tia

Intersectionality, a term coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, is a concept that examines how overlapping identities, such as race, gender, sexuality, or ability, combine and interact to create unique experiences. Through social media, these communities are offered powerful tools to share stories, experiences, or organize movements (like #MeToo or #BlackLivesMatter) and gain global awareness. However, algorithms and platform biases can have a negative effect by suppressing and underrepresenting these communities, and even silencing them. These communities also often get subjected to many different forms of harassment. This is an important reminder that, while diversity and representation are extremely important, this issue requires systemic changes, especially in platform design and taking accountability for algorithms and content moderation policies. For social media to become a truly inclusive and empowering space for marginalized communities, these changes need to occur to really offer a fair platform for communities to share experiences and organize movements in a safe space and with fairness. 

“If the people in power are using these algorithms to quietly watch us, to judge us and nudge us, to predict and identify the troublemakers and the rebels, to deploy persuasion architectures at scale and to manipulate individuals one by one using their personal, individual weaknesses and vulnerabilities… that authoritarianism will envelop is like a spider’s web and we may not even know we’re in it.” -Zeynep Tufekci, 2017