Data Bubble

Recently, I watched the documentary The Great Hack. It's been a long time coming, it came out a few months ago, and I had every intention to watch it the second it came out but with juggling job searching, studying for an additional certification on top of my Computer Science Degree to make myself more marketable for junior positions, and also training 6 times a week as a track athlete, it was put on the back burner.

The Great Hack is a wild ride about data, and as someone who is a software engineer I found it extremely interesting. Technology has advanced a lot in the past few years, and as technology advances the more our bubble of reality is shaped by the algorithms of mainstream applications -  like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter - we use. 

After watching the documentary - which honestly, I may even need to watch a second time - I began to wonder how many alternative realities we all live in that's created by what we engage with.

Let's start with Twitter.

When you click on the little magnifying glass that indicates searching, you have 4 tabs that you can swipe between: For You, Trending, News, Sports, Fun. Now, the For You tab is the selected one that you see when you initially click on the magnifying glass. Depending on what you engage with, keywords you tweet about, and who you follow, this shows what the algorithm thinks you would like/be interested in. 

Now, I have a question for you: How often do you select Trending, News, Sports, Fun tabs that are just a swipe away?

Personally, not much. I just scroll through the reality that the algorithm has sorted for me based on my likes, what I engage with, and who I follow. There is so much going on in the world, and with the For You section, it just ensures that regardless of what is actually happening in the world, you are only shown a piece of the world that you don't realize is a piece but rather think is the whole puzzle. Your perception of reality is shaped by an algorithm that essentially tries its best to become an extension of your subconscious.

Now let's shift our focus to Facebook and Instagram.

Facebook and one of its children (the second child being WhatsApp). Facebook is what The Great Hack focused on. Cambridge Analytica (CA) used Facebook to determine the in-between people in the 2016 Election. The ones who weren't for Trump or Hillary but in between - undecided. Those are who CA targeted - the ones whose minds they can change.

So how did they actually target these people specifically? 

A researcher at Cambridge University created an application test called thisisyourdigitalife where users took a personality test connected with their Facebook account. Who doesn't like taking a personality test? 

The researcher, Aleksandr Kogan, sold 270,000 personality tests to CA. But it actually doesn't stop there. His personality test not only links to the person who took it but it also looks into the test-taker's friends and collects their data too - so in total 50m people's data.

But not all 50M people took the personality test so now they had a gap - they had one user's personality test data but for every one user's personality test data they had 200+ friends of theirs who did not take the test.

This is where Michal Kosinki came in - for every person who took the personality test, he analyzed all their friends likes and engagement and essentially reverse engineered the personality test based on that and created a profile for each friend. And that's how 50m data + personality was complete.

The Trump Campaign worked with CA - and the goal was simple: make the undecided voters decided on voting for President Trump.

Based on the data that the personality profiles had - which amounted to over 100m registered voters in the US - the advertisements that each person saw was tailored based on what the data showed they engaged with. Facebook was essentially home to multiple realities - each that made sure the specific undecided voter saw exactly the precise advertisement that would tilt the scale from undecided to decided.

There was a lot of talk in the news of Cambridge Analytica and how it basically destroyed the democratic process in both the US and the UK, Brexit, and in a way they did - they got into people's heads in a way that people didn't realize that the content they were consuming was placed in a way that it didn't look out of place on their Facebook feed rather, it was exactly where it was supposed to be.

Did Cambridge Analytica direct people to vote for Trump so they had no freewill?

No, but they did put all the pieces to ensure that the puzzle that users saw was the one Cambridge Analytica wanted them to see.

Instagram - Facebook's child - is the last one we're going to delve into. Even if you don't use Facebook, Instagram is essentially an extension of it. So let's talk about the explore page. Similar to what Twitter does with the For You section, Instagram shows you what their algorithm - based on your likes and what you engage with - thinks you would like. 

Sometimes algorithms get it wrong - trust me when I say I sometimes question how on earth some things end up on either on Twitter Explore or Instagram Explore but the algorithm takes note: what you click on, what you don't and perfects itself until it is always correct. 

These algorithms - Facebook, Instagram, Twitter - shape our life the more time we spend on them. The more time we spend on them, the more it becomes more accurate. In terms of Twitter, your world view may just be the For You section - even though there is more to the world than the bubble that the algorithm has created for you.

and yes to confirm: these are tea cups on my shirt

Where does that leave us? How do we jump out of this data bubble?

Well, our perception of reality is formed by what different algorithms are able to learn about us. As this is the 21st century, there is no one trick to escape the data bubble since everything that we do revolves around the online world. But what you can do is be selective of what you want the algorithm to know about you - i.e. what you choose to share. 

Also, as more of an add on, remember how I mentioned the personality test created was done by linking your Facebook profile up? Right. I think now is a great time to mention: When given the opportunity to link a social media you already have OR sign up by email address - sign up by email address. Personally, I do this because I don't know what data an app/website will be pulling from my social media, and I'd rather start with a clean slate rather than a data backpack of information sent to an app/website the second I choose 'Sign in With Facebook'.

Have you ever watched The Great Hack? If not, are you planning to watch it? How accurate is your Twitter/Instagram Explore section?

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