2020 was one hell of a year (literally). Alina Utrata, Mallika Balakrishnan and Kyra Jasper break down some of the things that happened in 2020’s technology politics—from the Trump Twitter ban, to content moderation, contact tracing and conspiracy theories, to how we design digital spaces that empower communities and bottom-up approaches to digital justice. 

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Articles mentioned in this podcast

Axios roundup of all of the digital platforms that have banned Trump or Trump-related content (so far). 

An anarchist’s approach to social media, or how can we empower communities to shape their own digital spaces? Plus, some critiques of the Wikipedia model. 

For how digital platforms have affected trans folks, the Guardian on Facebook’s authentic names policy and Ina Fried on Wikipedia’s gender identity style guide.

On the power of Facebook’s lookalike audience and group recommendations. Stop the Seal groups on Facebook, ads for military gear next to insurrection posts (is this a . . . feature, not a bug?), and racism in Facebook targeted housing ads

On WhatsApp’s new policy—why it’s bad (spoiler alert: it’s giving Facebook your data) and a nice New Yorker feature on Signal co-founder Moxie Marlinspike.

More on Maria Ressa and Facebook in the Philippines, Vietnam’s threat to shut down Facebook unless it agrees to censorship, and Singapore’s COVID-19 contact tracing app.

The SEC is investigating Zoom for complying with Chinese censorship requests over Tiananmen square commemorations—and more on Zoom’s censorship of Palestinan events. 

Elon Musk saying that his goal is Mars indentured servitude. Also of note, the space battle shaking down between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos (it centers around satellite internet for rural communities). Plus, in more inspiring news, the Institute for Self Reliance on community-based broadband networks (they have a great podcast too).

And how Selena Gomez emailed Sheryl Sandberg about white supremacy on Facebook. 

Plus, some lockdown reads! David Runciman’s How Democracy Ends (it’s actually more optimistic than the title would have you believe, I promise). And Ruha Benjamin’s absolutely brilliant book Race After Technology.

Nowhere Land by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4148-nowhere-land

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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