Re cory Doctorow: Zuck's Empire of Oily Rags

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Stefano Quintarelli <stefano () quintarelli it>
> Date: July 4, 2018 at 16:02:59 GMT+9
> To: dave () farber net
> Subject: Re: [IP] cory Doctorow: Zuck's Empire of Oily Rags
>
> Dave,
>
> I wrote a long article (or short essay) that has been published full page on an Italian newspaper.
>
> It has been translated to English and posted here:
> https://goo.gl/aCJNs2
>
> The main thesis of the article is that the traditional conflict capital vs. labor has been wrapped in another conflict
>
>  capital vs. labor   -->  information vs. capital&labor
>  intermediaries vs. intermediated
>
> I think you might find it interesting, as it seems to me in line with what you recently sent to the mailing list.
>
> Best, s.
>
>
> On 04/07/2018 03:09, Dave Farber wrote:
> > > Begin forwarded message:
> > >
> > > *From: *Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com <mailto:dewayne () warpspeed com>>
> > > *Subject: **[Dewayne-Net] Cory Doctorow: Zuck's Empire of Oily Rags*
> > > *Date: *July 4, 2018 at 10:06:27 AM GMT+9
> > > *To: *Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com <mailto:dewayne-net () warpspeed com>>
> > > *Reply-To: *dewayne-net () warpspeed com <mailto:dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> > >
> > > Cory Doctorow: Zuck’s Empire of Oily Rags
> > > By Cory Doctorow
> > > Jul 2 2018
> > > <http://locusmag.com/2018/07/cory-doctorow-zucks-empire-of-oily-rags/>
> > >
> > > For 20 years, privacy advocates have been sounding the alarm about commercial online surveillance, the way that 
> > > companies gather deep dossiers on us to help marketers target us with ads. This pitch fell flat: by and large, 
> > > people were skeptical of the efficacy of targeted advertising; the ads we got were rarely very persuasive, and when 
> > > they did work, it was usually because the advertisers had figured out what we wanted and offered to sell it to us: 
> > > people who’d previously shopped for a sofa saw ads for sofas, and if they bought a sofa, the ads persisted for a 
> > > while because the ad targeting systems weren’t smart enough to know that their services were no longer needed, but 
> > > really, where was the harm in that? The worst case scenario was that advertisers would waste their money with ads 
> > > that had no effect, and the best case scenario was that shopping would get somewhat more convenient as predictive 
> > > algorithms made it easier for us to find the thing we were just about to look for.
> > >
> > > Privacy advocates tried to explain that persuasion was just the tip of the iceberg. Commercial databases were juicy 
> > > targets for spies and identity thieves, to say nothing of blackmail for people whose data-trails revealed socially 
> > > risky sexual practices, religious beliefs, or political views.
> > >
> > > Now we’re living through the techlash, and finally people are coming back to the privacy advocates, saying we were 
> > > right all along; given enough surveillance, companies can sell us anything: Brexit, Trump, ethnic cleansing in 
> > > Myanmar, and successful election bids for absolute bastards like Turkey’s Erdogan and Hungary’s Orban.
> > >
> > > It’s great that the privacy-matters message is finally reaching a wider audience, and it’s exciting to think that 
> > > we’re approaching a tipping point for indifference to privacy and surveillance.
> > >
> > > But while the acknowledgment of the problem of Big Tech is most welcome, I am worried that the diagnosis is wrong.
> > >
> > > The problem is that we’re confusing automated persuasion with automated targeting. Laughable lies about Brexit, 
> > > Mexican rapists, and creeping Sharia law didn’t convince otherwise sensible people that up was down and the sky was 
> > > green.
> > >
> > > Rather, the sophisticated targeting systems available through Facebook, Google, Twitter, and other Big Tech ad 
> > > platforms made it easy to find the racist, xenophobic, fearful, angry people who wanted to believe that foreigners 
> > > were destroying their country while being bankrolled by George Soros.
> > >
> > > Remember that elections are generally knife-edge affairs, even for politicians who’ve held their seats for decades 
> > > with slim margins: 60% of the vote is an excellent win. Remember, too, that the winner in most races is “none of 
> > > the above,” with huge numbers of voters sitting out the election. If even a small number of these non-voters can be 
> > > motivated to show up at the polls, safe seats can be made contestable. In a tight race, having a cheap way to reach 
> > > all the latent Klansmen in a district and quietly inform them that Donald J. Trump is their man is a game-changer.
> > >
> > > Cambridge Analytica are like stage mentalists: they’re doing something labor-intensive and pretending that it’s 
> > > something supernatural. A stage mentalist will train for years to learn to quickly memorize a deck of cards and 
> > > then claim that they can name your card thanks to their psychic powers. You never see the unglamorous, unimpressive 
> > > memorization practice. Cambridge Analytica uses Facebook to find racist jerks and tell them to vote for Trump and 
> > > then they claim that they’ve discovered a mystical way to get otherwise sensible people to vote for maniacs.
> > >
> > > This isn’t to say that persuasion is impossible. Automated disinformation campaigns can flood the channel with 
> > > contradictory, seemingly plausible accounts for the current state of affairs, making it hard for a casual observer 
> > > to make sense of events. Long-term repetition of a consistent narrative, even a manifestly unhinged one, can create 
> > > doubt and find adherents – think of climate change denial, or George Soros conspiracies, or the anti-vaccine 
> > > movement.
> > >
> > > These are long, slow processes, though, that make tiny changes in public opinion over the course of years, and they 
> > > work best when there are other conditions that support them – for example, fascist, xenophobic, and nativist 
> > > movements that are the handmaidens of austerity and privation. When you don’t have enough for a long time, you’re 
> > > ripe for messages blaming your neighbors for having deprived you of your fair share.
> > >
> > > But we don’t need commercial surveillance to create angry mobs: Goebbels and Mao did it very well with analog 
> > > techniques.
> > >
> > > [snip]
> > >
> > > Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/
> > > Twitter: https://twitter.com/wa8dzp
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