Conservative force

• Kleeman 



  • Men have more power to set the information agenda, leading to a male bias
  • 13% of Wikipedia contributors are women
  • List of female porn stars has over 1000 editors and 2,500 edits but list of female poets has less than 100 editors
  • Women under-represented in science and lack decent biographies, which users assume means she is unimportant - marginalisation becomes circular
  • Only one page for all 6 seasons of Sex and the City, but 43 separate articles on Top Gear
• Walter


  • Sexualised presentation of women online
  • The most frequently googled term of all time is 'porn'
  • Leads to men having an unrealistic expectation of women which leads to lower self-esteem in young women.
• Sarkeesian 


  • Gaming is a very male dominated genre which sexualizes, objectifies, and trivializes women. 
  • Very little clothes, portrayed as sex objects, and normalises violence against women.  
  • Promote traditional or retrograde roles for women 
  • After publishing she received rape and death threats.  
• Criado-Perez


  Gender gaps in technology:

  • Siri could find Viagra and prostitutes but not abortions, and could help with heart attacks but not rape 
  • Apple health app neglected to include period tracking  
  • Smartwatches and VR headsets too big for women  
  • Map apps look for quickest route instead of safest  
  • Top cause of foetal death is car crashes yet no seat belt for pregnant women has been designed  
• Frankfurt School (Marxists)

  • Potential for the working-class to benefit from digital communication has been lost - bourgeoisie are in charge.
  • E.g. China blocks all access to social media and websites that mention free speech.
• Frankfurt School (large profits)

  • Digital companies are making large profits but paying little tax.
  • Tech giants are exploiting their market dominance for more profit, at the workers' expense.
  • Some tech companies are now richer than entire countries - worrying amount of power.
• Frankfurt School (controls ideology)

  • Digital media is used to present a single version of reality - power to control media is power to control ideology
  • Alternate ideologies are not given airtime- Facebook has been criticized for bias as it selectively censors only some posts.
  • Allows fake news to circulate to confuse the population and stop political action.
• Cambridge Analytica

  • Harvested data from 50 million Facebook accounts to sell and use in election campaigns 
  • Jeopardises democracy and the outcome of elections 
• DiReesta


  • Social media algorithms distort the truth and shape reality
  • Few people write passionately about the obvious but those with extreme views produce copious amounts of material
  • Trump's 2016 election may be due to the conspiracy theories about Clinton being a pedophile
• Digital media is being used by radical groups, such as ISIS, which is hard for the government to control.

  • ISIS uploaded videos of hostages being beheaded to Youtube in 2015
  • Twitter is used to recruit for terrorist organisations
• Zimmerman

  • Some men (mostly white) formed INCEL groups online to share retrogressive views and their desire to push back the feminism
  • Criticised Facebook, Youtube, and Reddit for failing to control misogynistic comments
• Governments and tech companies have been criticised for their failure to regulate hate speech online

  • Malicious Communications Act - 694 found guilty in 2014