SO
AN CI
D AL
TH M
EI ED
R IA
AL M
TE O
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AT PO
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ES ES
2
Unlike Us Reader
Social Media Monopolies and Their Alternatives
Editors: Geert Lovink and Miriam Rasch
Copy editing: Rachel Somers Miles
Design: Katja van Stiphout
Cover design: Giulia Ciliberto and Silvio Lorusso
Printer: Joh. Enschedé, Amsterdam
Publisher: Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, 2013
ISBN: 978-90-818575-2-9
Contact
Institute of Network Cultures
phone: +31205951866
fax: +31205951840
email: info@networkcultures.org
web: www.networkcultures.org
Order a copy of this book by email:
books@networkcultures.org
A PDF of this publication can also be downloaded freely at:
www.networkcultures.org/publications/inc-readers
Join the Unlike Us mailinglist at:
http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/unlike-us_listcultures.org
Supported by: CREATE-IT applied research, Amsterdam University of Applied
Sciences (Hogeschool van Amsterdam) and Stichting Democratie en Media
Thanks to Margreet Riphagen at INC, to all of the authors for their contributions,
Patrice Riemens for his translation, Rachel Somers Miles for her copy editing,
and to Stichting Democratie en Media for their financial support.
This publication is licensed under Creative Commons
NonCommercial
ShareAlike
3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0).
Attribution
To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/.
4
Previously published INC Readers:
The INC Reader series is derived from conference contributions and produced by
the Institute of Network Cultures. The readers are available in print and PDF form.
INC Reader #7: Geert Lovink and Nathaniel Tkacz (eds),
Critical Point of View: A Wikipedia Reader, 2011.
INC Reader #6: Geert Lovink and Rachel Somers Miles (eds),
Video Vortex Reader II: Moving Images Beyond YouTube, 2011.
INC Reader #5: Scott McQuire, Meredith Martin and Sabine Niederer (eds),
Urban Screens Reader, 2009.
INC Reader #4: Geert Lovink and Sabine Niederer (eds),
Video Vortex Reader: Responses to YouTube, 2008.
INC Reader #3: Geert Lovink and Ned Rossiter (eds),
MyCreativity Reader: A Critique of Creative Industries, 2007.
INC Reader #2: Katrien Jacobs, Marije Janssen and Matteo Pasquinelli (eds),
C’LICK ME: A Netporn Studies Reader, 2007.
INC Reader #1: Geert Lovink and Soenke Zehle (eds),
Incommunicado Reader, 2005.
All INC Readers, and other publications like the Network Notebooks
Series and Theory on Demand, can be downloaded as a PDF for free
from www.networkcultures.org/publications.
Or check www.scribd.com/collections/3073695/INC-Readers for print on
demand, and www.issuu.com/instituteofnetworkcultures for online reading.
Social Media MonopolieS and Their alTernaTiveS
5
conTenTS
Geert Lovink
A World Beyond Facebook: Introduction to the Unlike Us Reader
9
TheorY oF Social Media
Bernard Stiegler
The Most Precious Good in the Era of Social Technologies
16
David M. Berry
Against Remediation
31
Ganaele Langlois
Social Media, or Towards a Political Economy of Psychic Life
50
Nathan Jurgenson and PJ Rey
The Fan Dance: How Privacy Thrives in an Age of Hyper-Publicity
61
Martin Warnke
Databases as Citadels in the Web 2.0
76
Andrea Miconi
Under the Skin of the Networks: How Concentration Affects Social Practices
in Web 2.0 Environments
89
Yuk Hui and Harry Halpin
Collective Individuation: The Future of the Social Web
103
criTical plaTForM analYSiS
Korinna Patelis
Political Economy and Monopoly Abstractions: What Social Media Demand
117
Jenny Kennedy
Rhetorics of Sharing: Data, Imagination, and Desire
127
Mercedes Bunz
As You Like It: Critique in the Era of an Affirmative Discourse
137
Caroline Bassett
Silence, Delirium, Lies?
146
Ippolita and Tiziana Mancinelli
The Facebook Aquarium: Freedom in a Profile
159
plaTForM caSe STUdieS
Mariann Hardey and David Beer
Talking About Escape
166
D.E. Wittkower
Boredom on Facebook
188
Leighton Evans
How to Build a Map for Nothing: Immaterial Labor and
Location-Based Social Networking
189
Andrew McNicol
None of Your Business? Analyzing the Legitimacy and Effects
of Gendering Social Spaces Through System Design
200
6
Robert W. Gehl
‘Why I Left Facebook’: Stubbornly Refusing to not Exist even After
Opting out of Mark Zuckerberg’s Social Graph
220
arTiSTic inTervenTionS
Simona Lodi
Illegal Art and Other Stories About Social Media
239
Alessandro Ludovico and Paolo Cirio
Face-to-Facebook, Smiling in the Eternal Party
254
Louis Doulas and Wyatt Niehaus
On Pleaselike.com and Facebook Bliss
259
Brad Troemel
Art After Social Media as a Rejection of Free Market Conventions
264
Tatiana Bazzichelli
Disruptive Business as Artistic Intervention
269
acTiviSM and Social Media USeS
Marc Stumpel
Facebook Resistance: Augmented Freedom
274
Pavlos Hatzopoulos and Nelli Kambouri
The Tactics of Occupation: Becoming Cockroach
289
Tiziana Terranova and Joan Donovan
Occupy Social Networks: The Paradoxes of Using Corporate Social Media
in Networked Movements
296
alTernaTiveS
Lonneke van der Velden
Meeting the Alternatives: Notes About Making Profiles and Joining Hackers
312
Sebastian Sevignani
Facebook vs. Diaspora: A Critical Study
323
Florencio Cabello, Marta G. Franco and Alexandra Haché
Towards a Free Federated Social Web: Lorea Takes the Networks!
338
Solon Barocas, Seda Gürses, Arvind Narayanan and Vincent Toubiana
Unlikely Outcomes? A Distributed Discussion on the Prospects and Promise
of Decentralized Personal Data Architectures
347
appendiceS
Unlike Us Research Agenda
364
Unlike Us Conferences
Unlike Us #1 in Limassol
Unlike Us #2 in Amsterdam
373
Author Biographies
376
200
none oF YoUr BUSineSS?:
analYzinG The leGiTiMacY
and eFFecTS oF GenderinG Social
SpaceS ThroUGh SYSTeM deSiGn
/
andreW Mcnicol
Gender
FaceBook
GooGle
USerS
Sex
Social
Field
SYSTeM inForMaTion diaSpora
proFile STaTUS naMe Media
plaTForM caSe STUdieS
201
How we relate to or speak about a sub-atomic particle may not change how that
particle behaves, but referring and relating to a person in a certain way undoubtedly
determines that person’s being.1
Social media profiles serve as public declarations of who we are. By publicizing and
omitting details or bending the truth about ourselves we perform our complex identities in these spaces. Responding to our understanding of the social environment we
aim to influence the impressions of others through our method of expression. As in all
spaces, though in digital spaces especially, there are various restrictions imposed on
us, both via technical barriers (coded limitations) and social influences (e.g. pressure
to participate and awareness of the repercussions of our actions), diminishing the flexibility of our identity performance. We can be who we want to be, but only as long as it
falls within the boundaries set and influenced by the system.
Furthermore, because these social media profiles act as a mediator between us and
others, the more value we ascribe to these public faces of our complex selves the
more likely we are to internalize the identity restrictions set by the system. The extent
to which a Facebook profile serves as a person’s main professional and social contact
point correlates with the level of importance this profile plays in influencing their public
perception. The recognition of this phenomenon prompts us to internalize the content
of our social media profiles, to an extent corresponding to the perceived importance
we attribute to them. The limitations on identity performance enforced by these systems have the power to influence how we understand ourselves – and everyone else
using the system. Whether it be through limited options for representative fields, requirements of user information declaration, or the choices made regarding how to
display user information to others, even the smallest of design decisions within our
collectively adopted social media systems can have major ramifications for framing social communication and for how individual users and the community as a whole exist.
Of course, restrictions are unavoidable and those that do exist may be easily justified.
It is simply important when designing a system of any kind to consider and address
unexpected social consequences of all design choices. This is especially crucial in the
design of social media platforms, systems that have been given the responsibility of
facilitating much of our online social interaction.
1.
Claire Colebrook, Gender, London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004, p. 14.
202
The Usefulness of Exploring Gender and Sex Limitation
In some situations the justification for requesting or requiring disclosure of gender
or sex information can appear questionable, or present a largely one-sided benefit
to the system at the expense of its users. Additionally, the difficulties of transcribing
something as complex as gender and sex into limited categories – often binary fields
– highlight broader issues of limited representation social media profile systems can
introduce.
Throughout this text I use the word ‘sex’ to describe a person’s biological status of
being ‘male’, ‘female’ or – affecting roughly 1 in every 100 people according to The Intersex Society of North America2 – something that does not fit neatly within these two,
more common possibilities. ‘Gender’, on the other hand, refers here to the person’s
inward sense of place in relation to social gendered roles, often materializing in the
form of ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ gender. Sex and gender do not always correlate – not
all ‘males’ are ‘masculine’, for example, and many other gendered words are regularly used, describing a clear deviation from more common gender terminology – and
the vast complexity of these two terms have proven difficult to transcribe into digital
environments. However, the way sex and gender are integrated within a system can
contextually redefine their meaning, influencing how these terms are understood within
that environment. For example, Facebook routinely uses the words sex and gender interchangeably and only allows for a binary representation of both3, reinforcing a limited
understanding of these complex terms that persists in some communities. Conversely,
Diaspora prompts users to write their gender in a text field, allowing for more freedom
of expression, promoting an act of self-questioning and facilitating a healthy environment for identity performance.
In addition to issues relating to accuracy and empowering users, there are situations
where the chosen method of including sex or gender status can lead to the exclusion
of particular demographics who would not feel comfortable or safe within such an
environment. In this way, social media system design can reinforce or create groups of
marginalization, making this an important discussion related to issues of equal access
and freedom of expression.
There is a difficult tension between designing social media systems with limited user
categorization for perceived practical benefits, such as searchability and advertising,
and granting users greater freedom of identity performance. It becomes interesting to
see how the four services this essay focuses on address this tension differently.
Mandatory Declarations
When signing up for a Facebook account you must enter your first name, your last
name, your email address, a password, your sex, and your date of birth4. To use Google+ you first need a Google account which requires you to enter your name (which must
2.
3.
4.
‘How Common Is Intersex?’, Intersex Society of North America, http://www.isna.org/faq/
frequency.
When discussing services that use these terms interchangeably, like Facebook does, I will
specifically state ‘gender or sex’ or ‘gender and sex’ depending on the circumstances.
Except where specified otherwise, all descriptions of system and interface details listed in this
paper are correct as of 16 August 2012.
plaTForM caSe STUdieS
203
consist of both a ‘first’ and a ‘last’ name), a chosen username and password, your
date of birth, your gender, and your location. These fields are all mandatory and, apart
from the passwords for both services and the Google username, they ask for existing
personal data from the prospective user.
In contrast to this, the only existing personal data Twitter and Diaspora5 require from
new users is an email address. Twitter and Diaspora both prompt users for a full name,
but this does not have to be correlate with the user’s legal name. Various justifications
are given for requiring personal information. Email addresses, for example, are important in all four of these services for communicating notifications to users that they
have subscribed to, and to assist with managing their account. The reasons for other
personal information requests are perhaps less apparent.
Legislation, both local and global, and concerns over user safety can influence the user
content collected by social media services. On Google’s inclusion of birth date in the
account sign up process, blogger Alex Chitu remarks, ‘Google’s page for creating a
new account is famous for only requiring your email address and your country, so it’s
strange to see that users from the United States have to enter their birthdays’.6 Google
began requesting a birth date from users, Chitu explains, so it can comply with the
(U.S.) Federal Trade Commission’s Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)
which ‘applies to the online collection of personal information from children under 13’.7
Initially, Google only required birth dates from U.S. citizens, but this was extended to
all locations in 2011.8
Additionally, data collection is regularly framed as being valuable to the user. Having
obtained birth date information, Google began recommending users publicize this to
their friends who may then set birthday reminders. Similarly, the ‘Introduction’ text field
on Google+ Profiles, if blank, prompts the user to ‘Put a little about yourself here so
people know they’ve found the correct [user’s first name]’. Detailed personalization is
framed in these examples as building trusted connections and stronger, more meaningful interactions with your friends, family, and other acquaintances.
The Facebook blog is more assertive in 2010 when it states ‘[c]ertain information is visible to everyone because it’s essential to helping people find and connect with you on
Facebook: your name, profile picture, gender and networks’.9 And in July 2008, when
Facebook requested their users declare their sex status if they hadn’t already (it wasn’t
always mandatory), it sent the following message to those who had not yet selected
either ‘female’ or ‘male’:
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
All descriptions of Diaspora interfaces relate to those found on the hosted server (called a ‘pod’) at
diasp.org. It is possible that other pods may vary slightly.
Alex Chitu, ‘Creating a Google Account Requires to Enter Your Birthday in the US’, Google
Operating System, 28 April 2010, http://googlesystem.blogspot.com.au/2010/04/creating-googleaccount-requires-to.html.
‘COPPA - Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act’, http://www.coppa.org/comply.htm.
Alex Chitu, ‘Creating a Google Account Requires to Enter Your Birthday’, Google Operating
System, 26 august 2011, http://googlesystem.blogspot.com.au/2011/08/creating-google-accountrequires-to.html.
Ana Muller, ‘Understanding Your Privacy Controls on Facebook’, The Facebook Blog, 27 May
2010, http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=394231632130.
204
Which example applies to you?
Right now your Mini-Feed may be confusing.
Please choose how we should refer to you.
*
[user-first-name] edited her profile.
*
[user-first-name] edited his profile.10
Choosing a set of gendered pronouns here would influence gendered language used
throughout the system, but it would also set the user’s sex status to ‘female’ or ‘male’
depending on the corresponding selection.
Such examples, framed as enhancing the user experience, can be of benefit to both
the user and the system. However, in the case of Facebook above, there is only a
dubious link between the benefits of sex declaration and visible gendered pronouns,
and sex being the mandatory field required for participation it has become. Sex is just
one of many profile fields that may help to confirm another user is the ‘long-lost high
school friend’ you’re looking for, but it has been highlighted as an integral part of user
identification within this environment by its mandatory status.
Facebook’s stance is that it is reasonable to require that new users declare their biological sex, to divulge ‘what’s in their pants’, in order to qualify to use a system that
connects them to their existing social network. Others may question whether such
mandatory declarations are appropriate.
Enforced Authenticity
Under the ‘Registration and Account Security’ section of Facebook’s terms, the first
commitment listed is that users will not provide any false personal information on Facebook.11 Users must participate, then, using their real name and fill out any profile
fields truthfully. Such restrictions relate to a belief held by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg
and Google’s Eric Schmidt, among others, that allowing something other than real
identities online will have negative effects on the broader community.
Facebook’s principles page opens by stating, ‘[w]e are building Facebook to make the
world more open and transparent, which we believe will create greater understanding
and connection’.12 Zuckerberg takes this further, believing that using a single, ‘real’
identity across multiple services makes you more authentic and ‘having two identities
is an example of a lack of integrity’.13 Similarly, Schmidt, responding to concerns over
real names policies on Google+, has stated ‘the Internet would be better if we had an
accurate notion that you were a real person as opposed to a dog, or a fake person, or
a spammer or what have you’.14 Many, such as 4chan founder Chris Poole who has
10. httf, ‘Facebook’s Gender Blunder’, Token Attempt, 10 July 2008, http://httf.livejournal.com/43728.
html. Emphasis in original.
11. ‘Statement of Rights and Responsibilities’, Facebook, 8 June 2012, http://www.facebook.com/
legal/terms.
12. ‘Facebook Principles’, Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/principles.php.
13. ‘Facebook and “Radical Transparency” (a Rant)’, apophenia, 14 May 2010, http://www.zephoria.
org/thoughts/archives/2010/05/14/facebook-and-radical-transparency-a-rant.html.
14. Andy Carvin, ‘Andy Carvin’, Google+, 30 August 2011, https://plus.google.
com/117378076401635777570/posts/CjM2MPKocQP.
plaTForM caSe STUdieS
205
actively spoken out about the benefits of anonymity,15 have disputed the legitimacy
of claims that authenticity facilitates a better social environment, but Facebook and
Google+ continue to argue that the internet operates best when everyone uses their
real credentials and these companies have decided they would only allow people to
use their system who they believe are engaging in this way.
Not everyone is aware of these restrictions when creating an account, but they are casually enforced. In 2011, for example, Chinese commentator Michael Anti’s Facebook account was closed because it was said to be operating under a pseudonym. In this case,
‘Michael Anti’ was an English name adopted during high school, a standard practice in
China, used ‘for dealings with foreigners’. Anti ‘[did] not understand why he [had] been
singled out when many more Facebook users are not using their legal names, but suspects someone reported him’.16 Similarly, many Google+ profiles have been suspended
for violating Google’s policy of using real names.17 Users risk similar suspension if they are
reported by another user for violating this, or if some algorithmic system flag is raised.18
Authenticity in Google+ and Facebook is enforced through technical means (restricting
access), and as more users become aware of the risks they are pressured to conform to
the rules. Many still use fake names, but one single claim against their real authenticity –
be it about their name or anything else on their profile – by a political enemy or someone
playing a prank is all that’s needed to potentially have their profile marked for suspension. There exists a diverse demographic – described in the Geek Feminism Wiki article
‘Who is harmed by a “Real Names” policy?’19 – who don’t feel safe declaring an accurate
looking name, sex, or gender in social media spaces. Because accurate declarations of
these fields have been made a requirement for participation these groups become the
most likely to be turned away or removed from the system altogether, making participation within such social media environments difficult for the already marginalized.
Gender Salience and Marginalization
Whether we’re required to declare our sex or gender on social media systems (such
as Facebook and Google+) or if we’re given more flexibility as to what we divulge (as
is the case with Diaspora and Twitter) the prominence of such information can have
subtle but significant consequences.
In Delusions of Gender, Cordelia Fine writes, ‘When gender is salient in the environment, or we categorise someone as male or female, gender stereotypes are automatically primed’. Additionally, ‘we might also perceive our own selves through the lens of
15. Aleks Krotoski, ‘4chan Founder Chris Poole on Web Anonymity’, Tech Weekly podcast, 17 April
2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/audio/2012/apr/17/tech-weekly-podcast-anonymity4chan.
16. Tania Branigan, ‘Facebook’s “Real Name” Policy Attacked by Chinese Blogger’, The Guardian, 9
March 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/09/chinese-blogger-mark-zuckerbergdog.
17. Tim Carmody, ‘Google+ Identity Crisis: What’s at Stake With Real Names and Privacy’, Wired, 26
July 2011, http://www.wired.com/business/2011/07/google-plus-user-names/.
18. Saurabh Sharma, ‘Saurabh Sharma’, Google+, 18 August 2011, https://plus.google.
com/109179785755319022525/posts/YcvRKqJeiZi.
19. ‘Who Is Harmed by a “Real Names” Policy?’, Geek Feminism Wiki, 2012, http://geekfeminism.
wikia.com/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Real_Names%22_policy%3F.
206
an activated stereotype’.20 To give an example, Fine outlines one study on American
university students that looked at the self-assessments of math and verbal skills. Participants were asked to complete a form listing demographic details beforehand –
some were asked to declare their gender, others their ethnicity. Women for whom gender was primed ‘felt more confident about their verbal skills when gender was salient
[…] and rated their maths ability lower, compared with when [ethnicity was primed]’.21
When gender is ‘primed’ in social spaces, we are more likely to judge our own abilities
as being close to what we perceive to be the ‘activated’ stereotype relating to that
context. These stereotypes are internalized and we are led to perform in accordance
with them. Such influences can be seen in what has been called ‘impostor syndrome’
which, as occurs regularly in the case of women in the tech industry, manifests itself in
the form of ‘[s]elf-doubt and overeager self-criticism’.22 In this and other cases, gender
salience can affect participation, often negatively, and it does this disproportionately.
In an official page explaining their privacy options, Facebook states ‘if you choose to
hide your gender, it only hides it on your timeline. This is because we, just like the applications you and your friends use, need to use your gender to refer to you properly
on the site’.23 Until recently, the effects of this could be seen on user profile pages you
don’t have access to view; even if the user has chosen to hide their sex or gender status from their profile, the system would still use gender pronouns to refer to them, such
as the following notice: ‘Anne only shares some information with everyone. If you know
Anne, add her as a friend or send her a message’.24 Furthermore, if the user had not
uploaded a profile image, Facebook’s default, gendered silhouette would also be visible. Interestingly, Facebook appears to have stopped using some or all of its gendered
phrasing since 2011. A recent version of the message above removes all gendered
pronouns, stating simply ‘Anne only shares some information publicly’. However, default, gendered profile images are still visible if users have not uploaded an alternative.
Similarly, when Google+ was still in its early test phase, it prevented users from hiding
their gender status from Google Profiles and also used gendered phrases to refer to
all users, even though this appears to conflict with its privacy policy from the time.25 In
these cases the system itself imposed a minimum level of prominence of gender and
sex status for all users. This was a conscious choice, said to be because it was important for finding users and facilitating friendly language.
20. Cordelia Fine, Delusions of Gender: The Real Science Behind Sex Differences, NSW: Allen &
Unwin, 2010, p. 7.
21. Fine, Delusions of Gender, p. 9.
22. John Gold, ‘Gmail Engineer: Women in Tech Must Overcome the Impostor Syndrome’, Computer
World UK, 14 June 2012, http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/it-business/3364125/gmailengineer-women-in-tech-must-overcome-impostor-syndrome/.
23. ‘Data Use Policy - Sharing and Finding You on Facebook’, http://www.facebook.com/about/
privacy/your-info-on-fb.
24. Emphasis added.
25. The policy stated ‘[i]n order to use Google+, you need to have a public Google Profile visible to
the world, which at a minimum includes the name you chose for the profile’ [emphasis added] – at
a minimum it also included gender. (‘Google+ Privacy Policy’, Google, 28 June 2011, http://www.
google.com/intl/en-US/+/policy/).
plaTForM caSe STUdieS
207
Google+’s policy of allowing only real names on its service sparked what has been
termed the ‘nymwars’. Many were unhappy because, for users like Michael Anti on
Facebook and others who have or regularly use non-standard names, the system was
making it difficult for them to participate legitimately. Others, however, were against
Google+’s real names policy because of safety concerns. danah boyd writes,
The people who most heavily rely on pseudonyms in online spaces are those who
are most marginalized by systems of power. “Real names” policies aren’t empowering; they’re an authoritarian assertion of power over vulnerable people.26
More specifically relating to gender salience, blogger s.e. smith states,
Many of the people using pseudonyms are women, again, because women are at
increased risk of harassment online and have good reason to want to conceal identifying information that could end with someone showing up at their door.27
This highlights the issue that enforcing real names has the effect of, at least in the case
of many common names, informing the user’s sex or gender status. In a related study
from 2006, it was discovered that chat users with female sounding names received ‘25
times more malicious messages’.28 It’s not just the prominence of the gender status
field and gendered language that informs gender salience and reception; enforced real
names influence this, too.
In response to questions about why Google is enforcing a real name policy if such
practice could put some people at risk, Eric Schmidt stated, ‘Google+ is completely
optional [...] if you don’t want to use it, you don’t have to’.29 Responding to this sentiment, Jon Pincus has written,
Whenever somebody says something like “no reason G+ needs to be for everyone”
what I hear is “no reason G+ needs to be for women, LGBTQs, people with disabilities, activists, whistleblowers, teachers, etc. etc.” Because, y’know, why would
anybody want those people in our search results?30
The more popular these services become the more individuals lose by not participating. Facebook’s default page when not logged in recently stated, ‘Facebook helps
you connect and share with the people in your life’,31 so by excluding ourselves from
Facebook we are cutting ourselves off, to some degree, from our existing social group.
We don’t often pay money to use social media, but experience shows us that one of
26. danah boyd, ‘“Real Names” Policies Are an Abuse of Power’, apophenia, 4 August 2011, http://
www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2011/08/04/real-names.html.
27. s.e. smith, ‘Tiger Beatdown › The Google+ Nymwars: Where Identity and Capitalism Collide’, Tiger
Beatdown, 3 August 2011, http://tigerbeatdown.com/2011/08/03/the-google-nymwars-whereidentity-and-capitalism-collide/.
28. ‘Female-Name Chat Users Get 25 Times More Malicious Messages’, Phys.org, 9 May 2006, http://
phys.org/news66401288.html.
29. Carvin, ‘Andy Carvin’.
30. Jon Pincus, ‘Liminal States : A Tale of Two Searches: Google+ and Diversity, Part 4’, Liminal
states, 16 August 2011, http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/?p=2976. Emphasis in original.
31. Emphasis added.
208
the hidden costs of using a social platform that makes gender salient is the unequal
amount of harassment or unwanted attention different gender and sex demographics
will receive – and this can be a deal breaker for many, further marginalizing them within
the broader community.
Binary Fields and ‘the Grammar Justification’
Facebook and Google+32 have chosen to adopt a strict binary understanding of gender
and sex status in their systems. Despite the concerns regarding marginalization and
safety introduced above, there exist legitimate, practical justifications for using binary
fields for sex or gender status in these spaces.
After receiving user feedback regarding the ‘always public’ gender field on Google+,
visible on user profiles and in gendered pronouns used by the system during the initial
‘limited field trial’, Google Product Manager Frances Haugen made an announcement
that gender would now be able to be made private. This announcement also discussed
the technical issues related to avoiding gendered pronouns on a social service:
One of the major things we use gender information for on Google+ is for picking
pronouns – her, his, their – when we refer to you. Google is committed to building
products that people all over the world can use, and in some languages gender is
much more deeply part of how sentences are formed than in, say, English.
Having gender information helps to make Google+ more conversational. If you decide to make your gender private on Google+, we’ll use gender-neutral language to
describe you whenever someone else encounters gender-related information about
you but doesn’t have permission to see your gender. For example, instead of saying
‘Greg added you to his circles’ or ‘Frances added you to her circles’, we’ll say ‘Greg
added you to their circles’ or ‘Frances added you to their circles’. Yes, I know this is
grammatically questionable. You don’t need to message me about it. But we valued
helping people control their privacy as being much more important than being grammatically perfectly.33
Facebook stated a similar justification in 2008 when it began requesting users select
one of two possible sex statuses:
[W]e’ve gotten feedback from translators and users in other countries that translations wind up being too confusing when people have not specified a sex on their
profiles. People who haven’t selected what sex they are frequently get defaulted to
the wrong sex entirely in Mini-Feed stories.
For this reason, we’ve decided to request that all Facebook users fill out this information on their profile. If you haven’t yet selected a sex, you will probably see a
32. Though Google+ profiles offer a third, ‘other’ field for gender status, this is in relation to the
feminine/masculine gender binary. Such profiles display the same gender non-specific pronouns
as profiles with hidden gender. For these reasons I choose here to refer to Google+ Profiles as
implementing a binary understanding of gender.
33. Frances Haugen, ‘Frances Haugen’, Google+, 13 July 2011, https://plus.google.
com/106792630639449031994/posts/5kt9TpEb77m. Emphasis in original.
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prompt to choose whether you want to be referred to as “him” or “her” in the coming
weeks.34
There is a difference in the way these systems give users control over the gendering of their persona within these social spaces, but they publicize similar, grammarbased justifications for their adherence to a binary gender field.
One clear concern relating to the use of a limited binary for gender or sex is the
way these terms are used interchangeably by the systems, demonstrating a confusion of what is being recorded and how this may appear to others. To begin with, the
words ‘female’ and ‘male’ relate to a person’s sex; they are not gendered terms like
they are presented in Google+ – ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ would be correct in this
context.
The practice of using gender and sex interchangeably can also be seen regularly on
Facebook. Most notably ‘female’ and ‘male’ are used (correctly) as terms for the sex
field, but then these are used to inform the gendered language relating to the user.
Complicating this further, when viewing the site using the language ‘English (US)’
user profiles have a ‘Sex’ field, but if the language is changed to ‘English (UK)’ these
instances of ‘Sex’ change to ‘Gender’. This has led some users to change their language setting because they’re more comfortable stating their gender in their profile
than their biological sex.35 However, anyone looking at their profile using the ‘English
(US)’ language setting will still see this gender declaration as a sex status.
For those who do not have a gender and sex that neatly correspond to each other,
and that fit within the simple binary divide, this means that it can become unclear
what they are declaring and how this performance can be interpreted by viewers. Furthermore, because of this interchangeability, no one can express their sex or gender
identity accurately on Facebook unless they believe, just as Facebook has asserted,
gender and sex are binary and exactly the same thing.36
Another common justification for requesting sex or gender status in profiles occurs
within dating sites, as such details relate closely to the main activity of the site. However, these also remain severely limited. When creating an account on okcupid.com,
for example, users are given the choice between a binary gender and one of three
possible orientations – ‘straight’, ‘gay’ or ‘bisexual’. On eharmony.com you can only
be a man or a woman seeking only men or only women. Users who don’t neatly fit
into these categories may spend time filling out their profiles to provide more detail
about their situation, but as the matching algorithms utilized by such sites focus
heavily on the responses to these fields, it becomes much harder for them to find, or
be found by, desirable matches.
34. Naomi Gleit, ‘He/She/They: Grammar and Facebook’, The Facebook Blog, 26 June 2008, http://
blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=21089187130.
35. Hadassah D.G. Chayim, ‘I most definitely want this […]’, Facebook comment, 10 December 2010,
9:52 AM, http://www.facebook.com/groups/2262428561/permalink/10150519727238562/.
36. Any declaration of ‘female’ on Facebook, for example, becomes equivalent to ‘not male’, which
would not be accurate if the individual believes in deviations from the limited binary definition
imposed on the environment.
210
There have been various campaigns against the Facebook binary, both within37 and
outside the system,38 and others have publicly protested the practices by closing their
account.39 Others still have responded in more creative ways to help highlight how limited such fields can be even for the average user.40 Regardless, it doesn’t appear likely
that Facebook will give users more flexibility with their gender declaration.
A common critique to restricting and requiring such information is that of course Facebook and Google, large corporations aiming to make a profit from their free services,
would want accurate information about you because that makes advertising a more
successful, financially viable revenue stream. However likely this sentiment is, the public faces of these businesses choose to focus on issues of transparency and how it
facilitates better communities, in the case of authenticity, and clear communication,
in the case of grammar. Even if they genuinely care about users, they do clearly gain
financially from enforced authenticity and limited representation.
However, it remains questionable whether the limitations both systems place on gender
and sex expression is in fact an optimal model for advertising. Facebook allows advertisers to target specific users based on various demographics. It explains that ‘narrowing down your audience will ensure your ad is shown to the most relevant people’41
while severely limiting the demographics advertisers can choose to target by only offering a gender/sex binary. For sex or gender status, advertisers can only choose between
‘All’, ‘Men’, and ‘Women’. For some products and services at least, allowing for more
gender/sex diversity would greatly help improve advertising targeting.
Othering Fields
One of the benefits of Google+ Profiles providing the gender option ‘other’ is one of
privacy and safety; it allowed users to hide their status as male or female during the
limited field trial when gender was always public. One of the stated justifications for
making it possible to hide gender was to address these privacy concerns, as such
publication can influence harassment or general discomfort about gendered spaces.
As of mid July 2011 all users can select ‘female’ or ‘male’ and be confident that they
can control who sees this information. They may still wish to choose and publicize their
gender as ‘other’, though such a phrase suggests this may be less of an ‘I opt out of
disclosing my gender’ choice and more of a ‘my gender doesn’t fall within the other
two options’ one.
For those who don’t identify as part of the gender binary and are not comfortable with
the gendered language within the service, the ‘other’ field allows for such a declaration
37. See for example the Facebook group, Expand Gender Options on Facebook Petition, http://www.
facebook.com/groups/2262428561/.
38. See for example the allout.org petition, ‘FACEBOOK: Stop Forcing Your Users Into Hiding’, http://
www.allout.org/facebook.
39. See for example, Emil Protalinski, ‘Facebook Doesn’t Add Third Sex, Gay Activist Disables
Account’, ZDNet, 30 March 2012, http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/facebook-doesnt-addthird-sex-gay-activist-disables-account/11167.
40. For example see, ‘Yay Genderform!’, yaygender.net, 2010 http://www.yaygender.net/pages/
gender.pl.
41. ‘Do I Have to Use All of the Targeting Options?’, Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/
help/?faq=228888570460131#Do-I-have-to-use-all-of-the-targeting-options?
plaTForM caSe STUdieS
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– albeit to a very limited extent – of this divergence. However, some potential effects
relating to the implementation of an ‘other’ field are important to raise.
In a post discussing the ‘other’ field as an option for those who want to hide their
gender status before Google allowed them to make it private, Randall Munroe writes:
‘There are quite a few people who are accurately described by an “other” option, and
when they’re sometimes struggling for recognition, co-opting their label for anyone
who doesn’t want to broadcast their gender seems a little off-putting’.42 The concern
here is that using an existing term for increasing user safety or playful gender performance could be insulting for those who have adopted the word after going through a
lot to recognize their own gender complexity. This is perhaps an issue with all identity
performance terminology, but in this case its potential exists because the system limits
gender performance into broad categories. Though Munroe’s concern is valid, the various reasons for choosing ‘other’ would likely be accepted by this group who already
have experience not wanting to be referred to in relation to a gender binary.
Perhaps the most worrying effect of an ‘other’ field is that it facilitates an environment of othering through utilizing a categorization system and terminology that casually suggests a demarcation between normal and abnormal. Blogger and developer
Sarah Dopp agrees, stating ‘“Other” is a poor choice for a third option. Why? Because
gender-nonconforming people are othered enough as it is’.43 Though there are three
options, one is framed in opposition to the common male/female binary and therefore
suggests a hierarchy of those who fit and those who don’t – the latter of which are all
lumped together using a single vague term. This is especially problematic for those
who already feel their gender identity is largely delegitimized in wider society. They
become socially marginalized, even if they are allowed to participate.
As discussed previously, Google+ uses gender status to inform gendered pronouns it
uses throughout its system, and gender was initially public by default at least in part
because the alternative, they said, is the presence of awkward grammar. It’s important to have a professional looking interface in order to help facilitate immersive social communication, but furthering dependence on the use of masculine and feminine
gendered pronouns while allowing a non-gendered alternative that may sound weird
to some Google+ users has created an environment where those users who choose
to hide their gender or select the ‘other’ option for any reason are presented by the
system differently – as awkward others who choose not to use gendered pronouns.
The use of gender-neutral terminology and phrasing may not be that much of a problem for most, but it is important to note that there are other alternatives proposed for
systems, like Google+, that want to incorporate gendered pronouns. One possibility is
to, rather than request a person’s gender, directly ask what gendered pronouns they
would like to have used in reference to them. Explaining such a proposal, Jessica
Motherwell McFarlane writes, ‘English speakers are well aware of English pronoun lan-
42. Randall Munroe, ‘Randall Munroe’, Google+, 8 July 2011, https://plus.google.
com/111588569124648292310/posts/SeBqgN9Zoiu.
43. Sarah Dopp, ‘Designing a Better Drop-Down Menu for Gender’, Dopp Juice, 5 February 2010,
http://www.sarahdopp.com/blog/2010/designing-a-better-drop-down-menu-for-gender/.
Emphasis in original.
212
guage limitations, so why not give a choice to your clients about how they would like
to be addressed?’ An example list of options that could be presented reads:
What pronoun may we use when referring to or writing about you?
[ ] she, her, hers
[ ] he, him, his
[ ] they, them, theirs
[ ] Alternate through the above
[ ] Always use my name and avoid pronouns when talking about me44
A possible addition to such a list could be giving users the ability to write in their
own pronouns.45 Though potentially making such systems more complex for the user
– there is more work involved than selecting from a list of just two or three options –
where gendered language is the main or only concern such alternatives could present
a practical replacement for the common, limited drop-down box.
On the other hand, it may be possible to remove gendered language from the system
altogether. Facebook appears to have done this for some system notices – as is the
case with the ‘Anne only shares some information publicly’ example mentioned earlier
– and similar changes could be made on Google+.46 However, such a task may prove
to be more difficult in languages where gendered terminology plays a more integral
role.
‘Gender is a Text Field’
Diaspora allows users to choose between a list of established servers (‘pods’) to host
their profile on, and they may even install and host the software on their own server.
Such ‘distributed social networks’ tend to give users more control over their data compared to centralized systems like Facebook and Google+. Diaspora is also a project
that does not survive on revenue made through advertising, allowing it to focus entirely
on making the system work for its users rather than enforcing restrictions on their profiles so they fit neatly into advertising categories.
On 23 November 2010 the first invites were sent out for the pod at joindiaspora.com,
which is run by the developers.47 Earlier that month Sarah Mei, a contributor to the
project, made the controversial change of making gender a text field, explaining, ‘The
“gender” field in a person’s profile was originally a dropdown menu, with three choices:
blank, male, and female. My change made it an optional text field that was blank to
44. Jessica Motherwell McFarlane, ‘Anobbmo - for Sex and Gender Questions’, The Gender
Companion, 15 July 2011, http://thegendercompanion.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/anobbmo-forsex-and-gender-questions.html.
45. Jim, untitled comment on ‘“Gender Is a Text Field” (Diaspora, Backstory, and Context)’, Dopp
juice, 8 December 2010, http://www.sarahdopp.com/blog/2010/gender-is-a-text-field-diasporabackstory-and-context/#comment-6854.
46. Rather than ‘Frances added you to [his/her/their] circles’, to borrow a previous example, this
notice could simply state ‘You have been added to Frances’ circles’.
47. ‘Private Alpha Invites Going Out Today’, Diaspora, 23 November 2010, http://blog.
diasporafoundation.org/2010/11/23/private-alpha-released.html.
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start. A wide open frontier! Enter anything you want’.48 Mei discusses further why in
Diaspora gender is ‘not a dropdown with two options like everywhere else’: ‘I made
this change to Diaspora so that I won’t alienate anyone I love before they finish signing
up. I made this change because gender is a beautiful and multifaceted thing that can’t
be contained by a list’.49
The website for the Diaspora Project echoes this sentiment neatly.
Personal Profile
Say whatever you want about who you are. Diaspora doesn’t force your awesomeness into restrictive categories50
This change sets Diaspora apart from Facebook and Google+ in that it allows for greater flexibility of identity performance. A positive consequence of this is that Diaspora is
much less likely to impose an environment of marginalization based on gender.
This change didn’t get through without opposition, however. It has been argued that
setting a text field for something traditionally represented by a drop-down menu could
be confusing to users, and it may take them more time to fill it out.51 Alternatively, some
have suggested a compromise – such as a drop-down menu with an optional text box
– though this may present issues of perceived priority and othering as discussed previously.52 A further complaint has to do with the fact that setting gender status as a text
field makes it impossible to do useful studies on user demographics based on gender
– unless enough people type phrases that can be easily matched algorithmically. Sarah
Dopp, writing on Diaspora’s actions, attempts to summarize the issue by stating,
Really, it comes down to the question of “why do you need the data?” Is it about encouraging self-expression, helping people find dates, making marketing decisions,
or reporting user statistics to investors? Your primary goal impacts your choices for
implementation.53
Because Diaspora’s primary concerns include protecting user privacy and fostering
positive communities, giving users absolute freedom over their declared gender status
by presenting them with a simple text field feels like an appropriate action. This is an
option some commercial social networking services may feel is not possible for them
to implement.
48. Sarah Mei, ‘Disalienation: Why Gender Is a Text Field on Diaspora’, Sarah Mei, 26 November
2010, http://www.sarahmei.com/blog/2010/11/26/disalienation/.
49. Mei, ‘Disalienation’.
50. ‘The Diaspora Project’, The Diaspora Project, http://diasporaproject.org/.
51. Robby Grossman, untitled comment on ‘“Gender Is a Text Field” (Diaspora, Backstory, and
Context)’, 29 November 2010, http://www.sarahdopp.com/blog/2010/gender-is-a-text-fielddiaspora-backstory-and-context/#comment-6285.
52. These arguments and more are discussed in detail in the comment section of Sarah Dopp’s post
discussed above.
53. Sarah Dopp, ‘“Gender Is a Text Field” (Diaspora, Backstory, and Context)’, Dopp Juice, 29
November 2010, http://www.sarahdopp.com/blog/2010/gender-is-a-text-field-diasporabackstory-and-context/.
214
However, if this field is serving no practical purpose apart from facilitating identity
performance, it is reasonable to ask why users are still being prompted to disclose a
gender at all?
No Gender/Sex Prompt
Twitter is a social media service that is built for simplicity due to its origins on mobile
services.54 With strict character limits imposed on updates, biographies, and usernames, and very few profile fields, users are forced to be more creative with how they
present themselves. Of particular interest here, is that there is no gender or sex prompt
on Twitter. This has the effect that it becomes harder to express a specific gender on
Twitter, but it also effectively breaks down any sense of platform facilitated gender
hierarchies.
On Diaspora some may have concerns as to why there is a gender field at all. By including the field Diaspora prompts users to fill it out and, in doing so, reinforces the
idea that this is an important identifier in the context of a social network. Users have
the freedom to complete their profiles however they want, but the interface design
acts, at least to some extent, as a guide to standard practices. What if gender isn’t
important to us as an identifier for who we are? Perhaps gender should simply be part
of our longer ‘bio’ section so we can allocate what we personally feel is an appropriate
amount of focus on it.
This comes back to issues of gender salience and how this affects the broader community. To some, gender may feel like an outmoded identifier that is losing social relevance in digital spaces. Some even equate it to the practice of asking for a person’s
race on forms. Sarah Dopp, for example, writes in an open letter to Silicon Valley:
[…] please think about how you’re handling race and gender on your websites. Just
look at it. You don’t have to change anything. Just make a mental note in your head
about what [you’re] saying to your users about the importance of race and gender,
and the categories that exist for them.
I’ll give you a hint: If you’re still asking about race in a required drop-down menu,
you’re way behind. Because doing it that way says to a user:
* You have a race.
* It’s really important to me.
* It’s one (and only one) of these listed here.55
Regarding Twitter, gender data may be useful to some individuals, but overall, the benefits may be outweighed by the negative social effects, discussed earlier, of including
an additional field.
54. David Sarno, ‘Twitter Creator Jack Dorsey Illuminates the Site’s Founding Document. Part I’, L.A.
Times, 18 February 2009, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/02/twitter-creator.
html. Emphasis in original.
55. Sarah Dopp, ‘Genders and Drop-down Menus’, Dopp Juice, 20 December 2008, http://www.
sarahdopp.com/blog/2008/genders-and-drop-down-menus/. Emphasis in original.
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Potential problems may also arise from omitting gender from the environment, however. A phenomenon referred to as ‘stick-figure sexism’56 describes common assumptions made about stick-figure representations of persons. If there are no features,
such as hair or a walking stick, it is often assumed that these figures represent white,
middle-aged, able-bodied male persons. All deviations from this norm are generally
represented by ‘add-ons’ of some description – long hair, for example, or a cane.
The way this relates to social media profiles is that, if a user has not made any typically gendered declarations, viewers may assume such users are likely to fit into
whichever gendered or broader social demographic they assume is common in that
environment. For example, if person ‘A’ is under the impression that most YouTube
comments are written by male teenagers from the U.S., they are likely to assume that
a user named ‘B’, with no other declared personal information, also fits within that
demographic. It is possible, then, that hiding information about the diverse population of a digital community could facilitate the illusion of more uniformity among the
user base than there actually is. It is also possible, however, that this would not be
a problem on most social media communities as there are plenty of opportunities
for highlighting user diversity through language, conversation, and other methods of
identity performance.
Though Twitter doesn’t make it easy to determine user demographics through explicit
categories such as gender, it is still possible to extrapolate this to a significant extent.
Most notably, viewers respond to various cues – such as user name, profile picture,
language choices, and tweet contents – and make assumptions based on social
stereotypes. Gender can also be computed algorithmically. Researchers at the Mitre
Corporation published a paper in May 2011 entitled ‘Discriminating Gender on Twitter’. In it, they explain how they trained software to analyze just the text of a single
tweet and have a 67.8% chance of being correct about the gender of the user who
wrote it.57 Human performance was not too dissimilar, in comparison, at an average of
68.7% across test subjects. Having the complete set of tweets from a user raised the
software success rate to 75.5%, and including their screen name, bio, and full name
brought this all the way up to 92.0%.58
Twitter is operating strongly without needing to gather gender and sex information
from its users. It is clear that socially, like the researchers at Mitre Corporation did
with users that made up its dataset, we can – and routinely do – respond to identity
performance cues and make assumptions about others based on our experiences
without the interface having to focus on specific user information and suggest its
contextual importance.
56. gethen, ‘Stick-Figure Sexism’, gethen blog, 29 december 2009, https://gethenhome.wordpress.
com/2009/12/29/stick-figure-sexism/.
57. It is important to note that the findings of this paper assume a gender binary and that the authors
responded to various gender cues to determine what they felt was the correct gender of the
Twitter users for comparison within their dataset.
58. John Burger et al, ‘Discriminating Gender on Twitter’, Mitre, May 2011, http://www.mitre.org/work/
tech_papers/2011/11_0170/11_0170.pdf.
216
Responding to the Unchecked Corporate Influence on Culture
Our social media profiles are hosted on servers around the world. However, the word
‘host’ has an additional meaning that is relevant to, though largely neglected in, discussions of social media. When we adopt social networking platforms we give them
control over our representation in digital space. Yes, we can fill out our profiles however
we like, as long as it’s in accordance with the system’s complex rules and restrictions,
but the system has ultimate control over the way these profiles are presented to others,
based on various design decisions. To introduce a metaphor, the broader digital environment is like a party and our social networks are the ‘hosts’ introducing us to others
according to pre-set algorithms based on what information we have chosen to divulge.
We represent our complex selves through our various interactions and by filling out our
profiles, but we never connect directly with others – it’s always mediated through the
chosen host who re-presents us to the world.
Google+ and Facebook determine a minimum level of importance for gender and define
to a significant extent what gender actually means within these environments. These
choices to embed gendered language throughout a system, conflate complex terminology, and algorithmically influence the prominence of gender salience, can negatively
influence engagement. Whatever the reasons for these and other restrictions, it is clear
that these corporate systems choose not to address concerns over equal access and
safety if they may conflict with their publicized agenda of facilitating regular public engagement only between ‘real identities’ that are consistent across multiple services.
Regardless of how problematic the situation described here may be, it remains difficult
to move our online presence to more liberating spaces, such as Diaspora and other
decentralized alternatives. Even activists worried about their safety often choose to
participate within these corporate systems. ‘If you want to organize a movement the
only place to do it effectively is on Facebook’, says Nadine Wahab, the moderator of
a Facebook page related to the Egyptian revolution, ‘because you have to go where
all the people are’.59 When our existing social networks are on Facebook or Google+,
and as mass adoption and participation make such spaces the location of much of
our civic engagement, we see that they become difficult to leave as an individual and
close to impossible to coordinate a successful mass migration away from. Such social
coercion means Facebook and Google+ will continue to play a big part in dictating the
terms of public engagement. Questions remain as to whether it is appropriate or ethical
for them to decide who can and can’t participate within their services when this has
implications for wider social marginalization.
So how might we address these concerns? Gina Wilson, president of Organisation
Intersex International Australia, while discussing problems that would be created by
the introduction of a third sex option on birth certificates, renounces more broadly the
common practice of collecting information about sex status:
Indeed in an equal society there is no reason for sex designators to be included in
the vast preponderance of documentation. The real necessity right now is only for
59. Rebecca MacKinnon, Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom,
New York: Basic Books, 2012, p. 153.
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217
census like information to be gathered so marginalized peoples can be identified
and resources can be allocated.60
The sentiment of collecting information only when socially necessary is perhaps idealistic in some social media environments, but such practices can already be seen in
many decentralized, free open-source software projects, such as Diaspora, due in part
to their tendency to focus on privacy concerns and not see their users as commodities
to be categorized and sold to advertisers. It is important to keep trying out systems
with new design choices, like Diaspora with its gender text field, to see how they are
received and what social differences they make, even if alternatives to Facebook and
Google+ don’t receive a high adoption rate among the general public. Such results
can be drawn on when campaigning for changes to be made within these and other
corporate services.
Though this text focuses on issues resulting from system-defined sex and gender representation choices, it highlights a more general concern about the role our adopted
social media services play in defining who we are as individuals and as a wider society. We are all complex beings that do not fit neatly into categories so when social
media platforms establish the frame of identity a community will take, problems will
necessarily be introduced. None of us can be accurately transcribed into digital space
and the more restrictions are imposed on our identity performance by these services,
especially when they are mandatory and data validation rules are enforced, the more
likely users will feel delegitimized or be left out entirely as a result of these decisions.
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aUThor BioGraphieS
appendiceS
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Andrew McNicol is a PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales, whose
studies focus on ‘digital profile systems’, such as social media profiles and census
forms, and how their design choices affect issues of equality and freedom. Andrew
McNicol can often be observed reading about digital security, listening to 8-bit music, and perusing updated privacy policies of popular social networking sites. Andrew
blogs occasionally at exhipigeonist.net.
Andrea Miconi teaches Media Studies and Sociology of Culture at IULM University,
Milan, Italy, where he works as Assistant Professor. His scientific interests focus on
media history, analysis of cultural industries, and critical network theory.
Arvind Narayanan received his PhD in 2009 and is an Assistant Professor in Computer
Science at Princeton. He studies information privacy and security and has a side-interest in technology policy. His research has shown that data anonymization is broken in
fundamental ways, for which he jointly received the 2008 Privacy Enhancing Technologies Award. He is one of the researchers behind the ‘Do Not Track’ proposal. Narayanan
is an affiliated faculty member at the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton and an affiliate scholar at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society.
Wyatt Niehaus is an artist, writer, and curator living and working in New York. He has
contributed text to the International Journal of Art, Culture, and Design Technologies as
well as the Node Center for Curatorial Studies reader, Transversal Curatorial Practices.
Wyatt is a contributor to dinca.org and ilikethisart.net, and is the co-founder of Third Party Gallery, a non-profit project space in Cincinnati, Ohio. See, www.wyattniehaus.com.
Korinna Patelis has been researching the sociocultural structures of new media for
nearly 15 years. She read Philosophy and Politics at Warwick University and has an MA
in Media and Communications from Goldsmiths College. Her PhD and early publications concerned the political economy of the internet. In 2009 she joined the Department of Communication and Internet Studies at the Cyprus University of Technology as
an assistant professor. Her research interests currently focus on the web’s commercial
taxonomy, the representational structures of websites, and the power of social media.
Miriam Rasch started working at the Institute of Network Cultures in June 2012. She
holds an MA in Literary Studies and Philosophy. After graduating she worked as a
(web)editor and programmer for the public lectures department at Utrecht University.
She teaches philosophy and media theory at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and writes book reviews and guest posts for different websites. Her personal
blog can be found on www.miriamrasch.nl.
PJ Rey is a PhD student in sociology at the University of Maryland, where he is studying social theory with George Ritzer. PJ has written on critical economic issues raised
by social media, including new forms of labor and alienation, and the blurring lines
between work and play. His dissertation seeks to understand social media through the
lens of social geography. He co-founded the Cyborgology blog and the Theorizing the
Web conference with Nathan Jurgenson. PJ can be found at @pjrey.
Sebastian Sevignani studied media and communication, philosophy, and theology
at the University of Salzburg. In 2007-2010 he worked at the Department of