Commentary to swarm problems: No Escape from the digital Monitoring

With the privacy of the today is known to be one of those things. Is a few important, many other are willing to guide you for the Likes and hearts at least partially. To put to the Maelstrom of social media, today is not easy. Drop-out cases in the initial phase, not infrequently, strong withdrawal symptoms, but not prevent, of course, if one wants to keep his digital footprint small.

but That even such a renunciation little, have now shown American scientists from the University of Vermont in the “Nature of Human Behaviour”. They examined to what degree the activities and interests of individuals solely on the basis of their interactions with others in social media predicted – on the basis of those data, which do not disappear even if you delete his own profile with all the information stored there.

your result: The prediction works just as reliably as on the basis of the full user profile. This means that Every person, even the digital inactive, has a digital “shadow profile”, that can be derived from the data of his friends. Mark Zuckerberg has admitted the existence of such Profiles of non-members in its Senate hearing. “The Sharing of information with an Online platform is a collective decision that is more socially than individually,” says the computer scientist David Garcia in a comment the consequences of this knowledge.

Bad news for all who intend to stay in the mass of their fellow citizens anonymously. Perhaps more comforting: the Other living beings it is not also better. The Illusion of a swarm of anonymity have taken scientists a group of 100 zebrafish in the Champalimaud Center for the Unknown in Lisbon. In “Nature Methods” to describe an Artificial intelligence of Software, which is able to identify all the members of the swarm at any time.