I’m enjoying reading this new book which discusses three of my works (Give Me My Data, Camp La Jolla Military Park, and Keyword Intervention): Thinking Through Digital Media:Transnational Environments and Locative Places by Dale Hudson and Patricia R. Zimmermann (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015)
Give Me My Data offers users a tool to see, if not claim, their data under Facebook’s (frequently amended) privacy rights, which often make seeing one’s data impossible. In 2010, the new Facebook interface threatened to “erase” user data, so the app offered a way to save one’s data and “refill” one’s Facebook profile, which is also useful in cases of identity theft. Users select the data they would like to see and then choose a format in which to see it. Data can be imported into a document or spreadsheet or visualized as a graph or cloud. Users can speculate on how corporations automate their data: sorting it through different filters, running it through different programs, interpreting it for different reasons. The app allows users an opportunity to investigate the types and meanings of information about themselves available outside their control. They are prompted to reflect critically about data they freely and willingly give away to corporations and governments.
—Dale Hudson and Patricia R. Zimmermann
