[kictanet] Fwd: [Internet Policy] The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

Fri Apr 5 16:00:59 EAT 2019

Interesting perspective Patrick,

In am sure Ali and Hari Hare would disagree with you on the aspect of
cutting down the Digital Marketing Budget :-)

Regards

On 4/5/19, Patrick A. M. Maina <pmaina2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>  Great find, Barrak! Added to my reading list.
> Indeed the manufacturing of thought and behavior in humans is much more
> profitable (e.g. in terms of computational simplicity and efficiency at
> scale) than observing truly independent behaviors with a view of making
> predictions about specific individuals. The author is not being sensational
> when she claims that we are being automated. That's exactly what is
> happenning.
> Rabbit hole and information bubble algorithms create narrow tunnels of
> knowledge into which groups of people can be gently herded (nudge theory) so
> they can be collectively targeted for interest based ads. This is the
> opposite of what most people think with regard to how surveillance
> capitalism works, because most people assume passive surveillance, naively
> believing that they are in control of their actions as they the platforms.
> As the author warns, gatekeeping the internet gives platforms immense power
> over what people know (or should know), and allows for covert manipulation
> of perspectives and thought (be they political or interests based).
> What I haven't seen popping out from the interview is whether her book takes
> a closer look at addiction algorithms within the context of attention as a
> property and economic resource. Social media companies hire PHD level
> psycholgists and neuroscientists to help them design algorithms that turn
> people into addicts (using scientific insights about how the human brain's
> pleasure/reward system works).
> To the brain there is no difference between addiction to gambling,
> cigarettes, hard drugs or social media. It's all the same chemicals
> (dopamine) working in the same way. The goal of getting people addicted is
> so that they can boost engagement and then use your activity sell more ads.
> It's an ethical minefield.
> Now, employers have paid for workers time but they are not aware that a
> third party has secretly turned their workers into addicts so that the third
> party can steal (yes, steal) and sell a fraction of the employer's time to
> advertisers. This should be illegal, but most employers are still in "old IT
> paradigm" with very few understanding how "new IT" works.
> Employers think it is the employee's fault - but the employee is not fully
> in control of their own actions (thanks to the work of brain science
> experts).
> At macro level, this diversion of workers attention is grand plunder of
> entire economies and contributes greatly to reduced productivity and lower
> innovation (besides the stolen, paid for time).
> At micro-level, people lose jobs and families are shattered because of
> disciplinary action (yet they were under some form of "mental hypnosis" and
> not fully aware of what they were doing).
> The same case for our students... theft of attention wastes the precious
> resources that parents have sacrificed to invest in their children's
> education. The addicted child cannot maintain grades via honest means as
> they don't spend time studying. Further there is a likelihood that addictive
> algorithms could be a gateway to other addictive habits including drugs. All
> this can be quite alarming when looked at from a long term perspective.
> ... and we haven't even touched on the unintended consequence of malevolent
> ecosystem participants (radicalization / subversion agents).
> The surveillance industry is sustained by silo thinking and self interest.
> We have businesses looking for easy ways to reach and/or engage customers,
> going "digital" by assiging teams on social media platforms to do "digital
> marketing" (which literally feeds the monster and its crooked collaborators
> e.g. the billion dollar click fraud industry)!
> Recently, some large companies in the US significantly cut down their
> digital marketing budgets and, lo and behold, observed no impact on sales.
> This has led to doubts about the value of current digital marketing models
> which tend to be rely heavily on opaqueness and unaccountability.
> The whole business model is broken, unethical and needs a complete reset.
> Thanks again Barrak for the heads up and have a great day!
> Brgds,Patrick.
> Patrick A. M. Maina[Cross-domain Innovator | Independent Public Policy
> Analyst - Indigenous Innovations]
>     On Friday, April 5, 2019, 11:44:11 AM GMT+3, Barrack Otieno via kictanet
> <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
>
>  Patrick,
>
> This might be of interest :-)
>
> Regards
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Richard Hill <rhill at hill-a.ch>
> Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2019 15:35:00 +0200
> Subject: [Internet Policy] The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
> To: "Internetpolicy at Elists. Isoc. Org" <internetpolicy at elists.isoc.org>
>
> I presume that most people on this list will have heard about a book by a
> Harvard professor that is highly critical of the current advertising-driven
> Internet business model. Here is a review:
>
>
>
>
> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/20/shoshana-zuboff-age-of-su
> rveillance-capitalism-google-facebook
>
>
>
> Best,
>
> Richard
>
>
>
>
> --
> Barrack O. Otieno
> +254721325277
> +254733206359
> Skype: barrack.otieno
> PGP ID: 0x2611D86A
>
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-- 
Barrack O. Otieno
+254721325277
+254733206359
Skype: barrack.otieno
PGP ID: 0x2611D86A