Zeynep Tufekci gets the big things right

VOICE OF REASON

2020 brought plenty of fuel for Zeynep Tufekci’s writing, as well as national recognition for ‘Getting the Big Things Right’

It wasn’t hard to predict that 2020 was going to be a busy year for anyone who studies and writes about technology, society, and politics like Zeynep Tufekci, Associate Professor at the UNC School of Information and Library Science (SILS). Then came a global pandemic and massive protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd.

As soon as a topic came to the national forefront, Tufekci seemed ready and waiting with a new column that deconstructed the issues, provided global perspectives and expert insights, and offered advice for moving forward.

Tufekci’s talent for analyzing complex social and technological issues was lauded in an Aug. 23 New York Times feature, titled, “How Zeynep Tufekci Keeps Getting the Big Things Right.”

Times media columnist Ben Smith wrote a glowing profile of Tufekci for the Sunday edition, recounting how her early life and career as a computer programmer in Turkey shaped her worldview and highlighting the many accurate predictions she has made in recent years.

“In 2011, she went against the current to say the case for Twitter as a driver of broad social movements had been oversimplified,” Smith writes. “In 2012, she warned news media outlets that their coverage of school shootings could inspire more. In 2013, she argued that Facebook could fuel ethnic cleansing. In 2017, she warned that YouTube’s recommendation algorithm could be used as a tool of radicalization.”

In early 2020, Tufekci condemned the CDC’s recommendations against mask use on Twitter and in an op-ed for the Times, titled “Why Telling People They Didn’t Need Masks Backfired.” Her public criticism was reportedly the tipping point that convinced the agency to change its stance in April.

Tufekci also joined over 100 experts – including two Nobel laureates and the editors of Nature and The Lancet – to sign an open letter to all U.S. governors, asking them to “require cloth masks to be worn in all public places, such as stores, transportation systems, and public buildings.”

On top of all of the columns she wrote throughout the year, Tufekci gave interviews and delivered talks, including a Tar Heel Talks live on Sept. 30, titled “Whose Facts? Misinformation and Disinformation in 2020.”

Tufekci and UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media Associate Professor Deen Freelon, both principal researchers at the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life (CITAP), were the evening’s featured speakers.

Though she often discusses the failures and dangers of new technologies, Tufekci remains hopeful that the internet and social media can achieve some of their initial promise.

“I have this saying, Is the internet good or bad? Yes,” she said during the Tar Heel Talks live discussion. “I still have not lost the early optimism, because everyday I see amazing things that digital technology allows.”

Zeynep Tufekci delivers a talk on truth in the digital world at the 2019 Big Challenge Science Festival, hosted by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Photo by Kai T. Dragland, NTNU

Zeynep Tufekci is a contributing writer for The Atlantic. Below are titles of some of the columns she published this year, demonstrating the breadth of issues she addressed. These and others can be found at www.theatlantic.com/author/zeynep-tufekci. • “The Pandemic is No Excuse to Surveil Students” (Sept. 30) • “The Tragic Loss of Coronavirus Patients’ Final Words” (July 9) • “Scolding Beachgoers Isn’t Helping” (July 4) • “I Can’t Breathe: Braving Tear Gas in a Pandemic” (June 4) • “Trump is Doing All of This for Zuckerberg” (May 29) • “The Real Reason to Wear a Mask” (April 22) • “The WHO Shouldn’t Be a Plaything for Great Powers” (April 16) Tufekci is also the author of Twitter and Teargas: The Ecstatic, Fragile Politics of Networked Protest in the 21st Century, published by Yale University Press. This fall she launched a newsletter at zeynep.substack.com.