[-empyre-] Search, privacy, data

[Gabriel Menotti]

Now, onto privacy, search and data:

> However, now we are witnessing a throwback
> of our own data; Google begins to make the
> search more personal, Facebook has the frictionless
> sharing to name a few examples. [TERO KARPPI]

In the more specific case of research practices, which problems might
arise from this growing personalisation of platforms, the
proliferation of algorithms tailoring search results to “our
interests,” and the constant filtering of information by like-minded
peers?

More directly: would this combination of narcissistic mechanisms be
creating a vicious circle that makes it even more difficult to take
anomalies into account?

What tactics could be used to escape the circle?

For instance, is “variantology” programmable?


> I somehow cannot imagine this "boring"
> information to be valuable enough to justify
> a complete makeover of the whole idea of
> privacy. Or: Who is _literally_ buying all the
> twitter babble? And why? [LASSE SCHERFFIG]

This question makes me think about these scientific expeditions to the
wild, focused on “discovering” and then patenting never-before-seen
natural “resources” (birds’ DNA sequences!), without applying this
information to anything specific.

Could all this privatization of superfluous user data be similarly
related to getting control of still unseen possibilities – “colonizing
the future”?

Best!
Menotti