Let’s Start Making Them Work For It!
An Essay, July 17, 2018
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“Firewall (n) 1. A wall or partition designed to inhibit or prevent the spread of fire. 2. A part of a computer system or network which is designed to block unauthorized access while permitting outward communication.”
— The Oxford Living Dictionary
Analogue watches are apparently making a comeback.
One source suggested sales reached 500 million last year alone, just in North America. Now, I’m old enough to have been a witness to the demise of the analogue wristwatch, having replaced my old self-winding Sears Timex with a Casio digital watch while in High School. The tiny, wavy red numbers (that you had to press a button to see), looked straight out of science fiction. I was convinced digital was the way of the future.
Okay, I was a bit of a nerd, but I did learn my lesson. A few years ago, when Apple came out with the iWatch or whatever unimaginative name they came up for their cumbersome wrist computer, I was one of the first to ridicule the idea. Dick Tracy ain’t as cool as he was in the 1940s.(1)
“(A planet) whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Many of Apple’s customers came to this realization only after they purchased the overpriced device and tried to use it. It’s okay to be a nerd, but being a gullible nerd is just a bit ‘on the nose’, isn’t it? Maybe I am still a nerd at heart, but I know cool when I see it. As far as a nice wrist watch goes, I’ll concede that it’s hard to imagine anything cooler than Steve McQueen in a turtle neck, his blazer over one shoulder, throwing his arm out and turning his wrist to glance the time on his Rolex Submariner.
Sometimes technology reaches a high point and any ‘improvement’ introduced afterward is just backsliding. But the cool factor can’t be the only reason for the popularity of these modern day knock-offs . These watches hardly have the prestige factor of the elaborate time pieces of the post-war period. Manufacturing techniques have come to the point where escapement mechanisms once worthy of a high-end Rolex can be made for less than fifty dollars. Most of these watches are huge, conspicuous things, larger and more elaborate than they really need to be given their single purpose as a chronometer. Obviously, these watches are meant to be seen and commented on, like intricate mechanical jewelry. At first glance, the fact that they tell time seems almost incidental.
“I need to have a reason why I do something, otherwise I’m lost.”
– Steve McQueen
I have to admit, when I encounter these displays of antiquated technology at the check-out line, I’m sorely tempted to buy one. In examining my fleeting impulse to purchase such a useless device, I realized it’s the same impulse that makes me miss my Motorola Razr V3 flip phone.
As a single-function mobile phone, I would have to say the Motorola Razr was the high point. It was well-designed, sleek, conformed to your hand, curved wonderfully between your mouth and your ear, and it folded away in perfect slimness to fit comfortably in your pocket. In comparison, an iPhone is chunky, slippery and cumbersome. I loved the sound the Razr made when it closed, that sharp, dismissive snap that made hanging up on someone so satisfying. J
ust try hanging up in dismissive anger on an iWatch or whatever it’s called. (Trust me, you look like a dick.)
I believe this resurgence in single-use technology like the analogue watch is in defiance of the industry trend toward connectivity. The implication seems to be that technological connectivity has gotten to the point where people are reluctant to look at their smart phones to see the time, preferring to remain shielded from the obligation to respond to the deluge of emails, texts, tweets and chats that confront them every time they turn on their devices. It seems a logical survival behavior when confronted with the anxiety of dealing with such obligations. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the incessant urging of the smart device to pay it more and more attention. Having a watch simply makes the process of checking the time seem less intrusive.
It’s sad to think that advertisers have subverted social media to such an extent that you are now deluged with advertisements just for the privilege of checking the time. It reminds me of a famous episode of Black Mirror (the brilliant series on Channel 4/Netflix) called “Fifteen Million Merits” (wr. Charlie Brooker and Konnie Huq/ dir. Euros Lyn) that illustrated this beautifully. It showed a world where you weren’t allowed to communicate with your friends or earn a living unless you paid attention to a series of advertisements.
“I do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things.”
-Franz Kafka
It’s the logical extension of where we are that some connection to social media becomes mandatory, and that it becomes impossible for anyone to function in society without that connection. It’s a nightmare that isn’t really that far off. A significant part of the economy of the world is based on one corporation paying another corporation for your time. Now this might not seem so dystopian if these corporations paid you for your attention. There’s little doubt that it would be worth while for you to remain plugged in at all times. (2) It’s ironic when you realize that the corporate entities that control social media get paid only if they can maintain your attention while gathering personal details about your life. But they’re not paying you for the services they are profiting from. It’s all about them taking value from you and collecting it for their own enrichment. So the obligation you feel to attend to their apps must be weighed against the time you’re required to take from your own life to attend to them. At what point does it become clear that you’re not getting a good deal?
If your focused attention is an asset that corporations value highly, then there should be more of a return than the alleged convenience of a ‘free’ app of dubious utility. Unfortunately most of us have come to depend on the very algorithms we are being controlled by. What would you watch on Netflix if they didn’t kindly ‘recommend’ something that was ‘trending now’? But increasingly, I’ve noticed that the stuff that’s ‘recommended’ is usually something Netflix prefers me to watch, rather than something I might actually want to watch. Clearly they want to exploit us more than they want to cater to us.
And it isn’t just Netflix, certainly. The increasing trend with most software today, from Windows to Photoshop to AutoCAD, is toward cloud computing, using remote servers that belong to huge corporations who promise to keep our data safe and secure, but then mine that data for any information that they can sell to their customers. It will eventually happen that your computer simply will not operate unless you are connected remotely to some corporate system that dictates how and when you can use the device. It wasn’t until the personal computer came along that people invited computers into their homes; when computer became something you owned rather than something you rented. But that trend has reversed, and we are hardly better for it.
But the days of having an ‘air-gap’ computer are long over. (3) In some sense, analogue watches are the mental equivalent of an air-gap computer. Making air-gap computers inoperable allows the security services of most developed countries to monitor the activity happening on those computers. But this is a double-edged sword. Sure, it allowed the American National Security Agency to interfere with Iran’s nuclear program, but it also allowed the Russian Government to interfere in the 2016 American election.
“This is the secret of propaganda: Those who are to be persuaded by it should be completely immersed in the ideas of the propaganda, without ever noticing that they are being immersed in it.”
— Joseph Goebbels
There was a time when corporate entities on the internet bitched about the sense of entitlement computer users had getting ‘free’ stuff on the net, from music to movies. And in the beginning, they were somewhat justified. But the tables have shifted significantly since then. Virtual monopolies like Google, YouTube and Facebook are making huge profits and they are using that money to buy up smaller rivals and closing them down. They insist on strict ‘Terms of Use’ contracts and yet they have freely ignored actual privacy laws, not to mention constitutional prohibitions on slander and political propaganda.
There is no government on Earth that is unaware of the power of propaganda. Social media websites like Facebook and Twitter are the most potently delivery mechanism for propaganda that has ever been devised, literally tailor made by algorithms that understand your every move with startling precision, and tailors its message accordingly. If the constant attention to social media can lead to religious radicalization or suicide, then there is little doubt as to its power of persuasion. Threats to democracy like Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump are counting on this for their continued employment. It’s the people who must learn that propaganda is a real force, prone to misuse, and it must be regulated against.
“Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.”
– Mark Zuckerberg
Right from the outset, the ‘democracy’ these internet corporations claim to promote has never existed and it never will. It’s against basic human nature to resist the power of media for profit, financial or intellectual. The only sense that the internet is ‘democratized’ is that now everyone can exploit this power with complete anonymity. The commercial exploitation of the internet amplifies only the ideas that make profit. Unfortunately, the most profitable of these ideas is hate and lies. The result is that the truth is drowned out by the noise and the decay of corporate self-interest. Mark Zuckerberg is the most guilty of this, cleaving to his unrealistic standards of an open and free internet despite the societal damage his social media platform is inflicting on the world. For a large part, I place the election of Donald Trump squarely on his lap, mostly for his refusal to acknowledge the fact that people deliberately cheat and lie for the direct purpose of causing harm. Zuckerberg should be brought to the floor to account for his refusal to police hate speech on his website. It has been long understood that yelling ‘fire!’in a crowded theatre is not freedom of speech. But change is never going to happen without a huge uprising against such childish idealism. The above quote had been Mark Zuckerberg’s mantra for years. (4) This ‘ move fast and break stuff’ mantra sounded fine when he was talking about technical innovations, but when it comes to the societal freedoms that define western democracies, it is stupidly dangerous. It’s disappointing that someone with such power for good in the world chooses to abdicate his social responsibility for the damage he is causing.
Zukerberg’s latest lament is that it is too difficult to police hateful and slanderous content on Facebook. So why is it not too difficult for YouTube and Facebook to prevent me from watching copyrighted material on their websites? And why can I not watch HBO programming in Canada without going through Bell Media? China is able to filter endless content from their social media platforms, so why can’t Facebook and Google do the same? Obviously this means that it is technically possible to block illegal and hateful content. The legal shielding of other websites has been stripped when it comes to hosting copyright material, so why can’t these legal protections Facebook uses for allowing the publication of hate and lies also be stripped away? It’s just as illegal.
There is no sane reason why Facebook and YouTube cannot be regulated like any other broadcaster. The fact that everyone produces content for it is irrelevant. It’s impossible for me to produce racist or slanderous content and pay to have it broadcast on the Disney Channel. Disney would never allow it and the Broadcast Standards Council (or the Federal Communications Commission in the United States) would fine the network for broadcasting it if they did. And they would not go after the producer of the content, only the broadcaster. There is no functional difference between these two things. So why is Facebook or YouTube any different? How exactly does this infringe on our freedom of expression? Laws already exist prohibiting such things, they just don’t apply to Google or Facebook for some reason.
The simple answer is money. These corporations profit immensely from these lies and half-truths. The voices of lies and hate have long ago drowned out whatever good was on the internet. Until the lies and hate are removed, then we are not going to get back to the real potential benefits the internet has to offer.
“No system of mass surveillance has existed in any society, that has not been abused.”
— Edward Snowden
If Facebook doesn’t want to be the arbiter of its content (which is its sole responsibility when you think about it), they could easily set up a certification system similar to film ratings system that classifies a clip or post. Users would have an obligation when they upload video that it be classified according to a certain standard. This user-based classification system could filter out content and restrict problematic content to those who are aware of its dubious nature. If a video isn’t certified or sanctioned in some way by some legal or moral standard, they can be blocked or restricted. Certainly, if it were unfairly categorized, the person who uploaded the clip can appeal the classification. Sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it? This system works when it comes to nudity and sexual content, so why would it not work for other forms of content. This works brilliantly for Wikipedia. Lies and hate don’t last long on that website.
If governments and corporations are unwilling to act to protect the citizens then the only solution is for the citizens to rebel. But to be able to turn your devices off is becoming a skill that has to be learned, and some people are finding it’s a skill they have to master in order to survive. In some ways, every human being already has a mental firewall, a bull-shit detector that prevents snake-oil salesmen for selling you something you neither need nor want. But for some reason when we see it published on Facebook or the Fox news feed, we believe it. In that context, we can see that these entities have figured out a way around that firewall. Other less scrupulous companies have seen this for what it is, a means of fleecing the public of money and freedom. Companies like Cambridge Analytica used the naivety of Facebook and its executives to push Brexit through in the United Kingdom, and created so much doubt about Hillary Clinton that Donald Trump walked away with the American Presidency.
We need to develop a mental firewall, something in the way you think that protects you from the seduction of free things that aren’t really free. The only safeguard against such infiltration is to strengthen our defenses and develop a way of thinking that can recognize this kind of tactic and guard against it. In the parlance, we need to upgrade our mental firewall. Unfortunately, that takes effort and education on the part of the user, who, quite frankly, has no inclination to turn down that ‘free’ offer, no matter what the cost. But there is a way to do this by making such a defensive strategy fun.
“Algorithms are called the aunties. They’re self-organising and so nobody fully understands them.
― William Gibson, The Peripheral
Sometimes the best way to illustrate the need for change to the initiated is to show them that they indeed have some control over what happens to their private data. The easiest way to do this is to exploit the many logical fallacies inherent in all these algorithms, presumptions the programmers made that have no basis in scientific fact.
The most obvious fallacy is their assertion that what I’ve watched in the past is what I want to see in the future. Any first year psych major can debunk this idea, and yet the entire financial structure of companies like Facebook and Netflix is dependent on it. These computer algorithms were sold to us as a means to create the ultimate mix-tape for our life, allowing us to never see a movie or hear a song that we didn’t absolutely love. But they don’t leave any room for learning or creating new experiences. By their logic, not a single human being is open to new experiences. I thought the whole point was to create an experience that was unique to me? But how do we know if we love a movie or a song if we never hear it, just like how do we could never know something was bullshit if we never hear the counter-argument? Another fallacy is that just because others like something I liked, that I will like everything they like. This is grade-school level horseshit. What ever happened to individuality? The entire enterprise is designed to fit us into one of their round holes regardless of what kind of square peg you might be.
Because I watch a lot of science fiction, I sincerely doubt my algorithm would never have recommended a brilliantly original television show like Fleabag (created by Phoebe Waller-Bridge). Or recommended The Big Lebowski (wr./dir. by the Cohen Brothers) to me. I even doubt it would have steered me toward Rick and Morty (created by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon), even though it’s one of the most intelligent and original Science Fiction shows on television right now.
“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless
The third weakness of these algorithms is that they are really bad at dealing with people who lie. I know this sounds like a third level Science Fiction trope, but it’s true. You have to be truthful and explicit for them to work. And the childish idealism of their programmers is never more evident than when you mess with their carefully structured systems in this way. It’s like the Roman Catholic confessionals in some ways. The only way you can get salvation (or a descent selection on Amazon) is if you tell them your darkest secrets. But the corporations (like the priests) are the ones most likely to abuse this knowledge. It’s a brilliant scam all around, really. But it only works if the users actually tell the truth. Otherwise, you end up with the digital equivalent of the Salem witch trails.
On the business social media network Linked-in, I have been running a social media experiment on a friend of mine without his knowledge. I have ‘linked’ my account to most of the people surrounding him, but not him. I did this in the hope that I would learn how long it would take for the algorithm to figure out that I was fucking with it. Unfortunately, this has never even occurred to the programmers of the algorithm and it has been sending me the same message for more than four years now. My Netflix account has also been a victim of my perverse nature, for a long time suggesting the finest selections of Bollywood cinema hidden away in its collections.
My point is that there is no imperative that you tell these automated systems the truth, and I believe therein lies the solution to the problem. You have no obligation to make their oppression over us any easier than it needs to be. When your bank asks you for your mother’s maiden name, just lie to them. As long as you can remember you told them that RuPaul was your mother, what difference does it make? If a significant portion of the users skewed their choices like this, none of the predictive algorithms would work. The noise in the system would become so overwhelming, they wouldn’t be able to predict your behavior to any great degree. A sudden drop in their advertising revenue because of this would definitely get their attention.
I suggest you could perhaps find random things to promote, something incongruous that sends their advertisers off on a wild goose chase. Make your imaginary secret passion for Morris Dancing known to everyone in your Facebook group. Create a false twitter trend for pornographic paper folding. Promote Dildo, Newfoundland as the next great tourist destination. (5) Promote the Texas rock/polka band “Brave Combo” to the top of all your playlists. (6)
In any case, education and action is the best defense against this kind of manipulation. Since we’ve all contributed to making made them rich beyond anyone’s imagination by selling our privacy to the lowest bidder, I think we’re obligated in some ways to make the bastards work for it for a change.
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(1) – Or the 60s. Or the 80s. Okay, Dick Tracey was never cool.
(2) – It’s what used to be referred to as a ‘job’.
(3) – Air-gap computers, those that have never been connected to any network, literally maintain an air-gap between its operating system and the outside world.
(4) – Though he is tempering such rhetoric somewhat in the past few years since Donald Trump’s election.
(5) – Yes, that is a real place.
(6) – No really. Check them out. They’re fantastic!
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