Comments for Fixing Social Media https://fixingsocialmedia.mit.edu MAS S.67 // Spring 2020 Wed, 20 May 2020 20:24:48 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.1 Comment on Online Community Case Study: Rookie by Anna Chung https://fixingsocialmedia.mit.edu/2020/05/13/online-community-case-study-rookie/#comment-70 Thu, 14 May 2020 22:24:38 +0000 https://fixingsocialmedia.mit.edu/?p=860#comment-70 This is a lovely case study on a community that is quite unlike what we might encounter on social media today. It’s clear that the website has a specific aesthetics and limitations and is not necessarily aiming to reach a super broad audience — I think you summed this up nicely: “It was written for the community that knew where to find it and would be excited to receive it.” I’m curious if, over time, it became harder for Rookie to maintain their vision as the publication expanded and started to have a presence on social media platforms like Instagram. Did broadening their reach onto other platforms weaken the community they had cultivated on their website?

It’s also interesting how the community isn’t sustained through driving connections/interactions with other people directly, but rather, through creating a collective online space for personal growth and thinking. It’s nice to recognize that a strong sense of community can be shared without necessarily having direct interactions with one another.

Overall this was a really well-written case study that raised compelling questions for me about what constitutes an online community and how different design decisions can nourish a healthy one. (It also made me nostalgic because I, too, used to read Rookie!)

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Comment on Code Talker by Anna Chung https://fixingsocialmedia.mit.edu/2020/05/09/code-talker/#comment-69 Thu, 14 May 2020 19:41:27 +0000 https://fixingsocialmedia.mit.edu/?p=856#comment-69 This is a really intriguing and thoughtful project, and it was great to see your expertises in software development, design, and journalism come together. The background research and interviews with Indigenous activists were strongly aided in framing the problem statement and the eventual features of Code Talker. The notion of a “private conversation in a public space” is quite compelling, and it definitely made me rethink what is possible for online protest.

I also appreciated how thoughtfully technical decisions were made, such as using attribute-based encryption. In addition, the fact that the tool might actually deter bad actors for using it for covert communication — in having a public awareness raising component — speaks to the nuanced design decisions that went into really making it a tool for activists.

I agree that a major challenge could be the nature of Facebook’s News Feed, in which encrypted content could very well be deprioritized. So I echo the feedback in class that incorporating some kind of visual component to the encrypted posts might make it more compelling and perhaps even address this News Feed content prioritization issue.

Overall a really exciting project, and it’s awesome that you were able to build a working prototype. (Also, I love the origin of the name!).

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Comment on House Party: A Spotify Extension by Elon & Sankalp by Anna Chung https://fixingsocialmedia.mit.edu/2020/05/08/house-party-a-spotify-extension-by-elon-sankalp/#comment-68 Thu, 14 May 2020 19:11:39 +0000 https://fixingsocialmedia.mit.edu/?p=847#comment-68 I love how timely this project is and the original inspiration from a spontaneous virtual dance party. I thought you did a really solid job of surveying existing social platforms and music platforms and presenting a strong argument for a tool like House Party. Even though you didn’t build the tool, you clearly researched the existing technical infrastructure and features of Spotify and provided some really compelling use cases for how the tool could be used. I also appreciated how you included potential metrics for success — something that often isn’t addressed in speculative design projects.

One thought I had was that the negative implications of echo chambers and bad actors aren’t as clear on platforms like Spotify (vs. platforms like Facebook). But I do wonder about other implications for the field of music curation — specifically for “expert” curators, like DJs. Would their jobs become obsolete as everyone becomes their own DJ? Or would this change what kinds of music become influential?

Overall a creative and well-researched project (and love the idea of the class Spotify playlist!).

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Comment on Homecourt by Anna Chung https://fixingsocialmedia.mit.edu/2020/05/06/homecourt/#comment-66 Wed, 13 May 2020 17:47:51 +0000 https://fixingsocialmedia.mit.edu/?p=845#comment-66 I thought this project thoughtfully balanced considerations of maintaining both an online and offline community. While it originally was aimed at finding a way to connect the online HUPU community in person, I thought features like the short TikTok videos were a creative way to also sustain this connection through continued online community. I could see that being a really popular feature on a pick up basketball app.

The notion of incorporating the credit system into things like basketball rentals was really compelling. My only question around this is how users might be able to “game” a system like this. How might you prevent users from being dishonest or doing things just to gain credits?

Overall, I thought this project did a great job of focusing on an existing community and identifying opportunities to foster both online and offline connections in the basketball community!

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Comment on Design Document| vizdat!: The visual online discussion layer for social media by Anna Chung https://fixingsocialmedia.mit.edu/2020/05/06/design-document-vizdat-the-visual-online-discussion-layer-for-social-media/#comment-65 Wed, 13 May 2020 17:25:20 +0000 https://fixingsocialmedia.mit.edu/?p=833#comment-65 Really impressed with the work you did to narrow in on this problem space of online commenting. You present a strong argument for visual commenting, particularly identifying painpoints and needs from interviewing the Quantified Self speaker and surveying platforms like the Upshot.

I also think the work you did to test the tool in practice was great. Even though you weren’t able to test the tool as much directly in r/dataisbeautiful, I thought the workaround of creating your own subreddit and conducting usability tests there was great. I am curious about a before/after comparison of how participants felt or engaged differently using vizdat vs. without using vizdat.

It’s been awesome to see this project come together — it’s a really well-thought tool and hope it might game some traction in the data viz community! I could also see vizdat being really useful in educational settings, perhaps also in communities like Stack Exchange, where people might go to more directly ask questions and seek help around creating data visualizations. I also love the future idea of using a game to publicize and test the tool in existing data viz subreddits.

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Comment on Homecourt by Purnima https://fixingsocialmedia.mit.edu/2020/05/06/homecourt/#comment-54 Thu, 07 May 2020 14:00:22 +0000 https://fixingsocialmedia.mit.edu/?p=845#comment-54 Discovered myself beaming at it for minutes.

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Comment on Project Proposal: visual discussion platform by EthanZ https://fixingsocialmedia.mit.edu/2020/04/12/project-proposal-civic-prototyping-media/#comment-43 Wed, 22 Apr 2020 20:51:03 +0000 https://fixingsocialmedia.mit.edu/?p=796#comment-43 Romy, I think talking about the shape of the city is a fascinating and perhaps very constructive way of avoiding traditional political positioning in Lebanon. Like Alexis, I think the idea of producing images that can be items for discussion is a powerful one. I wonder whether the way you’re presenting these questions is a bit too constrained – you’re asking mostly about vehicles and surveillance; is there a broader range of topics you can include? Could people prioritize which topics they found most important, as in Lebanonacracia? Is there some way of including some more open ended input – what do you imagine your city looking/feeling like? What do you most want/least want?

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Comment on Fixing Comment Sections by Anna Chung https://fixingsocialmedia.mit.edu/2020/04/07/fixing-comment-sections/#comment-42 Wed, 22 Apr 2020 19:42:14 +0000 https://fixingsocialmedia.mit.edu/?p=768#comment-42 Really great background research and an exciting are to think about! Making comment sections healthier is a big problem space to tackle though — I recommend narrowing in on one of the more specific questions you had, like “How might we contextualize discussions in a single space to reduce context collapse?” or “How might we increase the diversity of comment section users?” Those are still big questions, but could lead to a more specific and creative approach to this problem.

For even more scoping, I think it could also be helpful to decide on a specific news site that you would want to implement a solution for — this could help you hone in on the audience. For example, Buzzfeed is a pretty different kind of news site with a different audience from a site like The Wall Street Journal.

I’m excited to see where this goes!

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Comment on Final Project Proposal: Musical Community-Building in a Time of Isolation by Anna Woorim Chung https://fixingsocialmedia.mit.edu/2020/04/05/final-project-proposal-musical-community-building-in-a-time-of-isolation/#comment-34 Wed, 15 Apr 2020 12:39:18 +0000 https://fixingsocialmedia.mit.edu/?p=724#comment-34 Love this idea and the story behind it! Another example to look into for inspiration are silent discos — even though people are gathering in person for these, it could generate ideas for the technical component of the project in syncing audio.

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Comment on Online Community Case Study: Being TTA on Kindara by EthanZ https://fixingsocialmedia.mit.edu/2020/03/29/online-community-case-study-being-tta-on-kindara/#comment-32 Sat, 11 Apr 2020 22:21:46 +0000 https://fixingsocialmedia.mit.edu/?p=454#comment-32 Thanks for sharing a community that I would not otherwise have known about. I’m particularly struck by the fact that a community has a high degree of anonymity and also a high degree of support, likely because of the subject matter and the common experiences of the women participating. I appreciate the tensions you identified within an otherwise healthy community. I think it’s helpful to recognize that even the healthiest of communities are going to have problems that recur – the existence of FAQs actually stems from questions people got sick of answering in Usenet groups. I’m fascinated that conversations like abortion can unfold in this group without splitting it apart. Do you have a sense for the moderation or other structures that keep the community from occasionally spiraling out of control?

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