Nov 29th 2018

Our data plugs us into categories that can shape–and potentially limit–who we think we are. Social platforms and algorithms are exerting unchecked power over our bodies and behavior. But fear not! People like Becca Ricks are creatively exploring how to rectify, obfuscate, embody, and recast our digital shadows. As a 2017-2018 Ford-Mozilla Open Web Fellow at Human Rights Watch, Becca’s work explores how social platforms collect data about their users and how those systems deepen existing social inequalities. Join us as we peer at our networked reflections and consider how we can reclaim our online identities.

Becca Ricks is a creative technologist and researcher thinking about online privacy and computational systems. As a 2017-2018 Ford-Mozilla Open Web Fellow at Human Rights Watch, her work explores how social platforms collect data about their users using automated or opaque computational processes, and how such systems deepen existing social inequalities. She is one of the creators of Fuzzify.me, a browser extension that helps Facebook users understand how they are being targeted by advertisers on the platform. She holds a master’s degree from NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP).

Data Rules Everything Around Me (D.R.E.A.M.) is a FREE & OPEN conversation series facilitated by Nick Briz & Jon Satrom. Artists, writers, developers, and other cultural producers discuss their research and perspectives on the data that fuels the systems that run our world. Learn more at http://dream.netizen.org

Thank you to Netizen and Mozilla for sponsoring this event and to Make City / Industrial Council of Nearwest Chicago (ICNC) for hosting this event. The venue is wheelchair accessible. If you have accessibility questions, email hi@netizen.org.

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