Digital Supply, Google's Influence, and the Centralization of Power

I appreciated Lovink's discussion about information not as simple data but as the useful interpretation of that data. Lovink quotes Weizenbaum, who warns against an uncritical use of the word "information" because the only one way to convert raw data--"symbols"--into information is "through interpretation." I often call everything "information," but this makes more sense to me. It also reminds me that our understanding of the world, even what we consider objective "facts," come from data that is filtered through our brains before we even realize our brains have already distorted the data we perceive. Lovink then uses Weizenbaum's quote about the difference between data and information to illustrate how Google and Wikipedia encourage "data obesity" by spilling out raw data without encouraging users to critically interprete that data.

But individuals interpret data differently; what provides information to one person might provide different information to another because both people might interpret the data differently. As Lovink points out, Google interprets its data not as information about history or current events as many people consider it to be, but as a financial resource instead. "The prime objective of this cynical enterprise is to monitor user behaviour in order to sell traffic data and profiles to interested third parties."

This might not be much of a problem if Google's "data obesity" didn't represent a large chunk of the internet, but it does. Google is attempting to "centralize, and thus control," the Internet via its "organizing" of data. As Sandy Baldwin stated in response to another one of my reading responses, "As a node in the network, [Google] is so central and connected that everything passes through it. The topology of the net is warped because of Google (for better or worse)."

Centralization threatens autonomy by forcing everyone to depend on the whoever controls centralized system, Google in this case. That control threatens free speech and free information, two factors that encourage the production and dissemination of knowledge. This is why libertarianism often opposes government interference in the free market, particularly when such interference stems from a monopolistic authority whose regulations encourages mutual corruption and allow the monopoly formation of politically-connected companies.

Applying this wariness of government interference in the market to the scope and power of Google isn't paranoid; many organizations worry that the Obama administration--the same administration that has extended the Patriot Act, passed the NDAA, and attempted to pass SOPA/PIPA--has too much of a "cozy" relationship with Google, "the largest non-governmental repository of information about citizens ever imagined."

But the solution is not to censor information; that would contribute to the same problem. The underlying problem, as Lovink states, is our lack of critical thinking abilities, in part due to the poor quality of our education. To start fixing the problem of virtual monopolies, their collaboration with the government, and the overall expansion and abuse of power, citizens must first focus on improving education and teaching critical thinking skills. But that will prove a challenge because the government itself intervenes in public education.

References