" Unfortunately "behavioral micro targeting" on internet is something that is so present that is practically the main business model of biggest and most influential companies nowadays on the internet. such us Google , Facebook and others. Idea behind nano or micro targeting is based on the users impulse so you try to collect as much data as possible about each user, then you are using different kind of algorithms, tools to analyze those data and to make some conclusions, to make different kind of profiles...using them then you serve them different kind of advertising or messages or whatever...." said Professor Joler for SBS Serbian.
Do we all heaving Facebook profiles actually work for Facebook ?
"Sure. That is like an idea that is dating back on begging of 2000. and is related to te concept of immaterial work ... Even when we are liking, commenting sharing pictures, writing posts on social media and internet in general ... we are basically working, and in this case we are working for Facebook. And to go back to our map from the previous research, we, on that if you like production chain within this immaterial factory, we as human users, we are basically resource. not just workers but we are also recurse for the production. Our emotions, our interests, our behavior is basically resource for the production. At the same time we are also like workers. But there are new types of workers in this chain - algorithms, they are transforming our behavior into the profit."
"And if we think of amount of work we are doing .... Let's say there is like one billion people using Facebook each day and they spend around 20 minutes per day doing clicking liking, reading ... That is around 300 millions of free hours of labor per day...."
Prof.Vladan Joler is Share Foundation director and chair of New Media department at University of Novi Sad. He is leading a SHARE Lab, a research and data investigation lab for exploring different technical aspects of the intersections between technology and society. Share Foundation is a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to protecting the rights of Internet citizens and promoting positive values of openness, decentralization, free access and exchange of knowledge, information and technology.
