Talk Radio: Machtmittel Suchmaschine

Im Oktober habe ich mal wieder mit Herbert Gnauer über Suchmaschinen diskutiert (Radio Dispositiv auf Orange, 94.0). Genauer über alternative Suchmaschinen, sowie den Aufbau offener – öffentlich finanzierter – IT Infrastrukturen. Ein offener Web Index könnte die Grundlage für die Entwicklung von ganz unterschiedlichen Suchmaschinen, Ranking-Instrumenten, und Applikationen sein. Er könnte dem gegenwärtigen Monopolisten (Google) eine reichhaltige, buntere, diversere Suchmaschinenlandschaft entgegensetzen. Diese würde wesentlich besser zu unseren “europäischen Werten” – und hier insbesondere dem pluralen, multikulturellen, und diversen Europa – passen, als hegemoniale Ansprüche ein “europäisches Google” zu bauen, dem Europa kaum gerecht werden kann – alleine schon deshalb, weil Europa ganz anders funktioniert als die USA (und China) – Stichwort Datenschutz, aber auch kulturelle Eigenheiten, verschiedene Sprachen, fragmentierte Märkte etc, die es positiv nutzbar zu machen gilt! Ein offener Web Index – wie übrigens auch das dezentrale social network Mastodon – halten daher nicht nur alternative, verteilte, nachhaltigere Technologien für uns bereit, sondern auch alternative Imaginationen von Europa, die es weiter zu verfolgen gilt.

Zwei Initiativen machen sich hier insbesondere starkt: Die Open Web Index Initiative und die Open Search Foundation, die beide den Aufbau einens offenen Web Indexes anstreben. Es lohnt sich diese großartigen Projekte im Detail unter die Lupe zu nehmen!

Vielen Dank Herbert, dass Du diesen Ideen Raum in Deiner Sendung geboten hast! Es ist mir immer wieder eine Freude! Spoiler: zwei wiss. Artikel dazu sind gerade im Erscheinen (Big Data & Society) & in Begutachtung (book Project Europe) – more info coming soon!

Link zur Sendung Dispositiv auf Radio Orange 94.0: Machtmittel Suchmaschine – Astrid Mager zum Aufbau alternativer IT-Infrastrukturen


podcast time

If you’re interested in corporate search engines from the US and alternative search infrastructures from Europe listen to these two podcasts that were produced by the Austrian Press Agency (APA Science, Nerds mit Auftrag) and the Austrian Academy of Sciences (MAKRO MIKRO); both in German. pic

me

panel discussions

Two panel discussions might be worth mentioning: 1) I participated in this year’s Joint Academy Day of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (organized together with the Canadian Academy of Sciences). Our panel was concerned with the Covid-19 crisis and its social, economic, and policy implications. The video can be watched here. 2) The Austrian newspaper “Wiener Zeitung” organized a panel discussion on the topic of “Algorithms – friend or enemy?”; the link to the video can be found here.

210128-1930-algorithmus-humanismus

die macht der algorithmen

Radiosendung zum Thema “Die Macht der Algorithmen”. Mit vielem lieben Dank an Herbert Gnauer!! Radio Dispositiv zu hören auf Orange 94.0 @HerbertGnauer


“netzpolitischer abend”

meme-evil-toddler-netzpat14Genau vier Wochen nach dem letzten Netzpolitischen Abend AT gibt es am ersten Donnerstag im Monat, konkret dem 2. März, wieder drei spannende Vorträge zu netzpolitischen Themen – wie üblich ab 19:30 Uhr im Wiener Metalab in der Rathausstr. 6:

 

  • Astrid Mager (Institut für Technikfolgenabschätzung, @astridmager): Suchmaschinen in Europa. Europäische Suchmaschinen?
  • Maximilian Schubert (@ISPA_at): „Netzsperren in Österreich“
  • Wolfie Christl (@WolfieChristl): Big-Data-Business, Profiling & Privacy

C6fm4W3WYAALsrrUnd hier der Link zum Nachsehen und Nachhören. Danke an alle, va Herbert Gnauer (von Idealism Prevails) für’s streamen & schneiden, war sehr fein!!

 

algorithmic imaginaries & algorithmic regimes

csm_AlgoVis_LupeWelt_01_13c333205fMy new research project “Algorithmic Imaginaries. Visions & values in the shaping of search engines” is online (on the ITA Website)! :) Thanks to Thomas Bayer for his help!

paintby_blck_ju-sm-150x150Further, the short videos on “Algorithmic Regimes” by Felix Stalder & Konrad Becker (World-Information Institute) are online too! The project is called Painted by Numbers, which is a great name I think! All  videos are focusing on algorithmic logics and culture/ politics/ regulation etc. It’s really a great compilation of people and statements on algorithmic power in contemporary society. The videos will be assembled as video installations in art exhibitions. You can watch all of them here.

round table discussion

Next Tuesday I’ll be part of a round table discussion on search engines: Search for Serendipity. It’s gonna be related to an art exhibition that will start soon (in St. Pölten). Here’s the flyer:

aaa copy.ai

aaa copy.ai

events events events

Much has happened in the past weeks! First, the presentation of the results of my project “Glocal Search” (funded by OeNB, nb 14702) has taken place at the end of April: “Europe against Google & Co?” (see blog post below). The event was a success; and not only because of my research on search engines in the European context, but also because we had a really good panel discussion with representatives from policy, data protection, consumer protection, and the Internet economy. As a consequence, my project was featured in several newspapers (e.g. Der Standard) and in the radio broadcast “Digital Leben” on Ö1. A short summary of my results can be found on the ITA Website (in German and in English; coming soon). In addition, my project was part of the video ITA produced to present the institute and our research on the website of the Austrian ministry of science, research, and economy.

At the beginning of June there were two more exciting events: 1) the Technology Assessment Conference (TA15) annually taking place at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW); organized by ITA and 2) the IS4IS summit at the Technical University of Vienna with the title “THE INFORMATION SOCIETY AT THE CROSSROADS”. At this conference we organized a panel on “ICTs and power relations. Present dilemmas and future perspectives” (Doris Allhutter, Stefan Strauss & me). Since we got a great deal of abstracts we were able to put together three sessions, which was fun! I took the opportunity to present my work on the emergence of the European “sociotechnical imaginary” (Jasanoff & Kim) of search engines and its translation and transformation in the Austrian context (hopefully to be published soon!!). After that we decided to organize another panel at next year’s TA16 to further sharpen and extend our research focus.

Finally, I presented my work on alternative search engines and their ideologies at the book launch of Anton Tantner, who is a historian working on early, pre-Internet search technologies like Adressbüros or Fragämter (whatever that is in English). Since our research nicely fits together, we were invited to be studio guests in the radio broadcast “Dispositiv” by Herbert Gnauer (Radio Orange 94.0), which was really nice! Download here.

Now I’m done with presenting and communicating my results to various publics 😉 After my holidays I’ll get back to writing again. YAY!

Europa gegen Google & Co?

Mein Projekt “Glocal Search” (OeNB) neigt sich bald dem Ende zu. Deshalb wird es am 23. April 2015 eine Abschlussveranstaltung zum Thema Suchmaschinenpolitik, europäische Visionen und Werte, sowie Interessenskonflikte geben (in a nutshell). Die Veranstaltung wird am 23.4.2015 um 18h an der ÖAW stattfinden. Hier der Einladungstext von der ITA Website:

Heißt es Europa gegen Google & Co? Oder lassen sich Suchmaschinen regulieren? Technikforscherin Astrid Mager vom ITA diskutiert ihre Forschungsergebnisse mit VertreterInnen aus Daten- und Konsumentenschutz und von Internet Service Providern.

Google sieht sich insbesondere in Europa mit Vorwürfen konfrontiert, die vom Missbrauch des Quasi-Monopols bis hin zur Zusammenarbeit mit Geheimdiensten reichen. In der Debatte werden das Recht auf Privatsphäre, Datenschutz und informationelle Selbstbestimmung als zentrale Elemente der europäischen Identität ins Feld geführt – und deren Verletzung kritisch diskutiert.

Astrid Mager vom ÖAW-Institut für Technikfolgen-Abschätzung (ITA) hat sich in ihrem Forschungsprojekt „Glokale Suche“ mit Visionen und Werten europäischer Suchmaschinenpolitik, deren (schwieriger) Übersetzung in politisches Handeln, sowie deren Verhältnis zu österreichischen Diskursen beschäftigt. Bei der Präsentation der Ergebnisse und der anschließenden Diskussion wird es darum gehen, wie es Europa gelingen könnte, seinen Wertekanon in die Praxis zu übersetzen; wie global agierende Suchmaschinen reguliert werden können und welche Rolle Österreich in der europäischen Suchmaschinenpolitik spielt.

DiskussionsteilnehmerInnen:

Astrid Mager, Institut für Technikfolgen-Abschätzung (ITA)
Andreas Krisch, European Digital Rights (EDRi), Verein für Internetbenutzer Österreich (VIBE)
Gerhard Kunnert, BKA, Abt. V/7, österr. Vertreter in der EU-Ratsarbeitsgruppe Datenschutz-Grundverordnung
Maximilian Schubert, Internet Service Providers Austria (ISPA)
Daniela Zimmer, Konsumentenpolitische Abteilung, AK Wien

Moderation: Walter Peissl, Institut für Technikfolgen-Abschätzung (ITA)

Infos:

Termin: 23. April 2015, 18 Uhr, anschließend Gedankenaustausch und Buffet

Ort: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften – Clubraum
Dr. Ignaz Seipel-Platz 2, 1010 Wien

Anmeldung bitte über die ITA Website (ganz unten). Danke!

it’s the network, stupid

Yesterday I was on a panel discussion on surveillance organized by quintessenz and emergence of projects. It was a lively discussion, which left me with more open questions than answers though. Reinhard Kreissl (sociologist of law and criminology) and Markus Kainz (quintessenz, moderator) easily agreed on the bad guys (usual suspects like the state, government, Google, Billa) and identified civic disobedience as an appropriate way to fight surveillance. Practical examples of such guerilla activities were swopping Billa Vorteilscards or defrauding the population census (by reproducing sheets and feeding them with wrong data). Even though I like the idea of creating a critical mass of disobedient citizens to mess with statistics, I think it’s not that easy anymore in times of digital surveillance. Cheating with sheets of paper and swopping discount cards is easy compared to messing with big data and algorithmic logics. The reasons for that are multiple:

First, digital surveillance is almost seamless. As Markus put it: “We are surveilled not once or twice, but various times”. Combinations of data from cell phones, surveillance cameras, credit cards, and digital tools like search engines and social networks make it hard to escape from your own data body. The data points we leave are simply too many and too heterogeneous. Here, I agree with Manfred Kreissl: “We are leaky containers”.

Second, most individuals do not have the knowledge and technical know-how to mess with such complex digital networks. And why should they? Most people, the majority, most probably, is pretty happy with how things are. They get discounts with their Billa card, they get free – and pretty good – online services from Google & co, they have become used to or even grew up with extensive surveillance and advertising so that they don’t care anymore. That does not necessarily mean that people agree with all these data collections, it just shows that people take on a pretty fatalistic attitude in their daily lives. And yes, some people don’t care at all or simply like contemporary consumer culture – just like one of my interviewees, working in human design and engineering, phrased it: “I think the driving force behind this information economy is our, kind of, probably, possibly a little bit unhealthy desire to just keep consuming, and communicating, and producing at such a frenzy rate.” (Mager 2012: 10)

And, finally, even if people are discontent with the current surveillance state, why should it be the responsibility of the individual to fight a system that even politics and regulations seem to face with powerlessness? And how could we even step out of these powerful networks of surveillance? A quote by Scott Lash came to my mind when cycling home from the discussion: “The point that this book has tried to make is that we can no longer step outside of the global communication flows to find a solid fulcrum for critique. There is no more outside. The critique of information is in the information itself.” (Lash 2002: 220). Lash’s Critique of Information may be seen as an explanation for the digitization of political action. Even politics has become a matter of mouse clicks. Signing an online petition, liking a political group, sharing a critical initiative, all that is political engagement these days. The good thing though, and I think that’s something we should not forget, is that also new social movements are emerging from these activities, Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Spring (whether successful in the end or not), or Uni Brennt have (also) been organized online and have ended on the streets.

So what I’m trying to say, I guess, is that things are more complicated than they seem at first sight. Of course, surveillance states, Google, Billa and other players are spying on us and (ab)using our data and that’s bad. No doubt about that. Blaming them, however, is not enough in my view. Rather, it’s important to understand power relations and dynamics that are stabilizing them. Political decisions, media debates, but also our own behavior that is essentially feeding their power. Only then proper ways out may be found. Ways out that may even be digital. Times have changed since 1968 and so have we.

image © http://commons.wikimedia.org
Lash, Scott (2002) Critique of Information, London: SAGE
Mager, Astrid (2012) Algorithmic Ideology. How capitalist society shapes search engines, Information, Communication & Society, 1-19