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Digital privacy: visible and delusional
A larger discussion about implications of gendered experiences in designed digital privacy, unintended exposure, and digital security divide.
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TLDR
There’s been an increasing gender disparity in digital behaviors and perceived Internet privacy because of disproportionate gendered experiences. This affects women more than men, indicating a much larger implication of reproduction of social inequality and structural discrimination in digital contexts. We should only expect the rise of such experiences with end-to-end encryption platforms, bad design choices, and constantly changing privacy regulations.
A terrible Capitol riot has triggered a series of challenging questions around technological objectivity and neutrality: the socio-technical meaning of blocking Trump from platforms like Facebook and Twitter, a mass migration of far-right and QAnon groups to end-to-end encryption messaging apps like Telegram & Signal, the impact of disinformation and conspiracy theories spread on provoking physical violence, etc etc. And all of this is happening during the century’s largest pandemic, an economic fallout that has left millions jobless, a historic cry for racial justice, and a presidential election that exposed a deep divide in American…