MIT Technology Review
Tonga’s volcano blast cut it off from the world. Here’s what it will take to get it reconnected. (MIT Technology Review)
Submitted by benton on Wed, 01/19/2022 - 10:10New data shows just how polarized political conversation is in the US and hints at what might come during the 2022 midterms (MIT Technology Review)
Submitted by Grace Tepper on Thu, 01/13/2022 - 15:47How to save our social media by treating it like a city
Being on social media can feel a bit like living in a new kind of city. My job used to be to protect the city. I was a member of the Facebook Civic Integrity team. My coworkers and I researched and fixed integrity problems—abuses of the platform to spread hoaxes, hate speech, harassment, calls to violence, and so on. Over time, we became experts, thanks to all the people, hours, and data thrown at the problem. As in any community of experts, we all had at least slightly different ways of looking at the problem. For my part, I started to think like an urban planner.
The internet runs on free open-source software. Who pays to fix it? (MIT Technology Review)
Submitted by Grace Tepper on Fri, 12/17/2021 - 09:56How Facebook and Google fund global misinformation (MIT Technology Review)
Submitted by Grace Tepper on Mon, 11/22/2021 - 12:00The metaverse is the next venue for body dysmorphia online (MIT Technology Review)
Submitted by benton on Wed, 11/17/2021 - 06:23China’s burned-out tech workers are fighting back against long hours (MIT Technology Review)
Submitted by Grace Tepper on Mon, 11/15/2021 - 10:07Laptops alone can’t bridge the digital divide
What is missing in the focus on getting laptops in the hands of children is the social component of learning—a component all too often taken for granted or even disparaged. As a culture, the United States has long loved the heroic idea of children teaching themselves. Movies and stories constantly retell this narrative of scrappy young people pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. These myths are especially common regarding technical knowledge.