About the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (C2I2)

The UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (C2I2) reaches across disciplinary, professional and organizational spaces to promote the study of digital technologies as they intersect with people, communities, and institutions across many academic domains of inquiry. Our work explores interdisciplinary intersections of digital technologies and society, with the goal of creating fairness, justice, equity, and sustainability in relationship to our technological engagements.

We engage with scholars, activists, advocates, technologists, policy makers and members of the public at large who are interested in the ways in which digital technologies are shaping and transforming humanity by promoting initiatives that reflect a broad range of social and ethical concerns that require sustained, open and multi-party debate and exploration.

About Us

Our team of researchers

Co-Director

Safiya Umoja Noble, Ph.D.

Safiya Umoja Noble, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the Departments of Information Studies and African American Studies

Safiya Umoja Noble, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the Departments of Information Studies and African American Studies, where she serves as the Co-Director of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry. She is the author of a best-selling book on racist and sexist algorithmic bias in commercial search engines, Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism (NYU Press).
Co-Director

Sarah T. Roberts

Sarah T. Roberts, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of information studies in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Sarah T. Roberts is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Studies (Graduate School of Education & Information Studies) at UCLA. She holds a Ph.D. from the iSchool at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prior to joining UCLA in 2016, she was an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at Western University in London, Ontario for three years. On the internet since 1993, she was previously an information technology professional for 15 years, and, as such, her research interests focus on information work and workers and on the social, economic and political impact of the widespread adoption of the internet in everyday life.Her book on commercial content moderation, entitled Behind the Screen: Content Moderation in the Shadows of Social Media, was published in 2019 from Yale University Press.
Graduate Student Researcher

Lawrence Maminta

Lawrence Maminta is a Graduate Student Researcher in the Department of Information Studies at UCLA, and works with C2I2 while pursuing his Masters in Library & Information Studies at UCLA.

Lawrence Maminta is a Graduate Student Researcher in the Department of Information Studies at UCLA, and works with C2I2 while pursuing his Masters in Library & Information Studies at UCLA.

Select publications and research in critical internet studies

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