The Techlash, Capitalism, Facebook, Alt-accounts, and Targeting
Thoughtful Net #66: curated links from the past few weeks
Two of the most affecting short films I’ve seen recently have been advertisements. I don’t know if that says anything about changes in the industry, or changes in society, or changes in me; or indeed if it says anything at all.
The first ad, for a Peppa Pig movie set in China, is a snapshot of the big changes happening between rural and urban China, and between generations. It’s quite lovely. The second ad, for Microsoft’s adaptive gaming controllers, brought tears to my eyes; it clearly shows the impact that well-designed, well-considered technology can have on people’s lives.
Anyway, enough of my blubbering. Here are nine links about technology and how we live with it.
Technology in the World
The Truth About the ‘Techlash’, Carl Miller.
Very insightful piece about the root causes of the public backlash against ‘technology’ (really a very, very limited subset of technology), and — critically — some ways it could be addressed.
The techlash would be happening whatever the specific decisions that they’ve made. It exists because of something deeper; an important, incredibly dangerous contradiction at the heart of the digital revolution that isn’t to do with the decisions themselves, but how they are made. Whether it’s Google, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit or Patreon, we know that they are private services. But we feel that they are public commons.
We Shouldn’t Blame Silicon Valley for Technology’s Problems — We Should Blame Capitalism, Douglas Rushkoff.
On how growth requires innovation, how that innovation destroys existing marketplaces, and how the destruction requires new technological solutions which continue the cycle. An extract from Rushkoff’s new book, Team Human.
Well-meaning developers seek to solve technology’s problems with technological solutions. They see that social media algorithms are exacerbating wealth division and mental confusion, and resolve to tweak them not to do that — at least not so badly. The technosolutionists never consider the possibility that some technologies themselves have intrinsic antihuman affordances.
Has Facebook Been Good for the World?, Sean Illing, Kurt Wagner, and Karen Turner.
On Facebook’s 15th birthday, a variety of influential media and tech people answer the titular question.
Because it is online, it means that the “mirror” is warped. Its reflections are reshaped by everything from our conscious choices of what to post (or not) to the algorithmic and deliberate manipulations that alter not just what we see in our feeds, but what we think about the real world. The question of its net positive or negative, thus, will be answered by what we see in that mirror, and what each of us chooses to do about it.
Life on the Platforms
“It Gives You the Freedom to Be Violent to Other People”: What Has the Alt Account Become?, Sarah Manavis.
The history of the ‘alt-account’ — the anonymous secondary social media account that can be used to express feelings that the author doesn’t want to be publicly associated with — for good and for bad.
Alt-accounts are born out of a need to shed one’s identity — a desire to voice opinions people feel they can’t as their public selves. That can mean safe places for venting, space to explore one’s identity, even just for jokes; but it can be used for far more insidious purposes, beyond bullying, and beyond abusive behaviour.
The Secret Life of Amazon’s Vine Reviewers, John Herrman, and Prime and Punishment: Dirty Dealing in the $175 billion Amazon Marketplace, Josh Dzieza.
A pair of stories on the world’s biggest eCommerce platform: the strange and nefarious world of the Amazon Marketplace, where fortunes can be made, and cut-throat schemes hatched to take those fortunes; and inside the life of Viners, the semi-pro reviewers of products on the Marketplace.
For sellers, Amazon is a quasi-state. They rely on its infrastructure — its warehouses, shipping network, financial systems, and portal to millions of customers — and pay taxes in the form of fees. They also live in terror of its rules, which often change and are harshly enforced.
Everything Else
The Route of a Text Message, Scott B. Weingart.
A deep-dive into the technical stack required to send a short text message between two phones. I love explanations of the things we take for granted, showing how the magic trick works. This sometimes gets very technical, but stick with it.
In order to efficiently send and receive signals, antennas should be no smaller than half the size of the radio waves they’re dealing with. If cell waves are 6 to 14 inches, their antennas need to be 3–7 inches. Now stop and think about the average height of a mobile phone, and why they never seem to get much smaller.
Forget Privacy: You’re Terrible at Targeting Anyway, Avery Pennarun.
How data tracking makes everything awful and probably isn’t effective anyway because nobody knows how to analyse it properly anyway. I don’t agree with everything in here, but a lot of it is really good.
The more tracker data your ad network buys, the more information you have! Probably! And that means better targeting! Maybe! And so you should buy ads from our network instead of the other network with less data! I guess! None of this works. They are still trying to sell me car insurance for my subway ride.
Journalism Isn’t Dying. It’s Returning to Its Roots, Antonio García Martínez.
Comparing the modern, post-platform media landscape to that of the ‘golden age’ of the founding of the USA, where objectivity was never presumed. If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, you’ll know I’m a sap for historical context.
We live in a Rashomon reality in which every event is instantly captured from a dozen angles and given at least as many interpretations. The thought that one media outfit will produce what’s taken as God’s gospel truth, under the demands of today’s light-speed media cycle and subject to the vigilante fact-checking of Twitter, seems a bit quaint.
The Thoughtful Net is an occasional (less than weekly, more than monthly) publication collecting great writing about the internet and technology, culture, information, society, science, and philosophy. If you prefer to receive it in your inbox you can follow this publication or subscribe to the email newsletter.
