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UID:20260501T022535EDT-1070aPILI8@132.216.98.100
DTSTAMP:20260501T062535Z
DESCRIPTION:The gaping holes in the U.S. and Canadian social safety nets me
 an that many people live in a state of financial precarity that can instan
 tly become untenable in the face of another big expense\, such as a large 
 medical bill or damaged property. Historically\, people have turned to the
 ir communities\, neighbors\, families\, and loved ones for help in these s
 ituations. Today\, asking for money on the internet through crowdfunding i
 s among the most popular ways of seeking and donating to charity\, and for
 -profit enterprises have realized that tapping into this instinct for help
 ing is extremely good business. This talk reveals how these sites\, most n
 otably GoFundMe\, enjoy massive revenue\, without providing the help they 
 promise. They fail most of their users while putting them through an emoti
 onal rollercoaster and using sneaky tactics to obscure that reality. With 
 unprecedented access to interviews\, surveys\, and hundreds of thousands o
 f crowdfunding cases across North America\, this talk\, based on a book fo
 rthcoming this summer\, tries to answer the following questions: Who succe
 eds and who fails in the digital crowd? Whom do these sites benefit? The a
 nswers are uncomfortable and suggest that the failure of GoFundMe and othe
 rs is emblematic of the inability of the for-profit sector and Big Tech to
  engineer an end to social inequality.\n\nSpeaker: Erik Schneiderhan is As
 sociate Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto\, with appoint
 ments at the University of Toronto at Mississauga and at St. George. A pol
 itical sociologist and theorist interested in democracy and how we help ot
 hers in communities\, he is the author of The Size of Others' Burdens (SUP
 \, 2015).\n\nTalk Location TBA\n
DTSTART:20230310T180000Z
DTEND:20230310T193000Z
SUMMARY:Visiting Speaker Series Presents Dr. Erik Schneiderhan: GoFailMe: T
 he Unfulfilled Promise of Digital Crowdfunding
URL:https://www.mcgill.ca/sociology/channels/event/visiting-speaker-series-
 presents-dr-erik-schneiderhan-gofailme-unfulfilled-promise-digital-345126
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