Course outline
Module 1
Module 1: Origins of the Social Graph
Origins of the Social Graph
Knowledge check
Q1. What was the primary purpose of the original 'thefacebook.com' site when Mark Zuckerberg launched it in February 2004?
- A. To serve as a job board for Harvard graduates
- B. To create an online directory connecting students at Harvard University ✓
- C. To sell textbooks and course materials to undergraduates
- D. To provide a messaging platform for the entire internet population
Why: Thefacebook.com was launched as an online directory for Harvard students, initially limited to Harvard email addresses, to help students connect with one another and learn about classmates.
Q2. Which concept best describes the network of relationships between users that a platform like Facebook maps and stores?
- A. The search index
- B. The social graph ✓
- C. The content delivery network
- D. The API gateway
Why: The social graph is the term for the mapped network of users and the connections (friendships, follows, affiliations) between them, which becomes a core asset for social platforms.
Q3. Why did Facebook initially restrict membership to users with a harvard.edu email address?
- A. To comply with federal education regulations
- B. To create an exclusive, trusted community and control early growth ✓
- C. Because the server infrastructure could only support one campus
- D. To avoid paying licensing fees to other universities
Why: Restricting access to verified members of a specific institution built a sense of exclusivity and trust, and allowed the company to grow in a controlled way before expanding to other schools.
Q4. What early feature of Facebook, introduced in 2005 and later expanded, allowed users to see and tag the people visible in photos?
- A. Photo tagging ✓
- B. Live streaming
- C. Cloud backup
- D. Automatic translation
Why: Photo tagging let users link other people to images, which strengthened connections in the social graph and generated rich data about who knew whom and where they had been.
Q5. Why is the emergence of the social graph significant for understanding surveillance and power on social platforms?
- A. It shows that social networks have no commercial value
- B. It reveals how relationship data can be mined to predict behavior and shape advertising and influence ✓
- C. It proves that users fully control how their connections are used
- D. It demonstrates that social platforms cannot store personal information
Why: Relationship data is highly valuable: analyzing who connects to whom enables prediction, targeting, and influence, which concentrates power in the platform that holds the graph.
Module 2
Module 2: The Attention Economy and Engagement Design
The Attention Economy and Engagement Design
Knowledge check
Q1. What is the 'attention economy'?
- A. A system where users pay subscriptions to access social media platforms
- B. An economic model in which human attention is treated as a scarce resource that platforms compete to capture and sell to advertisers ✓
- C. A government policy that limits how much time citizens can spend online
- D. A cryptocurrency system that rewards users for reading content
Why: The attention economy describes how platforms like Facebook monetize user attention by keeping people engaged and selling access to that attention to advertisers.
Q2. Which of the following best describes 'engagement design'?
- A. Designing websites to load faster on mobile devices
- B. Creating interface features and algorithms intended to maximize the time and interactions users spend on a platform ✓
- C. Hiring community managers to moderate user comments
- D. Making privacy settings easier to understand for users
Why: Engagement design refers to deliberately crafting features such as notifications, feeds, and reactions to encourage repeated and prolonged use of a platform.
Q3. What is a 'variable reward' schedule, as used in many social media features?
- A. A fixed monthly payment given to top content creators
- B. Rewards that arrive unpredictably, such as likes or new messages, which can drive compulsive checking behavior ✓
- C. A discount offered to users who verify their identity
- D. A pricing model where advertisers pay different rates based on time of day
Why: Borrowed from behavioral psychology, variable rewards deliver likes or notifications at unpredictable intervals, which research links to habit formation and repeated checking.
Q4. Why does Facebook's News Feed use ranking algorithms rather than showing posts in strict chronological order?
- A. Chronological order is illegal in most countries
- B. Ranking allows the platform to prioritize content predicted to hold user attention, which supports its advertising revenue ✓
- C. Chronological feeds use too much data storage
- D. Ranking algorithms are required to remove spam from the platform
Why: Ranked feeds select content predicted to maximize engagement, which keeps users on the platform longer and increases the ad impressions Facebook can sell.
Q5. What role does user data play in the attention economy?
- A. It is used only to improve password security
- B. It allows platforms to predict user interests and target advertising more precisely, increasing the value of each user's attention ✓
- C. It is deleted immediately after each session to protect privacy
- D. It is shared only with government agencies for public safety
Why: Behavioral data lets platforms model what captures each user's attention, enabling more precise ad targeting that advertisers pay more for.
Module 3
Module 3: Data Collection and Surveillance Capitalism
Data Collection and Surveillance Capitalism
Knowledge check
Q1. What term describes the economic logic in which personal data about user behavior is collected and used to predict and influence future actions, often for advertisers?
- A. Open-source development
- B. Surveillance capitalism ✓
- C. Mercantile exchange
- D. Public broadcasting
Why: Surveillance capitalism, a term popularized by Shoshana Zuboff, refers to a business model that treats behavioral data extracted from users as a raw material to be analyzed and sold, mainly to advertisers who want to anticipate and shape behavior.
Q2. Which type of data is most directly collected from a Facebook user's everyday activity on the platform?
- A. Only the user's government-issued identification
- B. Behavioral data such as likes, clicks, time spent viewing content, and friend interactions ✓
- C. Exclusively the passwords users type into login forms
- D. Only the financial records held by their bank
Why: Facebook records behavioral signals like likes, clicks, dwell time, shares, and social connections, which form the core of the profiles used for targeting and prediction.
Q3. What is a 'behavioral surplus' in the context of surveillance capitalism?
- A. Excess server capacity that Facebook sells to other companies
- B. Data collected beyond what is needed to improve the service, which is used to predict and influence behavior ✓
- C. Unused advertising budget returned to customers
- D. Money users earn by sharing their posts
Why: Behavioral surplus is the additional data gathered beyond what is needed to provide the service. Companies use this surplus to build predictive products, which is the central mechanism of surveillance capitalism.
Q4. Which of the following is an example of a third-party data collection method that can track users across websites?
- A. A handwritten letter sent by mail
- B. Tracking pixels and social plugins embedded on external websites ✓
- C. A printed newspaper subscription
- D. An in-person conversation at a store
Why: Tracking pixels and social plugins, such as Facebook's Like button embedded on other sites, allow the platform to observe user activity off Facebook, linking browsing behavior to profiles.
Q5. Why do critics argue that users often cannot meaningfully consent to Facebook's data collection practices?
- A. Because the platform is free of charge and has no privacy policy
- B. Because lengthy, complex policies and default settings make informed understanding and opting out difficult in practice ✓
- C. Because data collection is illegal in every country
- D. Because users are never shown any terms of service
Why: Critics point out that privacy policies are long and hard to understand, and default settings favor data sharing, so consent is often nominal rather than genuinely informed.
Module 4
Module 4: Algorithms, Feeds, and Visibility
Algorithms, Feeds, and Visibility
Knowledge check
Q1. What is the primary purpose of a social media feed algorithm?
- A. To display posts in strict chronological order from oldest to newest
- B. To rank and select content for each user based on predicted engagement and relevance ✓
- C. To randomly distribute posts across all users equally
- D. To show only posts from accounts a user has officially followed
Why: Feed algorithms use signals such as past behavior, predicted interest, and engagement likelihood to decide which content appears and in what order, rather than simply listing posts chronologically.
Q2. Which of the following is a common signal that a feed algorithm may use to predict whether a user will engage with a post?
- A. The user's physical location in a government database
- B. The user's past likes, comments, time spent viewing similar content, and interactions with the poster ✓
- C. The user's employer and salary information
- D. The user's private messages stored in encrypted form
Why: Platforms typically infer interest from observable behavior such as reactions, comments, dwell time, and past interactions with a given creator or topic.
Q3. What does 'visibility' mean in the context of social media algorithms?
- A. The legal requirement for platforms to disclose their source code
- B. The degree to which a post is shown to other users, which the algorithm largely determines ✓
- C. The number of followers a user has on the platform
- D. The clarity of images uploaded to the platform
Why: Visibility refers to how many people actually see a piece of content. Algorithms heavily shape this, so two posts from the same account can reach very different audiences.
Q4. Why do critics argue that engagement-based feed ranking can contribute to polarization?
- A. Because algorithms are required by law to show only extreme content
- B. Because emotionally charged or divisive content often generates more reactions, which the system may then amplify ✓
- C. Because engagement metrics are never recorded by platforms
- D. Because users can never choose to hide any content
Why: When ranking optimizes for engagement, content that provokes strong emotion, including outrage, can receive wider distribution, potentially intensifying divisions among users.
Q5. Which statement best describes the power dynamic created by algorithmic feeds?
- A. Users have complete control over what they see and the platform has no influence
- B. The platform controls the rules of visibility, while users and creators have limited insight into how those rules work ✓
- C. Algorithms are neutral and produce identical feeds for all users
- D. Advertisers alone determine what content appears in feeds
Why: Platforms set and adjust ranking systems privately, so users and creators often cannot see the criteria shaping what they encounter, giving the platform substantial power over information flow.
Module 5
Module 5: Platform Power and Market Concentration
Platform Power and Market Concentration
Knowledge check
Q1. Which term describes a market structure in which a single company dominates a large share of users and revenue, making it difficult for competitors to gain ground?
- A. Perfect competition
- B. Market concentration
- C. Price discrimination
- D. Vertical integration only
Q2. What is a 'network effect' in the context of social media platforms?
- A. The technical infrastructure that connects servers across countries
- B. The increase in a platform's value as more users join, making it more useful to each additional user
- C. The spread of news stories through word-of-mouth offline
- D. The requirement that users have a mutual friend before connecting
Q3. Why do network effects tend to strengthen platform dominance over time?
- A. They lower the cost of advertising for smaller competitors
- B. Users are reluctant to switch to a rival platform where their friends and contacts are not present
- C. They require governments to regulate platform prices
- D. They guarantee that all users pay the same subscription fee
Q4. What does the term 'acquisition of potential competitors' refer to in discussions of platform power?
- A. Hiring former employees of rival firms
- B. Buying smaller companies that could later grow into rivals, thereby removing a future threat
- C. Licensing patents from startups to improve product features
- D. Forming partnerships with suppliers to lower production costs
Q5. Which of the following is a common argument made by regulators about why dominant platforms should face scrutiny?
- A. Dominant platforms always charge lower prices than smaller firms
- B. Market dominance can reduce consumer choice, limit innovation, and give the platform excessive control over information and user data
- C. Platforms with many users are legally required to share profits with governments
- D. Large platforms cannot be regulated under existing competition law
Module 6
Module 6: Misinformation, Moderation, and Governance
Misinformation, Moderation, and Governance
Knowledge check
Q1. Which of the following best describes Facebook's content moderation approach at the platform scale it operates?
- A. Every post is reviewed by a human moderator before publication
- B. A mix of automated detection systems and human reviewers, with rules set by internal policies
- C. Content is moderated only when a government legally requires it
- D. Posts are never removed once published, to protect free expression
Q2. What is the term for false information that is spread without the intent to deceive?
- A. Disinformation
- B. Propaganda
- C. Misinformation
- D. Malinformation
Q3. What is the primary purpose of Facebook's fact-checking partnerships with independent organizations?
- A. To delete all content that fact-checkers mark as false
- B. To review flagged claims and apply labels, reduced distribution, or warnings to content judged false
- C. To verify the identity of every user who posts political content
- D. To replace the company's internal policy team with outside journalists
Q4. Why is Facebook's 'Community Standards' document significant for governance on the platform?
- A. It is a legally binding national law that Facebook must follow in every country
- B. It sets out the rules users must follow and explains when and why content is removed
- C. It guarantees that all user content will remain online permanently
- D. It lists the advertisers who are allowed to target users with political ads
Q5. Which concept describes the tension between letting users express themselves freely and removing harmful or false content?
- A. Network effects
- B. Surveillance capitalism
- C. Content moderation trade-offs
- D. Algorithmic amplification
Module 7
Module 7: Resistance, Regulation, and Alternatives
Resistance, Regulation, and Alternatives
Knowledge check
Q1. Which concept best describes the way Facebook collects user data to predict and influence behavior, as discussed in critical studies of platform power?
- A. Public broadcasting
- B. Surveillance capitalism ✓
- C. Open-source governance
- D. Civic journalism
Why: Surveillance capitalism, a term popularized by Shoshana Zuboff, describes an economic logic in which personal behavioral data is extracted and turned into predictive products sold to advertisers and others.
Q2. Which regulatory measure is widely considered a major example of data protection law that affects platforms like Facebook?
- A. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act
- B. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) ✓
- C. The Sherman Antitrust Act
- D. The Telecommunications Act of 1996
Why: The GDPR, enforced in the European Union from 2018, sets strict rules on consent, data access, and user rights, and has shaped how platforms handle personal data globally.
Q3. What is a 'data portability' right, as it relates to resisting platform lock-in?
- A. The right to delete all posts from the internet
- B. The right to move one's personal data from one service to another in a usable format ✓
- C. The right to remain anonymous while using a service
- D. The right to receive payment for one's data
Why: Data portability allows users to export their data and transfer it to a competing service, which reduces the switching costs that keep users locked into a single platform.
Q4. Which alternative model to centralized social media platforms emphasizes decentralized servers that are run independently by different communities?
- A. The federated model, as seen in the Fediverse and Mastodon ✓
- B. The advertising-supported model
- C. The walled garden model
- D. The proprietary cloud model
Why: Federated networks like the Fediverse connect independently operated servers that can interoperate, giving communities more control over moderation and data than a single corporate platform does.
Q5. Which of the following is an example of user-led resistance to platform surveillance?
- A. Increasing ad targeting precision
- B. Adopting privacy tools such as ad blockers, tracker blockers, or deleting accounts ✓
- C. Sharing more personal information to improve recommendations
- D. Enabling all default data-sharing settings
Why: Individual resistance strategies include using ad and tracker blockers, adjusting privacy settings, limiting data sharing, or leaving platforms altogether, all of which reduce the data available for surveillance.