Social media platforms have received increasingly bad press coverage over the course of the last decade for everything from problematic uses of algorithms to the ability of authoritarian regimes to leverage them as a way to impact elections. Unfortunately, this emphasis on critique, though justified, has led to a paranoid form of thinking in which many understand that such risks exist, but lack a technical grasp of how such platforms function. We argue that platform literacy should be a foundational aspect of a university education, as it is vital to understanding how to best apply one’s agency, especially as part of an engaged citizenry in an increasingly digitized world.
New paper by myself and J.J.Sylvia just released. Access it here: https://ic4ml.org/journal-article/is-it-paranoia-a-critical-approach-to-platform-literacy/
Mark Carrigan 