This is a collection of some of our researchers’ quotes, mentions, or writings in mainstream media. Topics include Facebook’s supposed neutral community standards, sharing economy workers uniting to protest, living under surveillance and relational labor in music.

Tarleton Gillespie in the Washington Post –> The Big Myth Facebook needs everyone to believe

And yet, observers remain deeply skeptical of Facebook’s claims that it is somehow value-neutral or globally inclusive, or that its guiding principles are solely “respect” and “safety.” There’s no doubt, said Tarleton Gillespie, a principal researcher at Microsoft Research in New England, that the company advances a specific moral framework — one that is less of the world than of the United States, and less of the United States than of Silicon Valley.

Mary Gray in The New York Times –> Uber drivers and others in the gig economy take a stand

“There’s a sense of workplace identity and group consciousness despite the insistence from many of these platforms that they are simply open ‘marketplaces’ or ‘malls’ for digital labor,” said Mary L. Gray, a researcher at Microsoft Research and professor in the Media School at Indiana University who studies gig economy workers.

Kate Crawford’s (and others’) collaboration with Laura Poitras (Academy Award-winning documentary film director and privacy advocate) in the book about living under surveillance in Boing Boing.

Poitras has a show on at NYC’s Whitney Museum, Astro Noise, that is accompanied by a book in which Poitras exposes, for the first time, her intimate notes on her life in the targeting reticule of the US government at its most petty and vengeful. The book includes accompanying work by Ai Weiwei, Edward Snowden, Dave Eggers, former Guantanamo Bay detainee Lakhdar Boumediene, Kate Crawford and Cory Doctorow.

(More on the upcoming book and Whitney museum event on Wired)

Canadian Songwriter’s Association interview with Nancy Baym –> Sound Advice: How to use social media in 2016

When discussing the use of social media by songwriters, Baym prefers to present a big-picture view rather than focusing on a ‘Top Ten Tips” approach, or on one platform or means of engagement. Practicality is key: “I’d love for 2016 to be the year of people getting realistic about what social media can and can’t do for you, of understanding that it’s a mode of relationship building, not a mode of broadcast,” says Baym.