For a brief amount of the course we touched upon the point on how Facebook and Google manipulates the way in which we use their web sites for their, and our, advantage allowing our searches to be refined by patterns and algorithms that will in essence direct us to results that are related to what we searched for with just a touch of our preferences. It is almost as a recipe for huge delicious cake. Who doesn’t like cake? So, as a cake, this search result has a number of different ingredients with are the patterns in the algorithms. The difference with the cakes is that we exactly measure the amount each ingredient should be used to create this masterful and perfect combination of flavours that would melt in our mouths. On the other hand, we have the search result, our end cake. But the algorithm picks out all the ingredients and throws them into this supposedly masterful creation without any kind of measurement. Instead of having this list of ingredients of a basic cake:
- 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
- 2 cups sugar
- 3 cups sifted self-rising flour
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup milk
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
We have this:
- Butter
- Sugar
- Flour
- Eggs
- Milk
- Vanilla Extract
The search results that come up for me are different to the everyone else’s, and this is due to the fact that the algorithm picks up everything we have ever searched of and sneaks it into our search because it is believed to be a relevant part of myself.
I often regret the days in which I would lend my computer to my mother, not because Im an ungrateful and selfish kid, but because of the constant advertisement related to ballet. And no Amazon! I would not like the book, audiobook, ebook version, bilingual version, chinese version, chinese subtitles or japanese audio with chinese subtitles of The Hobbit.
But is it Facebook’s, Google’s or even Amazon’s fault? I put these questions into perspective because I personally have two answers:
YES and NO
A debate throughout the 20th and 21st century is the question of firms being profit maximizing and if it is socially responsible to be? However, we see that firms are motivated by profit maximization due to natural human nature and pursuit of self benefit. We see that with corporations like Facebook and Google, we are the product for companies. We often ask ourselves: How do these firms make money if they do not sell anything to us? Well, they do sell something, and what they sell is our preferences to normal firms that advertise online. Some companies pay big bucks to be the listed in the first pages of Google. As I tried searching for evidence, because I had previously seen an article on Exxon paying Google to be listed as a Socially Responsible Corporation but when I searched for the example, I could see the stock value for Exxon because I yesterday searched for the value of a Mexican firm at the Stock Market.
Nevertheless, we see that the main goals for Facebook and Google are the pursuit of knowledge within society. This is why Facebook believes that internet should reach even the most remote places of the world, or why Google created a device that would allow people living in oppressive regimes to switch identities with someone from the West (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/10/21/google-sends-a-lifeline-to-internet-users-in-iran-and-china.html)
They believe that the path for the truth has to be our own personal truth and our truth in things that motivate us, so they link together things they believe we like to aid us in this path.
So, is it their fault that our path towards our own personal truth is carved by cute cats playing the piano? Or is it also our responsibility to become informed citizens?
I liked how you pointed out that we, the users, are facebook’s product. I don’t think that it is socially responsible of firms to be selling our information to advertisers, but at the same time, why should a firm be socially responsible? As Professor Gateman said: “Corporate Responsibility? LOL.” I think that facebook knows that we have to put up with having our information sold. How many of us, after watching Eli Pariser’s video, went and de-activated our facebook accounts to protect our privacy? I know I didn’t. That’s not to say that I don’t care about my information being traded away–I do. I care a lot. It’s more to do with convenience. If you’re not on facebook or if you don’t use search engines, you’re at a disadvantage. Google and facebook won’t change unless they see a severe drop in usage. I don’t see that happening anytime soon. What do you think?
I found your example of baking a cake very helpful in understanding how the algorithms that track our search habits work. Like you said, everybodies search results will differ based on what they searched previously. I am undecided on wether the algorithms are positive or negative. On one hand they personalize your search, showing you exactly what you want to see. On the other hand, this impedes your ability to access information that you would not normally look for. The fact that companies can pay to be located on the first page of search results furthers this notion of not being able to freely find information and being coerced into looking at certain sites. Also, I feel uncomfortable with the idea that Google posses’ all this information about me and my internet activity. A downside to this, which is visible every day, is the personalized adds that appear beacuse they know what your interests are.
Thanks for this insight, you brought up some really interesting points about how Facebook and Google try to find “your path” for you, just by basing it off your past online searches. I want to add that I feel as if our searches, in Google especially, do not always have anything to do with our interests specifically, but a lot of the time are searches which had nothing to do with you (as your example with your mom borrowing your laptop), or were for another purpose, say for a class assignment, or a link your grandpa sent you as a joke, but you have no interest in. To answer your last question, I think that in order to build our knowledge, we should take into account the fact that Google and Facebook are manipulating what we seen and learn, and if we want to expand our knowledge and explore new ideas that may be a part of finding what truly interests us–our “personal truth”–we need to take those extra steps to diging deeper and find new, unbiased ways to get information. We need to look into other resources, including reputable TV news stations, public radio and news magazines. As Global Citizens, I think we should be knowledgeable enough about the world to see that we need to take further steps outside of the Facebook news feed to find our paths. We need to leave that little bit of time to inform ourselves of what is going on in the world and why we should care. And we need to make sure our peers, friends and family take these steps as well. So yes, I think people need to take control and take extra steps to properly inform themselves about the world more broadly and look into information that requires them to take a step out of their comfort zone.
I found this post to be very intriguing, especially the comparison of algorithms to the list of ingredients to bake a cake. I see this example differently though. In my opinion the search results based of the algorithm is like a list of ingredients that has specific measurements, but are different than the correct balanced original recipe measurements. Since algorithms pick out what it thinks you would like more it weighs certain ‘ingredients’ as more important, so the list might say you need 4 cups of sugar instead of the original quantity 2. The algorithms also picks and chooses what you see, so the list could even be missing some of the ingredients. Instead of having this list of ingredients of a basic cake:
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
2 cups sugar
3 cups sifted self-rising flour
4 eggs
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
the algorithms could result in a list like this:
1/2 cup Butter
4 cups Sugar
Flour
Eggs
3 cups Vanilla Extract
Awesome blog post Antonio!