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• 1 2017-11-06T18:47:08-08:00 #4: the internet is built on deceptions 10 February 19, 2017 plain 2019-07-23T20:32:04-07:00 Today’s internet is built on, with, and through an unruly sea of lies, deceptions, and distortions, as well as a few certainties, cables, and algorithms.
  
  At first blush, it may appear that here I am referring to the rather benign oceans of user-generated content forming the meat of today’s internet: the half-truths of tweets, the fix-ups of Photoshop, the embellishments of Facebook updates, our insincere thumbs-up and self-serving re-posts. But this isn’t the half of it. Bots post as tweeters. Corporations pose as consumers. Outright lies might be fact-checked and yet still saturate and linger in virtual space. Propaganda stands in for journalism and YouTube videos become presidential addresses surrounded by ads and suggestions to watch SNL and “Racist White Woman Trump Rant in Chicago Store 11/23/16.”
  These very visible manifestations direct our attention to something else we know to be true that remains often harder to see: the internet’s hidden corporate architecture and governmental backbone. The foundational lies of today’s internet—that it is a public good rather than a monetized commodity; that it promotes or is even interested in freedom of expression and civil discourse; that our actions there are activism rather than consumerism—are papered over by facetious platitudes. The fake news, in other words, is not new, and it should not come as a surprise. In reality, the internet is primarily a place of censorship, capitalism, surveillance, distraction, and entertainment: the perfect incubator for fake news and all that might result from it.
  
  See Some Infrastructure:
  • Signal Traffic: Critical Studies of Media Infrastructures, co-edited by Lisa Parks and Nicole Starosielski (University of Illinois Press, 2015)
  • #100hardtruths-#fakenews: a primer on digital media literacy

  To see a poetic response to this hardtruth:

  Technology is a Weapon
• 1 2019-07-23T20:23:18-07:00 Technology is a Weapon 6 Poets of Course plain 2020-02-17T01:00:54-08:00

  Technology is a weapon because it is all serious.
  Between taking care of business is making you delirious.
  Computer technology still searching for some information is the key to success of life.
  Like everything could be serious for life.
  It could be Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and more
  but never post nothing in different pages before.
  Never the drugs, alcohol, but it's all the same.
  ‘Cause technology is still the same name.
  Just because I need to do the hard work
  don't mean I'm supposed to be the jerk.
  Straight up for that I've even heard the game
  of this technology thing is still the same.
  Because positive choices is always on my side
  But that don't mean I've lost my pride.
  Losing you things could be very serious
  ‘Cause in the real world I've never been curious.

  By Gerard G.

  
  
  

  This poem is a response to hardtruth #4:

  the internet is built on deceptions