The 11th Reason to Delete Your Social Media Account: The Algorithm Will Find You(simondedeo.com)
simondedeo.com
The 11th Reason to Delete Your Social Media Account: The Algorithm Will Find You
http://simondedeo.com/?p=705
8 comments
In most cases, they don’t have to work that hard to figure out who you are (or that you’re the same person here as you are there): you log on from the same IP address most of the time.
If there is a message here beyond the usual "you are the product", it's obscured by the author's choice of language. I'm not sure what "the algorithm" is, but clearly it's sentient, malevolent, and out to get me.
The Algorithm as I understand it (not the author) is essentially equivalent to the nature of the One Ring in Lord of the Rings. One can attempt to do good with it, but it ultimately twists motives to its own goals: using itself more.
The more time spent on the Internet looking for things you want, the more information you generate to enable the Algorithm to make things that you don't consciously know that you want--so long as you stay online.
These could be savior fantasies, delusory persecution complexes, social approval, lootbox-style dopamine mining, etc, but it reduces to the Internet providing what the user actually unconsciously wants in a hedonic escalation with the ultimate goal of keeping the user online. This transcends the usual "you are the product" rhetoric.
This isn't about for-profit dark patterns; this is about a non-fictional Infinite Jest taking over, with the warning that eventually the Algorithm will find your bespoke lever that you can't volitionally turn off or turn away from to keep you online in perpetuity.
I personally imagine this is similar to the nature of the conscious mind, so not unique to the Internet, but yeah.
The more time spent on the Internet looking for things you want, the more information you generate to enable the Algorithm to make things that you don't consciously know that you want--so long as you stay online.
These could be savior fantasies, delusory persecution complexes, social approval, lootbox-style dopamine mining, etc, but it reduces to the Internet providing what the user actually unconsciously wants in a hedonic escalation with the ultimate goal of keeping the user online. This transcends the usual "you are the product" rhetoric.
This isn't about for-profit dark patterns; this is about a non-fictional Infinite Jest taking over, with the warning that eventually the Algorithm will find your bespoke lever that you can't volitionally turn off or turn away from to keep you online in perpetuity.
I personally imagine this is similar to the nature of the conscious mind, so not unique to the Internet, but yeah.
I don’t think that the algorithm is sentient, malevolent and out to get you. This also isn’t the vibe I got from TFA. Maybe a good analogy is the Paperclip Maximizer. But instead of maximizing for paper clips, it is maximizing online time of everyone involved.
For me the “you are the product” argument usually is countered like: “I don’t mind seeing adverts for things I like, I might get great deals”. The article isn’t really about that, but that the platforms by keeping you online draw you into arguments that aren’t good for you.
For me the “you are the product” argument usually is countered like: “I don’t mind seeing adverts for things I like, I might get great deals”. The article isn’t really about that, but that the platforms by keeping you online draw you into arguments that aren’t good for you.
> I don't think that the algorithm is sentient...
Thats not how I read what the commentor is describing. It doesn't need to be any of those things to display emergent properties
Thats not how I read what the commentor is describing. It doesn't need to be any of those things to display emergent properties
Guy reads like a self-important paranoid delusional.
Talk shit about Bitcoin and you're gunna get crypto-bros in your mentions. Engage them and you'll get a fight. So what?
Talk shit about Bitcoin and you're gunna get crypto-bros in your mentions. Engage them and you'll get a fight. So what?
Says the guy who has never been harassed by Bots/Bro's/twitter mob on social media. It can be pretty traumatic for anyone to be on the receiving end of such harassment.
What gives these 'Crypto-bros' the right to come pick a fight with me and harass me? Just because I disagree with them doesn't give them the right to come abuse me.
As per a report: "1.1 million 'abusive or problematic tweets' were sent to the women in the study across the year — one every 30 seconds on average. " (https://in.mashable.com/culture/1496/unbelievable-women-are-...). Similar numbers are there from marginalized communities, and if you are a woman from a marginalized community then God help you if you dare to have an opinion.
If you think that this is not an issue then you are part of the problem.
What gives these 'Crypto-bros' the right to come pick a fight with me and harass me? Just because I disagree with them doesn't give them the right to come abuse me.
As per a report: "1.1 million 'abusive or problematic tweets' were sent to the women in the study across the year — one every 30 seconds on average. " (https://in.mashable.com/culture/1496/unbelievable-women-are-...). Similar numbers are there from marginalized communities, and if you are a woman from a marginalized community then God help you if you dare to have an opinion.
If you think that this is not an issue then you are part of the problem.
"An example: early on in my Twitter use (I was going to say “career”) I saw a Tweet from Stanford Libraries that they had digitized a significant chunk of the transcripts of the French Revolution. I was teaching class that afternoon, so I did a little exploration and put up some preliminary results as an example of how to explore datasets. Three years later, with colleagues in computer science and history, we published an award-winning paper based around that data.
From the point of view of Twitter, however, this is a massive fail. I saw the Tweet, and logged off to work on it."