{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053","title":"If...Then Algorithmic Power and Politics","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"2017054909","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053","id":"1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053","uuid":"1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053","title":"If...Then Algorithmic Power and Politics","normalized_title":"ifthenalgorithmicpowerandpolitics","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"2017054909","isbns":["2017054909","9780190493042","9780190493059"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":211,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/If...Then%20Algorithmic%20Power%20and%20Politics","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053/search"},"page":{"printed_page":8,"pdf_page":18,"physical_index":18,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"d87aad519cd9282afcd24692ea5d8c8c00563a98fa9c5f17e990bc1b66fb0799"},"chapter":"IF...THEN","content":"A key argument of this book is that the power and politics of algorithms stems from how algorithmic systems shape people’s encounters and orientations in the world. At the same time, I claim that this shaping power cannot be reduced to code. Specifically, I argue for an understanding of algorithmic power that hinges on the principle of relational materialism, the idea that algorithms “are no mere props for performance but parts and parcel of hybrid assemblages endowed with difused personhood and relational agency” (Vannini,  2015: 5). Thus, it is important to acknowledge that while we start with the question of how software and algorithms shape sociality by looking at materiality in the more conventional sense as “properties of a technology,” the answer cannot be found in these properties alone, but rather the ways in which programmed sociality is realized as a function of code, people, and context.\n\nComputable Friendships\n\nThe concept of friendship provides an apt example for the understanding of programmed sociality and algorithmic life, because it shows the discrepancies between our common-sense notions of friendship and the ways in which friendship becomes embedded in and modeled by the algorithmic infrastructures. Friendships are deeply rooted in the human condition as a fundamental aspect of being together with other people, and which is always already contested based on cultural and historical contexts. Traditionally, friendship has been thought of as an exclusive social relation, a private and intimate relation between two persons (Aristotle,  2002; Derrida,  2005; Hays, 1988). For this reason, true friendship has been regarded as  something that one cannot have with many people at the same time, simply because it requires time to build, nurture, and maintain. Compared to Aristotle’s conception of friendship as something rather precious that one cannot have with many people at once (Aristotle, 2002), Facebook seems to promote the completely opposite idea.\n\nThe way the platform puts friendships at the center of a business model is no coincidence, of course, and is probably one of the core reasons Facebook has evolved into an unprecedented media company during the past decade. In a patent application filed by Facebook concerning the People You May Know (PYMK) feature, no doubt is left as to the value of friendships for Facebook: “Social networking systems value user connections because beter-connected users tend to increase their use of the social networking system, thus increasing user-engagement and corresponding increase in, for example, advertising opportunities” (Schultz et al., 2014). Software intervenes in friendships by suggesting, augmenting, or encouraging certain actions or relational impulses. Furthermore, software is already implicated in the ways in which the platform imagines and performs friendships. Contrary to the notion that “friendship clearly exists as a relation between individuals” (Webb, 2003: 138), friendship on Facebook exists as a relation between multiple actors, between humans and non-humans alike. As Facebook exemplifies in another patent document:\n\n8\n\nI F . . . T H E N","previous_page":7,"next_page":9}