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Podcast: New Books in Popular Culture
Episode: Alexander Monea, "The Digital Closet: How the Internet Became Straight" (MIT Press, 2022)
Description: In The Digital Closet: How the Internet Became Straight (MIT Press, 2022), Alexander Monea argues provocatively that the internet became straight by suppressing everything that is not, forcing LGBTQIA+ content into increasingly narrow channels--rendering it invisible through opaque algorithms, automated and human content moderation, warped keywords, and other strategies of digital overreach. Monea explains how the United States' thirty-year "war on porn" has brought about the over-regulation of sexual content, which, in turn, has resulted in the censorship of much nonpornographic content--including material on sex education and LGBTQIA+ activism. In this wide-ranging, enlightening account, Monea examines the cultural, technological, and po...