Network-by-Desire

Network-by-Desire 欲望网络

Nidhi Singh Rathore

If you look up “buy Weibo followers” or “Facebook likes” in your browser, you’ll discover a string of advertisements and links to social media management organizations; sitting in Los Angeles you can buy a thousand followers for just $9.99. These followers are mistaken for bots in many scenarios, whereas they can very well be profiles made by a rigorous process, where an individual earning $1 a day makes approximately 100 to 150 fake accounts in 8 hours. To highlight this key moment of my research, I created a tangible frame of reference for viewers to understand the nuances of this hidden social media economy.

The fictional device, Network-by-Desire (NxD), is a physical manifesto of the power of digital labor of developing nations. NxD streamlines the process of fake social media content generation, and situates the viewer in a click farmers’ position. The device showcases the process of fake profile creation on NxD, and the consumer end of it on a counterpart device. The aim to show both the process is to inform individuals about how social media platforms are being used, and the power digital labor holds in this process of intertwined digital economies. Between the black and white — terms and conditions — ends of cyberspace, there lies an expanse of information and economies that netizens are unaware of. Less than 60% traffic on the internet is human, and the journey from fake profiles to bots happen, primarily, in the developing countries of the world. By designing for the digital labors of developing countries, this project focuses on the fact that click farms are footsteps towards counter-colonization in the age of neo-colonization; where the developing world has logistical resources, mass, and an understanding of the grey fabric of the world to establish their technological power.

如果你在浏览器中搜索“购买微博粉丝”或“Facebook点赞”，会发现一系列广告和社交媒体管理组织的链接。在洛杉矶，你只需9.99美元即可购买一千名粉丝。这些粉丝在许多情况下被误认为是机器人，但其实他们的个人资料很可能是通过严格流程制作的。8小时内可制作大约100-150个假帐户，每个账户有1美元的收入。为了突出本研究项目的关键，我创造了一个有形的参考框架，供观众了解这种隐藏在社交媒体经济中的细微差别。

“欲望网络（NxD）”是一种虚拟设备，是发展中国家数字劳动力的物理宣言。它简化了伪社交媒体内容生成的过程，并将观众置于“（点）赞农”的位置。该设备展示了在“欲望网络”及其对应的消费者终端上伪造个人资料的过程，目的是告知人们社交媒体平台的使用方式，以及数字化劳动力在这个利益交织的数字经济时代的作用。在网络空间的黑端与白端——条款和条件之间，存在着大量不为网民所知的信息和经济形态。互联网上只有不到60％的流量由真人产生，从虚假配置文件到机器人的过程主要发生在发展中国家。该项目通过对发展中国家的数字化劳工的设计，侧重于数字农场在新殖民化时代走向反殖民化的事实。发展中国家拥有后勤资源、物质和理解世界灰色肌理的能力，可以建构他们的技术实力。
 
Credits:

Nidhi Singh Rathore