Who Controls the Code, Controls the System: Algorithmically Amplified Bullshit, Social Inequality, and the Ubiquitous Surveillance of Everyday Life

Abstract

In an era of digital surveillance, data profiteering companies have created a surveillance‐based economy that uses algorithms to target messages and content that increase social divisions and inequality. This economic model poses an existential threat to democracy and social stability not only because of the amplification but because these algorithms are embedded in social cultural context. The emergence of cheap computing and massive—largely invisible—data collection in every aspect of daily life has enabled the creation of massive amounts of data on individuals that can be merged and enriched and aggregated. These data can determine outcomes such as what homes buyers are shown or whether they are approved to purchase a home, whether travelers are added to the no‐fly list or patients receive lifesaving medical treatment, or what price one pays for a service or is even allowed to access a service—all based on commercial data collection. Given existing and entrenched systems of social inequality, the questions of what gets encoded into data, who controls it, and who has access to it, are key existential questions facing sociology in the coming century and hold the potential to dramatically remake every aspect of society.