Microsoft Research New England (MSRNE) is looking for PhD interns to join the social media collective for Spring and Summer 2012. For these positions, we are looking primarily for social science PhD students (including communications, sociology, anthropology, media studies, information studies, etc.). The Social Media Collective is a collection of scholars at MSRNE who focus …
Debating Privacy in a Networked World for the WSJ
Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal posted excerpts from a debate between me, Stewart Baker, Jeff Jarvis, and Chris Soghoian on privacy. In preparation for the piece, they had us respond to a series of questions. Jeff posted the full text of his responses here. Now it's my turn. Here are the questions that …
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Accepting Inefficiencies and Different Scales of Change in Networked Environments
I didn’t know him personally, but I was saddened to read about Ilya Zhitomirskiy’s recent suicide. I have no personal insight into his situation, the sources of his stress, or what brought him to take his life. It’s tragic, full stop. As I was reading Gawker’s story on his death, I was struck by its implicit …
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3.75 Million Lawbreaking Parents
The Department of Justice would like the authority to put millions of American parents in prison. Don't believe me? Read on. A House Judiciary Committee hearing today considered the federal computer crime statute, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, known to its friends as the CFAA. Among other things, the Act punishes anyone who "exceeds …
Microsoft Research, Social Media Postdoc Opening
The Social Media Collective at Microsoft Research New England (MSRNE) is looking for a social media postdoctoral researcher for next year. This position is an ideal opportunity for a scholar whose work touches on social media, internet studies, technology policy, and/or science and technology studies. Application deadline: December 12, 2011. http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/jobs/fulltime/postdoc.aspx Microsoft Research provides a …
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Why Parents Help Children Violate Facebook’s 13+ Rule
Announcing new journal article: "Why Parents Help Their Children Lie to Facebook About Age: Unintended Consequences of the 'Children's Online Privacy Protection Act'" by danah boyd, Eszter Hargittai, Jason Schultz, and John Palfrey, First Monday. "At what age should I let my child join Facebook?" This is a question that countless parents have asked my …
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Internet memes and networked individualism: A perfect couple?
Memes are conceptual troublemakers. While academics have been debating over their theoretical usefulness ever since Richard Dawkins coined the term back in 1976, internet users speak of memes daily, as uncontested givens. Recently, I’ve been thinking of ways to bridge the yawning gap between academic and popular discourses on memes. I agree with some of …
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Can an algorithm be wrong? Twitter Trends, the specter of censorship, and our faith in the algorithms around us
The interesting question is not whether Twitter is censoring its Trends list. The interesting question is, what do we think the Trends list is, what it represents and how it works, that we can presume to hold it accountable when we think it is "wrong?" What are these algorithms, and what do we want them to be? …
Why the Occupy Movements Do Not Lack Leadership
Despite the (not undeserved) hype about the role of social media in various occupy movement, I first heard about Occupy Wall Street from a traditional face-to-face encounter with my roommate. Bryce gave me the basics (Adbusters-instigated, Twitter-facilitated protest in Zoccotti Square) and suggested we check it out. If I'm honest, my first encounter with the …
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Using Off-the-shelf Software for basic Twitter Analysis
Mary Gray, Mike Ananny and I are writing a paper on queer youth and "Glee" for the American Anthropological Association's annual meeting (yes, I have the greatest job in the world). This is a multi-methodological study by design, because traditional television viewing practices have become so complex. Besides traditional audience ethnography like interviews and participant …
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Social Media Collective 