Presented at
The Circle Of HOPE (2018),
July 21, 2018, 10 p.m.
(60 minutes)
Trolls are attention hackers, using social and technical means to bait journalists, set agendas, game media gatekeepers, and direct audiences. This panel of members of the media manipulation team at Data & Society will consider the relationship between trolling and hacking, free speech, and the implications for our media/attention landscape. Matt will focus on hackers who have used trolling techniques to disclose vulnerabilities and elicit public pressure. Joan will talk about source hacking techniques, a tactic where groups coordinate to feed false information to journalists and experts, often during times of crisis. Jeanna will discuss the relationship between free speech, amplification of speech through platform and media manipulation, and the implication of possible interventions. The floor will be open to comments, questions, and a discussion which hopefully will continue beyond the session itself.
Presenters:
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Dr. Jeanna N. Matthews
as Jeanna Matthews
**Jeanna Matthews** (@jeanna_matthews) is an associate professor of computer science at Clarkson University and a 2017-18 fellow at Data & Society where she has been collaborating with the media manipulation team. Her broader research interests include virtualization, cloud computing, computer security, computer networks, operating systems, and algorithmic accountability and transparency. Jeanna received her Ph.D. in computer science from the University of California at Berkeley.
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Matt Goerzen
**Matt Goerzen** studies trolling techniques and cultures as part of the media manipulation team at Data & Society. He’s also applied many of the techniques in the art world, for example by once developing an absurdist AdSense campaign ostensibly designed to sell a hideous sculpture to art collector Shaquille O’Neal, but more accurately designed to piggyback off of free clickbait media attention to inform readers about psychometric ad tech practices. He has written an academic study of contemporary artists who function as what he calls “critical trolls,” arguing that trolling can be seen as an extension of the politicized attentional strategies used by the 20th century avant-garde. His current work at Data & Society focuses on mapping the way white supremacists and state actors have appropriated trolling techniques for use in influence operations as a form of “bottom-up agenda setting.”
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Joan Donovan
**Joan Donovan** (@BostonJoan) is the media manipulation/platform accountability research lead at Data & Society in Manhattan. After completing her Ph.D. in sociology and science studies at the University of California San Diego, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the UCLA Institute for Society and Genetics, where she researched white supremacists’ use of DNA ancestry tests, social movements, and technology. For several years, Joan has conducted action research with different networked social movements in order to map and improve the communication infrastructures built by protesters. In her role as a participant, she identifies information bottlenecks, decodes algorithmic behavior, and connects organizations with other like-minded networks.
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