Social Technology

Artificial intelligence powers Google's search engine, enables Facebook to target advertising, and allows Alexa and Siri to do their jobs. AI is also behind self-driving cars, predictive policing, and autonomous weapons that can kill without human intervention. These and other AI applications raise complex ethical issues that are the subject of ongoing debate. This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series offers an accessible synthesis of these issues.

In 2004 Kentaro Toyama, an award-winning computer scientist, moved to India to start a new research group for Microsoft. Its mission: to explore novel technological solutions to the world's persistent social problems. But after a decade of designing technologies for humanitarian causes, Toyama concluded that no technology, however dazzling, could cause social change on its own.

Whether you're a budding blogger or seasoned web designer, WordPress is a brilliant tool for creating websites—once you know how to tap into its impressive features. The latest edition of this jargon-free Missing Manual shows you how to use WordPress's themes, widgets, and plug-ins to build just about any kind of site.

An incisive observer, writer, and participant in today's social movements, Zeynep Tufekci explains in this accessible and compelling book the nuanced trajectories of modern protests - how they form, how they operate differently from past protests, and why they have difficulty persisting in their long-term quests for change.

In this third and completely revised edition of his classic book, bestselling author and college educator Mark Schaefer explains why many marketers are "sleepwalking" through the social media world because they haven't kept up with new consumer trends. Schaefer untangles the world's least understood business practices in his easy-to-understand personal style.

From a skeleton, a skull, or a mere fragment of burnt thighbone, prominent forensic anthropologist Dr. William Maples can deduce the age, gender, and ethnicity of a murder victim, the manner in which the person was dispatched, and, ultimately, the identity of the killer. In Dead Men Do Tell Tales, Dr. Maples revisits his strangest, most interesting, and most horrific investigations, from the baffling cases of conquistador Francisco Pizarro and Vietnam MIAs to the mysterious deaths of President Zachary Taylor and the family of Czar Nicholas II.

The inside story of one woman’s quest to bring transparency and accountability to Big Tech, by the Facebook whistleblower who is determined to help us all retake control of our lives. In 2021, when news outlets feasted on “the Facebook Files,” Frances Haugen went public as the former...

China isn't aiming for the Moon—it is planning for control of space itself. By 2045, Beijing plans to dominate a $10 trillion Cislunar economy, beam power to Earth from orbit, and mine asteroids worth quintillions. Space Shock presents eighteen realistic "Sputnik moment" scenarios—created by the authors and stress-tested through wargames with senior space, defense, and policy experts—to reveal how America might respond.

Half a dozen years ago, anthropologist Gabriella Coleman set out to study the rise of this global phenomenon just as some of its members were turning to political protest and dangerous disruption. She ended up becoming so closely connected to Anonymous that the tricky story of her inside-outside status as Anon confidante, interpreter, and erstwhile mouthpiece forms one of the themes of this witty and entirely engrossing book.

Beyond Powerful Radio is a complete guide to becoming a powerful communicator for radio, Internet, TV, public speaking - anyone who wants to learn to communicate powerfully. It's a cookbook for communicators and broadcasters to improve. It's practical; it's easy. You'll find techniques to create content, produce and host a show, grow an audience, news gathering, coverage of investigative and breaking stories, and writing and delivering commercial copy.

Ready to make your mark on the online world? Start a blog! Blogging for Dummies provides you with information on blogging basics, the anatomy of a good blog, and the tools required to get started. Plus, you'll get advice on a blog topic, choosing a domain name and host, writing your first post, planning an editorial calendar, and using your blog as an important part of your personal brand.

Modern Political Campaigns brings together academic research and practical experience to help understand how professionalism, technology, and speed have revolutionized elections, creating more voter-centric races for public office. Dr. Michael D. Cohen, a 30+ year veteran of working on, teaching, and writing about political campaigns, delivers a masterclass overview featuring a new chapter on how campaigns are using artificial intelligence and what it means for democracy.

Ready to shine on the world's biggest stage? With YouTube Channels For Dummies, you'll unlock the secrets to creating powerful videos and channels that captivate audiences and propel your brand to stardom. Four renowned experts guide you through every step, from ideation to production, promotion, and monetization.

A Life in Trauma is a frank, remarkable account of a career spent helping others, offering a positive outlook on the potential of Ireland’s healthcare system in the future. Concern. Compassion. Doubt. Despair. Anger. Hope. Imagine juggling these feelings every day in a situation where your work could mean the difference between someone's life or death.

Packed with insider information based on interviews, declassified files, and forensic analysis of company reports, The Hacker and the State sets aside fantasies of cyber-annihilation to explore the real geopolitical competition of the digital age. Tracing the conflict of wills and interests among modern nations, Ben Buchanan reveals little-known details of how China, Russia, North Korea, Britain, and the United States hack one another in a relentless struggle for dominance.

Why is the internet so broken, and what could ever possibly fix it? In Internet for the People, leading tech writer Ben Tarnoff offers an answer. The internet is broken, he argues, because it is owned by private firms and run for profit. Google annihilates your privacy and Facebook amplifies right-wing propaganda because it is profitable to do so. But the internet wasn't always like this. Tarnoff tells the story of the privatization that made the modern internet, and which set in motion the crises that consume it today. It's time to demand an internet by and for the people.

The word "glitch" implies an incidental error, as easy to patch up as it is to identify. But what if racism, sexism, and ableism aren't just bugs in mostly functional machinery—what if they're coded into the system itself? Meredith Broussard demonstrates in More Than a Glitch how neutrality in tech is a myth and why algorithms need to be held accountable. Broussard, a data scientist and one of the few Black female researchers in artificial intelligence, masterfully synthesizes concepts from computer science and sociology.

In his most ambitious work to date, Thomas L. Friedman shows that we have entered an age of dizzying acceleration - and explains how to live in it. Due to an exponential increase in computing power, climbers atop Mount Everest enjoy excellent cell phone service, and self-driving cars are taking to the roads. A parallel explosion of economic interdependency has created new riches as well as spiraling debt burdens.

Two defense experts explore the collision of war, politics, and social media, where the most important battles are now only a click away. Through the weaponization of social media, the Internet is changing war and politics, just as war and politics are changing the Internet. Terrorists livestream their attacks, “Twitter wars” produce real world casualties, and viral misinformation alters not just the result of battles, but the very fate of nations. The result is that war, tech, and politics have blurred into a new kind of battlespace that plays out on our smartphones.

The Social Media Bible is a comprehensive social media resource that will teach corporate, small business, and non-profit marketers strategies for using social media to reach their desired audiences with power messages and efficiency. This revised 3rd edition (2012) addresses technology updates to the iPad, apps, Foursquare, and other geotargeted networks.