new website design

[shannoncunningham]

@berli0z please check this out. it is about the separation of fbTREX and tracking.exposed website.

This issue is about restructuring tracking.exposed. It should be the political, motivation, ideological collector. It would contain a section with our updates (which would replace medium.com/@trackingexposed) and that section would be updates.

Proposed structure

home page

from the brand document we should extract all the value statement and put them in big lettering

second tab

It should be the manifesto

third tab

list of the project (fbTREX, eu19, ytTREX, etc...), optionally, we can link here too the last achievements

fourth tab

updates if would talk about the progress in the sub-projects, linking to the separated websites.

fifth tab

contacts, engage, follow us, donate, know more, propose your project

in regards of fbTREX website transition

that's @berli0z task and he's addressing it. I prefer he work on it because the project website have to follow the needs of the partners, developers and experts users, which want to know more on how to play with dataset and how the functionalities works.

Results and stats should not be here.

Results and stats are deeply project dependent. TRex is the umbrella containing many projects (EU19, youtubeTREX, facebookTREX) so we can't have all the stats and results here. Results in term of "publications" are academic achievement (which goes in algorithms.exposed), Results in them of articles, video, slides, talk, are outreach efforts, and they will be in the project page (facebookTREX, youtubeTREX ...)

Privacy and Glossary About us

same as above

[shannoncunningham]

Here are some very early first drafts for the tabs of the TRex website, to get an idea of what points should be made. They are not yet edited or complete, as you can see, but I wanted to offer the opportunity for input at this stage.

Questions:

1. Would we like to include additional information on the home page? I can think about what would make sense here, if so. So far it is just our values.
2. Are there any additional projects I should include on the projects tab yet?

Proposed structure

home page: Tracking Exposed Values

Responsible use of technology We recognise in technology the opportunity to elevate human potential, but this pursuit cannot be separated from serious responsibilities. Users must be aware of the implications of the technology they use, and companies have a moral obligation to be as transparent and fair as possible in their designs.

Shared knowledge We believe the greatest equaliser between users and companies is knowledge: it allows users to make informed decisions about the risks and advantages of technology. This is why we advocate an open approach to knowledge and do our best to share what we know.

Critical thinking We consider critical thinking the most essential element of a healthy relationship with technology. It pushes us to evaluate risks and opportunities, allowing us to question the world around us and search for answers, instead of simply accepting the status quo.

second tab: Tracking Exposed Manifesto

Will be the manifesto, which is quite thoroughly edited, but could use a look over to ensure I didn't confuse the parts I was curious about. Will share.

third tab: Tracking Exposed Projects

We welcome you to check out the various ongoing projects under the TRex umbrella listed below. We do not focus our efforts on a single company, but each project is driven by our broad mission to expose tracking and abuse of data by tech companies and their negative impacts on people, privacy and our communities. In the future we intend to expand our efforts to further companies and pursue additional research initiatives.

fbTREX ytTREX (link to github, or leave out?) eu19 KrGoTrEx

fourth tab: Tracking Exposed Updates

fifth tab: About Tracking Exposed

We would love for you to join our growing community centered around exposing and analysing web tracking and its social impacts. If you would like to know more about how to participate, please check out our ongoing projects and updates.

We hope that individuals, researchers, and developers will join our growing community which is exposing and analysing web tracking and its social impacts. There are various ways to engage with Tracking Exposed by contributing to, creating, and using our datasets for research groups, learning more about and helping us raise awareness around tracking, using our tools to analyse your information diet, or contributing to our development.

And of course, your donations will help our community’s efforts and research projects thrive. [possibly donate now button]

If you would like to propose a research project utilising any of our tools, please reach out to us!

You can follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and under our hashtags: [#trackingexposed?] #fbTREX

If you have any questions, comments, or want to engage with us, please feel free to contact us!

Chat, email, contact info will be here

[vecna]

Ok, thanks. Small feedback on the fifth tab

• donations: I don't know how we can receive them yet; it should be via CCT

• hashtag: is not really used yet

• twitter: we have a @trackingexposed account but I have to recover the email and now we are in migration

• the follow us should not sound as platform enablers, it is time to write a small section which explains:

  • we don't want to enable them, we use them only to reach the subjects we need each others
  • we should have a mastodon server to be written before every other social media

• the "if you would like to propose..." section it is true, indeed, but it never worked. Two aspects can be improved:

  • who we want (which are the same four/five kind of users persona we want interact every time)
  • what we want from them, what they can get from us

[vecna]

On question n.1 we should have the so-called-hero https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_image and then, scrolling down, it would display the texts/logo. I don't know if and what we can put there, maybe some form of aggregated statistics related to the sub-projects.

[shannoncunningham]

Okay, great comments, thank you! Hopefully soon I will have this down a bit better. :)

Again, the following is unedited, but I think this might be closer to the structure we're looking for on the fifth tab...?

I referred directly to fbTREX for individuals, as that seems to be the main project that individuals can engage with so far. I'd also like to be able to be more specific about how ppl can spread the word about TRex and raise awareness of tracking, but I think that will require more content than we currently have (:raising_hand:), so perhaps that can be addressed more later.

I will also reword the "follow us" section with some sort of statement of preference for Mastodon and less generic CTA there. Do you happen to know when we might have an account working for Mastodon?

If you'd like, I can also add a CTA for developers to contribute, but am finding myself at a loss for words, as I don't really know what's going on on the development side. Are there any specific things you'd like me to ask for from devs?

Lastly, I could add some reference to community groups fighting (digital) gentrification, and refer them to KrGoTrEx, mentioning that we'd like to see the project replicated in other cities, if you'd like.

Of course, any additional critiques super welcome.

About Tracking Exposed

If you would like to learn more, please check out our ongoing projects and updates.

There are various ways for different groups to engage with Tracking Exposed...

If you are a researcher, journalist or data scientist and would like to collaborate with us on a project studying or exposing tracking or social media algorithms and their social impacts which is in line with our mission and values, please reach out to us! We offer tools and services for gathering datasets around algorithmic influence, as well as technical assistance throughout the process. We would also like to assist social media advertisers and candidates in creating study groups to discover whether campaigns on platforms are delivering expected results.

Individuals can participate by learning more about and helping us raise awareness around tracking. With fbTREX you can study the information diet provided to you by Facebook, compare your own Facebook news feeds with friends, as well as contribute to datsets for research groups.

Since we don’t want to enable monopolised social media platforms, if you want to track our updates, you can follow us on Mastodon, but you can also follow us on Facebook.

If you have any questions, comments, or want to engage with us, please feel free to contact us!

Chat, email, contact info will be here

[shannoncunningham]

Values

Responsible use of technology We recognise in technology the opportunity to elevate human potential, but this pursuit cannot be separated from serious responsibilities. Users must be aware of the implications of the technology they use, so companies and organisations have a moral obligation to be as transparent and fair as possible in their designs.

Shared knowledge We believe the greatest equaliser between users and companies is knowledge: it allows users to make informed decisions about the risks and advantages of technology. This is why we advocate an open approach to knowledge and do our best to share what we know.

Critical thinking We consider critical thinking the most essential element of a healthy relationship with technology. It pushes us to evaluate risks and opportunities, allowing us to question the world around us and search for answers, instead of simply accepting the status quo.

Manifesto

Our main objective is to put a spotlight on users' tracking, profiling, on the data market and on the influence of algorithms. As long as these phenomena operate in the shadows or are understood only by experts, they cannot be tackled with the political determination that problems of such magnitude deserve. That is why we strive to explain the issue, and to test and promote new solutions, developed to benefit our communities.

Towards algorithmic diversity

Algorithms are a powerful technological solution to information overload. Unfortunately, they can also be used to conceal information, preventing complete assessments and judgments by impeding the dissemination of ideas and culture. No one should be allowed to abuse such power over connected people. At this stage, consent is neither informed nor optional.

Since algorithms define our priorities, they should be recognised as an extension of our will. We should be able to consciously build our own algorithms and change them as we please, instead of having to delegate these decisions to commercial entities with opaque functioning and objectives.

This is the goal of Tracking Exposed, and it can only be achieved through education. We understand that not everyone possesses the knowledge and skills to design their own algorithms; therefore, we intend to create a support community where algorithms can be shared, compared, critiqued and improved. The algorithm is power—it can be a harmful cage or a helpful filter. Only autonomous and informed individuals can decide what is most appropriate for them at a given time.

Exposing the tracking of users for what it is

Tracking is a de-humanising process. It transforms people into users and then into numbers, optimising their behaviours in order to profit from their online activities. Control over what should be profitable and the limits to data exploitation is not in people's hands, but rather in the hands of those who own and analyse the data.

Our communication must compete with this cultural imperialism of Silicon Valley. We should therefore create new values, new benchmarks, new toolboxes for everyday life, helping to distinguish useful technologies from intrusive ones offered solely with the purpose of spying on us. This is the origin of the tracking.exposed domain name, which hosts specific cases under its umbrella. Our aim is to be as distributed as possible and to speak with the languages and values of our communities. We must foster the natural cultural diversity of the connected geography of the web in order to fight this imperialistic globalisation model.

Illustrating this message through concrete examples is necessary to communicate our mission to a non-technical public. The tech sector has long been aware of the dramatic state of web tracking. They have the insight to ponder the implications, such as the loss of freedom, and adoptable countermeasures, such as ad blockers and cleaner sites, as well as the responsibilities of those who develop sites and applications. But this sectoral knowledge has not been enough to address the underlying political problem. To make these values more comprehensible, we need to make tracking less abstract, and reach out to the broader community that perceives this problem, not just to the Information Technology niche.

Interoperability and control

Control in this case is understood as distorted transparency. The current state of social and economic imbalance turns transparency into a power transfer, allowing those who have the skills and tools to put data in perspective to exploit users' personal information. Transparency is desirable for those in power, but it is not as necessary for common citizens. We should instead invert this model, to promote transparency in a manner which balances this power dynamic and prevents abuses.

Tracking Exposed values transparency, but we are also cognizant that when we ask people to share their data, we should always question what type of data is released to whom, and how it could be used. For example, transparency as it is employed under the current model of social networking cannot be uncritically accepted; people's data cannot and should not be public a priori, and even data anonymisation is not enough to prevent abuses. Absolute transparency should instead be reserved to policies on how data is processed, analysed and exploited, both for our protection and for the direct benefits that we can derive from it.

Social networks represent unlimited pools of information. With the right analysis, they could aid us in understanding ongoing dynamics in our society. But currently this power is exploited by monopoly platforms, and this is the biggest obstacle we must overcome. As a society, we must exert control and agency over these collectively built datasets.

We recognise the value of plurality: platforms should be many, should offer different functions, effects, guarantees, and should interoperate with each other. The logic behind data sharing should be public and controllable within a democratic system. It should not operate for corporate profit. We believe that only through decentralised, federated systems of technologies can we counteract the excessive power of digital monopolies like Facebook and Google, and prevent the creation of new ones.

Tracking Exposed will not be dedicated to the development of these technologies. There is already a large community working on the fediverse (the universe of federated social networks), but we intend to support it with the political experience and critique that we develop. The fediverse does not have to be a mere open source alternative to Facebook and YouTube; it should mitigate the addictive, speculative hysteria around virality which is promoted by the unbridled prioritisation of the economic exploitation of the Internet to the detriment of the potentially healthy, positive impact and opportunities of the social web. This is why it is paramount that we discover a new social imaginary. Activitypub, the protocol behind the fediverse, is a technical solution to a political issue: this is not enough in itself, but is a fundamental, prerequisite technology on which we can be build.

Many organisations already work to achieve this goal of federating peers and breaking the monopoly, some through lobbying and others through analysing the insane user experience designs of corporate networks, which result in competition between and atomisation of users. Tracking Exposed presents itself as an ally to help where technology intersects society.

We will need to integrate ourselves while respecting diversity to effectively support the transition from a centralised system to a federated one, offering the techno-political reflections that we develop.

Enhance the base of the pyramid

Peer-to-peer society and free software utopias have inspired us, but they have also shown their limits and have been used as a springboard for the creation of oppressive systems (with Mac OS X, based on a BSD system, and Android, based on Linux, as the two most striking examples in which monopolists have capitalised upon the strength of the community). The utopia of a freer and more just society that has animated this community has not changed, but we must at this point develop new tactics and strategies. The adversaries of twenty years ago–proprietary software, the interception of content, and the centralisation of information sources–have been substituted by the monopolists of the social graph, deceptive UXs, uncritical and radical transparency, lock-in systems, and technological and cultural imperialism.

Our domain is techno-politics. We are not an NGO and do not have a business plan. Should someone find business systems in line with our policies, they will perhaps be welcome. Most likely, we could become the target of surveillance activities that will try to oppress our logic. We will try to prevent this as far as possible, and will counter abuses systemically when possible, or with a specific approach in the most pernicious cases.

Considering the situation, apparently with no way out, in which institutions react with years of delay and are influenced by direct and indirect lobbying, and with pervasive control systems legitimised day by day, we can affirm that every step away from the status quo is a success.

New solutions often get lost in a technocratic labyrinth in which innovation should always fall within the logic of profit, and when they do work, they are bought and destroyed. Indeed, technologies for the collective interest may exist, but too often data policies remain distant from the development process, delegated to marketing, to lawyers or to mere discussions on storage. We work in this gap.

Technologies

Tracking Exposed provides tools for those engaged in activities consistent with our manifesto. At the moment we are working on two macro-categories.

1. Algorithm analysis: policies for the reuse of data collected by social networks, providing services that social networks have no interest in offering to people.
2. Web tracker analysis: allowing local communities to develop diverse communication and education campaigns for a better digital ecosystem, managing data analysis and release.

In this first phase, it will be critical to raise awareness and explain these phenomena. We must make our concerns accessible to those outside of our techno-activist bubble.

The compromise

Giving in to the network effect by remaining on social media simply because "our friends are there" is not acceptable. We work to confront this politics of compromise, as it is an oversimplified narrative which reinforces the dominance of monopolised networks.

Who we are

In 2019, it is the primary duty of those of us who reminisce on the early Internet to preserve the rights obtained and guaranteed for us in the second half of the 20th century, and usher them into the digital age. We should strive for more democratic technologies, with which people own and design processes in the interest of society, preserving the value of sociality. Current trends are market-driven, but considering the influence of technology over society, it is clear that we can better exploit its potential with collectively-owned means. We are not Luddites; we appreciate technology, but it must be under democratic control.

Our fear is not that young, impressionable people will experiment with social media and be manipulated by algorithms. In fact, we would encourage them to keep playing, to be fooled, to be pleased, and to imagine how they can better design algorithms. It is for their sake that we hope to apply our political and technical experise, enabling algorithmic diversity for future generations.

Our concern is more with an older generation which is unlikely to raise discussions around the algorithmic hegemony of the few platforms they have learned to use. In whichever nation one lives, a substantial portion of the electorate will remain on these networks for many years. As our techno-ethical values would never reach this critical mass, unless we are able to reach other groups, they would remain exposed to data exploitation, targeted misinformation, and would continue uncritically buying into these monopolised, personalised versions of the Internet.

Diversity is our strength

As of February 2019, we do not have a formalised process for getting involved. We hope to develop a more structured process out of our organic growth.

We need to convey the various ways that algorithms and tracking impact people's everyday lives. This will be a work of advocacy, awareness and communication.

We will never be as technologically advanced as a big tech corporation, and this is okay, as our asset is our diversity. The profit model of these companies is to write software with a homogenous logic ostensibly meant to serve the entire world. We intend to answer this fallacy by leveraging our free software platform to meet the diverse needs of the many communities which exist on the margins of these networks.

Projects

We use free licenses and work collaboratively to the fullest extent that we can.\ For all our projects, see our git repositories\ EU19 election algorithm analysis: eu19.tracking.exposed\ Facebook algorithm analysis: facebook.tracking.exposed\ A national-declinated research (Italian election): elezioni.tracking.exposed [academic publication]\ A cyborg initiative, exposing and raising awareness around the use of trackers in our local communities https://berlin.google.tracking.exposed

See the revision history of this document.

Projects

We encourage you to check out the various ongoing Tracking Exposed projects below. Each is driven by our mission to expose tracking and algorithmic influence by tech companies, and their negative impacts on people, privacy and our communities. In the future we intend to expand our efforts, studying more social platforms and pursuing additional research initiatives.

Projects

We use free licenses and work collaboratively to the fullest extent that we can.\ For all our projects, see our git repositories\ EU19 election algorithm analysis: eu19.tracking.exposed\ Facebook algorithm analysis: facebook.tracking.exposed\ A national-declinated research (Italian election): elezioni.tracking.exposed [academic publication]\ A cyborg initiative, exposing and raising awareness around the use of trackers in our local communities https://berlin.google.tracking.exposed

Updates

Blog and updates will be here.

About Tracking Exposed

If you would like to learn more, please check out our ongoing projects and updates.

There are various ways for different groups to engage with Tracking Exposed...

If you are a researcher, journalist or data scientist and would like to collaborate with us on a project studying or exposing tracking or social media algorithms and their social impacts, please reach out to us! We offer tools and services for gathering datasets around algorithmic influence, as well as technical assistance throughout the process. We would also like to assist social media advertisers and candidates in creating study groups to discover whether campaigns on platforms are delivering expected results.

Individuals can participate by learning more about and helping us raise awareness around tracking. With fbTREX you can analyse the information diet provided to you by Facebook, compare your own Facebook news feeds with friends. We hope that you will also consider contributing to our research groups’ datasets!

If you have any questions, comments, or want to engage with us, please feel free to contact us!

Contact information

Since we don’t want to enable monopolised social media platforms, if you want to track our updates, you can follow us on Mastodon, but you can also follow us on Facebook.

Telegram bot for fbTREX: fbTREX updates\ Issue trackers: fbTREX browser extension, backend\ Mattermost channel: #trackingexposed

Email: support﹫tracking・exposed