Lily Simpson

hannah gais (@hannahgais.bsky.social)

will you people shut the fuck up

Jess Lawrence (@jess_lawrence_writes) on Threads

Wired women : gender and new realities in cyberspace

Come in, CQ: the body on the wire / Ellen Ullman -- The memoirs of a token: an aging Berkeley feminist examines Wired / Paulina Borsook -- How hard can it be? / Karen Coyle -- Closure was never a goal in this piece / Judy Malloy and Cathy Marshall -- Estrogen brigades and "big tits" threads: media fandom online and off / Susan Clerc -- Elites, lamers, narcs and whores: exploring the computer underground / Netta "grayarea" Gilboa -- We are geeks, and we are not guys: the systers mailing list / L. Jean Camp -- Not for the faint of heart: contemplations on Usenet / Judy Anderson "yduJ" -- The price of admission: harassment and free speech in the wild, wild West / Stephanie Brail -- Sex, fear and condescension on campus: cybercensorship at Carnegie Mellon / Donna M. Riley -- Cocktails and thumbtacks in the old West: what would Emily Post say? / Laurel A. Sutton -- "So please stop, thank you": girls online / Michele Evard -- MUDder? I hardly know 'er: adventures of a feminist MUDder / Lori Kendall -- Like magic, only real / Tari Lin Fanderclai -- Coming apart at the seams: sex, text and the virtual body / Shannon McRae; Includes bibliographical references; Ellen Ullman shares an email courtship - Paulina Borsook exposes gender attitudes at the digerati's magazine of record - Karen Coyle on overcoming macho stereotypes - Judy Malloy and Cathy Marshall reflect on their art/research collaboration - Susan Clerc and the zeal of media fandom - Netta Gilboa explores hackers' attitudes toward women - Jean Camp on the Internet's safe havens - Judy Anderson's advice on dodging Usenet flames - Stephanie Brail seeks the line between free speech and harassment - Donna Riley reveals the story of the Clitoral Hoods - Laurel Sutton and the nuances of netiquette - Michele Evard takes news-groups to the fifth grade - Lori Kendall wonders if gender is meaningless online - Tari Lin Fanderclai on MUDs as a powerful teaching tool - Shannon McRae takes a look at "virtual sex"

The Unexpected New Threat to Video Creators - Anil Dash

A blog about making culture. Since 1999.

We Are Civic Media

A discipline-crossing introduction to civic media via accounts from grassroots practitioners “Civic media” is the use of contemporary technologies to connect communities, inspire action, build civic capacity, and sustain social change efforts. Written by artists, creators, storytellers, organizers, and others working at the intersections of technology, social justice, and culture, this book summons civic media through the lived experiences of its contributors. Latoya Peterson delves into the therapeutic power of gaming; Akilah Hughes discusses identity and community through the lens of her campaign to change her high school's racist mascot; and Tyree Boyd-Pates emphasizes the potential power of museum curation to challenge power dynamics and bridge digital and physical realms. Through the experiences of these grassroots practitioners and many others, We Are Civic Media offers accessible insights for those interested in understanding, respecting, and practicing civic media.

Mirages: On Anthropomorphism in Dialogue Systems

Automated dialogue or conversational systems are anthropomorphised by developers and personified by users. While a degree of anthropomorphism may be inevitable due to the choice of medium, conscious and unconscious design choices can guide users to personify such systems to varying degrees. Encouraging users to relate to automated systems as if they were human can lead to high risk scenarios caused by over-reliance on their outputs. As a result, natural language processing researchers have investigated the factors that induce personification and develop resources to mitigate such effects. However, these efforts are fragmented, and many aspects of anthropomorphism have yet to be explored. In this paper, we discuss the linguistic factors that contribute to the anthropomorphism of dialogue systems and the harms that can arise, including reinforcing gender stereotypes and notions of acceptable language. We recommend that future efforts towards developing dialogue systems take particular care in their design, development, release, and description; and attend to the many linguistic cues that can elicit personification by users.

De-anthropomorphizing “AI”: From wishful mnemonics to accurate nomenclature

Language matters. How we describe “AI” technology influences how it is perceived, deployed, and trusted. Extravagant and persuasive language incites hype. It is the responsibility of journalists, companies, and scholars to characterize technology in ways that inform and empower their readers by using appropriate terminology and avoiding inflated claims. One type of inflated claim comes from using anthropomorphizing language to describe system functionality. Anthropomorphization is the attribution of human capabilities and characteristics to the inanimate system. In this paper, we present a linguistic analysis of anthropomorphizing language in 29 texts (a total of 1,368 sentences) from academic articles, online news articles, and company blog posts. We construct a taxonomy of eight categories of anthropomorphization: Cognizer, Products of cognition, Emotion, Communication, Agent, Human role analogy, Names and pronouns, and Biological metaphors. Following this taxonomy we present concrete strategies for how to de-anthropomorphize the language we use to describe “AI” based on a functionality-first principle.

Katy t3h PeNgU1N oF d00m | Know Your Meme

Katy t3h PeNgU1N oF d00m (Katy the Penguin of Doom) is a copypasta story told from the perspective of a 13-year-old girl who claims to visit 4chan’s /b/ (r

Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity

One of the most talked-about scholarly works of the past fifty years, Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble is as celebrated as it is controversial.Arguing that traditional feminism is wrong to look to a natural, 'essential' notion of the female, or indeed of sex or gender, Butler starts by questioning the category 'woman' and continues in this vein with examinations of 'the masculine' and 'the feminine'. Best known however, but also most often misinterpreted, is Butler's concept of gender as a reiterated social performance rather than the expression of a prior reality.Thrilling and provocative, few other academic works have roused passions to the same extent.

Opinion | The Sad and Dangerous Reality Behind ‘Her’

At least a quarter of the more than 100 billion messages sent to our chatbots are attempts to initiate romantic or sexual exchanges.

Kelly Marie Tran: I Won’t Be Marginalized by Online Harassment (Published 2018)

The “Star Wars” actress was “brainwashed into believing that my existence was limited to the boundaries of another person’s approval.” Now she’s taking a stand.