The social construction of blockchain privacy platforms

Our current internet environment is characterized by online conglomerates, predictive computing and data mining. With this, there is a growing concern among users on how to protect their privacy and manage their identities online. Advocates for blockchain, the newest large-scale wave of internet based platforms, argue it is highly useful for privacy protection. Blockchain is an encrypted and decentralized public ledger that verifies and stores information through a peer-to-peer network. Using the social construction of technology (SCOT) as a theoretical framework, I deploy a comparative discourse analysis of three blockchain platforms - Brave, Civic and Oasis Labs - along with user discourse on Reddit and Medium. This paper explores how users socially construct this emerging technology by comparing privacy discourse between blockchain platforms and motivated social agents. I found blockchain privacy platforms and its users both value data ownership, ad-blocking and safety and security. However, there is also friction and disagreement about themes of trust and ethics as well as usability.

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The Spanish HbbTV service LOVEStv: When technology facilitates new strategies for survival

Media International Australia ◽

10.1177/1329878x211061879 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1329878X2110618

Author(s):

Montse Bonet ◽

Josep Àngel Guimerà ◽

Miguel Ángel Casado

Keyword(s):

Social Construction ◽

Business Strategies ◽

The Internet ◽

Social Construction Of Technology ◽

Documentary Analysis ◽

The Social ◽

Public Corporation ◽

Internet Environment ◽

Strategic Leaders ◽

New Strategies

Behind the acronym of various technologies, media business strategies seek to survive the force of new entrants. From the perspective of the social construction of technology, the aim of this article is to analyze, in the context of an internationally growing trend of alliances, the cooperation between the Spanish public corporation, RTVE, and the two main private groups, Atresmedia and Mediaset, in the form of the HbbTV offer, LOVEStv. The idea behind LOVEStv is not only to protect traditional television from the incursion of other companies which distribute audiovisual content but also to offer functionalities previously unavailable in linear television. HbbTV is being used to bring “old” television even closer to the Internet environment for this ongoing process to be progressive and non-disruptive. In addition to the documentary analysis, the present study includes statements from the main strategic leaders of both RTVE and the private groups, the HbbTV Association, and the technological partner.

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Unobtrusive monitoring: Statistical dissemination latency estimation in Bitcoin’s peer-to-peer network

PLoS ONE ◽

10.1371/journal.pone.0243475 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 15 (12) ◽

pp. e0243475

Author(s):

David Mödinger ◽

Jan-Hendrik Lorenz ◽

Rens W. van der Heijden ◽

Franz J. Hauck

Keyword(s):

Bayesian Model ◽

Large Scale ◽

Risk Estimation ◽

Peer To Peer ◽

Third Party ◽

Network Resources ◽

Connection Number ◽

Peer Network ◽

Time Required ◽

Peer To Peer Network

The cryptocurrency system Bitcoin uses a peer-to-peer network to distribute new transactions to all participants. For risk estimation and usability aspects of Bitcoin applications, it is necessary to know the time required to disseminate a transaction within the network. Unfortunately, this time is not immediately obvious and hard to acquire. Measuring the dissemination latency requires many connections into the Bitcoin network, wasting network resources. Some third parties operate that way and publish large scale measurements. Relying on these measurements introduces a dependency and requires additional trust. This work describes how to unobtrusively acquire reliable estimates of the dissemination latencies for transactions without involving a third party. The dissemination latency is modelled with a lognormal distribution, and we estimate their parameters using a Bayesian model that can be updated dynamically. Our approach provides reliable estimates even when using only eight connections, the minimum connection number used by the default Bitcoin client. We provide an implementation of our approach as well as datasets for modelling and evaluation. Our approach, while slightly underestimating the latency distribution, is largely congruent with observed dissemination latencies.

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Social Construction of Technology

Entanglements ◽

10.7551/mitpress/9780262035279.003.0003 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Simone Tosoni ◽

Trevor Pinch

Keyword(s):

Social Construction ◽

Social Groups ◽

Actor Network Theory ◽

Social Construction Of Technology ◽

Technological Artifacts ◽

The Social ◽

Relevant Social Groups ◽

Scientific Facts ◽

Nonhuman Agency ◽

Interpretative Flexibility

The chapter focuses on the Social Construction of Technology approach (SCOT) by Trevor Pinch and Wiebe Bijker, introducing the reader to its initial formulation (1984), and to the subsequent extensions – and sometimes reformulations – elaborated in more than 30 year of empirical research. It first clarifies how the Empirical Programme of Relativism, elaborated by the Bath School to address the social construction of scientific facts, was adapted to technological artifacts. In particular the concepts of relevant social groups, interpretative flexibility, closure or stabilization are in-depth discussed. Regarding relevant social groups, the chapter dedicates a peculiar attention to users, sellers and testers, all understudied in the original formulation of SCOT. The chapter then clarifies SCOT’s take on materiality, and discusses its main differences with the idea of nonhuman agency proposed by Actor-Network Theory (ANT). Finally, it goes back to the Golem Trilogy to discuss with the author the specific take on politics implied by SCOT.

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The Networked Effect of Children and Online Digital Technologies

Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, Fourth Edition ◽

10.4018/978-1-5225-2255-3.ch636 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 7312-7326

Author(s):

Teresa Sofia Pereira Dias de Castro ◽

António Osório ◽

Emma Bond

Keyword(s):

Social Construction ◽

Digital Technologies ◽

Actor Network Theory ◽

Theoretical Models ◽

The Other ◽

Social Construction Of Technology ◽

Social Shaping Of Technology ◽

The Social ◽

Contemporary Life ◽

Social Shaping

Within the scope of how technology impacts on society three theoretical models: the social shaping of technology (SST), social construction of technology (SCOT) and the Actor-Network theory (ANT) are frameworks that help rethink the embeddedness of technology within society, once each is transformed and transformative of the other. More attention will be given to the ANT approach since it solves the technology/society dualisms unresolved by the previous proposals. This is a flexible epistemological possibility that can reach the ambiguity of contemporary life and the remarkable transformations brought by progress that have changed drastically childhood and children's contemporary lives.

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