Digital Rhetorical Privacy Collective

DRPC Digital Resources

Data Brokers: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

In this video from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the host discusses the knowledge that data brokers know about us–average users–and how they use our personal information for their own benefit. Oliver also suggests a unique way to go about changing privacy laws in the United States. Submitted by Dr. Gavin Johnson.

Privacy + Surveillance & Course Hero Podcast

In this podcast, DRPC Advisory Board member Dr. Charles Woods chats with Dr. Lacy Hope from Utah Tech University and Dr. Brenna Clarke Gray from Thompson Rivers University about issues related to privacy and surveillance on Course Hero. According to their website, “Course Hero is an online learning platform for course-specific study resources” that “supports students on their unique learning journey as they seek help and resources to better understand their coursework, prepare for exams, learn and remember.” Submitted by Dr. Charles Woods.

Podcast:

Transcript:

privacy_surveillance_course-hero_transcriptDownload

Navigating Search Algorithms: A Tool Kit

Submitted by Erin Brock Carlson

“This toolkit offers a breakdown of how to more ethically engage with the search function on popular platforms including Amazon, Google, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube. Each page in this toolkit breaks down the functionality of searching on the named platform. We offer practical analysis of what ethical conundrums, paradoxes, and/or problems exist not only in the results various searches on these platforms yield, but in the ways users are urged to engage with or to avoid the platform’s search function. The toolkit also includes Future Work and Further Reading pages which puts our work into conversation with others who are exploring parallel questions” (Navigating Search Algorithms: A Tool Kit).

Link to “Navigating Search Algorithms: A Tool Kit”