I’ve been complaining for a while about the
fact that we get personalized publicity and search results. Thanks to the power
of Google we’re evermore exposed to buy stuff specifically designed for us. But
this time, facebook, you got it wrong! In your face, sucker!!!
While on my paid work
hours break, I decided to check facebook. I must confess, I recently
bought my shoes through an ad there, so in spite of my
do-not-hit-Like-on-anything-on-facebook policy they are doing their homework
and convinced to spend my Swiss sweet francs. But in your face Zucker(berg) you got this
one wrong. They were trying to sell me… wait for it… wedding invitations. Can
you believe it? Wedding H. Invitations!!!!
Well this abomination set my 10-watt light
bulb into the verge of exploding. It got me thinking that in the near future we
are going to receive specifically the right publicity exactly aimed at each of
us. And it is bound to be correct. I bought a pair of shoes because I got a
tiny shoegasm at the moment I saw them. Why didn’t facebook send me the most
absorbent menstrual pads (God knows I need them) but instead insist on selling
me condoms “almost for free” and well… shoes.
I insist. Google knows me. Facebook knows
me. How? I don’t have any idea but it scares de baby cheessus out of me. Right
about then, the second question popped out. This erroneous publicity reminded
me of how misogynous Google can be. For those of you who do not read my
facebook updates, I leave this picture as a memento.
Yes, it’s probably an unintended bug, but
what if the people—or lines of code—steering publicity… and search suggestions…
and twitter’s “you should follow”… and Amazon’s “people also bought”… and etc.
are exactly that: misogynous, or homophobes or even worse: religious.
Publicity is something we cannot avoid. We
cannot close our eyes while checking facebook or gmail and we also can’t pay
for their services, and these people know it. Where does that leave us? We have
first to judge even especially the publicity we get and urge
Google to deactivate these kinds of filters. We do not want Big Brother—corporate
or governmental—to tell us what we want. We want to get uncensored internet
from all sides, we want ALL sides of internet to prevent the dystopia SOPA is
trying to achieve. Even if that means growing up thinking menstrual pads are
actually shoulder pads and they are capable of sucking a whole river dry.
Entradas
2 comentarios:
Tienes toda la razón, ahora todo tiene esos filtros y todas las cuentas están conectadas. En mi caso la pregunta fue: ¿Cómo supo google que yo era yo para sugerirme conectar mi cuenta de google, la de yahoo y la de hotmail? Creepy... en cuanto a los anuncios ¡qué rayos! facebook siempre me anuncia sitios para conseguir pareja, me imagino que por mi status de soltera empedernida pero hasta hace poco me anunciaban vestidos de boda (están mejorando y me recuerda la película "The net", va a llegar un punto en que controlen toda nuestra vida al hackear el sistema. Como ya dije: ¡Creepy!
issie
@Lina & Issie. You both commented fairly the same stuff but in different sites and languages. Anyhow, I do not remember the movie The Net but as a futurology & sci-fi fan I can tell you that sadly, yes it is the next step and it may be inevitable, many authors converge into that. Do you remember the movie Minority Report? It has a deep study on futurology and that is a science that while aeons more precise than astrology, they couldn't find a consensus of where our societies will go or how we will live. But the one thing they do converged on is that the publicity will be every time more intense and personalized. No one could have predicted (I guess) the boom of the social networks but they did predict the strength of publicity. If you put 1 plus 1 together: here we are getting exactly what we think we want/need at the moment we are more vulnerable/likely to spend money, on sites that have endless access to our data. That’s why even when we think we are not important people at all, our collective data is. Very much.
Publicar un comentario