Chapter 35: Further Reading

Global Disparities: How Algorithmic Addiction Hits Different Around the World

1. United Nations Human Rights Council (2018). Report of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar. UN Doc. A/HRC/39/64.

The foundational document for the Myanmar case study: the UN's formal finding that Facebook played a "determining role" in spreading hate speech that contributed to ethnic cleansing. Essential primary source for understanding the evidentiary basis for attributing causal responsibility to a social media platform in atrocity crimes. Available free from the UN Human Rights Office website.

2. Mozur, P. (2018, October 15). A genocide incited on Facebook, with posts from Myanmar's military. The New York Times.

The investigative journalism report that most clearly documented the Myanmar military's use of Facebook for anti-Rohingya incitement, including the specific accounts and content involved. Provides concrete detail to complement the UN's more analytical framing and is more accessible to general readers. Essential for understanding the specific mechanism of platform-mediated incitement.

3. Poell, T., Nieborg, D., & Dijck, J. van (2019). Platformisation. Internet Policy Review, 8(4).

Develops the concept of "platformisation" — the processes through which platform architectures and market mechanisms pervade new industries and sectors. Provides theoretical grounding for understanding why platform deployment in new geographic and social contexts reproduces the platform's structural logic regardless of local conditions.

4. Noble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. New York University Press.

Documents how search algorithms encode and reproduce racial bias, with specific attention to how neutral-seeming technical systems produce racially disparate outcomes. While focused on search rather than social media, the analytical framework is directly applicable to social media algorithmic bias research. Essential for understanding the political economy of algorithmic bias.

5. Benjamin, R. (2019). Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code. Polity Press.

Develops the concept of the "New Jim Code" — the encoding of racial hierarchy into technical systems — with applications to a wide range of digital technologies including social media. More theoretically ambitious than Noble's work, engaging directly with post-colonial and abolitionist frameworks. Essential for the digital colonialism discussion.

6. Buolamwini, J., & Gebru, T. (2018). Gender shades: Intersectional accuracy disparities in commercial gender classification. Proceedings of Machine Learning Research, 81, 1-15.

The landmark study documenting skin tone bias in commercial facial recognition systems, finding that error rates were highest for darker-skinned women and lowest for lighter-skinned men. The methodological framework developed in this paper has been widely applied to social media image processing systems. Essential primary research for the algorithmic bias discussion.

7. Freelon, D., Marwick, A., & Kreiss, D. (2020). False equivalencies: Online activism from left to right. Science, 369(6508), 1197-1201.

Examines how online political activism operates differently across the political spectrum, with implications for understanding how algorithmic systems interact with political content across different global contexts. Provides empirical grounding for understanding partisan asymmetries in platform-mediated political communication.

8. Zuboff, S. (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. PublicAffairs.

The most comprehensive analysis of platform capitalism as an economic system built on behavioral data extraction. While primarily focused on Western contexts, the surveillance capitalism framework is applicable globally — and the book's analysis of how behavioral data extraction creates asymmetric power is directly relevant to the digital colonialism discussion.

9. Rao, M. (Ed.) (2022). Communication Rights in the Digital Age: Global Perspectives. Nordicom.

An edited volume collecting perspectives on communication rights from scholars across the Global South and Global North. Provides comparative international analysis of how platform governance intersects with human rights frameworks, media law, and democratic theory in diverse national contexts. Essential for moving beyond Western-centric analysis.

10. Wardle, C., & Derakhshan, H. (2018). Thinking About 'Information Disorder': Formats of Misinformation, Disinformation, and Mal-Information. Council of Europe.

An extended analysis of information disorder frameworks with specific attention to cross-cultural variation in how information disorder operates and what interventions are appropriate in different contexts. Provides essential comparative perspective for understanding why counter-misinformation interventions designed for one context may not transfer to others.

11. Howard, P. N. (2020). Lie Machines: How to Save Democracy from Troll Armies, Deceitful Robots, Spies, and Political Operatives. Yale University Press.

Provides a comprehensive global analysis of computational propaganda, including cases across multiple world regions. Particularly valuable for its coverage of computational propaganda operations in non-Western contexts, where the academic literature is thinner. Written accessibly for non-specialist audiences.

12. Milanovic, B. (2016). Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization. Harvard University Press.

Provides essential context for understanding global income inequality and its implications for digital inequality. The "elephant curve" of global income distribution helps explain why the benefits and costs of digital technologies are distributed as they are. Essential background reading for the global disparities analysis.

13. Donovan, J., & Lewis, R. (2019). Understanding the Tools and Tactics of Alt-Right Influencers. Data & Society Research Institute.

Documents the specific tactics used by political extremists to exploit platform recommendation systems, with implications for understanding how these tactics operate differently in different national and linguistic contexts. Provides analytical tools applicable to understanding how extremists in non-Western contexts exploit the same platform dynamics.

14. Roessler, P., & Schulz, A. (2021). Constructing Otherness: Media, Prejudice, and Intergroup Hostility. Routledge.

A cross-cultural analysis of how media contributes to intergroup prejudice and hostility, drawing on research from multiple countries and media environments. Provides essential theoretical grounding for understanding why platform-mediated hate speech has such severe effects in contexts with pre-existing intergroup tensions.

15. Birhane, A. (2021). Algorithmic injustice: A relational ethics approach. Patterns, 2(2), 100205.

Develops a relational ethics framework for evaluating algorithmic systems that centers the experiences and perspectives of communities harmed by those systems. Particularly valuable for its explicitly African philosophical grounding (Ubuntu ethics), offering a non-Western framework for algorithmic justice analysis.

16. Taddeo, M., & Floridi, L. (2018). The debate on the moral responsibilities of online service providers. Science and Engineering Ethics, 24(6), 1575-1603.

A systematic philosophical analysis of the different frameworks for assigning moral responsibility to platform companies for harms enabled by their services. Particularly valuable for its careful distinctions between different grounds for responsibility (knowledge, control, benefit) that are relevant to evaluating platform responsibility in global harm cases.

17. Persily, N., & Tucker, J. A. (Eds.) (2020). Social Media and Democracy: The State of the Field, Prospects for Reform. Cambridge University Press.

An edited volume collecting leading researchers' assessments of the empirical evidence on social media's democratic effects, including chapters with international comparative perspectives. More rigorous and balanced than most popular accounts, with careful attention to what is and is not established by the research.

18. Geltzer, J. A., & Shapiro, J. (2021). Global Internet Freedom: The Role of the United States in Supporting Free Expression Online. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Analyzes U.S. policy approaches to global internet freedom, including the tensions between promoting free expression abroad, protecting U.S. competitive interests in platform markets, and addressing the national security concerns raised by platforms from adversary states. Essential context for the geopolitics of platform competition discussion.