>When did we decide that knowing something about somebody else was such a big deal?
When data became a commodity that can be analysed, acted upon, sold and used to make predictions about groups or individuals.
When data became a commodity that can be analysed, acted upon, sold and used to make predictions about groups or individuals.
Credit reporting agencies were always all about knowing something about somebody else en mass as a commodity that can be analysed, acted upon, sold and used to make predictions about groups or individuals. But these are companies best represented by people who wear proper suits and play proper golf. Nobody batted an eye.
Contrast that to today's barrage of tracking and advertising. Firefox Focus tells me to date that it has blocked 65k trackers in the past ten months. I mention a specific tool I need for a project to my dad, he searches for it, and then I see advertisements.
The "nerds" didn't forget to wear suits and play golf, they expanded the data collection net and feedback loop for advertisements to an unprecedented scale.
Exactly. It's intellectually bankrupt to suggest that tech is just like everything else before, all while conveniently ignoring the change in scale. Scale matters, and scaling up changes a system's implications and risks. It's irresponsible to think otherwise.
Just because I'm OK with using party poppers doesn't mean I want a flashbang to blow up next to me.
A very simple and generic example is if you prime someone with a picture of an American flag, they're more likely to vote Republican. So with a slight tweak to the algorithm, on election day we can guarantee more or fewer Republican votes just by changing the ranking of posts with a flag on Twitter.
And the more we know about you as an individual, the more we can control you by priming you in this way.
Would be careful with that. AFAIK priming studies generally fail to replicate.