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How platform power undermines diversity-oriented innovation
The paper contributes to the further development of platform studies by looking at the early stages of development. It draws on insights from an exemplary research and innovation project that aimed to develop a "diversity-aware online social platform".
By combining established methods of data collection (in this case participant observation, focus groups, and in-depth analysis of survey results and design options) with normative assessments of ethical concerns, it facilitates explorations of alternative ways of doing research in collaborative processes. For example, while a critical amount of comparable data is essential for the technical implementation of automated matching algorithms, co-design is a key methodological component to enact meaningful diversity as it is crucial for translating the normative goal of accounting for difference into practice. Yet, since we had neither the resources for human diversity curators, nor the means to create robust automated solutions, we eventually ended up with a design strategy: the chat-bot would give students the opportunity to choose from a drop-down menu where indicating that a request tackles a sensitive topic is an option.
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