Ethan is Suing Meta So He Can Unfollow All of You (No Hard Feelings)

Last week, our lab’s leader Ethan Zuckerman filed a lawsuit against Meta in the state of California with the assistance of the Knight First Amendment Institute. Why? To get a ruling on a clause in Section 230 of the CDA that empowers users to user software that changes the behaviors of algorithms the interact with. Specifically, Ethan is suing for the right to unfollow everyone on Facebook.

He wrote about it in the New York Times this week, and Cory Doctorow provided a wonderful, concise explanation of the stakes in this case.

Reimagining the Internet returns with Catherine D’Ignazio

After a little bit of a break, Reimagining is back! Our first new episode is an interview with Catherine D’Ignazio from the Data + Feminism lab at MIT about her phenomenal new book Counting Feminicide. Ethan talks to her about her work with Latin American and African American activists using data to combat feminicide, and how she wrote a very useful handbook for anyone who wants to use data for social change.

Next up is our 100th episode and interviews with Diana Freed and Cory Doctorow. Plus a whole lot more: we’ve got episodes recorded for programming into the fall.

Slowing down on Field Guide to Social Media chapters

From Chand:

Thanks for following along as we've shared chapters from our upcoming book, A Field Guide to Social Media. We appreciate all your feedback and attention! We're turning in our first draft of the book in a few weeks, so we'll be pressing pause on sharing chapters for a bit. We'll return later this summer with a few more chapters and information on how to pre-order the book.

LinkedIn comes to Gobo

Gobo now offers LinkedIn support. Please send an email to Chand if you're interested in joining our private beta.

New research blog on history of music community online

Mike just launched Low Frequency, where he’ll be blogging about research he’s been conducting throughout his time at the label on the intersection of music, community, and technology.

He’s starting with a very deep dive into the history of music community online. Check it out! (Hi I’m Mike, I still write this newsletter)