[kough]

I can't take this genre of tech/opticon commentary seriously when they remove all human agency. Reading this argument, there's an implicit judgement that (1) humans have no choice but to be influenced by Facebook, and (2) other methods of information retrieval are somehow neutral. Sure, I agree that understanding power structures is important – what a novel and interesting point /s.

[jonathanyc]

If you think understanding power structures isn’t novel or interesting, it’s surprising that you think discussions like this “remove all human agency.” Agency doesn’t mean you have the freedom to do whatever, it means you are acting in your own self-interest according to the limitations of your environment and your knowledge. When we acknowledge the agency of people in early states, for example, we are saying that they are taking part in the process of state formation, often to their own benefit, and that it isn’t just one person magically creating a state. We are not saying that they aren’t to blame when they get burned at the stake by that same state because they had the “agency” to just say no.

[astalwick]

It's not about removing human agency. It's about nudging the aggregate views of a whole population, ever so slightly. Determine what works, reinforce that, repeat algorithmically.

He's making the point that Facebook has the ability to apply machine-learning-like reinforcement algorithms to whole populations.

You or I, individually, still have agency. Large populations have inertia - they're slow to move - but I'm not sure they have real defense against this kind of manipulation. I guess the real defense here is a diversity of sources (but we all know people who get all of their news from [fox | cnn | facebook | whatever]).

[ngngngng]

I agree that there is a choice, and I think it unwise to act like there isn't. But I understand approaching the problem as the author did because we seem to be learning that most people (facebook users) really don't care if facebook influences what they see and how they think/feel. It lets them broadcast their lives and see memes, so they're happy.

[frgtpsswrdlame]

He's not removing all human agency, just some of it. He's right, Facebook has proven that they can influence the emotional state of their users, to try and maintain a notion of complete human agency in the face of that is just wrong.