We Are Data: Algorithms and The Making of Our Digital Selves
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| Anteprima |
What
identity means in an algorithmic age: how it works, how our lives are
controlled by it, and how we can resist it Algorithms are everywhere,
organizing the near limitless data that exists in our world. Derived
from our every search, like, click, and purchase, algorithms determine
the news we get, the ads we see, the information accessible to us and
even who our friends are. These complex configurations not only form
knowledge and social relationships in the digital and physical world,
but also determine who we are and who we can be, both on and offline.
Algorithms create and recreate us, using our data to assign and reassign
our gender, race, sexuality, and citizenship status. They can recognize
us as celebrities or mark us as terrorists. In this era of ubiquitous
surveillance, contemporary data collection entails more than gathering
information about us. Entities like Google, Facebook, and the NSA also
decide what that information means, constructing our worlds and the
identities we inhabit in the process. We have little control over who we
algorithmically are. Our identities are made useful not for us—but for
someone else. Through a series of entertaining and engaging examples,
John Cheney-Lippold draws on the social constructions of identity to
advance a new understanding of our algorithmic identities. We Are Data
will educate and inspire readers who want to wrest back some freedom in
our increasingly surveilled and algorithmically-constructed world.
