More Digital Commentary

A lovely piece in the New York Review of Books, “The Digital Poorhouse” (from the June 7, 2018 issue) ostensibly reviews two texts on the negative externalities of digital tools, but in fact offers a remarkable overview of what we find in the shadows cast of today’s digital giants.  From unintended results to implicit bias, the author cites a wide variety of social, economic, and cultural impacts these tools have had.  Noting that companies like Google and Facebook often have to override the natural outcomes of their primary products, his point that there is a tacit admission of moral failure is one that is easy to remember when we see Mark Zuckerberg facing a Congressional committee, but that slips away in our half-distracted daily use of these tools.  I have yet to come across a case for or against the idea of users of a service being ‘complicit’ in driving these moral failings, nor devoted any time to it myself, but as feedback loops and ‘clicks’ drive the evolution of these tools, it seems like an issue worth examining.  Given its function as a review rather than a thrust for a single thesis, the piece has no specific conclusion, but I like its dueling explanations around ‘garbage in garbage out’ as well as the importance of a regulatory framework that can address problems (Europe) as opposed to one that offers useless transparency.