Raising the Bar: Memes - Digital Surveillance and Propaganda

Raising the Bar is back for a third round! The University of Auckland is proud to once again host this unique event in which our academics give free public lectures in pubs and bars.

Join Ethan Plaut for I See You Like Memes? The Business of Digital Surveillance and Propaganda.

Whether you’re handling your digital business or just scrolling for the lulz, every moment you're online could be commodified twice over: while advertisers and propagandists purchase shards of your attention, the surveillance industry simultaneously extracts a constellation of data points about who you are and exactly what you're doing.

Many people believe these processes converge when all that data is used to microtarget and more effectively persuade you. But, Ethan explains in this talk that the truth is much more bizarre.

Some messages are targeted at us to drum up business or anger, belief or doubt. But some messages are generated by one algorithm to trick another algorithm - without regard for the human audiences caught between. Likewise, your personal data could be used immediately to develop artificial intelligence, or that data could sit idle for years, awaiting unlikely uses of which the governments and corporations that surveil us haven't yet even dreamt.

Registrations essential.