Steph

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Week #3 blog post

What are the ways that surveillance affects privileged and marginalized groups differently?

 Not all forms of surveillance are created equal. Technology may offer privileged groups protection, convenience, or customization. Surveillance is often linked with exclusion, punishment, and control for underprivileged populations. In the words of Eubanks, technological assistance programs unfairly flag low-income applicants for failure or fraud, resulting in the creation of a "digital poorhouse." As noted by Daniels, online communities often mute or silence women of color while boosting the opinions of white users.

What are the actual consequences on Eubanks' opinion of being "red-flagged" by automated systems?

 Not only can being flagged by a welfare system cause paperwork to be delayed, but it can also result in the loss of access to housing, food, and medical treatment. As stated by Eubanks, patients who were hospitalized and missed appointments were refused compensation, but their appeals were heard after they passed away. These damages are frequently fatal and tangible rather than hypothetical. As a result, surveillance turns into institutional violence.

In what ways do Daniels and Eubanks challenge the notion that digital technologies are essentially "neutral" or liberating?

 DEarly cyberfeminist views has been questioned by Daniels over believing that online spaces offer liberation from embodied categories like gender and ethnicity. They note that many theories overlook the middle-class norms and the whiteness keep to dominate online culture. From Eubanks, welfare technologies that are meant to improve productivity often punish individuals who are less fortunate by automating bias. Both authors argue that because technology is embedded in the existing power structures, it can encourage injustice rather than to fight it.

How do the authors critique the impact of the technology sector on living and public policy?

Both authors say about how industry tech firms have begun to impact decisions that were previously the responsibility of governments. Eubanks discusses how companies profit from surveillance technologies used in public welfare, education, and housing systems, occasionally without little accountability or transparency. Daniels describes the way Big Tech shapes online culture and laws, frequently promoting hate speech and false information while doing little to protect those who are most in need. These concerns suggest that business-driven technology rarely results in fairness.

Daniels, J. (2009). Rethinking cyberfeminism(s): Race, gender, and embodiment. WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly, Volume 37, Numbers 1 & 2, Spring/Summer 2009, pp. 101-124 (Article)Eubanks, V. (2018). Automating inequality

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EBT

Getting EBT didn't magically solve everything, but it lifted a weight I had been carrying for a long time. For the first time in months, I could buy fresh produce without worrying about the total. I could pick up basic rice, pasta, bread without that knot in my stomach. It gave me stability during a time when everything else felt unstable.

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Blog post #9

What obstacles stop online groups from challenging popular cultural narratives?

Lee reveals that through the celebration of Black hair and identity, natural hair blogs resist Eurocentric beauty norms, challenging dominant narratives on desirability and professionalism. Ethnic communities discussed by McLaine also challenge stereotypes through producing their own representations. However, corporate pressures, algorithmic suppression, harassment-as has happened in Gamergate, for example-and platform moderation biases are all obstacles. Resistance is possible, but never free from structural constraints.

How do platform architectures shape which communities flourish and which are marginalized?

McLaine's analysis reveals that, in fact, the design of a platform-algorithms, ad targeting, and data collection-is most often implemented with priorities of engagement and monetization over community wellbeing. Also, smaller and marginalized communities may be seen as unimportant and even taken advantage of, while communities who benefit from economic measures are given greater exposure/resources. During Gamergate, Hathaway explains how insufficient moderation tools allowed harassment networks to thrive. In this case, platform design determines who is compelled to leave and who feels included.

How do users negotiate authenticity versus performativity within online identity-based communities?

Lee's reading presents authenticity as lying at the heart of natural hair blogs' success-users want honesty in storytelling and, well, in shared cultural knowledge. Also, having to seem rational, politically conscious, and attractive can result in acting out. Online communities promote carefully developed personas while rewarding truth through platform looks, following norms, or algorithmic visibilities. This conflict confuses users' self-expression and the sentiment of the "real" community.

What impacts do digital communities make on people' offline identities and behaviors?

It is also common for people of digital communities to be affected outside of the screen. For instance, if members in Lee's hometown learn better natural hair care methods or even positive images. They might feel more self-assured and proud of their culture offline. McLaine's example showed how ethnic online groups can inspire acts of support, trade, or involvement in culture in the real world.

Lee, L.. Virtual Homeplace: (Re)Constructing the body through social media.

McLaine, S. Ethnic online communities: Between profit and purpose.

Hathaway, . What is Gamergate, and why? An explainer for non-geeks.

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Blog post #8

How does Black Twitter challenge bias in mainstream media narratives?

According to Lee (2017), Black Twitter functions as a digital counterpublic: a community that opens up space for Black voices to correct, resist, and reframe the dominant media narratives. As mainstream outlets either misrepresent or don't cover issues like police brutality, Black Twitter amplifies first-person accounts and orchestrates support. Movements such as #BlackLivesMatter have reflected this power: hashtags become methods by which truth is conveyed and used to hold people accountable for wrongdoings, and through which the marginalized set their own agenda and redefine what is seen and valued in the public sphere.

How does social media redefine what activism looks like in the digital age?

Social media has caused activism to shift from street-based protests to a hybrid of online and offline engagement. Other platforms, including X, Instagram, and TikTok, create spaces for ordinary people to share issues with a global audience in seconds. Online activism has expanded to include raising awareness, organizing mobilization, and action according to Vegh (2003). The evolution means that activism is no longer limited by geography or access to media; as most would attest, hashtags like #EndSARS or #ClimateStrike presents how online visibility could lead to real-world political and social movements.

What does Vegh mean by "cyber-protest," and how is it different from traditional activism?

“Cyber-protest”, according to Vegh (2003), refers to activism dependent on digital tools for organizing and mobilizing. To traditional activism, which rested on material gatherings from cyber-protests which can mobilize thousands instantly by posting and hashtagging. The examples of online petitions against the construction of pipelines are "tweet storms" which are proof that while technology quickens activism, human solidarity provides the sustaining power for any real-world effectiveness. 

How does Indigenous #Activism highlights the juncture between culture, environment, and technology?

Parkhurst (2018) shows how hashtags such as #StandWithStandingRock has become a means not only of spreading environmental awareness but also by affirming Indigenous identity. Activists used videos, art, and storytelling to frame environmental justice as cultural survival. Technology, in this way, became a bridge between tradition and modern advocacy: a bridge that connected spiritual beliefs about water and land to digital resistance networks.

Lee, L. (2017). Black Twitter: A response to bias in mainstream media.

Vegh, S. (2003). Classifying forms of online activism: The case of cyber-protests against the World Bank. 

Fuchs, C. (2017). Social media: A critical introduction (2nd ed.). Sage Publications.

Parkhurst, N. A. D. (2018). From #Mniwiconi to #StandWithStandingRock.

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Blog post #7

How does the culture of community impact what is considered "acceptable" behavior?

According to Bergstrom (2011), it is Reddit's "community expectations" that shape what users will consider normal. When groups manage to define cruelty either as humor or as debate, harassment becomes invisible. This self-policing culture lets platforms avoid responsibility while communities enforce injurious norms themselves.

How does community culture contribute to the normalization of harassment?

Bergstrom (2011) showed how community self-regulation-that is, "community expectations"-allowed users to decide what is permissible on Reddit. This has consequences: This hands-off approach produces echo chambers where cruelty is disguised as humor or debate. When communities prioritize free speech over safety, they maintain, quietly, environments where abuse feels ordinary. Platform politics are therefore not neutral; they're shaped by the collective behaviors of their users.

How does humor normalize online harassment?

Humor is one of the most powerful tools in online trolling. According to Phillips (2015), labeling harassment as "just a joke" is a way abusers can deny responsibility while casting victims as overly sensitive. Such rhetoric clouds the line between free expression and targeted cruelty. Memes, satire, and sarcasm involved in trolling mask systemic abuse behind humor, making discrimination look harmless and even acceptable in some online cultures.

How do moderation practices reinforce or challenge digital inequality?

Citron (2014) points out that weak or biased moderation creates an environment in which hate speech and cyber harassment can spread. When platforms do not remove racist or sexist content, they act to maintain social inequality. By contrast, consistent and transparent moderation can resist such hierarchies, but it requires the firms to prioritize safety over growth-a move that unmasks some of the political choices underpinning the moderation of content.

References 

Bergstrom, K. (2011). Don’t Feed the Trolls: Shutting Down Debate about Community Expectations on Reddit.com.

Citron, D. K. (2014). Hate Crimes in Cyberspace. Harvard University Press.

Phillips, W. (2015). This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship Between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture. MIT Press.

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Blog post #6

How do capitalism and profit interests affect how gender and race manifest online?

Critical theory's analysis of political economy allows us to understand how corporate sites commodity identity. Gendered filters, influencer campaigns, and "brand activism" tend to render social movements consumer trends. This makes liberation about consumer selection, concealing economic arrangements that generate inequality.

How does Haraway's idea of the cyborg problematize binary conceptions of gender and humanity?

Haraway's "cyborg" dismantles the oppositions between human and machine, nature and culture, male and female. This is dialectical thinking in critical theory confronting contradiction in an effort to reconceptualize identity as fluid rather than rigid. The cyborg invites us to leave behind essentialist gender categories and think about new modes of being.

How might O'Riordan's critique of visual cyberculture illustrate ideology critique?

O'Riordan shows how representations of femininity and masculinity in technology like avatars, digital painting, and media reinforce Western notions of masculinity and femininity. Viewing them as ideologies allows one to examine the ways that they repeat structural inequality in the name of "freedom" or "empowerment."

4. How do O'Riordan's theories of visual cyberculture uncover ideological domination in digital media?

O'Riordan argues that gender and sexuality representations on the internet are situated through Western, heteronormative norms. This is an example of how "freedom of representation" often masks ideology critique that what may appear to be liberating can actually replicate capitalist and patriarchal notions of beauty.

References 

Daniels, J. (2012). Race and racism in Internet studies: A review and critique. New Media & Society, 15(5), 695–719.

Haraway, D. (1985). A cyborg manifesto: Science, technology, and socialist-feminism in the late twentieth century. In Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (pp. 149–181). Routledge.

O’Riordan, K. (2005). Gender, technology and visual cyberculture. Routledge.

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  Blog post #5

What are the ethical implications of creating an online persona?

Making moral choices about representation, privacy, and authenticity is involved in building one's online self. Protecting people from harm by selective sharing is susceptible to inviting painstakingly edited "highlight reels" that create an unbalanced picture of reality. Honesty, social awareness, and self-expression all must be balanced for ethical participation.

What are some of the more common features of internet surveillance and censorship for minority identities?

Queer or racial justice content is flagged or suppressed by platforms. Daniels (2018) documents how algorithmic moderation tends to mirror societal bias. Whiteness and conformity are named in this digital pecking order of visibility.

How do users resist or refuse the authority of digital media?

Daniels (2018) considers the way that networks and conversations perpetuate white supremacy during the digital age. Yet through the reclamation of digital spaces, individuals can participate in Struggles and Political Practice that can be used to counteract injustice by means of activism, hashtags, and counter-memes. This is seen with movements such as #BlackLivesMatter, as resistance is facilitated through collective identification.

How does capitalism shape our online identity?

Honesty never pays dividends in the digital economy, but attention does. Viral content is rewarded by algorithms, and that typically is sensational or tired. It produces a technical system that rewards discrimination based on race but claims equality, which Benjamin (2019) refers to as the New Jim Code.

Benjamin, R. (2019). Race after technology: Abolitionist tools for the new Jim code. Polity Press.

Daniels, J. (2018). White supremacy in the digital era: An introduction. Routledge.

Senft, T., & Noble, S. (2020). Race and social media. In J. Daniels, K. Gregory, & T. McMillan Cottom (Eds.), Digital sociologies (pp. 107–118). Policy Press.

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Blog post #4

In what ways do digital labor platforms profit from racist ideology?

Platforms benefit when users spread racist memes, conspiracy theories, and extremist content, according to Daniels (2012). The unpaid labor of creating and spreading hate speech develops into an earning opportunity. In this case, ideology itself acts as work that replicates control systems while also helping companies.

Is it possible to think of representation in digital culture as labor?

Racially charged imagery, like the "yellow-face cyborg," serves as a kind of cultural labor, according to Ow (1996). By spreading beliefs, pushing goods, and supply audiences with amusement, these images actively do labor instead of merely "existing." In this sense, even when no actual people agree to its use, ethnic identity turns into an asset.

What racial hierarchies are maintained by digital labor?

Offline inequalities are often reproduced by digital work. As stated by Kolko (2000), race is deliberately generated online and crosses over into the workplace. On TikTok, for example, Black creators frequently create viral trends that are eventually taken by white influencers who earn greater recognition and financial benefit. This shows how racial hierarchies influence who gets credit for their work.

What is the importance of critical theory in understanding digital labor?

Tools from critical theory allow us to look at digital work in ways that go beyond simple economics. As an example, political economy critique shows how capitalist institutions make use of global labor pools, while cultural critique reveals how whiteness is acceptable in online forums. The abuse ingrained in "free" internet use can go unnoticed in the lack of these frameworks.

References

Daniels, J. (2012). White supremacy in the digital era. In L. Nakamura & P. Chow-White (Eds.), Race after the Internet (pp. 69–95).

Kolko, B., Nakamura, L., & Rodman, G. (2000). Race in cyberspace: An introduction.

Ow, J. (1996). Revenge of the yellowfaced eyborg terminator. In B. Kolko, L. Nakamura, & G. Rodman (Eds.), Race in cyberspace (pp. 21–34)

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Blog post # 3

How do the memes of the digital era represent the formation of racial capitalism?

According to authors such as Cedric Robinson and Ruha Benjamin, "racial capitalism" is employed to explain how capitalism coexists with racism. In many ways, memes are a result of the system, particularly when platforms appropriate Black imagination to power a piece of content that goes viral but is profited from by the owners of the platforms or white authors. Black teens' TikTok dance moves such as "Savage" and "Renegade" have been re-sold without credit, showcasing a large use of Black labor on online platforms. This is part of the "New Jim Code," one model that uses technology to repeat historical racial exploitation patterns, as cited by Benjamin (2019).

2. How do memes subvert today's concepts of knowledge and act as agents of digital decolonization?

Again with Benjamin's "New Jim Code" (2019) it is unveiling the methods in which technologies perpetuate race disparity. By satirizing these structures, with memes leaving room for critical pedagogy. And through being part of promoting non-Western perspectives, cultural humor, and whiteness critiques, to expand knowledge. Though they make a simple assertion about inclusion and erasure, memes that recombine racist imagery such as inscribing Black or indigenous subjects into canonical paintings visually decolonize art history. Such meme modes question who can be put in the foreground, seen, or remembered.

3. How do mechanisms decide which memes are made visible, and how does this affect the voices of marginalized communities?

Benjamin (2019) and Noble (2018) highlight that systems reinforce structural inequity and not replicate user behavior. Memes and movements are affected when Instagram or TikTok remove posts regarding protests or police brutality. Although even the memes made by creators may become viral, white creators ultimately take them over and drive away the original creators. Memes critiquing police brutality, such as Defund the Police images and ACAB memes, were removed on Instagram in the 2020 riots.

4. What is it about memes, as innocuous or amusing, that they become surveillance?

Memes can rely on digital surveillance. Platforms such as Google and YouTube render content in a manner that repeats stereotypes, as is evidenced by Noble (2018). Since they allow for these conversations, even if prompted for the purpose of causing harm, memes with racial stereotypes such as the angry Black woman are shared with ease. Even after those photos had been doctored or removed from context, Black people were frequently shown in various memes charging theft or violence during the 2020 riots. These ideas reinforced that Blackness is dangerous in and of itself and therefore requires more policing.

Benjamin, R. (2019). Race after technology: Abolitionist tools for the New Jim code. Polity Press.

Everett, A. (2009). The revolution will be digitized: Afrocentricity and the digital public sphere. Social Text, 20(2), 125–146.

Noble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of oppression: How search engines reinforce racism. NYU Press.

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TikTok if you are brain is rotten like me, you know the pain and hurt I felt when it got banned, and it felt unreal, almost like someone had ripped away a piece of my daily routine and left me stranded in a white room with my arms tied up in a white body suit. At first, I didn’t believe it. I refreshed the app again and again, thinking maybe it was just my Wi-Fi acting up at work, but then the truth hit me harder with each failed attempt, making me realize TikTok was gone. Even though I knew it was gone, I couldn’t believe it. Subconsciously, I was opening the app, hoping it would work again because I couldn’t believe it. Instagram Reels became my rebound, but it was the most disappointing rebound relationship ever. The videos weren’t the same, they were shorter, the humor felt forced, and the algorithm didn’t understand me the way TikTok did. I’d scroll and instead of laughing until my stomach hurt, I just sat there with an empty stare. Nothing could replace my tiktok , the creativity, and the randomness of TikTok. It felt like I was going through withdrawal and instead of staying up to 2 a.m. after telling myself just one more scroll, I laid awake staring at the ceiling. It felt like TikTok had failed me, not living up to its expectations and what it promised me, my endless nights of scrolling, then just when I had almost given up, TikTok came back. Out of nowhere, it reappeared like nothing had happened. No warning, no apology, just right back on my screen, like it was waiting for me. TikTok may have failed me once, but its comeback was sweeter than I expected. And honestly,I forgave it instantly. Because no other app will ever compare.