From First Monday, a special issue on understanding social media monopolies, including Jodi Dean (HWS): Society Doesn't Exist. Bernie Hogan (Oxford): Pseudonyms and the Rise of the Real-Name Web. Margot E. Kaminski (Yale): Real Masks and Real Name Policies: Applying Anti-Mask Case Law to Anonymous Online Speech. Laura Lagone (Fordham): The Right to Be Forgotten: A Comparative Analysis. How a social network dies: Robert McMillan on the Friendster autopsy. Simon Kuper on how social media improved writing: Texts, blogs, emails and Facebook posts are affecting other kinds of writing — mostly for the good. Joseph Stromberg on how a computer program can learn all about you from just your Facebook likes. Smart technology and the sort of big data available to social networking sites are helping police target crime before it happens — but is this ethical? Social media is just too disruptive, according to a prominent jihadist theoretician — it's killing off the traditional jihadi web forum.
