Algorithms are shaping our thoughts and behaviours in dangerous ways
~ Matthew Gaffen ~
“The Matrix” already exists—we’re not all asleep in vats being used as batteries, but to a greater or lesser extent we have all been trapped in an invisible prison, used to subjugate everyone under its influence. It’s conceivably why we’re seeing such a rise in fascism globally.
There’s no conspiracy, no shady cabal, no one person behind this. It’s just a natural outcome of chasing the profit motive. This also means no one is driving the train.
There’s a reason that cookies and privacy policies (in the EU at least) have become such an online nuisance. These assurances of your safety and privacy are nothing more than a pretext to get consent. Your “anonymised” data is sold to an infinite regress of third parties, analysed, correlated and de-anonymised again. Any smart device you use, your browsing habits, banking transactions, your GPS position are all used to deduce fine grain information about you. Then weaponised against you for as much profit as possible.
If Facebook only needs 300 ‘likes’ from you to know you better than your spouse, imagine what could be done with all your usage data combined.
The modern world is dominated by the platform economy – a structure that puts a digital system between you and the services you use. This can be used to influence you and your movements. It’s how Instagram is able to show you an ad for a popup restaurant a convenient walk away with uncanny precision. Google maps uses your camera feed to add to its 3D scans when you use live navigation. Pokemon go and similar apps let businesses purchase the appearance of valuable items to influence users movements. This is small scale influence, however. Something much more dangerous and oppressive lurks beneath all that.
Algorithms play a fundamental part in what you see online, and what they’re good at is categorisation. This can be helpful if you want to filter information – but these algorithms also categorise users. All of us are sorted into boxes and shown things specifically optimised to keep up hooked; many apps use mechanics inspired from the gambling sector to keep users using. The Pavlovian feedback loop it creates also applies to the other users you’re categorised with can build a kind of group-think. Like a stone polisher, users are rubbed against each other to create homogenised, predictable behaviour. Anger and argument are also part of this.
It can be difficult to perceive what this looks like in action, but one of the most easily analysed is the rise of the online (or ‘alt’) right. A bunch of angry, disenfranchised people are pushed together and rile themselves up until someone shoots up a mosque . Simply by the accelerated narrative by online arguments that are boosted by algorithms people reach extreme conclusions. None of these platforms intended to enable stochastic terrorism, but it made them money.
Ian Danskin coined the phrase Stochastic Totalism to describe a phenomena that is particularly visible in the ecosphere of the alt right. Figures like Jordan Peterson, Andrew Tate and Donald Trump don’t have to intentionally side with extremist groups, or even agree with their positions, but they are chosen as figureheads. It builds a self-reinforcing authoritarianism that applies to a much wider group than right-wing chuds. The insertion of algorithmic influence at every possible vector that our lives intersect with the digital world is designed to make our behaviour more predictable to enable an easier extraction of profit.
It could also be seen as a form of brainwashing. But I think one thing is clear—there’s a reason why big tech is siding with Trump.
Unfortunately, ‘unplugging’ from this giant panopticon is incredibly difficult—the network effect (the influence of user buy in) makes it very difficult to migrate to services that don’t monetise your data. Why use Signal when everyone you know is on WhatsApp? All I can suggest is: where possible, divest from big tech. Use Mastodon or Bluesky instead of Twitter. Use cash more often. Stop using Google products. And learn about the technologies you use—a little of anything is better than nothing.
Image by Matthew Gaffen. A longer version of this essay appears at gaffen.co.uk
