Week 8 Notes

Group Projects
If you're in a group:
 * Go into groups tab on canvas (the people tab)
 * Add yourself to a group with the people you are doing your project with
 * Submit in the group
 * Feel free to follow up on Zulip with any questions

Deceptive design and dark patterns exploit our cognitive biases such as:
Most popular websites use at least 1 type of dark pattern to manipulate users
 * Anchoring effect: over-reliance on initial piece of information for making future decisions
 * Bandwagon effect: tendency to over value something because others seem to have it
 * Default effect: tendency for us to stick with options that are assigned by default, even when changing it is possible.
 * Framing Effect: Act upon same information differently depending on presentation
 * Scarcity Bias: Over value things that are perceived as scarce
 * Sunk Cost Fallacy: Continue action, regardless of possible outcome because of investment (e.g. personal time spent on the task)

Catching Deception
Example: Websites that are sharing commonly used deceptive tactics (When Assholes Design Things (reddit.com))
 * Indication that we are getting better at recognizing deceptive behavior
 * Online survey study (Bongard-Blanchy, 2021): respondents were aware of the influence of website design. People under 40 and above high school level education were better able to recognize dark patterns and when they were being manipulated. People who could recognize deceptive design, were less likely to be influenced by it.

Reaching People

 * Social media is “Where the people are” (Roughly 4.65 Billion users)
 * Social media is a powerful medium through which people engage with each other
 * Social networking sites have become the central hub through which organizations reach people (e.g. following fire departments, police departments, news sites, governments and politicians).

People Need to Understand

 * Humans have a desire to find meaning when faced with uncertainty or ambiguity
 * Misinformation can spread rapidly in times of crisis because of this need to understand

Sensemaking (Karl Weick, 1990’s)

 * How our past experiences influences the way that we observe the world
 * A process of understanding the experiences, decisions, responses, and actions that lead to breakdowns and disruption in human routine
 * Useful for understanding how different meanings are assigned to the same event
 * Seven properties of sensemaking:
 * Identity Construction
 * -Identity and identification is central – who people think they are in their context shapes what they enact and how they interpret events
 * Retrospective
 * -The point of retrospection in time affects what people notice, thus attention and interruptions to that attention are highly relevant to the process
 * Focus on cues
 * -People extract cues from the context to help them decide on what information is relevant and what explanations are acceptable
 * Plausibility over accuracy
 * -People favor plausibility over accuracy in accounts of events and contexts
 * Enactive of environment
 * -People enact the environments they face in dialogues and narratives
 * Social
 * -What we observe from actions of others
 * Ongoing
 * -Sensemaking going on throughout daily routines

Case Study: Boston Marathon Bombings

 * During a marathon, several bombs were exploded near the finish line
 * FBI proceeded to post suspects’ pictures on social media, effectively asking for the help of vigilante groups on the internet
 * The photos and videos were successful in rapidly spreading across social media, primarily Twitter, leading to the spread of misinformation:
 * -Woman killed before proposal
 * -Girl killed while running
 * -Navy seals as perpetrators
 * -Falsely accusing and harassing one man who looked similar to one of the suspects
 * The Tweets/Posts themselves:



Comparison of these 7 properties to Boston Marathon Bombings Case Study (Zulip Activity)

 * Building off of other posts→ social
 * Woman killed before proposal→ social
 * Girl killed while running→ plausibility over accuracy
 * Navy seals as perpetrators→ focus on cues
 * Falsely accusing and harassing one man who looked similar to one of the suspects→ focus on cues

Correcting Misinformation

 * Misinformation is largely accidental, a side effect of sensemaking
 * Most people WANT to correct their mistakes
 * Potential Considerations: audience perceptions and who is responsible for fixing the misinformation (the social media site, the original perpetrator of the misinformation, you?)
 * Remain authentic or risk misleading others?
 * -An example would be social media posts with false information. A user may be unsure whether to keep the post to recognize their mistake or delete it to prevent further spreading of misinformation.


 * A model that represents how people go about correcting misinformation:

Question: If you were to learn that you shared misinformation, which correcting action would you take?

 * A: delete→ most popular response
 * B: delete and deny
 * C: deny
 * D: no action
 * E: other

Question: ​​Based on your answer to the previous question, what issues to see arriving from your correcting action?

 * A: delete→ admitting that what was posted spread misinformation; people can see it as not being authentic. People who already saw it will still be misinformed.
 * B: delete and deny→ pretending like it never happened proves that the person who posted the misinformation didn’t think matters through, and there’s no such thing as completely removing information that has been posted on the Internet; they could also face backlash from their followers
 * C: deny→ makes you look untrustworthy
 * D: no action→ continues to allow the misinformation to spread without correction from the original source

Correcting misinformation considerations:

 * Your online identity may influence your corrective action (if you are a journalist, you may have more integrity vs. an anonymous user may be able to get away with posting misinformation)
 * By choosing to delete, you may save the authenticity of the original statement but risk misleading others
 * Do you want to wait for someone else to correct you or do you want to be the person who corrects people? Correcting people online can be viewed negatively, so it is often up to the person who posted misinformation to correct it.

How might we re-envision social media to better support corrective behavior?

 * Some social media sites currently use algorithms to flag content that may contain misinformation
 * Allowing users to edit posts on platforms like Twitter

Disinformation

 * Disinformation - intentionally misleading information for purposes of manipulating or shaping public opinion.
 * Example: the Navy Seals Tweet from the Boston Bombing example
 * The tweet was made by infowars which is a right leaning news site
 * Tweets related to this topic were largely dismissed or viewed as speculative.
 * Demonstrated power of social media to shape and spread disinformation.

Misinformation vs Disinformation

 * Misinformation: false information spread by accident
 * Disinformation: false information spread with malice and manipulative intent

Sensemaking and Frame

 * Frame: process by which humans see and understand the world.
 * We develop frames from our experiences and view the world through them.
 * We also build frames collaboratively
 * Example: Border crossing and asylum seeking around the world.
 * They usually cross borders to get a better life or escape death, but often are viewed negatively as criminals


 * Disinformation spread on social media can be used to influence people’s frame
 * Social media companies know they are vulnerable to disinformation and are putting money into combating it.
 * Disinformation is a collaborative effort among many players who target both sides of an issue to build “contesting frames”

How does it work?

 * So few gathering places (Twitter, Meta, TikTok) consolidate large groups into ‘single locations’
 * Low barrier to entry facilitates rapid sharing of content
 * Mixture of content (news, entertainment, etc) “collapses different contexts together”
 * Tools designed to support advertising can be used to target groups known to be susceptible to certain frames

Case Study: Internet Research Agency

 * Internet Research Agency - A now defunct organization hired to sow confusion and disrupt the 2016 U.S. elections by retrieving information from Facebook as a part of a contract to spread disinformation from advertisements
 * Agents pretended to be organizations, individuals, or members of groups such as black lives matter
 * Misinformation was spread through humor so it was deemed “harmless”

Correcting Disinformation

 * Unsolved problem!
 * Potential Solutions:
 * Abandon social media→ Nobody would fully abandon social media. People rely on social media too much for connections with friends and family to abandon it.
 * Analytical tools→ Algorithms can be helpful in measuring and identifying patterns of disinformation. Can slow down the spread of disinformation.
 * User tools provided by platform→ Allow users to lock posts so they cannot be shared, edit their posts.

What are some platforms, products, or apps that you use to consume streaming media?

 * Student input: Disney+, YouTube, Twitch, Spotify, Vimeo, Amazon Music, Apple Music, Limewire, Tunein, broadcast car radio, Samsung milk, iPods

A “Frame” for Understanding Internet Streaming

 * Thomas W. Malone and John F. Rockart developed a framework to organize familiar information technology effects and predict continued evolution
 * Effects of Technology on Organizations:
 * 1st order: technology is replaced with something new; a substitution of new technology for the old
 * 2nd order: increased demand for the newer technology functions
 * Eventually reaches critical mass where everyone is reliant on the tech.
 * 3rd order: new systems/structures/etc. that take advantage of the new technology emerge

Analogy: Transportation as Disruptive Technology

 * 1st order: Trains and cars replace horse and buggy
 * 2nd order: Increase the amount of cars and trains
 * Convenience because of faster speeds and decreased cost (no need to feed/ care for the health of their cars)


 * 3rd order: “Transportation-intensive” structures (suburbs/malls)
 * Roads allow people to travel further.
 * Don’t need to live as close to people they care about.

Internet as Disruptive Technology

 * USPS was disrupted by email
 * Walmart was disrupted by Amazon/E-Commerce
 * Our lecture was disrupted by online class

Effects Framework Applied to the Internet

 * 1st order
 * Mail → email
 * Shopping to e-commerce
 * In-person learning to online learning


 * 2nd order
 * Fastest access to information
 * Greater selection
 * Support remote/inclusive access to education


 * 3rd order
 * New ways of working; remote work emerges as a thing
 * e-commerce industry becomes a thing
 * New models of education

Results of Order Effects of the Internet:
3rd Order Effects Access to the Masses “Creator” Production Supplants for-profit organizations
 * Work from home, shop online, new laws, online learning
 * Affordable technology, high-speed internet
 * Open source software, crowdsourced knowledge, makers, “master class”

Beneficial or harmful?

 * Criminal collaboration on a global scale? → Negative
 * Stifle creativity and innovation? → Negative
 * Reduce corporate profits? → Less clear, could be both
 * Copyright Issues? → Negative
 * New principles for business models? → Positive
 * New forms of production? → Positive
 * Global knowledge economy? → Positive

What does this have to do with streaming?

 * The growth of streaming audio and video over the Internet brought forth some of the most impactful and meaningful 3rd order effects to social and organizational norms

First Stream



 * Xerox PARC: developed MBone to “stream” data across the Internet
 * MBone developed as software/virtual network to provide multicast support to the Internet
 * MBone was soon replaced by modernized routers capable of handling multicast protocol via hardware


 * Band in Silicon Valley: streamed music as far away as Australia

Real Networks

 * First company to develop in Internet streaming platform for audio and– later on– video
 * Supported unicast and multicast
 * Standalone application until the release of Flash
 * Flash enabled embedding the player within a web page

Justin.tv

 * Founded by Justin Kan (2005-2006)
 * Started by "lifestreaming" daily activities
 * Converted momentum into startup justin.tv (2007)

Order Effects of Justin.tv

 * 1st Order: Live streaming replaces or supplants television
 * 2nd Order: People began live streaming on a large scale
 * 3rd Order: Video Quality improves, avenues for revenue growth with platforms like Twitch

MP3 and P2P

 * Compression of algorithms significantly reduced the size of audio and video files
 * “Sharing” over the Internet became possible
 * Tools built to facilitate sharing

Order Effects of P2P

 * 1st Order: File sharing supplants CD’s, purchasing content
 * 2nd Order: File sharing tools (Napster) rapidly spread around the world
 * 3rd Order: Music industry value plummets, SOPA, modern streaming

What are some first order effects of music streaming?

 * Music streaming replaces iPods, CD's, downloading mp3s, local music libraries

What are some second order effects of music streaming?

 * Different online music apps are created; more platforms, more popularity, artist exposure

What are some third order effects of music streaming?

 * subscription-based monetization, streaming only companies like Netflix

Social and Organizational Outcomes of Streaming

 * Remote collaboration through streaming platforms has reshaped how we engage with products, services, and each other
 * Streaming has given audiences greater control over their consumption of content; increases opportunities for social engagement
 * The evolution of new technologies influences viewing patterns and the ways in which we seek gratification (reduce stress, pass time, unwind, learn, etc.)
 * Increased governance and threat of legislation
 * Reorganization of norms, expectations, and systems has displaced many legacy markets

Malone and Rockart’s Effects of Technology on Organizations

 * 1st order: a substitution of new technology for the old
 * 2nd order: increased demand for the newer technology functions
 * 3rd order: new systems/structures/etc. that take advantage of the new technology emerge