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Feb. 19th, 2022 07:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kradeelavkernel of a thought that probably won't make it in the identity zine, but is a topic I wish was talked about more in long-form:
I recently requested my data from amazon to see how much they've collected on me, and it's striking to see this consistent pattern of them - and other FAANG companies - always labeling me as a 18-34 "male" audience category (presumably because of stereotypical cis-male interests like tech/linux, videogames, planes, guns, etc). I do enough 'data camouflage-ing" that they usually don't get more accurate than that, but.
there's something tooth-gratingly offensive about that, to me, on several levels - like,
1) just the obvious "putting infinitely complicated souls" into boxes for capitalism, just to squeeze out a few more cents per person via advertising. particularly jarring when you remember all the advertising dollars put into pride month n' shit.
2) how dare these Big Data tech companies and algorithims assume that is my gender, moreover perpetuate this 1960's approach of gender = a narrow subset of interests? I don't identify as butch, but what if I was? what if I was a trans lady or nonbinary with those interests? for the wokescolds that a lot of these companies have turned into, this feels awfully regressive just on a basic "interfacing with the companies in a real world experience" level and not a PR or HR hypothetical.
3) I vaguely recall the mini-twitter-the-company scandal where they assigned similar advertising gender categories "as" you, and misgendered basically everyone that didn't fit the algorithms suspicions. it was morbidly funny when there was a blank and you could put "fuck you" as a gender (I did) as their hail mary loophole, but ... just, jesus.
4) it gets super black-mirror-y when you also realize just how much more algorithims are being used in medical data, credit score ratings, etc etc, not just a level of "let's get more money from them hurr hurr' but actually to the point of this-impacts-your-life-irrevocably-and-y-u-don't-even-know. bringing in IBM and the nazis is going to sound super alarmist/tin-foil-hat-y but I will never forget my holocaust class in college where the prof (i loved that dude) drilled in us that basically all of that shit wouldn't have happened without the (admittedly cruder) form of data collecting. where does it end?
anyway I'm getting huge helicopter-story-vibes of this big-data-slash-military-industrial-complex fucking with humanity that is literally by definition always going to be un-definable by algorithims.
I recently requested my data from amazon to see how much they've collected on me, and it's striking to see this consistent pattern of them - and other FAANG companies - always labeling me as a 18-34 "male" audience category (presumably because of stereotypical cis-male interests like tech/linux, videogames, planes, guns, etc). I do enough 'data camouflage-ing" that they usually don't get more accurate than that, but.
there's something tooth-gratingly offensive about that, to me, on several levels - like,
1) just the obvious "putting infinitely complicated souls" into boxes for capitalism, just to squeeze out a few more cents per person via advertising. particularly jarring when you remember all the advertising dollars put into pride month n' shit.
2) how dare these Big Data tech companies and algorithims assume that is my gender, moreover perpetuate this 1960's approach of gender = a narrow subset of interests? I don't identify as butch, but what if I was? what if I was a trans lady or nonbinary with those interests? for the wokescolds that a lot of these companies have turned into, this feels awfully regressive just on a basic "interfacing with the companies in a real world experience" level and not a PR or HR hypothetical.
3) I vaguely recall the mini-twitter-the-company scandal where they assigned similar advertising gender categories "as" you, and misgendered basically everyone that didn't fit the algorithms suspicions. it was morbidly funny when there was a blank and you could put "fuck you" as a gender (I did) as their hail mary loophole, but ... just, jesus.
4) it gets super black-mirror-y when you also realize just how much more algorithims are being used in medical data, credit score ratings, etc etc, not just a level of "let's get more money from them hurr hurr' but actually to the point of this-impacts-your-life-irrevocably-and-y-u-don't-even-know. bringing in IBM and the nazis is going to sound super alarmist/tin-foil-hat-y but I will never forget my holocaust class in college where the prof (i loved that dude) drilled in us that basically all of that shit wouldn't have happened without the (admittedly cruder) form of data collecting. where does it end?
anyway I'm getting huge helicopter-story-vibes of this big-data-slash-military-industrial-complex fucking with humanity that is literally by definition always going to be un-definable by algorithims.
