Abstract -  User-generated content circulates through and beyond social media, becoming part of a global information ecosystem. But there are gaps between the ways we as users think it moves, how social companies tell us it moves, and how it actually moves. In this talk, Dr. Proferes examines how these knowledge asymmetries can and have been used for different kinds of gain. He argues that, in some cases, our incomplete understandings of the communicative context in which we operate have become weaponized. In order to fight this outcome, radical policy and incentive structure changes are needed.  

Bio - Dr. Nicholas Proferes is an Assistant Professor of Information Science at the University of Kentucky. He was previously a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Ethics and Values in Design Lab at the University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies and graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s School of Information Studies. His research interests include users’ understandings of socio-technical systems such as social media, societal discourse about technology, and issues of power and ethics in the digital landscape.