# Wiki Tutorial

## *Agnotology and Epistemologial Fragmentation* by Danah Boyd

Before reading Boyd's article, I had never heard of agnotology — but it's something we all need to be aware of, now more than ever. In the age of social media, it has become increasingly easy to fall down a "rabbit hole." The media, government, mega-corporations, and tech-savvy (to a degree) people are aware of this tendency that has come about in the digital age, and have now figured out ways to exploit it. Boyd gives the example of the [Christchurch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christchurch_mosque_shootings) terrorist who was able to use the "data void" to his advantage. To do this, he streamed the video of the massacre to other media outlets, thereby inundating the web with his manifesto as well as leading those who stumbled upon it to other white supremecist sites. Boyd then gives a broader example of a Youtube query that leads the searcher down a rabbit hole rife with false information based on their recent searches, making it seem both true and interesting. Immediately when reading this I thought of the [Instagram](instagram.com) explore page.

This is an image of my explore page, which Instagram has curated to my likes (Jennifer Lawrence, food, fashion, and the British royals, to name a few). It is *extremely* easy for me to spend hours going through this page, leading me to click on an image of the British royals, read an article, and believe something that is decidedly **false**. This is agnotology at work in the most basic and innocous manner.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_gkf-lTMhE4" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

So now I believe that Kate and William are getting a divorce, and that Jennifer Lawrence is pregnant. So what? Well, while those thoughts aren't neccessarily harmful, they represent something much larger that is — misinformation to the masses. Boyd points out that social media is a breeding ground for agnotology and epistemological fragmentation, and that those who know this use it to their advantage in order to propagate conspiracies, radical views, and other such harmful ideas. In an era where there is so much information, we forget that not all of it is true. We can't simply trust the Internet to give us the facts. We must hold ourselves accountable for vetting our sources, seeking multiple outlets for information, and being aware of when we may be falling down that very rabbit hole.