Social Computing Symposium
if I were to give a talk it would be on a data analysis that found the creepiest word in Macbeth
we're going to be talking about the future of entertainment this morning
internetainment is bridging the gap between digital an television - digital you can make about 1/10 of what TV pays
our show @midnight has a game we play called #hashtagwars which has kept us on the air
you want the biggest stage possible - sometimes that is digital, but if media matters at all TV is what they want
in 2013 we created an app called Briandex that was an interactive show - a 10 question trivia show; 500k downloads
there is power in the long tail, but there is power in the expensive creator space too - there is a disconnect
youtube has the long tail; they're trying to work out how to remunerate the middle tail and compete with netflix
as an advocate for the creator. the business model for tv is fantastic when it works; for digital it is not clear
the internet is hard to monetize, but maybe it is s different creative world - most don't make money in any case
instead of everyone being a spectator, we have a world of creativity that in and of itself is valuable
when snapchat tells me half a million people watched this snap I don't necessarily believe it
we get very different reactions to tonight show clips from people on facebook, youtube and twitter
the late night TV shows are essentially a content factory - we can always have stuff to put out on the net
humour is essentially social, and so there is an ideal environment for it in these social networks
humor is exploding, criticism and anger shows are exploding because people want to feel something
we make emotionally connected creative experiences, from mind controlled bikes to space shuttles through LA
my job is to help people avoid reality as long as possible
what we did for game of thrones was create a fan experience for them to see the future - greensight
how do you quantify enchantment? - we looked at the psychographics of interaction
fan service is not just merketing - it is creating things that give value to the fans over time
when you connect to the fan groups, they will spread it to the less engaged people marketing is going for
VR is great for creating immersion, but not at creating a way for you to react and act on it
it doesn't matter which medium you start with, what matters is your story
there are 400 TV shows competing for audiences, but they are also competing with everythgin that has ever been made
people barely differentiate the entertainment from their facebook pages than from their TV shows
our channel is still a primary destination that we want people to go to, but we embrace the digital shift
with Doctor Who we had the challenge of building a cult phenomenon into mainstream hit
with Doctor Who we stopped thinking about seasons and made it a year-round stategy
we've gone from curating and celebrating fan activity to writing it into the show
they have written cosplaying into the show, so now we have cosplayers playing cosplayers
in a multi-channel univers, FOMO is the programmer's best friend
Doctor Who is a kids show in the UK
I've only watched every episode of Doctor Who since 1980, so I can't comment on all of it
Doctor Who is not a kids show, it's a family show, and you have to know1 episode in 3 will be terrible
is there a danger in making it too insular if it is about too much fan service
you're the american licensor of doctor who - do you get dissonance with the UK people?
we work very closely with the UK now and are in constant communication with territorial
Paul Delaroche in 1839 declared painting dead because of photography - this didn't happen
Turing write a paper on organising unorganised machinery - but this was ignored until the last few years
neural networks work by having successive layers of artificial neurons connected with weights, you adjust the weights
depending what layer you amplify, you see different structures from the training
this neuron has turtle-ness - there is no actual turtle in it
we need not to over-anthropomorphise the deep dream images
I think these are going to be good tools for creators by inspiring them with things to rebuild
I think there is something essential that we do because we are not algorithms
these images have a tendency to become very boring very quickly - we're not interested in what the machine thought
whether a neural network is biased or not depends on how it was raised
the deep dream images tend to creep people out, but the music doesn't - why is that?
a lot of that is because the network was trained on animals so combining animals and people is always creepy
These harassment mobs are not unique to me
I get hate speech, dox attacks, ddos of my site, campaigns to report me to the fbi
The Wikipedia entry has been replaced with porn images, and endless requests to include conspiracy theories
When I posted a video to YouTube they campaigned to mass report me to YouTube
I was able to get YouTube to put my work back up, but other women targeted may not have that reach
Perpetrators treat this as a game - they refer to us a bosses, and document attacks to show off to one another
Women who are harassed are told to toughen up and grow a thick skin, and that my threats are fake
We see a an aggressive denial of women's experiences - we are told that we are making it up
We need to fundamentally change the online networks structure to reduce these attacks
The other area of focus is the legal system - women who report abuse to police have their info given out to harassers
A colleague called the police to report a death threat, was treated as hysterical. They asked to speak to her husband
You can't be neutral on a moving train. We all need to be involved with fixing rhis
I started the hashtag #ineeddiversegames when I was frustrated in the middle of the night
If you don't get to see yourself in games, you miss out.
Most video game protagonists are 30 year old brown eyed white males
I love Witcher 3, but when I complained about diversity I was told it was Polish myth, despite it having dwarves
The game Rust randomised your race and gender, and white gamers freaked out at having to play black characters
I get to block over 100000 accounts on twitter because I asked for diversity. I have to use 3 blocking toools
I worry now about boosting someone else's project in case it brings harassment to their door
Online and real life are the same. Kill the phrase irl.
I study transgender experience with online harassment
Navigating gender transition online can be as hard as in the physical world
We often talk about online as safe space for gender experimentation, but we see a lot of harassment for ir
Especially in a "real name" environment like Facebook trans people get attacked
"I experience sexism as a woman more than transphobic discrimination"
Facebook uses the terminology "authentic names" in opposition to 'fake"
Facebook disallowing multiple accounts makes it difficult to transition online
One of the things that keeps coming up is that people are silenced. Many people we asked to speak refused for fear
Abused people are told to shut down their social media accounts, even though this is where they tell friends
Online sexual violence and threats are not "stranger danger" a lot use surveillance tactics
Violent partners will often break into your accounts to monitor you and intimidate
We have a death review committee in Ontario, we find attempts to isolate and threaten women
Survivors are also using social media to discuss their abuse
Women attacked by gamergate most were ones who challenged the status quo, sometimes just by revealing gender
When I show up in gaming as a black woman in my 40s I get challenged for being there
technical solutions don't work alone, we need cultural change too, and that can be harder
I was 9 years old when I saw Blade Runner, and maybe that is why I moved to Los Angeles -it's now 3 years off
what if light as a materiel by projecting on architecture
I put together data landscapes and sculptures in san francisco http://www.refikanadol.com/works/virtual-depictions-san-francisco/
I discovered the idea of a finstagram - a fake instagram that teen use to mask identity
teens feel a huge amount of social pressure to perform on instagram TAL - covered this http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/573/status-update
teens are creating fake instagram accounts - closed accounts with fake names so they can post ugly selfies too
instagram is a platform where you are expected to have a perfect photo, and finstagram is where you can be real
teens create a space of deliberate imperfection online - how are teens reshaping tech to meet developmental needs?
i edit cartoons for the New Yorker - we came up with the caption contest in 2005
If you have a caption "I've only been gluten free for a week but I'm already annoying" you get lots of letters
people don't like novelty - they like a little novelty in a cocoon of familiarity, that they could have thought of
I built a neural network that understands faces so well that we can find all the faces that you think are sexy
actually it was s site that understood faces so it could reuinite refugees with their families
next I built a system that could read faces for autistic peopleso they didn't have to use flash cards
when my son was diagnosed with diabetes, we hacked all his monitoring devices so we could get the sugar data
when we took it to the pediatriciain, they refused to look at the data, and made us fill in their tiny form
the tax on being José´rather than Joe in the tech industry is about $500,000
the easiest way to explain vine is with Kanye's pen - Vine is a a remix culture and layers jokes and identity
what we see on vine and what we now see on black twitter is that the default audience is different
vine is a remix culture, so these creators can't access the value they create because they don't have copyright
Macbeth has been seen as unsettling for hundreds of years
they decided to compare the uncommon words between macbeth and other shakespeare plays
knock tyrant and dagger were more common - and so were our and she
now Macbeth is a story about a couple who commit murders -sorry spoilers
the word that is used more often than any other in shakespeare is the word 'the'
"it was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman which gives the stern'st good-night" - why 'the' not 'an' ?
over and over again Macbeth has 'the' rather than 'an' or 'a' -it makes the other things more specific
once this has been pointed out you can't unsee this use of 'the' in Macbeth to make everyday objects ominous
#UseTheRightWords is a campaign I started after the Toronto Star called me a 'victim'
Rape Culture assumes that sexual violence is an accepted norm - and media word choice reinforces this
this reporter called a 30-year-old man having sex with a 13-year-old girl as 'a tryst'
what this tells survivors that this is their fault, and that they can consent to statutory rape
we made this guide on how to report sexual violence: http://www.femifesto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/UseTheRightWords-Single-Dec3.pdf
every time you post about sexual violence, there is a survivor listening, wondering if you are safe to talk to
there is always an advantage in lying if you can get away with it - have out faces evolved to lie?
we have a conduit metaphor where we talk about conveying ideas with a model of flow
engineers want to make communication more efficient so they try to rule out lying
when kids are small, we teach them to lie to other people about their actual reactions
if everyone was like a toddler who says exactly what they think, civilisation would collapse
obligate communication of information would not be in the interest of the organism
people say "never read the comments" a lot - the majority of people at my wedding I met in comments on my blog
what I want is to get that sense of hope back, when the comments were worth reading