Much has been said in recent weeks about the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica case. I addressed the subject in my Ouvir Imagens column on Rádio USP this Monday, March 26. I discussed how this scandal brings to light one of the central issues of our time: privacy in the age of shared surveillance. Today we are walking databases, giving away information through our social media routines and the apps we use.
To recap: Cambridge Analytica obtained information on around 50 million Facebook users through an app offering users a psychological test, called “this is your digital life.” The app captured information not only about those taking the test, but also about all the friends linked to their Facebook profiles. No one knew this would happen, nor had any idea that this mass of data would be used to elect Donald Trump.
Several reports and analyses have been published, examining different aspects of the case, including Facebook’s response to the problem. What matters here is that no one was coerced into providing this data. There was no information leak, identity theft, or profile hijacking.
Spaces for sharing, such as Facebook, are also machines that record all our steps and activities, gaining strength through their relational nature and the way this information is integrated with our friends’ data and the pages we access.
Surveillance in the age of Likes
For almost ten years, a number of artists and online activists have discussed surveillance in the age of Likes through their works and projects. Face to Facebook, by Italians Alessandro Ludovico and Paolo Cirio, from 2011, was the first. In one day, they managed to access and steal the personal data of one million Facebook profiles, demonstrating the vulnerability of data privacy policies, which were even weaker then than they are today.
More recently, Hang Duc and Regina Mir created Data Selfie, a browser extension that lets you visualize the information recorded while you are on Facebook, from how long you spend on each post to what content you access, when you access it, and much more. The question this “data self-portrait” asks is: how will this data be used to predict our actions and behavior?
To try to disrupt behavioral data mining, Ben Grosser developed Go Rando (2017). Its focus is on the reaction icons Facebook gives us to express our feelings about posts, links, and photos.
Besides individualizing our responses, these reactions allow more precise profiling and, therefore, more targeted advertising and messages. Go Rando intervenes in the selection. You click Like, and the program randomly substitutes another reaction, aiming to complicate the process of recording your data. It is worth trying.
http://www.face-to-facebook.net/
https://bengrosser.com/projects/go-rando/
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