MoMI is pleased to collaborate with Theorizing the Web on an ongoing biweekly series of events. In the first installment, we present two provocative explorations of how online platforms can reinforce asymmetries of privilege and power. In “‘What Is Nextdoor For?’ Spaces of Imagining and Politics of Performing Community,” Keli Gabinelli investigates how the online platform Nextdoor demonstrates the way that imagined communities online are sustained through mechanisms of exclusion. Then, in “The Moralization of Predictivity in the Age of Data-Driven Surveillance,” Sun-ha Hong examines post-9/11 counterterrorism surveillance, and the longstanding biases and prejudices inherent in data-driven efforts to predict and preempt acts of terrorism. The discussions will be moderated by Zach Kaiser, followed by an audience Q&A.

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About the speakers:

Keli Gabinelli is a 2017 Master's graduate of New York University's Media, Culture & Communication department. Since leaving the Big Apple, she's relocated to Santa Cruz, California, where she works as a Media Activist for the watchdog organization Media Watch.

Sun-ha Hong (@sunhahong) examines speculations and fantasies surrounding big data and smart machines. His book Technologies of Speculation: The Limits of Knowledge in a data-driven Society (NYU Press, 2020) traces shifting standards of knowledge and certainty in the age of data-driven surveillance. Sun-ha is Assistant Professor of Communication at Simon Fraser University.

Zachary Kaiser (@ZacharyKaiser) is Associate Professor of Graphic Design and Experience Architecture at Michigan State University. His current body of research questions the ideologies embedded in the design of technological products and services with which we interact and the impact of these ideologies on human intersubjectivity.