<nettime> more big data context

[James Jacobs <freegovinfo@gmail.com>]

I thought Nettime readers may be interested in this post about ???big data???:

http://informationobservatory.info/2015/11/09/behind-big-data/

???...This is a complicated question, and we leave it for another occasion ??? except for one crucial point. Democratizing technology policy means rejecting the tenet that, if investors decide to bankroll a project, then this in itself is sufficient to render that project legitimate. The result of democratization would be both to slow and to narrow the field of big data projects. Putting the issue this way shows how much big data incarnates the same steam-roller quality that David F. Noble directly challenged thirty years ago: ???There is a war on, but only one side is armed: this is the essence of the technology question today.???[28] But today, the technology question is far more urgent. Strip-mining privacy is an obvious aspect; but vital issues cut in other directions too, including employment impacts, environmental sustainability, and the stampeding corporate takeover of every kind of cultural production.

There???s a lot more ???big data??? on the horizon. Richard Waters explains that the political economy of big data is becoming engorged by ???whole classes of information??? as capital prepares a new wave of profit projects, many still far down the line.[29] The companies that provide or parasitize the technology platforms ??? the sensors and probes, cloud services and software applications, data analytics, skilled personnel, and market support ??? for yet other emerging applications are intent on sweeping up (???disrupting???) existing fields of practice, wholesale. In their search to control data ??? our data, not theirs ??? they are without a care for these ???externalities.??? Why ought we to let them?"


FYI, Information Observatory is a new project of Profs Dan Schiller and Shinjoung Yeo http://informationobservatory.info/about-us/


James Jacobs
freegovinfo.info
freegovinfo@gmail.com
@freegovinfo

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