On The Reputation Score You Will Soon Be Assigned

By on March 14, 2013 in News 29

Via the The New Inquiry, Rob Horning on how Facebooking will be mandatory:

There is good reason to be concerned about the various data pools of personal information being gathered by communications and social-media companies. It’s used to shape the material conditions of our lives — what we see, what we’re permitted to do, who will talk to us, what sort of service we’ll receive.

It’s no coincidence that [social media management site] Reputation.com is joining forces with the credit-score agencies, as the Economist reports. It’s an extension of the same racket, to create a reputation score that is as actionable as a credit score.

If the reputation score is applied to you, you will have to pay to try to improve it or “clean it up.” But for others, such a score can be used to guide decisions about whether you are worth knowing, worth having as a roommate, worth friending on Facebook, worth offering a microloan to, worth renting a space on Air BnB to, etc., etc. Just as banks don’t want to lend money to bad credit risks, individuals may conceivable balk at lending time to bad social risks. Why waste your time on outcasts or low-status losers who can’t improve your reputation?

So expect the reputation-management companies (Facebook pre-eminent among them) to be reminding us of the risks of unhedged sociality. It’s not prudent or profitable to be associating with people in the wild, with no tools with which to contextualize them — or tools to exercise your power to contextualize them and their data to make it all work for you and your quantified reputation. Friendship is too valuable a resource to spend on unworthy people.

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  • Airl

    ” But for others, such a score can be used to guide decisions about
    whether you are worth knowing, worth having as a roommate, worth
    friending on Facebook…”

    ..Ya, anyone that wants to judge whether I’m worth knowing based on my online “reputation score” can shove it. Not worth knowing to begin with

  • Airl

    ” But for others, such a score can be used to guide decisions about
    whether you are worth knowing, worth having as a roommate, worth
    friending on Facebook…”

    ..Ya, anyone that wants to judge whether I’m worth knowing based on my online “reputation score” can shove it. Not worth knowing to begin with

    • BrianApocalypse

      I was just thinking… Maybe a world based on this nonsense could result in a subculture that rejects the whole premise, thus auto-identifying anyone with a mind of their own.

      • Calypso_1

        Sounds like a ready made algorithm for drone strikes.

    • BrianApocalypse

      I was just thinking… Maybe a world based on this nonsense could result in a subculture that rejects the whole premise, thus auto-identifying anyone with a mind of their own.

  • Anarchy Pony

    And to think, we used to give people reputation “scores” by actually knowing a person. What a brave new world that hast such people consumers init.

  • http://www.facebook.com/siaabd Sia Abderezai

    This has been more than three years in practice [and many more in the making]. I am glad people are finally catching up. DIY illuminati for everyone. Eat it up… And follow @bippee13

  • http://www.facebook.com/siaabd Sia Abderezai

    This has been more than three years in practice [and many more in the making]. I am glad people are finally catching up. DIY illuminati for everyone. Eat it up… And follow @bippee13

  • http://www.facebook.com/damien.burrello Damien A L Burrello

    are the last two paragraphs there as what the interpretation by the facebook community when their credit scores are next to their names? Eventually the only comments that anyone would take heed to would be those with a golden lettered name like Richard Branson, and so money will become the basic wave in the ocean of social media with the seafloor in the shape of the will of the one percent. Our world is controlled by those who have premeditated every action. Their days are a grind of scheduling and absolute slavery to a single virtue like the ubermensch, but socially participatory and the virtue being Power.

  • http://twitter.com/TedHeistman Ted Heistman

    I can’t tell if the author is being sarcastic or not. I heard this big fighter guy, I can’t remember his name, talking to Joe Rogan about this. He said someday “likes” will be currency. They all seemed pretty positive about it.

    I think there is good and bad to that idea. First of all, not everyone likes twitter and Facebook that much, but some people love it. Some people are on it all day and invest a lot of energy into it. Their life is just enmeshed in it. To do that you have to have a smart phone. Or not have a job, or a job where you can be online all the time. So its sucks you in and costs you money and affects your lifestyle. Its kind of a manipulation thing, by the PTB obviously. As to what ends it has been hard for me to figure out, but its becoming more clear.

    Some people just don’t feel like investing that much time into social media. To feel like you have to would kind of suck. If I was forced to tweet all day I would hate it If I felt like it was my job and I had to build a shit load of followers or else, that would suck. I never really got into facebook. But I spend a lot of time here. I go through stretches of using the internet a lot and then stretches of using it hardly at all.
    As far as likes, I say things people like and I also say things that piss people off. Should people only say things they think people want to hear?

    • kowalityjesus

      Ahh, I take solace in the ongoing existence of poignant acrimonious sarcasm.

      “Who in your measley little world
      are you trying to convince
      that you are made out of gold
      and can’t be sold?”

      Just listened to this as I was typing the comment, going to miss the SHIT out of my roommate when he goes back to Germany on the 27th. How relevant!

  • T Faunos

    So we’ll end up with a new caste system those on the bottom will be untouchables. And what will those people do? Organize against what?

  • zombieslapper

    The future sounds shitty.

    • Anarchy Pony

      You’ve got no idea.

    • Anarchy Pony

      You’ve got no idea.

      • zombieslapper

        I kinda do. Cyborg kids with facial recognition eyes, your entire history available to anyone in a nanosecond, drones patrolling every neighborhood, mutant cops, dying wilderness, poisoned air & water, GM food, zero affordable transportation…

        • Anarchy Pony

          Oh, well I guess you do then…

    • kowalityjesus

      meh, if the rulers want to make people suck, then they will get a society that sucks. Hope springs eternal. Remember, just because they have the data doesn’t mean that anyone will give a shit about it.

  • http://hormeticminds.blogspot.com/ Chaorder Gradient

    –I’m a Level 12 Conspiracy theorist!

    –Sorry man, we need a tank or a healer.

  • http://hormeticminds.blogspot.com/ Chaorder Gradient

    –I’m a Level 12 Conspiracy theorist!

    –Sorry man, we need a tank or a healer.

  • alizardx

    I think Klout.com should be pissed off over being left out of this.

  • Sir Legendhead

    I’m not bothered by this. Facebook has become one of my favorite video games in recent weeks. Pretty sure I can maintain a decent high score.

  • kowalityjesus

    I already forlornly experience this phenomenon quite heavily, where people only jump on your bandwagon when they feel like they can make a social profit, although clemently the people who subscribe heavily to the “reputation” drivel are so fickle that they don’t even know what to do with themselves. Just think, they won’t have to be fickle once a person’s worthiness is determined by a number!!! :D

  • kowalityjesus

    I already forlornly experience this phenomenon quite heavily, where people only jump on your bandwagon when they feel like they can make a social profit, although clemently the people who subscribe heavily to the “reputation” drivel are so fickle that they don’t even know what to do with themselves. Just think, they won’t have to be fickle once a person’s worthiness is determined by a number!!! :D

  • VaudeVillain

    So what you’re saying is that by continuing to avoid social media, openly deriding any such meter of popularity and being actively hostile toward anyone who suggests that I participate in their commoditized socialization… people who buy into that shit will leave me the fuck alone?

    Awesome! Do I need to sign up for anything to make this happen?

  • godozo

    Well, the Technotopians were talking about the global village – now we’re getting it, complete with a caste system that punishes deviance quickly and is lackadaisically slow in helping people upwards. Haven’t people run away from villages and towns for the city for millennia to escape from this stuff, and now it looks like a digital version’s ready to institute itself.

    Revelations 13:18 is on my mind….

  • Guest

    I’m ready to toss my computer and all my other techno gadgets out the window. There is absolutely no such thing as privacy anymore.

  • Guest

    I’m ready to toss my computer and all my other techno gadgets out the window. There is absolutely no such thing as privacy anymore.

  • Guest

    I’m ready to toss my computer and all my other techno gadgets out the window. There is absolutely no such thing as privacy anymore.