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Obsessed with Data

Our obsession with information has caused the inundation of data on the storage capacity of the internet. The collection of data sets has become so large and complex that it is difficult to understand information without the use of processing applications (Snigders, Matzat, Reips, 2012, p 1-2). And these databases are growing at a phenomenal rate. Figures suggest that the volume of data doubled approximately every three since the beginning of the internet in the public domain. In 2007, the volume of data is believed to have reached 295 exabytes and, it is predicted that it will exceed 1000 exabytes by 2015. This is far more information than anyone could process in their lifetime, or even 100 lifetimes (Hilbert, 2011). So why is so much information being created?

Much of this data has come to existence through the prevalence of Big Data mining in almost every information industry. Mass amounts of data are being extrapolated from the keystrokes we use on social media websites, the web pages we visit most often and the videos that hold our attention the longest. In fact, any click or non-click has the potential to be mined, catalogued and sold to any business or government (Siegel, 2013). Big data has become a valuable commodity as the information attained can be used to create economic/scientific/business models and predict the success of a product through patterns in the habits of consumers (Woodford, 2014) (Siegel, 2013). It’s kind of like the way television studios use ratings to create and buy content but on a much more personal scale.

This ability to predict patterns in human behaviour has valuable applications for the rest of society outside of the internet too. A trial is currently underway in Los Angeles where law enforcement officers must rely on the use of data to patrol and respond to crimes. In the most dangerous parts of LA where gang violence is rampant and the production and distribution of narcotics is used to fund criminal activity, the quick response of a law enforcement officer is vital in protecting the innocent. A computer algorithm based on the collection of crime data over the past 80 years attempts to predict the location of a crime before it occurs. By projecting the current data on to our understandings of human behavioural patterns, scientists have been able to further isolate potential crime hot spots, leading to the arrest of offenders before a more serious crime is committed (BBC, 2013). Certainly, this has had a considerable impact on the way law enforcement works in the United States, but when does predicting big data impede on innocence? The potential to abuse criminal data may have detrimental effects on implicating criminals on a crime they haven’t committed. Much like Steven Speilberg’s Minority Report, data has the potential to be manipulated and used for political gain (Yaniv, 2014). With our obsession over data and its application in almost all aspects of life, it’s almost impossible to comprehend its positive or negative potential. Like most innovations, Big Data could be used for either but its up to us to dictate its future.

References:

BBC. 2013. “The Age of Big Data.” BBC Video posted 18 July 2013. Accessed May 9th http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rt4c7

Martin Hilbert & Priscila López (2011). The World's Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information. Science, 332(6025), 60-65.

Mor, Yaniv. 2014. “Big Data and Law Enforcement – Was ‘Minority Report’ Right?” Wired. Accessed May 9th http://www.wired.com/2014/03/big-data-law-enforcement-minority-report-right/

Siegel, Eric. 2013. “Introduction – The Prediction Effect.” In Predictive Analytics, 1-16. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons Inc.

Snijders, C., Matzat, U., & Reips, U.-D. 2012. ‘Big Data’: Big gaps of knowledge in the field of Internet. International Journal of Internet Science, 7, 1-5

Woodford, Darryl. 2014. “New Media, Big Data and Telemetrics (guest lecture by Darryl Woodford)”. Accessed May 9th http://www.dpwoodford.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/KCB206-Big-Data-Lecture_Small.pdf

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“Expect Us”

There is no weapon on the planet more powerful than speech. With the dominance of technology and social media quickly influencing all aspects of our lives, speech has prospered, establishing a new weapon in our endless fight for freedom. People sharing similar ideologies are empowered through their connectivity with other activists over a vast landscape of political agendas, sharing their visionary ideas of social changes and foreshadowing the potential of revolutionary militancy (Shirky, 2011).

Certainly, this aggressive activism does exist through social media to a large degree. Online petitions vehemently advocate for a change in social standards due to the belief that ‘clicktivism’ is now essential in sparking a revolution (White, 2010). But what most interests me is the use of hacking to express a political agenda and the influence this can have in the social media sphere. What has been described as ‘hacktivism,’ seeks to exploit our reliance on digital mediums, often creating an inconvenience for consumers which in turn has an impact on the reputation of the targeted group.

A key example of hacktivism at work was in the aftermath of the Wikileaks scandal in December 2010. A group of collective hacktivists known as Anonymous rallied thousands of prospective revolutionary’s on 4chan and Twitter, calling for a Denial of Service attack on Paypal, postfinance.ch and Visa in an attempt to bring down the websites.

Visa and Paypal’s online services were temporarily interrupted creating a major inconvenience for consumers. Meanwhile, Postfinance.ch was down for more than 24 hours due to the amount of traffic being created through the DDoS attack; the first in history to be successful against a bank. Anonymous had made its agenda clear as the news of the attacks began circling all media outlets, from trending on Twitter to broadcasts on national television stations. But most importantly, Anonymous emphasised the power and influence of speech in our digital landscape (Knappenberger, 2012). It would appear as though this aggressive form of activism has been taken for granted as the hype surrounding digital activism quickly diminishes. Hacktivists appear to no longer have the same social impact as they did a few years ago. Most sceptics believe that hacktivism has dampened the likelihood of any cultural revolution in the near future as most digital natives are inclined to click a petition for support rather than be actively engaged themselves (White, 2010). And I would mostly agree. Perhaps another social injustice is required before any aggressive activism will be seen. Or perhaps more needs to be at risk, such as our freedom to use the internet.

References: Knappenberger, Brian. 2012. We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists. Directed by Brian Knappenberger. Produced by Luminant Media. n.p: FilmBuff. DVD.

White, Micah. 2010. “Clicktivism is ruining leftist activism,” The Guardian. Accessed May 3rd http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/aug/12/clicktivism-ruining-leftist-activism

Shirky, Clay. 2011 “The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change.” In Foreign Affairs 90:1. Retrieved from http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67038/clay-

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Cloud Labour: an end to justify the means?

“Exploitation” is a word that seems to be thrown around more often in our daily rhetoric, whether it refers to exploitation of our rights in the work place or by powerful corporations. Should it come to anyone’s surprise that consumers are being exploited online? Well, no; however, the scale in which we are being exploited may be a cause for concern.

New media has become a “site of consumer participation” (Fuchs, 2013) whether you like it or not. Companies use your information to better market towards their audience and collect your ideas to create the material they’re advertising for (Zittrain, 2009). What is known as “cloud labour” as discussed by Christian Fuchs (2013), has become synonymous with the use of social media and the internet. This form of “labour” may not necessarily be arduous but it is typically unpaid and is designed to maximise the revenue of corporations at the expense of creating paid jobs. Nevertheless, due to our increasing use of social media and interactivity between corporate and consumer, cloud labour has been able to thrive and develop into other forms of exploitation. Perhaps one of these more sinister exploitive concepts is the use of “gamification” to complete tasks and solve problems for free. By disguising a menial task as gameplay, users are more likely to be motivated to engage with the product without questioning the outcome of their actions (Fuchs, 2013). For example, users of Foursquare earn points and badges for places they check-in to using their mobile app. They can then compare the number of points with others on a leaderboard, creating a competitive environment in achieving the highest score. By promoting the use of the app through gameplay, the developers were successful in creating “replayability” in a task that would often seem menial to the user (Cortizo, 2013). In turn, this could potentially allow the company to exploit the user by taking the information the app had gathered and selling it to another party.

However, the use of gamification may not necessarily be the corporate evil which so many claim. If gamification could be used to empower in the future rather than exploit, would the ends have justified the means? Jonathan Zittrain (2009) suggests this may be the case if we can eventually harness creativity in a democratic environment. And this may certainly ring true if innovation into cloud labour can provide benefits that may be applicable in the rest of society. Currently, studies are being conducted into the effects online gamification could have on education due to the increasing interest and success of social games. It already exists to some degree in student’s lives through grading and social means; however, these methods appear to have a negative effect, highlighting a student’s shortcomings rather than promoting their strengths. Online gamification on the other hand, has a large potential to engage and motivate students in completing menial tasks as it combines work and play with learning as its side effect. Furthermore, because of the ubiquitous nature of social media and video game in our current society, gamification has a higher potential to be utilised by younger digital natives (Simões, et al, 2012).

With this in mind, maybe we need to analyse the convergence of exploitation and empowerment as a single entity rather than focusing on just the negative implications of cloud labour? References:

Cortizo, José Carlos. 2013. “Who is Currently Applying Gamification?” Accessed March 27, 2014 http://www.brainsins.com/en/blog/who-is-currently-applying-gamification/163

Fuchs, Christian. 2013. “The Power and Political Economy of Social Media.” In Social Media: An Introduction, 97 – 125. London: Sage Publications.

Simões, J., et al. 2012. “A social gamification framework for a K-6 learning platform.”Computers in Human Behavior . Accessed March 27, 2014 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.06.007

Zittrain, Jonathan. 2009. Minds for Sale (video, 1hr 16mins). Accessed March 27, 2014. http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive/events/2009/11/berkwest

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Convergence of Media: Why can’t we all just get along?

The convergence of media has had a profound effect on the way we communicate and participate in day to day life. No doubt, it has made it easier to keep in contact with friends and family; however, it may also be detrimental in shaping our own identity as we become increasingly reliant on self-preservation at the expense of others.

“If you have a thought you’d like to share, it’s no longer necessary to wait: Post it to Facebook or Twitter, and an audience is yours in an instant” Jean Twenge (2013) writes on the topic of narcissism in media. It’s something we appear to take for granted when updating our friends on what we just ate, our progress at the gym and which couple on My Kitchen Rules we loathe the most. However, it’s these narcissistic thought processes that can have such a profound impact on our audience, intended or otherwise.

Recently, tributes flowed in for the shocking death of Charlotte Dawson who took her own life at the behest of a significantly publicised lifestyle. Media reports suggest that she was “Trolled to Death” (Webb, 2014) and that “Haters ate [her] alive,” as her public battle with her own high profile reached breaking point over Twitter. Dawson was subject to cyber bullying of her online/media persona which most believe contributed to her depression and eventual passing and it’s easy to jump to this conclusion when the trend of internet “trolling” seems to have been the cause, or if not, exacerbated the cause of numerous other deaths (Mcleod, 2014). Although I do not recall seeing any instance of cyber bullying in my own use of social media, perhaps that is due to my own complacency or blindness in the medium as Friedrich Kittler suggests (Deuze, 2011). In fact, I doubt whether many people would even begin to comprehend the effect their words could have on a person living so far away.

And I think that’s a critical issue our society faces with the convergence of media.

In this sense, we seem to be coming less empathetic towards other people online and more focused on ourselves and what we can share with others. Certainly in social media this rings true where the number of “likes” and “notes” determines a person’s value over their skills and contribution to society (Papacharissi et al). But what has become alarmingly apparent is our complete disregard for the human behind the computer and the consequences our actions can have in destroying someone’s online identity. It seems as though belittling someone in an attempt to make yourself feel and appear better has become a side effect of social media.

It’s so easy to forget that without this technology, the voice of a loved one may not be easily heard and that thoughts and ideas may be easily lost translation. As Sigmund Freud (1961) suggested in the wake of the telephone: the advancement of technology leads to trade-offs; increasing our ways of connecting, whilst enabling people to further distance themselves from each other.

  References:

Deuze, Mark. 2011. Media Life., Media, Culture & Society 33 (1) pp.137-148.

Twenge, Jean. 2013. “It’s a Narcissism Enabler.” The New York Times, September 24. Accessed March 16, 2014 http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/09/23/facebook-and-narcissism/social-media-is-a-narcissism-enabler

Mcleod, Rosemary. 2014. “Haters ate Charlotte Dawson alive.” The Sydney Morning Herald, February 27. Accessed March 16, 2014 http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/celebrity/haters-ate-charlotte-dawson-alive-20140227-33j4s.html

Webb, Sam. 2014. “Trolled to Death.” The Daily Mail, February 24. Accessed March 16, 2014 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2565903/Trolled-death-Model-Charlotte-Dawson-bombarded-vile-messages-Twitter-just-hours-death.html

Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and Its Discontents. New York: W. W. Norton, 1961, p. 38.

Papacharissi, Zizi and Gibson, Paige L. 2011. Chapter 7: Fifteen Minutes of Privacy: Privacy, Sociality, and Publicity on Social Network Sites. In Trepte, Sabine and Reinecke, Leonard, Privacy online : perspectives on privacy and self-disclosure in the social web, (pp.251 - 253). Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.