent of Chaos or Influence .................................................................... 136 D. Intentional – Fake News for Profit ............................ 140 II. IMPEDIMENTS TO FAKE NEWS REGULATION ......................... 143 A. United States Supreme Court ...................................... 144 B. United States’ State Courts ......................................... 146 C. Communications Decency Act, Section 230............... 149 III. “COMMODITIZED SPEECH” SOLUTION IN THREE PARTS ....... 151 A. Defining “Commoditized Speech” .............................. 153 B. European Judicial Review Paradigm ......................... 153 C. Internet Service Provider Liability ............................ 155 CONCLUSION .............................................................................. 157 INTRODUCTION What do a recent college graduate living in North Carolina,1 a 2 computer science student in Tbilisi, Georgia, and a teenager in the 1. Scott Shane, From Headline to Photograph
    [Show full text]
  • Silk Road – Anonymous Deep Web Marketplace
    SILK ROAD – ANONYMOUS DEEP WEB MARKETPLACE April 2013 Cara Bloom NOTE Since this paper has been written Silk Road founder and admin Dread Pirate Roberts has been revealed to be San Franciscan Ross Ulbricht, the site has been shut down twice and the current iteration Silk Road 3.0 is running similarly to the version discussed in this paper, the original Silk Road 1.0. Millions in Bitcoins have been confiscated by the FBI and dozens of admins and sellers have been arrested. All of these recent events will have caused changes to the site’s infrastructure and user culture that are not discussed in the following paper. ABSTRACT The Silk Road is an anonymous marketplace for contraband that can only be accessed through the Deep Web and functions through implementation careful security measures including the use of Bitcoins as its only currency. Buyers and sellers create trust the site by rating one another and the site supports a trusting environment with an escrow system to hedge transactions. Users can also interact in a separate forum where Silk Road culture can be seen. Though the site has received mixed reactions from the media these articles have caused the site to grow. Many governments have targeted the Silk Road and attacks have been made against it. Throughout, the marketplace has continued to expand and increase its security measures, making it the most popular online market for drugs. THE DEEP WEB Commercial anonymity has been revolutionized by the web. In years past to make a transaction there had to be face-to-face contact between the customer and the seller, while modern consumers can purchase almost anything online without any human interaction.
    [Show full text]
  • Troubling Matters (Dissertation — Ahmer Arif)
    © Copyright 2020 Ahmer Arif Troubling Matters: Examining the Spread of Misinformation and Disinformation on Social Media During Mass Disruption Events Ahmer Arif A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2020 Reading Committee: Kate Starbird (Chair) Jennifer Turns (Chair) David M. Levy Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Human Centered Design & Engineering University of Washington Abstract Troubling Matters: Examining the Spread of Misinformation and Disinformation on Social Media During Mass Disruption Events Ahmer Arif Chairs of the Supervisory Committee: Associate Professor Kate Starbird Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering Professor Jennifer A. Turns Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering Most users want Twitter feeds, Facebook pages, and other information streams to be free of misleading content. Whether this misleading content was spread unintentionally (misinformation) or on purpose (disinformation), understanding and responding to its flows has never been more important. This is especially true during periods of collective stress and uncertainty — like large-scale emergencies, disasters, and political protests — where misleading information can have potentially broad-reaching societal consequences. This dissertation aims to clarify some of the dynamics of online mis- and disinformation in such settings. It also seeks to provide insights to help researchers and designers formulate more human-centered responses to the
    [Show full text]