Wk 15: Numbers, big data, and the brave new world

“How numbers on Facebook change behavior”

I don’t use Facebook anymore, but I can definitely empathize with these number metrics on Twitter and Instagram which I use a lot. I try and tell myself the number don’t matter but I’d be lying if I said didn’t wonder why my follower count so often fluctuated up and down. I have trouble self-promoting and don’t like f4f (follow for follow) schemes, so I wish I could care less about the numbers. But I think numbers do matter if you want to work in online media.

“The promise of big data”

I don’t like big data being collected with the intention of trying to predict behavior. I think that’s what I find most unethical. But this article made me appreciate medical researchers. I think applying social networking concepts of sharing will help us advance as a species. Last semester in one of my classes I learned about how patents were being abused in medical study, this article makes me more hopeful for the future.

“Pitfalls of big data: test prep company charges by geography, ends up charging more by race”

I found it tricky to decide what I thought about The Princeton Review’s situation. I think the root of the problem is charging by “competitive attributes.” I think it is absolutely disgusting that such important societal goods like test prep are subject to the pricing of demand. I agree that regulation will need to catch up with algorithms to course-correct vendors unintentionally discriminating.

“How social bias creeps into web technology”

Programs that are “designed to learn” really freak me out. I feel like it might just be better to cross-check algorithmic results against different programs. Also, if biases of the programmer are inherent, maybe companies should not underestimate the benefits of hiring diversely.

“The hypocrisy of the Internet journalist”

This article is scary because I think it goes further than most of the articles we’ve read done to assert that the surveillance could begin to “create [our tastes].” It’s one thing to ignore our online surveillance because we don’t think we have anything to hide, but it’s another to ignore it and not be able to realize how out data can be used against us.

The article “The promise of big data” tells of companies (or the police) hope big data can be used to try and predict behavior. But what if that is only because the big data is being used to encourage a certain kind of behavior. In criminal law, that would be called “entrapment,” no?

“Study: metrics have ‘powerful influence’ on journalists’ morale”

It sounds like newsroom want to use metrics when they serve to inspire journalists, but they can’t compartmentalize metrics like that. I think lack of thorough understanding is the reason metrics are so prominent and also explains the variety in impact from newsroom to newsroom. Metric-tracking might explain the speed-driven journalism we learned about earlier this semester.