Digital Culture, Law, and Technology Vocabulary Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering key concepts from lecture notes on digital platforms, copyright law, data ethics, technology theories, and internet identity.

Section 230

A legal provision that protects internet platforms from lawsuits over user-generated content, holding the posting user responsible rather than the platform to enable open expression.

Techno Chauvinism

The biased belief that technology is always the best solution to every problem, often ignoring superior human-based solutions or fixes.

Positive Asymmetry

In digital media, the built-in imbalance between individual users and large copyright holders, software developers, and digital platforms.

Internet Copyright

Legal protections that prevent individuals from copying, distributing, or modifying digital creations (such as software code, articles, or music) online without explicit permission from the creator.

DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act)

A U.S. law passed in 1998 that protects internet platforms from being sued if their users illegally upload copyrighted material.

Fair Use

A legal rule that permits the use of copyrighted material without permission under specific contexts.

Data Privacy

The branch of data security that deals with how personal information is collected, shared, and managed online.

Criminal Justice Algorithms

Computer tools used by law enforcement and courts that employ statistical modeling to predict criminal behavior, trends, and outcomes.

Predictive Analytics

The practice of analyzing historical data using statistical modeling to forecast future events, trends, behaviors, and outcomes.

Social Construction of Data

The concept that data is not perfectly objective or neutral, emphasizing how human biases influence what data is gathered.

Popular as a Proxy for Good

The logical error of assuming popularity equals high quality, mistaking high visibility or traffic for actual value or quality.

Identity Tourism

Adopting a different race, gender, or culture online for entertainment or exploration, often without experiencing real-world struggles.

Anonymity

Completely hiding one's identity online.

Pseudonymity

Using a consistent fake name or handle instead of one's legal name online.

Real Name

Operating online using one's actual legal name.

Materiality of Digital Culture

A reminder that digital artifacts rely on physical hardware, such as data centers, underwater cables, electronic waste, and energy to power them.

Digital Reputation

The collective opinion, history, and feedback people find when searching for an individual on social media, search engines, and forums.

The Coded Gaze

The occurrence where software, AI, or facial recognition reflects the intentional or unintentional prejudices, preferences, or lack of digital diversity of its creators.

Technological Utopianism

The belief that new technologies are inherently good and will automatically solve human problems.

Technological Dystopianism

The belief that technology is inherently harmful, leading to social isolation and surveillance.

Domestication of Technology

The process by which individuals take a new, unfamiliar technology and slowly tame or integrate it into their routine, everyday lives.

Technological Determinism

The view that technology drives human history and forces social change.

SCOT (Social Construction of Technology)

The concept that human choices, cultural values, and social groups dictate how a technology is developed and used.

Mutual Shaping

The argument that society and technology continuously influence and shape each other.

Pink and Blue Technology

Designing and branding certain technologies to specific genders in ways that reinforce toxic gender roles.

Cyberspace

The virtual, non-physical realm where communication, data exchange, and social interactions take place across computer networks.