30 INTERACTIVE VIDEO FOCUS Wirewax
KARL, BUY ME!
IN A DATA DIGNIFIED SOCIETY, YOU’LL GET PAID FOR YOUR DATA, PLUS YOU’LL PAY FOR SERVICES THAT ARE FREE NOW. BUT IN THE BALANCE, YOU’LL DO BETTER
not be possible without the data that’s produced by those interactive moments. Viewers and users are the fuel for it and they are giving it all away for free. They often don’t know what data has been taken from them and they don’t know how it’s going to be used. So, what’s the solution? Lanier has come up with the concept of data dignity. He explains: “Around the turn of the century, we had two drives: one was that everything should be free and owned by the people, shared by the people, but we also loved tech entrepreneurs. So, how do you combine socialism, capitalism and tech heroes? You use advertising. “But in a data dignified society, you’ll get paid for your data, plus you’ll pay for services that are free now – but in the balance, you’ll do better, because you will have the moral rights to every bit of data that exists, because you exist.” We don’t remember anything about data dignity being predicted in Minority Report , but should we really rely on sci-fi to map our future technologies? The real 2001 didn’t exactly measure up to Stanley Kubrick’s and Arthur C Clarke’s vision, and it doesn’t look like we’re going to have replicants to contend with in the few days left of 2019. Video isn’t the only thing that’s interactive. Our future is, too.
TRICK OR TREAT? Imagine if the personalisation of video content for viewer fulfilment became the standard for TV viewing. Audiences might not have to see the death of a beloved character or be let down by a series finale (we’re looking at you, Game of Thrones ). But what about the personalisation of interactive video in the context of e-commerce; what benefit does that have to its audience? Well, of course it means we – the audience – are being shown things we like and need, right? Jaron Lanier, computer scientist and philosopher, thinks that we’re being short- changed. In a recent New York Times web series, he spoke about how our data is the value that makes up the current digital economy. He explains: “You see a photo of your old college friends and their baby on social media. So, you give it a like and then notice your newsfeed starts to change. You
see promotions for a new baby sling that would be perfect for the new parents and it’s even got your old college logo on it. There’s also a discount. So, you buy it. “In order to sell you that sling, a social media company used data, they know a world of things about you and your friends, the least of which is that they just had a baby and you all went to the same college,” he explains. “But the algorithms that run the whole thing are always adjusting and doing little experiments to try and find the little variations that will get you to keep on clicking – you don’t just see your own friends, you see other people who are selected because the algorithm thinks they’ll get you – they might be thinner, richer etc, and by clicking it, they’re snatching your data with a plan to trick you in the future.” This shadow economy that runs our world now and concentrates wealth would
feedzinesocial feedmagazine.tv
Powered by FlippingBook