We are Data : : Algorithms and the Making of our Digital Selves

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Call Number: Adult Book / Nonfiction / Social Science / General / Cheney-Lippold, John
On Shelf At: Traverwood Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Social Science / General / Cheney-Lippold, John	4-week checkout	On Shelf

Introduction -- Categorization: Making Data Useful -- Control: Algorithm is Gonna Get You -- Subjectivity: Who Do They Think You Are? -- Privacy: Wanted Dead or Alive -- Conclusion: Ghosts in the Machine.
We are Data" explores what identity means in an algorithmic age: how it works, how our lives are controlled by it, and how we can resist it. Algorithms are everywhere, organizing the near limitless data that exists in our world. Derived from our every search, like, click, and purchase, algorithms determine the news we get, the ads we see, the information accessible to us and even who our friends are. These complex configurations not only form knowledge and social relationships in the digital and physical world, but also determine who we are and who we can be, both on and offline. Algorithms create and recreate us, using our data to assign and reassign our gender, race, sexuality, and citizenship status. They can recognize us as celebrities or mark us as terrorists. In this era of ubiquitous surveillance, contemporary data collection entails more than gathering information about us. Entities like Google, Facebook, and the NSA also decide what that information means, constructing our worlds and the identities we inhabit in the process. We have little control over who we algorithmically are. Our identities are made useful not for us-but for someone else. Through a series of entertaining and engaging examples, John Cheney-Lippold draws on the social constructions of identity to advance a new understanding of our algorithmic identities. "We Are Data" will educate and inspire readers who want to wrest back some freedom in our increasingly surveilled and algorithmically-constructed world.

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The Singularity Is Already Here submitted by BookNerd on July 23, 2017, 3:52pm Heavily academic discussion of the difference between or corporeal self (IRL) and our selves as constructed by entities that only interact with our online selves.

Cheney-Lippold argues that privacy was overrated to begin with (a privilege for white males that did not extend to women and other skin colors). He also argues that our corporeal selves have limited choices that are shaped by what corporations and governments know about our online selves.