Very important story by danah boyd: To combat increasing polarisation in our society, we need to rely on organisations that actively and intentionally let people with fundamental differences work alongside one another.
https://points.datasociety.net/the-fragmentation-of-truth-3c766ebb74cf
I see schools and universities as another major power to combat polarisation in our society. Our university brings together people from different backgrounds, politcal views and cultures. Creating a sense of common purpose and a sense of a university community is important to fight polarisation and populism in our society.
We need to work harder to shape our universty as a community. If international students feel disconnected, then we completely failed as a university, no matter how excellent our educational programs are. This U-Today story breaks my heart: ("One in three non-European bachelors had study problems in the previous academic year due to psychological, medical or social circumstances.")
https://www.utoday.nl/news/66403/psychische-en-sociale-problemen-bij-internationale-bachelors
Finally, services like search engines may be harmful, however well-intended and well-implemented. I find this hard to say as an Information Retrieval researcher, but search is easily manipulated, and you might not want powerful search in some applications. Boyd's concept of 'data voids' is really insightful. Maybe we should teach students about search engine optimization in our courses too... #FIR