Free and open to the public

The Dark Web Social Network (DWSN) is a social networking site only accessible to Web browsers equipped with The Onion Router. This talk will explore the DWSN as an experiment in power/freedom, an attempt to simultaneously trace, deploy, and overcome the historical conditions in which it finds itself: the generic constraints and affordances of social networking as they have been developed over the past decade by Facebook and Twitter, and the ideological constraints and affordances of public perceptions of the dark web, which hold that the dark web is useful for both taboo activities as well as freedom from state oppression.

Robert W. Gehl is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Utah. His research draws on science and technology studies, software studies, and critical/cultural studies, focusing on the intersections between technology, subjectivity, and practice. He has published research that critiques the architecture, code, culture, and design of social media sites such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and blogs. His book, Reverse Engineering Social Media (Temple University Press, 2014), explores the architecture and political economy of social media. At Utah, he teaches courses in communication technology, composition in new media, and political economy of communication.

Reverse Engineering Social Media

Sponsored by the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics, the UO Libraries Digital Scholarship Center, and the Center for Cyber Security, University of Oregon (CCSUO), this event is free and open to the public. Accommodations for people with disabilities will be provided if requested in advance by calling 541-346-3056.