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Both Democrats and
Republicans have argued recently that the
big social media platforms have become an
important part of public life, and that
they are failing us. In May President
Trump described social media platforms as “a
21st century equivalent of the public
square” even as he criticized them for
“engaging in selective censorship that is
harming our national discourse.” Last
October Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of
Virginia, wrote that the “norms and laws
that have structured the public sphere” are
being “undermined at least in part because
of the nature, architecture, policies and
operations of platforms like Facebook.”
At the same time, both Democrats and
Republicans eagerly use these platforms to
reach more audiences, in more different
ways, with more messages than ever before –
and at a cost that allows upstart campaigns
(Obama 2008, Trump 2016) a place at the
table.
How did we get to a place where even deeply
divided Washington politicians can agree
that some of the most powerful technologies
ever created, wielded by companies that are
successful not just on a global but an
historical scale, are warping public life
and need to be reined in somehow?
David Halsted writes,
In this talk, I will survey the history of
online communication and community-forming
from the 1960s to the present day in an
attempt to understand the genesis of the
current debate. An ideology that combined
counterculture and libertarian elements
saw the online world as a new kind of
frontier, a place where human communities
could develop in a new kind of space. This
ideology informed the legislation of the
mid-1990s that set the stage for the
growth of the big social platforms.
Through the first two decades of the 21st
century, political campaigns learned to
leverage these platforms and their
increasingly powerful toolsets, but these
toolsets operate in ways that also drew
criticism. I conclude by reviewing
some of the measures that have been
proposed to counter or mitigate the
potential harms caused by social media
platforms and their current policies and
practices.
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FREE and
ONLINE
Tuesday, June 16, 2020
5:30-7:00 pm CDT
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Sign in 5:00-5:30 pm for
informal cigar and cocktail chatter.
The event will be
called to order at 5:30.
There will be a Q&A session
following the lecture. Audience
participation is invited.
The event will conclude at 7 pm.
An (optional) discussion and cocktail
party will continue after the event.
Be sure to have your
cocktails and cigars at ready
hand.
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David Halsted
is a freelance software developer
and an affiliated faculty member in
the Department of History at the
University of Illinois at Chicago.
Halsted completed his doctorate in
Comparative Literature at the
University of Michigan and has been
developing Web applications since
the late 1990s. Along the way he has
taught college-level history courses
on topics ranging from the
Reformation to the history of the
Internet. More recently he has
focused on writing and speaking
about the history of computing,
focusing on how computing intersects
with other forms of cultural
transmission and
reception. Recent topics
include punched card technologies,
cybernetics in Cold War Poland, and
the origins of the architectural
metaphor in computing.
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About
the
Cigar Society of Chicago
ONE OF THE OLDEST AND
greatest traditions of the city clubs of
Chicago is the discussion of intellectual,
social, legal, artistic, historical,
scientific, musical, theatrical, and
philosophical issues in the company of
educated, bright, and appropriately
provocative individuals, all under the
beneficent influence of substantial
amounts of tobacco and spirits. The
Cigar Society of Chicago
embraces this tradition and extends it
with its Informal Smokers, University
Series lectures, and Cigar
Society Dinners, in which cigars,
and from time to time pipes and
cigarettes, appear as an important
component of our version of the classical
symposium. To be included in the
Cigar Society's mailing list, write to the
secretary at
curtis.tuckey@logicophilosophicus.org
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