Ethan Zuckerman (UMass Amherst): Data Ecology Invited Speaker
Online Publics and Unpermissioned Research
Social media platforms from TikTok to X have emerged as key parts of our digital public sphere. Understanding the influence these platforms have on discourse is essential, but studying them is difficult: platforms have few incentives to open themselves to scrutiny, and platform companies are increasingly uncooperative with scholars and activists who seek to understand online discourse. A subset of scholars and activists are choosing to study platforms in unpermissioned and adversarial ways, collecting data from platforms through methods that violate terms of service and raise technical, legal and ethical challenges. This talk offers an overview of prominent experiments in unpermissioned research, frameworks for conducting unpermissioned research in ethical ways, and examines the idea of a “safe harbor” for public service research that violates corporate usage agreements and, possibly, US laws.
Ethan Zuckerman is an associate professor of public policy, communication, and information, as well as director of the UMass Initiative for Digital Public Infrastructure, focused on reimagining the Internet as a tool for civic engagement. His research focuses on civic media, online community governance, digital public infrastructure, quantitative studies of media attention, technology, and social change.
Before coming to UMass, Zuckerman was at MIT, where he served as director of the Center for Civic Media and as associate professor of practice in media arts and sciences at the MIT Media Lab. His research focuses on the use of media as a tool for social change, the role of technology in international development, and the use of new media technologies by activists. The author of Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection, he will publish a new book, Mistrust: Why Losing Faith in Institutions Provides the Tools to Transform Them (W.W. Norton), in early 2021.
In 2005, Zuckerman cofounded Global Voices, which showcases news and opinions from citizen media in more than 150 nations and 30 languages. Through Global Voices, and as a researcher and fellow for eight years at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, Zuckerman has led efforts to promote freedom of expression and fight censorship in online spaces.
In 1999, Zuckerman founded Geekcorps, an international, nonprofit, volunteer organization that sent IT specialists to work on projects in developing nations, with a focus on West Africa. Previously, he helped found Tripod.com, one of the web’s first “personal publishing” sites.
In addition to authoring numerous academic articles, Zuckerman is a frequent contributor to media outlets such as The Atlantic, Wired, and CNN. He received his bachelor’s degree from Williams College and, as a Fulbright scholar, studied at the University of Ghana at Legon.