Bargaining Anonymity

That’s basically what’s at stake when 270,000 Facebook users decide to allow the thisisyourdigitallife app to scrape not only their data, but that of their friends, for $1 to $2 USD in return. In today’s New York Times Opinion piece by Zeynep Tufekci, a short and precise Facebook-slam piece, she discusses Facebook’s denial of their participation in a data breach affecting 50 million American users. She outlines the facts: that Facebook collected data of those who subscribed to the app, as well as their friends, they then sent the data back to the app administrators who then handed it over to Cambridge Analytica. She also alludes to the reality we also know all too well: that Facebook users are, in the most basic terms, simple income units. The units behave on Facebook, Facebook monitors/spies on their behavior, and then, if that weren’t evil enough, Facebook capitalizes on their attention: their ears, and eyeballs, and, by extension, their mind [by selling slots to advertisers to be seen by increasingly precise slices/demographics].

I think what Tufekci’s piece is missing is a discussion of user ignorance, and user negligence to familiarize themselves with the technology that they have so hospitably welcomed and created a space for in their daily lives. While she does touch on how difficult it is to give “informed” consent, and then in turn how hard it is to retract that consent, what could be discussed at a greater length is the impenetrable knowledge gap surrounding mechanisms controlling platforms like Facebook (algorithms, bots, commodification of user data), and how we could work to fill it.

We had some interesting discussions in class before the break that remind me of this missed angle in today’s article. The debate was about how tech literacy isn’t for everyone; that if you don’t come from a STEM background, it’s basically impossible to comprehend the mechanisms of a desktop computer’s processing unit. Familiarizing oneself with tech was compared to a fridge, or a car; the argument being that those of us who are not mechanics can’t be asked to fix cars, or explain how a catalytic converter works. The point, however, isn’t to be “the whiz”. It’s not about perfecting one’s knowledge of a thing so far as to never need help from a specialist. The point, in my opinion, is to understand the basics, the fundamentals, the essence of what is happening on the inside so you can’t be fooled by the mechanic who wants to overcharge you on a wheel alignment. It requires time, effort too, but most importantly an appetite for dealing with information that one doesn’t necessarily care much about. But again, the point isn’t to care, it’s to have a relationship with a thing you are giving a part of your precious life to [and allowing to access precious parts of your life]. With a car, it’s your physical body, whether you are a driver or passenger. With tech, it’s your time, your privacy, your emotions, and those of your friends too – is that really only worth $2 or less?

Negligible user interest pertaining to fundamentals of tech functionality is deeply rooted in the political economy of both the web, and ICT infrastructure. The closed-web, and the platforms that dominate it, rule absolutely. They do not invite open dialogue, knowledge sharing, or even curiosity: they nurture reticence.

The same goes for those devices we cherish as our most prized possessions. Their construction is seamless: perfect shape, size, colours, so alluring that we forget it’s a device replacing some of our most basic human abilities such as social interaction and geographical awareness. One can argue that thisisyourdigitallife hid its motives to scrape and share user data, and it would have impossible to predict. While that argument holds value, the truth helps us understand the conditions in which it operates: Facebook is a surveillance platform, it has always been a surveillance platform, and its data collection and dissemination routine refine themselves over time. Cambridge Analytica is certainly not the first and only company to harvest user data of tens of millions of people, it’s one of many, and the practice is not stopping just because we have revealed a bit more about it.

-- MadihaZahrahChoksi - 20 Mar 2018