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A review by misterfix
Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America by Christopher Wylie
5.0
So much more than I anticipated and far better as well. In some ways this acts as a compliment to Edward Snowden's autobiography yet tells a very different tale. I was especially impressed with the author's analysis and suggestions on how to repair the system that he helped to create and used to cause such havoc. Learned a bunch of new terms as well like 'Perspecticide' - the active deconstruction and manipulation of popular perception, 'In silico' – simulation, 'Affect heuristic' – where people use mental shortcuts that are significantly influenced by emotion, 'Cognitive segregation' – where people exist in their own informational ghettos, a segregation of reality, 'Ludic loops', etc...
A few select quotes that capture the essence of the book:
"The underlying ideology within social media is not to enhance choice or agency, but rather to narrow, filter, and reduce choices to benefit creators and advertisers. Social media herds the citizenry into surveilled spaces where the architects can classify and track them and use this understanding to influence their behavior. If democracy and capitalism are based on accessible information and free choices, what we are witnessing is their subversion from the inside."
"We risk creating a society obsessive about remembering, and we may have overlooked the value of forgetting, moving on, or being unknown. Human growth requires private sanctuaries and free spaces where we can experiment, play, dabble, keep secrets, transgress taboos, break our promises, and contemplate our future selves without consequence to our public lives until we decide to change in public. History shows us that personal and social liberation begins in private. We cannot move on from our childhoods, past relationships, mistakes, old perspectives, old bodies, or former prejudices if we are not in control of our privacy and personal development. We cannot be free to choose if our choices are monitored and filtered for us. We cannot grow and change if we are shackled to who we once were or who we thought we were or how we once presented ourselves. If we exist in an environment that always watches, remembers, and labels us according to conditions or values outside our control or awareness, then our data selves my shackle us to histories that we prefer to move on from. Privacy is the very essence of our power to decide who and how we want to be. Privacy is not about hiding – privacy is about human growth and agency."
"Social media and Internet platforms are not services; they are architectures and infrastructures. By labeling their architectures as “services”, they are trying to make responsibility lie with the consumer, through their “consent”. But in no other services do we burden consumers in this way."
A few select quotes that capture the essence of the book:
"The underlying ideology within social media is not to enhance choice or agency, but rather to narrow, filter, and reduce choices to benefit creators and advertisers. Social media herds the citizenry into surveilled spaces where the architects can classify and track them and use this understanding to influence their behavior. If democracy and capitalism are based on accessible information and free choices, what we are witnessing is their subversion from the inside."
"We risk creating a society obsessive about remembering, and we may have overlooked the value of forgetting, moving on, or being unknown. Human growth requires private sanctuaries and free spaces where we can experiment, play, dabble, keep secrets, transgress taboos, break our promises, and contemplate our future selves without consequence to our public lives until we decide to change in public. History shows us that personal and social liberation begins in private. We cannot move on from our childhoods, past relationships, mistakes, old perspectives, old bodies, or former prejudices if we are not in control of our privacy and personal development. We cannot be free to choose if our choices are monitored and filtered for us. We cannot grow and change if we are shackled to who we once were or who we thought we were or how we once presented ourselves. If we exist in an environment that always watches, remembers, and labels us according to conditions or values outside our control or awareness, then our data selves my shackle us to histories that we prefer to move on from. Privacy is the very essence of our power to decide who and how we want to be. Privacy is not about hiding – privacy is about human growth and agency."
"Social media and Internet platforms are not services; they are architectures and infrastructures. By labeling their architectures as “services”, they are trying to make responsibility lie with the consumer, through their “consent”. But in no other services do we burden consumers in this way."