resist the feed

As data collection becomes ubiquitous, its consequences permeate our everyday lives in research, study and science administration as well. The business of education is thus becoming a data-driven one, which can be observed prominently in scientific information infrastructures. What is described by the term surveillance publishing outlines a development in which major scholarly publishers, but also other suppliers like database providers are mutating into data cartels that are not satisfied with the exploitation of the publication as data model but are expanding into ever more areas of the research life cycle as well as service and administration processes. Higher education is becoming more and more blind to its very own mission, instead the Merchants of Doubt are gaining momentum and science is slowly moving closer to the fantasy-industrial complex, where tech oligopolies and authoritarian disseminators of alternative facts are increasingly converging. As a result, both researchers and employees are gradually coming under a regime of people farming, and education and employment are becoming more and more similar to the low wage sector and ghost work.

The review, conducted by researchers from four UK universities known as the Action on Digital Device Immersive Conditions Team, did not establish causal links between screen use and specific developmental conditions. However, it was emphatic that “no under-twos should receive regular intentional screen time. Passive exposure is societally unavoidable, so adding deliberate use compounds risk without any meaningful benefit.”

link to a hilarious thread about it from ed zitron on bluesky

The hacking community and infosec commentators always have a lot to say about the humour to be found in stock images of hackers from the last ten or fifteen years. We’ve all seen these pictures, either shadowy figures in hoodies or men in suits and ski masks menacingly crouched over a laptop. I thought it…