J. Nathan Matias, Author at Social Science Space

J. Nathan Matias

J. Nathan Matias is a PhD student at MIT Media Lab Center for Civic Media and a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard. He designs and researches civic technologies for cooperation across diversity. At the Berkman Center, he applies data analysis and design to the topics of peer-based social technologies, civic engagement, journalism, gender diversity, and creative learning. Marias' current projects include Open Gender Tracker, Thanks.fm, and NewsPad. Before MIT, Matias completed an MA in English literature at the University of Cambridge, where he was a Davies Jackson scholar. In earlier years, he was Riddick Scholar and Hugh Cannon Memorial Scholar at the American Institute of Parliamentarians. He was made a fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts, Sciences, and Manufacturing in 2013 and was an intern at Microsoft Research Fuse Labs in the summer of 2013.

A Social Science Audit for Facebook’s News Feed?

How can the public learn the role of algorithms in their daily lives, evaluating the law and ethicality of systems like the Facebook News Feed, search engines, or airline booking systems? Earlier this month Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society hosted a conversation about the idea of social science audits of algorithms, and J. Nathan Matias reports on the discourse.