The Rainbows of Inevitability (still more adventures in surveillance part x)
We take a tour of the sprawl with Metahaven to learn about the propaganda of propaganda and we travel beyond the Facebook wall to learn the real truth about targeted advertising. Plus Project Madison Valleywood!
8 comments on The Rainbows of Inevitability
I am very interested in the idea of creating obscurity via extra, extraneous data, as created by NYU’s Track Me Not browser plugin. Instead of trying to hide you, what this plugin does is create a string of search engine queries which could serve to obfuscate the ‘real’ queries you might perform. Here’s a link to the project: mixhttps://cs.nyu.edu/trackmenot/
Great story. What is the name of the reporter you spoke to at length? And what is its publication?
How many more episodes will this surveillance series have? I feel like I have become a little bit paranoid of all this.
You sure you want to be accepting advertising from Oculus Rift?
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/09/how-your-oculus-rift-is-secretly-funding-donald-trumps-racist-meme-wars/
Love the episode though, thanks.
Great Episode! What is the name of the Data Processor at Gizmodo??
Listening to the ADAI interview, I was struck by the interviewee’s confidence in the algorithm’s efficacy to change beliefs. The interviewee’s confidence surprised me because he never mentioned testing the efficacy of his ad interventions. The algorithm only identifies potential targets. Maybe it identifies them really well, but correct identification doesn’t guarantee successful intervention. You still need to understand how to tailor the ad to avoid negative reactions and elicit positive reactions. If humans are making the ad, how do they get that information and produce an ad before a terrorist becomes a terrorist? The other odd part is that if the algorithm is trying to find terrorists before they have thought about radicalization, how might giving them anti-terrorist propaganda serve instead to plant the idea of radicalization into their head? Do they trust the entity delivering them the ad to believe the anti-terrorist message? Or will the ad be read as social control, further convincing them of the need for radicalization against a hegemonic authority?
If I may ask a stupid question – This show is labeled as occasionally playing fiction. How are we to know when something is fiction or not. The story with the Google guy seemed like a staged conversation to me…