Political activism is not failing because people are too busy watching cat videos online, but because of a fundamental collapse of citizen leverage on institutions of power like governments and corporations.
Zeynep TufekciRead
Our social networks, our news, our mundane existence and our important moments are all mediated by algorithms, whose proprietary, profit-driven, ad-financed nature seeps into every small micro-interaction.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights how algorithms shape our lives through social networks and media, influencing our interactions and experiences.
Zeynep Tufekci's quote underscores the pervasive influence of algorithms in contemporary society. It suggests that both our everyday experiences and significant moments are heavily mediated by digital technologies, which are driven by profit and advertising motives. This reliance on algorithms can subtly shape our perceptions and interactions, often without our conscious awareness, raising concerns about the authenticity of our social connections and the information we consume.
Themes
AlgorithmsTechnologySocial MediaInteractionsInfluence
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about digital privacy, one might quote Tufekci to illustrate how algorithms affect our lives.
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Remember, the Internet did not create freedom of speech; in theory, we always had freedom of speech - it's just that it often went along with the freedom to be ignored. People had no access to the infrastructure to be heard.
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Attention, to a terrorist group, is often what the well-meaning, outraged response is to your two-bit Internet troll: it is the food that feeds them.
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Much of what ails our modern life is exactly because we reduce the value of a human being to a number, say salary or consumer power.
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You might be tempted to think that China has a Streisand-effect problem, in which trying to censor an event creates even more publicity. But that assumes the Chinese government doesn't understand the Streisand effect, and that can't be right, because if one government understands attention dynamics online, it's China's.
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