Civic hacknight #396 - Data, surveillance & Pornhub Insights (VIRTUAL)

*This is the virtual registration for this event. To attend in person, please RSVP here.

*Please note: while this talk will not include any explicit sexual imagery, it does engage with sexual themes, language and porn content.

Topic: Peeping Platforms: data, surveillance & Pornhub Insights

• Pornhub Insights routinely circulates fun, colourful infographics detailing the porn viewing habits of millions of global users. Porn watching is often conceived of as a fundamentally private activity, but Insights' cheeky posts boast of a media model premised on user surveillance. This talk will review some underlying implications around algorithmically curated media's role in shaping categories of sexual preference on platforms.

Speaker: Maggie MacDonald

• Maggie is a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Information researching the platformization of pornography. With a dissertation focus on Pornhub, she also works on deepfake porn, financial infrastructures, and platform policy, and is currently an independent advisory board member for Pornhub. You can find Maggie's recent writing in New Media & Society, the Canadian Journal of Communication, and The Walrus, or at @internetmaggie on Twitter and www.internetmaggie.com.

Join us via Zoom (webcams and mics optional, but encouraged):

• A Zoom link will be made available to everyone who RSVPs!

Agenda:

• 7:00-7:20 = Welcome and Introductions
• 7:20-7:50 = Presentation and Q&A/discussion
• 7:50-9:00 = Breakout groups

Code of Conduct:

• http://civictech.ca/about-us

Check in with us on the Civic Tech Toronto Slack:

• https://link.civictech.ca/chat

Accessibility:

• We're exploring ways to make our hybrid hacknights more accessible. At the moment we provide video and audio of the presentation through Zoom and automated closed captioning.

About Us:

• Our weekly civic tech hacknights bring together Torontonians (designers, coders, urban planners, government staff, mappers, policy-makers, students, communications strategists, community organizers, and more) who share an interest in making Toronto more responsive, prosperous, sustainable, and equitable through design, tech, and data. Come and be part of it!

For more info:

• http://civictech.ca