FreedomBox Foundation

The Freedom Box Foundation is has developed a "freedombox", as of October 2015, which allows you to:

• communicate with others privately
• be able to browse the web without being monitored
• use decentralized methods of communication successfully and with ease

The aim of this foundation, if you read their flyer above, is to disrupt monitoring efforts of corporations and the government. This relates to Christian Fuchs, Culture and Economy in the Age of Social Media “Social Media and the Public Sphere” (Pages 315-371), where Fuchs discusses Privacy and monitoring within the public sphere. He discusses Habermas' idea that media is an entity which enables social relations. Lunt and Livington's critique of Habermas addresses that within the public sphere, access or ability to contribute may be limited due to access of media technology or oppression. This freedom box, although it must be purchased, claims that if it is successful it can allow communication in natural disaster or in places which have limited communication. This would support or answer Lunt and Livington's question of access within the public sphere, and allow people globally to participate. Corporate companies who use our data for capital gain is a common fear and theme talked about within our course, and by avid media consumers. This monitoring and data mining can violate our consumer privacy and is very controversial as companies can access our data yet we cannot see theirs. Unfortunately, we as consumers are in a problematic place because in order to avoid this we must turn away from all centralized forms of communication e.g. Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, that keep us participating in online culture and socialized with others. In the video below, the Freedombox representative, explains how this technology will allow use to not support data mining by using alternative methods of communication.


Although this technology solves the problem we find to be data mining what do you think are some problems that could arise with the evasion of centralized socialization methods? Will it only be problematic for corporate companies, or will it directly affect us as consumers in a negative way?

Go to www.Freedombox.org for more information!

Facebook's Family Philanthropy?

A few weeks ago, our favourite entrepeneur, Mark Zuckerberg had a daughter.

 The ensuing paternal bliss lead to the announcement that Zuckerberg, with his wife Priscilla Chan, have created the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative which intends to donate 99% of their wealth through philanthropic means.

It's important to consider conditions existing around this philanthropic venture, such as the fact that the initiative is a Limited Liability Company (LLC) and not a not-for-profit organization. This means that the LLC has much less transparency, can be used for political donations and lobbying, and the Zuckerberg's can remove funds all while paying less tax. On top of this, the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative has been very vague about what exactly they'll be trying to improve, chalking it up to "the future" without referring to any specific organizations.

Given what we know about Mark Zuckerberg's willingness to exploit users for data, labour, and thus further capital gain, what do you guys think about this so-called initiative? Could it be well-intentioned or is the ultimate goal capital gain? Do you think it improves the public's impression of Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook to make it seem as if the vast majority of his fortune is being used for philanthropy?

(read an article about this here)
  

The Sharing Economy

In Network Market, Fisher writes about markets becoming increasingly disembedded from society, which is part of a broader social transformation from Fordism to post-Fordism, dominated by two trends: marketization and disorganization (Fisher, 2009). This blog post is particularly concerned with marketization, which involves “the increasing dominance and scope of markets in social life” (Fisher, 2009). Here, Fisher is referring to the fluidity idea of hyper flexibility, which is essentially the idea that people can make their own hours and that the traditional 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. job is on the decline. As a result, the markets that we are working in have become increasingly tied to social life as well, as there is an increasingly blurred line between the definition of work life and social life. Fisher also writes about methodological individualism, which suggests the idea that all actions are performed by individuals, and that the analysis of social reality must therefore start from individuals (Fisher, 2009). This means that it is important for us as individuals to be in precarious unstable networks, as it causes us to engage in a perpetual discovery, wherein individuals are constantly looking to seek out new ways of doing things, rather than settling into a routine. In this sense, precarious unstable networks are necessary, as we must adapt to keep up with the ways of the social changing world, if not, then we will fall behind. This relates to the conversations regarding the increasingly precarious nature of today’s labor force, which has come up time and again throughout this semester. We have discussed Uber as a form of precarious labor. Airbnb is another good example. Attached is a recent article from the Globe and Mail with regards to earning money in the sharing economy, specifically through Uber and Airbnb. I found it to be a very interesting and relevant article, especially as it is highlights some of the issues surrounding the risky nature of today’s workforce.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/jobs/rise-of-sharing-services-uber-airbnb-points-to-a-precarious-labour-climate/article26968204/

My question for you guys is, do you know anyone that has earned money as an Uber driver or by renting their home, or part of it, through Airbnb? If not, would you ever consider them as a possible money making opportunity? Why or why not?

Fisher, Eran. Media and New Capitalism in the Digital Age: The Spirit of the Networks. New york: Palgrave MacMillan, 2010.

Are We Passively Allowing Technology to Advance too Greatly?

At this stage of our lives I believe that it is evident that we (as post-secondary students) have seen a lot of advancement in regards to technological development. No only have we personally witnessed and experimented with the changes of cellular devices, computers or laptops, and programs. With this in mind we’ve been able to see technology updating to constantly be encouraged to be more autonomous acting in society. This is visible in society through many applications in which individuals rely on the services of an automated technology to be used in order to accomplished our desired goals or tasks. For example, the finance industry use pre-programmed algorithms to monitor the spending and usage of credit cards in order to detect possible fraud quickly and efficiently. 

Within his writing Fisher mentions the works of many scholars who depict this transformation of technology to be similar to the evolution of human beings. This theory continues to form into technology being predicted to progress more than humans ever could as they are self creating. Ultimately, forming a concern of technological intelligence overcoming the human race. In response it is said that humans must begin to prepare to counter the technology evolution by in fact creating human-robot beings. Although it could be debated that yes technology can be seen to evolve similar to humans, and that society has seen technology overtake humans through employment opportunities, how far could this actually go? 

ComputerWorld

Sharon Gaudin wrote an article for ComputerWorld which depicts the worries of many in regards to the possibility of ‘robots taking over humans’, and below the article within the comments section an individual posted;

“I think that, as robots/AI does more and more for us we will slowly turn into uneducated blobs like in the movie Wall-E.” - DarthaDana 

Do you feel as though technology advancing is from the technologies ability to evolve and thus eventually take over humans in an savage manner? Or do you feel a technology's advancement is more linked to humans becoming passive in regards to the completion of tasks, thus allowing for technology to dominate? 

Hello Barbie or Hello Hacking?

In Mark Andrejevic’s Estranged Free Labor he discusses the use of business models that rely on consumers willing submitting to increasingly detailed and comprehensive forms of monitoring. These forms of monitoring often lead to the collection and use of “big data” which many online companies like Amazon rely on to effectively target specific demographic and psychographic groups for marketing purposes. The growth of technology allows growth of this “mediated culture” in which information is willing shared, and then used by companies. As our interactive economy relies on the capturing of this value that is generated by users this article shows how people are building the economic value of something without being paid for the data the company is receiving.

When I saw the recent introduction of Hello Barbie, I was reminded of the idea of Andrejevic’s free labor and how this new Barbie has brought up questions about the risk to our privacy with these forms of monitoring. Hello Barbie is an interactive Barbie that is Wi-Fi enabled and is capable of listening to a child and responding. It connects via Wi-Fi and is able to store information about the child and then send that information off to third parties for processing. After looking into it more, I came across an article discussing the hacking risks associated with a Wi-Fi enabled children’s toy.  As discussed by Andrejevic, and the article, there is a substantial risk to our privacy with this type of technology that is meant to capture and generate data information for commodification.  Not only is the information being processed by the company used for betterment of the product, but also the doll is extremely vulnerable to hacking. Not only is the company using children’s conversations for analysis, but there is a risk of hackers accessing this information as well.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/26/hackers-can-hijack-wi-fi-hello-barbie-to-spy-on-your-children

Do you think there should be laws in place to protect users, especially children from having their data and privacy exploited? On top of that should this technology be allowed when the risk of hacking is so high?

3-D Printing Potential

 



WIRED magazine online recently posted this article titled, "3-D printers give us a new way to think," and it brings up relevant thoughts towards information based capitalist social formations, as discussed throughout CS400bA. 3-D printing has the potential to change the way we think of cognitive aids, for example same as when we print documents to ponder them we may print of 3-D demonstrations to aid in learning by having a tactile formation.

Therefore social formations are shifting in various aspects of life due to the creation of 3-D printing and new ways of thinking about their use. This article discusses how a brain surgeon uses a 3-D print of brains with tumors to learn their distinct features prior to operation as well as using it throughout the lengthy operation.

Can you think of other ways that 3-D printing can shift our way of thinking about understanding data and solving problems? 

Do you feel as if you are too much of a commodity when using social media networks?

YouTube, Twitter, Facebook all seem to have a general idea of our interests. This is why when videos or people to follow are suggested, they are usually quite accurate. Dan Schiller explains the way in which the information of our internet activity is sold to advertisers as a commodity.

When you are using these social media networks, do you feel as if you are too much of a commodity and annoyed by a flurry of ads that specifically target you as a high potential consumer?