Ever feel like a global Big Brother is watching your every keystroke, ready to use the might of the algorithm to learn your darkest secrets and use them to sell your stuff and abuse your information?
Worry no more, or at least a little less…
The couch science and research council has a deep relationship with Professor Google. We consult on anything, from the Dunning-Kruger effect to collective nouns to the proper name for snake phobia to the correct name for the torture museum in Lucca, Italy, for On The Couch.
As part of the day job, there is also a LOT of Googling to fact-check spellings, names of all descriptions, dates, venues, art shows, historic events. Their algorithms would have also picked up a disturbing number of searches on topics related to court cases, murder, bestiality, rape, animal abuse, poaching, armed robbery, weaponry, war hotspots, Ebola, Covid and other dread diseases, among many others.
What they would not have found are recipe searches. The only recipe I have ever asked the Prof about was trifle, so many years ago I can’t remember when it was. That search came about because, when I asked foodie Frank about making one, he started with “make a sponge”, and it went downhill after that. I just wanted one you could make with packets and tins. I was only really interested in the damn sherry. Mine turned into a family festive treat, except for the year I tried rum.
These eclectic searches appear to have wedged a big spanner in the algorithm spy ring.
Before I learned not to have 1 000 apps dis-apped them, I set up a Pinterest account to look for pictures of old Durban. They have sent me many, many pics of Cape Town, and only a few from Durban.
Every day they drop me an email with a selection of things they believe will interest me. Always with a little ego-stroking line about how terrific my taste is, or how I have a great eye, and this has “Lindsay written all over it”. And then there’s a page of recipes or a selection of fashion, hair, nails or graduation frocks.
Since the collective noun research, they have upped their game and I am getting many more grammar/English usage boards, so those are nearer the mark.
Twitter is the same -- their algorithm spies are terribly confused. Keeping up with a fast world means following a broad collection of people or subjects. But my personal interest involves animal/conservation posts, space exploration and weather sites. These are the things I like, retweet or reply to. Not country music, the NBL, MFL, football and countless other topics they insist I get, even if I haven’t chosen to follow them. Spend half the time telling them I’m not interested. I’m a grown up and can find whatever it is I want on my own. It really bugs me.
Zuckerberg’s outfit got so awful I won’t use it -- I’ve been locked out since the two-step security thingy because I can’t be asked to do it when I never visit anyway.
So pick a few arb things, follow them, ignore them and strike one for the little user. Call it a counter-surveillance technique.
The Independent on Saturday
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