[Air-L] Data Voids - a new Data & Society report

[danah boyd]

Data Voids: Where Missing Data Can Get Easily Be Exploited
https://datasociety.net/output/data-voids/ <https://datasociety.net/output/data-voids/>

A year ago, Michael Golebiewski and I put out a simple primer describing "Data Voids", a concept he coined to describe what happens when search engines don't have high quality content to return for specific search queries. Over the last year, we've drilled into the various ways in which media manipulators exploit these data voids and the contours of the problem. 

Today, we released a full report, providing both a framework for understanding different types of data voids, case studies that help ground the conversation, and recommendations for moving forward. In terms of moving forward, the big thing to know is that addressing this problem will require both content creators and tech companies.

For a quick preview, here are the five types of data voids we highlight:

- Breaking News: The production of problematic content can be optimized to terms that are suddenly spiking due to a breaking news situation; these voids will eventually be filled by legitimate news content, but are abused before such content exists.
- Strategic New Terms: Manipulators create new terms and build a strategically optimized information ecosystem around them before amplifying those terms into the mainstream, often through news media, in order to introduce newcomers to problematic content and frames.
- Outdated Terms: When terms go out of date, content creators stop producing content associated with these terms long before searchers stop seeking out content. This creates an opening for manipulators to produce content that exploits search engines’ dependence on freshness.
- Fragmented Concepts: By breaking connections between related ideas, and creating distinct clusters of information that refer to different political frames, manipulators can segment searchers into different information worlds.
- Problematic Queries: Search results for disturbing or fraught terms that have historically returned problematic results continue to do so, unless high quality content is introduced to contextualize or outrank such problematic content.

Anyhow, I'm delighted to share this new report with you. I hope you will find it interesting and helpful. Please feel free to share this with others: https://datasociety.net/output/data-voids/ <https://datasociety.net/output/data-voids/> 

I'd love to hear thoughts and feedback as well!

danah