Behavioral modulation attempts backfire because the activity itself re-confirms the data relation’s power.

Evidence

The final turn of the data relations spiral comes when categorizations derived from the processing of your data are applied back onto you, the human subject, from whom the data was derived, whether or not you are identified by name. Data subjects often attempt to modulate their behavior in order to influence the algorithm that they believe is categorizing them. But however well meaning, this ignores the basic point: that just by going on with the activity that brought us into data extraction’s ambit, we confirm data relations’ continued force. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 140

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘categorizations applied back onto the subject’ closed loop parallels the surveillance school’s concept of social sorting and normalizing feedback from prior reading. — connects to: Token environmental gestures breed complacency and can backfire.; Activist self-surveillance strategies can backfire by arming police with the same data. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 188

Broader Connections

• Token environmental gestures breed complacency and can backfire. #expands (0.78)
• Activist self-surveillance strategies can backfire by arming police with the same data. #exemplifies (0.75) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 188