Ciston, S. (2019). ladymouth: Anti-social-media art as research. Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, 2019(15).

Link: https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/1794/26793/1/ada15-ladyn-cis-2019.pdf

Open access: Yes

Notes: In this paper, Sarah Ciston documents and reflects on the process of creating ladymouth, a chatbot that responds to misogynistic content on Reddit. As Ciston describes, “the ladymouth chatbot selects a random keyword from a SQLite database I compiled of common misogynist terms. It logs into Reddit and searches a predetermined forum for a post containing this keyword, then submits a reply using a quotation I linked to that keyword, selected from my readings in feminist theory” (p. 2). Through this art-based project, Ciston imagines “a machine that can care for and act for us, multiplying effort and deflecting abuse” (p. 10). This work highlights the effort involved in creating solutions to online abuse (as Ciston documents efforts to create libraries of harmful language) but also the possibilities of automating processes of caring that, at the very least, distract those engaging in platformized violence.

Abstract: ladymouth is a chatbot that tries to explain feminism to Internet trolls. The software automates replies to “men’s rights activists,” responding with quotations from feminist theorists and logging the reactions it elicits. The bot does not try to pass a Turing test, but to make visible emotional labor—by transferring the risks of engagement with technology back onto a technological body. Recontextualized as large-scale video installation and live poetry performance, the text of ladymouth prods at the caustic underbelly of patriarchy as a springboard to materialize the impact of human-techno entanglements and to imagine their potential for creative intervention.

More information: I learned about ladymouth from a podcast episode on The Good Robot. You can listen to the episode here.