I'm concerned about the collection of my data on the internet and other places, and you probably are too. My concern isn’t that companies or the government are going to find out something illegal or immoral that I’m doing. No, I am worried that companies have too much power to predict and influence my behavior. In one of the previous issues of this newsletter, I included an article that talked about the way internet news has become more divisive and negative due to the way the algorithms favor outrage and sensational content over more substantive, nuanced thinking. That’s only one example of how the collection of data is making our world worse. Another one is that customer service departments are using data to figure out how long they can put you on hold before they lose you as a customer (check out the article below for more on that). A third one is the way that google is walling up the internet (see the other article below for more on that).
Of course, the problem isn't with the data itself—I actually think it’s a useful thing to know that people are drawn to inflammatory content. The problem is that the companies that write the algorithms aren’t concerned about whether sharing inflammatory content is good for society—they’re incentivized to make the most money possible. So like most things in our society, if they don’t make money, they perish to competition. That’s also true for the engineer who creates the algorithm (because she will be replaced if she writes an algorithm that promotes substantive articles instead of inflammatory ones, and therefore gets fewer shares). Incentives are powerful and most companies will follow the path of least resistance. Like most problems in our world, the solution requires either a plurality of people to flip the cultural norms, or laws and regulations that have the best interest of society in mind instead of the best interest of the economy. Switching cultural norms is easier said than done, but I don’t see that we have any other option, since laws are written by the people that the culture elects (and right now, our culture is run by economic incentives, not social incentives) When enough people opt out of inflammatory content, and/or the harvesting of their data, and/or gross consumerism, some small part of the incentives begin to move towards better, pro-social solutions. Some companies have already built a niche out of the support of the thoughtful minority that is fighting the path of least resistance. One example is Duck Duck Go, which is a free internet browser and search engine that promises not to harvest your data like google does (great, this sounds like a commercial now—I get nothing from them except possibly a world where fewer people let their data get harvested willy-nilly). If you know of others, please share with me. I’d especially like to know if anyone has a good solution to email. I also keep my browser set to private so that the websites I visit can’t harvest my data. That has occasionally been frustrating, when I go to open an article and the news company refuses to allow me to read it unless I agree to give them my data. When that happens, I sigh and go read something else. My hope is that if enough people start to do that, the companies will be incentivized to change. Probably not, but at least I can feel a tiny bit better that I’m not contributing to the problem. Google is destroying the internet Everyone hates customer service this is why
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Nick is a teacher, writer, and amateur adventurer. Archives
June 2020
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