Women coding against the grain

CORRECTION: Due to a reporting error, an earlier version of this story misquoted Ashlee Edwards as saying she was the only woman or person of color in her graduate class. She is not the only woman or person of color in her graduate class. The Daily Tar Heel apologizes for the error.

When people think of typical forms of expression, they might think of a pen, typewriter or paintbrush.

But when journalism professor Tori Ekstrand imagines freedom of expression, she also sees computer code — a form of speech that has faced an increasing amount of restrictions by the government, she said.

“I feel like code is another form of speech,” she said. “Code is freedom of speech, press and association all at once. It has the ability to transfer text in a collaborative way.”

The recent conviction of Chelsea Manning, a former member of the military who leaked classified documents to WikiLeaks in 2010, is an example of both the power of coding and the lack of First Amendment protection for this type of expression, Ekstrand said.

With this issue in mind, she decided to organize a panel for First Amendment Day that would address two topics in the coding world: First Amendment protection as well as the lack of women in the computer coding field.

Annie Daniel , a senior journalism major who is a member of the panel, said learning code through classes at UNC inspired her to pursue a career that would combine journalism and code — two things that go hand-in-hand, she said.

“If you know how to do these things, you have a lot of freedom to do a lot of things with stories,” she said.

Sylvia Richardson, a panelist at the event, said First Amendment protection of computer code is essential to having a free press.

Reporters must learn how to code because blogs and social media are how they communicate to their readers, she said.

“It’s not very helpful to have a free press if no one participates in it,” she said. “The technology is how we communicate now.”

Richardson said protecting coders’ freedom of expression is also a way to protect people’s rights to practice a religion or assemble. She said other countries, such as Iran and China, have used computer code against their people to prevent them from enjoying these rights.

But everyday people who are fluent in code can respond to these infringements by using their own code against more oppressive governments, Richardson said. She said an example of this is Tor, a software program that grants the user anonymity and protection.

“Coders have come together to find a way around restricted speech and punch through those firewalls,” she said.

Ashlee Edwards , a Ph.D. student in the School of Information and Library Science and a panelist at the event, said learning code would allow everyday people to gain control of their information online.

“We hope coding will only be used for good — obviously the NSA is used for bad purposes — but we need to take the power out of the hands of large governments or make the playing field more equal,” she said.

But Edwards said there are issues with access to coding, especially among women and the less economically privileged.

“I have friends in Silicon Valley and the room is full of men, and there’s a dichotomy — the men separate from the women,” she said.

“That’s a sad shift. I think a lot of women are discouraged from getting into code because they think they won’t be accepted, and while I think some of that’s true, I would encourage them to go for it anyway.”

Richardson teaches coding classes through Girl Develop It, a national group that teaches women the basics of computer code. The group has a chapter that offers classes every month in Raleigh and Durham.

Ekstrand said students, especially women, should not be intimidated by learning computer code.

Classes offered by Girl Develop It or UNC’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication are a chance to learn the basic coding that any internet user should know, she said.

“You wouldn’t go to Spain and not know a little bit of Spanish,” she said. “How is it we’re online and don’t know a little bit of code?”

“The idea is not to be Julian Assange, the idea is we should be fluent enough to make small changes in the world.”

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