Alex Tabarrok auf Marginal Revolution:
Facebook, Google and other tech companies are accused of stealing our data or at least of using it without our permission to become extraordinarily rich. Now is the time, say the critics, to stand up and take back our data. Ours, ours, ours.
In this way of thinking, our data is like our lawnmower and Facebook is a pushy neighbor who saw that our garage door was open, took our lawnmower, made a quick buck mowing people’s lawns, and now refuses to give our lawnmower back. Take back our lawnmower!
The reality is far different.
What could be more ours than our friends? Yet I have hundreds of friends on Facebook, most of whom I don’t know well and have never met. But my Facebook friends are friends. We share common interests and, most of the time, I’m happy to see what they are thinking and doing and I’m pleased when they show interest in what I’m up to. If, before Facebook existed, I had been asked to list “my friends,” I would have had a hard time naming ten friends, let alone hundreds. My Facebook friends didn’t exist before Facebook. My Facebook friendships are not simply my data—they are a unique co-creation of myself, my friends, and, yes, Facebook.
Some of my Facebook friends are family, but even here the relationships are not simply mine but a product of myself and Facebook. My cousin who lives in Dubai, for example, is my cousin whether Facebook exists or not, but I haven’t seen him in over twenty years, have never written him a letter, have never in that time shared a phone call. Nevertheless, I can tell you about the bike accident, the broken arm, the X-ray with more than a dozen screws—I know about all of this only because of Facebook. The relationship with my cousin, therefore, isn’t simply mine, it’s a joint creation of myself, my cousin and Facebook.
Facebook hasn’t taken our data—they have created it.
All das negiert nicht die negativen Folgen, über die wir reden müssen. Aber diese Sichtweise fehlt aktuell völlig in der öffentlichen Diskussion. Dass Facebook (und Google etc.) "unsere" Daten nimmt und "verkauft" oder damit anderweitig Schindluder treibt, wird weithin nicht mehr hinterfragt. Es ist die undiskutierte, unhinterfragte Ausgangslage, vor der Dinge wie die DSGVO entstehen, die einiges richtig machen, aber gleichzeitig (noch) unbemerkt unglaublich viel kaputt machen.
Was wir brauchen, sind andere Metaphern und neue Begriffe, um über unsere neue Realität zu reden. Daten sind eben nicht das neue Öl. Daten sind kein physische Ressource, die abgebaut und verbraucht wird. Daten sind lebendig und verändern sich bei Berührung -mindestens in der Bedeutung-. Das spiegelt sich in unserer Sprache nicht wider.
Wie schwierig bis unmöglich eine solche Veränderung allerdings ist, haben wir jahrelang an der Urheberrechtsdebatte gesehen.