Computers, Privacy & the Constitution

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JustinFlaumenhaftFirstPaper 10 - 11 May 2022 - Main.EbenMoglen
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A substantial improvement. The last two paragraphs are where the best chances for further improvement lie. "And yet" doesn't seem sufficient. Does "convenience" here mean commodiization? If so, is "desperation" the better word?

Of course, the absence of a conclusion is still striking. If the matter is as troubling as you say, why is there no discussion of what to do about it?

 

JustinFlaumenhaftFirstPaper 9 - 07 May 2022 - Main.JustinFlaumenhaft
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The Love Monopolists

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Dating refers to the practice of taking a romantic interest out for food, drinks, or entrainment. In Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating, Moira Weigel argues that modern dating emerged in the 19th century. According to Weigel, before the modern dating paradigm began, courtship was supervised in homes, synagogues, and other non-commercial spaces.This provided little privacy from the prying eyes of family and community members. As one observer of pre-1900s courtship rituals reflected, “privacy could be had only in public.” Modern dating, Weigel contends, “takes [the dating] process out of the home, out of supervised and mostly noncommercial spaces, to movie theaters and dance halls.” Increasingly, however, that process is supervised—supervised by online dating applications.
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Dating (accompanying a romantic interest for food, drinks, or entrainment) is a well-established ritual of modern life. In Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating, Moira Weigel argues that modern dating emerged in the 19th century. According to Weigel, before the modern dating paradigm began, courtship was supervised in homes, synagogues, and other non-commercial spaces. This provided little privacy from the prying eyes of relatives: as one observer of pre-1900s courtship rituals reflected, “privacy could be had only in public.” Modern dating, Weigel writes, took “[the dating] process out of the home, out of supervised and mostly noncommercial spaces, to movie theaters and dance halls.”

Increasingly, however, dating is supervised—supervised by online dating applications.

 The worldwide online dating pool includes hundreds of millions of users. In the United States, approximately 30% of adults and 49% of individuals aged 18-29 have used dating sites or applications. And a recent study of heterosexual American couples found that 39% met online, making it the most common way of meeting among the respondents. Dating now not only takes places in commercial settings, but is intermediated by commercial forces. Online datings applications have become the primary matchmakers of modern society.
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 But an additional factor to consider is the deeply imbedded drive for connection shared by most human beings.The desire for emotional and sexual companionship has propelled the propagation of our species and tied us together. It is these primal and powerful drives that the dating apps prey upon. As more and more people join dating apps, and fewer meet outside these walled gardens, the potential for connection on these apps increases, and their magnetic pull grows stronger.

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JustinFlaumenhaftFirstPaper 8 - 07 May 2022 - Main.JustinFlaumenhaft
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The Love Monopolists

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In Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating, Moira Weigel argues that modern dating emerged in the 19th century. According to Weigel, before the modern dating paradigm began, courtship was supervised in homes, synagogues, and other non-commercial spaces. Modern dating, she contends, “takes that process out of the home, out of supervised and mostly noncommercial spaces, to movie theaters and dance halls.” Increasingly, however, that process is supervised—supervised by online dating applications.
>
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Dating refers to the practice of taking a romantic interest out for food, drinks, or entrainment. In Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating, Moira Weigel argues that modern dating emerged in the 19th century. According to Weigel, before the modern dating paradigm began, courtship was supervised in homes, synagogues, and other non-commercial spaces.This provided little privacy from the prying eyes of family and community members. As one observer of pre-1900s courtship rituals reflected, “privacy could be had only in public.” Modern dating, Weigel contends, “takes [the dating] process out of the home, out of supervised and mostly noncommercial spaces, to movie theaters and dance halls.” Increasingly, however, that process is supervised—supervised by online dating applications.
 The worldwide online dating pool includes hundreds of millions of users. In the United States, approximately 30% of adults and 49% of individuals aged 18-29 have used dating sites or applications. And a recent study of heterosexual American couples found that 39% met online, making it the most common way of meeting among the respondents. Dating now not only takes places in commercial settings, but is intermediated by commercial forces. Online datings applications have become the primary matchmakers of modern society.
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 Students of this course will not be surprised to learn that there are deep connections between large social media companies and popular dating apps. The relationship between these entities is symbiotic. For example, in 2015, leaked Facebook documents revealed that the company granted Tinder, Hinge, and other popular dating apps special access to Facebook user data, even amid policy changes that excluded third party apps from this kind of access. Meanwhile, these same dating apps often ask users to build their profiles around their existing social media accounts. Social media accounts have become part of the price of admission to the online dating scene.
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The consequences of this shady symbiosis is reflected in a Guardian article in which the author recounts her experience requesting access to the personal data Tinder had collected on her. Tinder responded to her request with an 800-page-long document, which included extensive information about her Facebook activity and other social media use. This disturbing dossier underscores the fact that online dating apps are not distinct from social media companies, but continuous with them. They are merely another appendage of the PwMOG? , charged with overseeing, recording, and manipulating the most intimate aspects of users’ personal lives.
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The consequences of this shady symbiosis are apparent in the 800-page-long document a Guardian reporter received upon requesting her personal data from Tinder. The document included, among other things, extensive information about her Facebook activity and other social media use. This disturbing dossier underscores the fact that online dating apps are not distinct from social media companies, but continuous with them. They are another appendage of the PwMOG? , charged with overseeing, recording, and manipulating the most intimate aspects of users’ personal lives.
 

The Privacy Nightmare of Online Dating Apps

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The Indignity of Online Dating Apps

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The way that dating apps engage users is particularly dehumanizing. The typical app has users swipe through a catalogue of thousands of other humans. Every profile is an advertisement of sorts. Users are not only the products, but also are tasked with selling themselves. Moreover, the user interface is often deliberately made to feel like a game and keep users swiping. The purpose of all this is not to help users find love, but to keep them playing the game as long as it is profitable for the company. This set up encourages users to treat others without dignity: to view dating as online shopping and fellow daters as replaceable commodities.
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The way that dating apps engage users is particularly dehumanizing. The typical app has users swipe through a catalogue of thousands of other humans. Every profile is an advertisement of sorts. Users are the product—and they are also the marketers of the product. Moreover, user interfaces are designed to make the app feel like a game to keep users swiping. This set up encourages users to treat others without dignity: to view dating as online shopping and fellow daters as replaceable commodities.
 
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And yet, millions of people (including nearly 50% of young adults in the US!) opt into this dystopian marketplace. They share their most intimate secrets while the dating apps take notes behind the one-way mirrors of smartphones. Why does anyone stand for this, let alone voluntarily participate in it? Part of the answer, probably, involves “convenience.” Dating apps make meeting people as easy as food delivery apps make dining: users are provided with a streamlined catalogue of options made more or less instantly available.
>
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And yet, millions of people (including nearly 50% of young adults in the US!) opt into this dystopian marketplace. They share their most intimate secrets while the dating apps take notes behind the one-way mirrors of smartphones. Why does anyone stand for this, let alone voluntarily participate in it? Part of the answer, probably, involves “convenience.” Dating apps provide users with a streamlined catalogue of options made more or less instantly available.
 But an additional factor to consider is the deeply imbedded drive for connection shared by most human beings.The desire for emotional and sexual companionship has propelled the propagation of our species and tied us together. It is these primal and powerful drives that the dating apps prey upon. As more and more people join dating apps,and fewer meet outside these walled gardens, the potential for connection on these apps increases, and their magnetic pull grows stronger.

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[Word count: 991]
 

JustinFlaumenhaftFirstPaper 7 - 07 May 2022 - Main.JustinFlaumenhaft
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The Indignity of Online Dating Apps

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The way that dating apps engage users is particularly dehumanizing. The typical app has users swipe through a catalogue of thousands of other humans. Every profile is an advertisement of sorts. Users are not only the products, but are also in charge of selling themselves. Moreover, the user interface is often deliberately made to feel like a game and keep you swiping. The purpose of all this is not to help users find love, but to keep them playing the game as long as it is profitable for the company. This set up encourages users to treat others without dignity: to view dating as online shopping and fellow daters as replaceable commodities.
>
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The way that dating apps engage users is particularly dehumanizing. The typical app has users swipe through a catalogue of thousands of other humans. Every profile is an advertisement of sorts. Users are not only the products, but also are tasked with selling themselves. Moreover, the user interface is often deliberately made to feel like a game and keep users swiping. The purpose of all this is not to help users find love, but to keep them playing the game as long as it is profitable for the company. This set up encourages users to treat others without dignity: to view dating as online shopping and fellow daters as replaceable commodities.
 And yet, millions of people (including nearly 50% of young adults in the US!) opt into this dystopian marketplace. They share their most intimate secrets while the dating apps take notes behind the one-way mirrors of smartphones. Why does anyone stand for this, let alone voluntarily participate in it? Part of the answer, probably, involves “convenience.” Dating apps make meeting people as easy as food delivery apps make dining: users are provided with a streamlined catalogue of options made more or less instantly available.

JustinFlaumenhaftFirstPaper 6 - 06 May 2022 - Main.JustinFlaumenhaft
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The Indignity of Online Dating Apps

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Like Facebook or Google, the business models of dating apps are based on, as Shoshana Zuboff puts it, trading in “human futures.” But the way these apps engage users, and cause them to engage with each other, is particularly dehumanizing. Users are not only the products, but the ones selling theirselves. They craft profiles to catch the attention of another person swiping through a catalogue of thousands of other humans. Moreover, the user interface is often deliberately made to feel like a game and keep you swiping. The purpose of all this is not to help you find love, but to keep you playing the game as long as it is profitable for the company. This set up encourages users to treat others without dignity: to view dating as online shopping and fellow daters as replaceable commodities.
>
>
The way that dating apps engage users is particularly dehumanizing. The typical app has users swipe through a catalogue of thousands of other humans. Every profile is an advertisement of sorts. Users are not only the products, but are also in charge of selling themselves. Moreover, the user interface is often deliberately made to feel like a game and keep you swiping. The purpose of all this is not to help users find love, but to keep them playing the game as long as it is profitable for the company. This set up encourages users to treat others without dignity: to view dating as online shopping and fellow daters as replaceable commodities.
 
Changed:
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And yet, millions of people (including nearly 50% of young adults in the US!) opt into this dystopian marketplace. They share their most intimate secrets while the dating apps take notes behind the one-way mirrors of smartphones. Why does anyone stand for this, let alone voluntarily participate in it? Part of the answer, of course, involves “convenience.” Dating apps make meeting people as easy as food delivery apps make dining: users are provided with a streamlined catalogue of options made more or less instantly available. But an additional factor which should not be underestimated is the powerful human desire for connection. As more and more people join dating apps, and fewer meet outside these walled gardens, their magnetic pull becomes stronger. The apps prey upon primal desires for love and sex, and the widely felt fear of being alone.
>
>
And yet, millions of people (including nearly 50% of young adults in the US!) opt into this dystopian marketplace. They share their most intimate secrets while the dating apps take notes behind the one-way mirrors of smartphones. Why does anyone stand for this, let alone voluntarily participate in it? Part of the answer, probably, involves “convenience.” Dating apps make meeting people as easy as food delivery apps make dining: users are provided with a streamlined catalogue of options made more or less instantly available.

But an additional factor to consider is the deeply imbedded drive for connection shared by most human beings.The desire for emotional and sexual companionship has propelled the propagation of our species and tied us together. It is these primal and powerful drives that the dating apps prey upon. As more and more people join dating apps,and fewer meet outside these walled gardens, the potential for connection on these apps increases, and their magnetic pull grows stronger.

 

[Word count: 999]


JustinFlaumenhaftFirstPaper 5 - 06 May 2022 - Main.JustinFlaumenhaft
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The Indignity of Online Dating Apps

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In her opinion piece, “You Are Now Remotely Controlled,” Shoshana Zuboff begins with an anecdote from a 1997 FTC hearing on technology, privacy, and liberty. One participant stated, “We have to decide what human beings are in the electronic age. Are we just going to be chattel for commerce?” Decades later, the online dating industry has gone to great lengths to make the fear expressed in this statement a reality.
>
>
Like Facebook or Google, the business models of dating apps are based on, as Shoshana Zuboff puts it, trading in “human futures.” But the way these apps engage users, and cause them to engage with each other, is particularly dehumanizing. Users are not only the products, but the ones selling theirselves. They craft profiles to catch the attention of another person swiping through a catalogue of thousands of other humans. Moreover, the user interface is often deliberately made to feel like a game and keep you swiping. The purpose of all this is not to help you find love, but to keep you playing the game as long as it is profitable for the company. This set up encourages users to treat others without dignity: to view dating as online shopping and fellow daters as replaceable commodities.
 
Changed:
<
<
Like Facebook or Google, the business models of dating apps are based on, as Zuboff puts it, trading in “human futures.” But the way these apps engage users and cause them to engage with others is particularly dehumanizing. Users are not only the products, but the ones selling theirselves. They are prompted to craft profiles to catch the attention of another person swiping through a catalogue of thousands of other humans. Moreover, the user interface is often deliberately made to feel like a game and keep you swiping. The purpose of all this is not to help you find love, but to keep you playing the game and boost the company’s earnings.
>
>
And yet, millions of people (including nearly 50% of young adults in the US!) opt into this dystopian marketplace. They share their most intimate secrets while the dating apps take notes behind the one-way mirrors of smartphones. Why does anyone stand for this, let alone voluntarily participate in it? Part of the answer, of course, involves “convenience.” Dating apps make meeting people as easy as food delivery apps make dining: users are provided with a streamlined catalogue of options made more or less instantly available. But an additional factor which should not be underestimated is the powerful human desire for connection. As more and more people join dating apps, and fewer meet outside these walled gardens, their magnetic pull becomes stronger. The apps prey upon primal desires for love and sex, and the widely felt fear of being alone.
 
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This set up encourages users to treat others without dignity: to view dating as online shopping and fellow daters as replaceable commodities. Nobody enjoys this, but as dating applications monopolize dating and bring more and more users into the fold, many feel that there is no alternative. Of course, people still find enjoyment and fulfillment through dating apps. But dating apps make the process a dehumanizing one in which users are spied upon, have their secrets sold, and are treated like objects.
 [Word count: 999]
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Why aren't these standard links in the text? That would make it much easier for readers, wouldn't it?

Who feels there is no alternative? Leaving aside the forced isolation of the epidemic, meeting people has never stopped being possible. Those of us who have been doing it all our lives are still doing it. Human pair-bonding has in no sense come to depend on the Parasite with the Mind of God. The forms of relationship based on commoditization haven't become dependent on the machine either.

So the analysis would benefit from a clearer definition of dating, a clearer sense of who "we" are, and perhaps even a little more sense of surprise that people are surprised to discover that entrusting their sexual and emotional lives to the surveillance system doesn't work out well for them individually or collectively. If we understand more clearly who is trying to get what, and why they turn to the machine to do it (that is, what does convenience mean in this regard) we will surely get more insight.


You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable. To restrict access to your paper simply delete the "#" character on the next two lines:
 

JustinFlaumenhaftFirstPaper 4 - 06 May 2022 - Main.JustinFlaumenhaft
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 In Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating, Moira Weigel argues that modern dating emerged in the 19th century. According to Weigel, before the modern dating paradigm began, courtship was supervised in homes, synagogues, and other non-commercial spaces. Modern dating, she contends, “takes that process out of the home, out of supervised and mostly noncommercial spaces, to movie theaters and dance halls.” Increasingly, however, that process is supervised—supervised by online dating applications.
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The worldwide online dating pool includes hundreds of millions of users. In the United States, approximately 30% of adults and 49% of individuals aged 18-29 have used dating sites or applications. And a recent study of heterosexual American couples found that 39% met online, making it the most common way of meeting among the respondents. Dating now not only takes places in commercial settings, but is intermediated by commercial forces. Online datings applications have become the primary matchmakers of modern society.
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The worldwide online dating pool includes hundreds of millions of users. In the United States, approximately 30% of adults and 49% of individuals aged 18-29 have used dating sites or applications. And a recent study of heterosexual American couples found that 39% met online, making it the most common way of meeting among the respondents. Dating now not only takes places in commercial settings, but is intermediated by commercial forces. Online datings applications have become the primary matchmakers of modern society.
 Match Group, Inc. has taken over much of the responsibility for pairing couples. The conglomerate owns over 40 distinct online dating apps—including Hinge, OKCupid, and Tinder—and upwards of 60% of the online dating market share. Some commentators argue that this level of consolidation amounts to monopolization of the dating app industry. But such arguments elide a more serious issue: who are we letting pull the strings of people’s romantic lives? And what are they doing with this power? Match Group may have monopolized the dating industry, but the dating industry is on a quest to monopolize our collective search for love.

Social Media Symbiosis

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Students of this course will not be surprised to learn that there are deep connections between large social media companies and popular dating apps. The relationship between these entities is symbiotic. For example, in 2015, leaked Facebook documents revealed that the company granted Tinder, Hinge, and other popular dating apps special access to Facebook user data, even amid policy changes that excluded third party apps from this kind of access. Meanwhile, these same dating apps often ask users to build their profiles around their existing social media accounts. Social media accounts have become part of the price of admission to the online dating scene.
>
>
Students of this course will not be surprised to learn that there are deep connections between large social media companies and popular dating apps. The relationship between these entities is symbiotic. For example, in 2015, leaked Facebook documents revealed that the company granted Tinder, Hinge, and other popular dating apps special access to Facebook user data, even amid policy changes that excluded third party apps from this kind of access. Meanwhile, these same dating apps often ask users to build their profiles around their existing social media accounts. Social media accounts have become part of the price of admission to the online dating scene.
 The consequences of this shady symbiosis is reflected in a Guardian article in which the author recounts her experience requesting access to the personal data Tinder had collected on her. Tinder responded to her request with an 800-page-long document, which included extensive information about her Facebook activity and other social media use. This disturbing dossier underscores the fact that online dating apps are not distinct from social media companies, but continuous with them. They are merely another appendage of the PwMOG? , charged with overseeing, recording, and manipulating the most intimate aspects of users’ personal lives.
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 Dating apps have proven to be profoundly untrustworthy stewards of their users’ personal information and romantic lives. Grindr, a dating app geared toward the LGBTQ community, is among the worst. This is especially troubling given the discrimination and hostility that the LGBTQ community faces around the world—merely being outed as a user of the app could be dangerous. Nonetheless, in 2018, Grindr faced criticism for sharing the HIV status of its users with third party companies, which the company fully admitted to doing. It shared that data along with information about users’ phone, email, and GPS location.
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Additionally, shortly after the HIV status controversy, Grindr was sold to a Chinese gaming company. The US intervened and forced the gaming company to sell Grindr, for fear the acquisition would provide China with fodder for blackmailing US citizens. However, in the short time before this intervention, the company had already provided its engineers with access to user databases for several months.
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Additionally, shortly after the HIV status controversy, Grindr was sold to a Chinese gaming company. The US intervened and forced the gaming company to sell Grindr, for fear the acquisition would provide China with fodder for blackmailing US citizens. However, in the short time before this intervention, the company had already provided its engineers with access to user databases for several months.
 
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Thus, Grindr not only collected users’ HIV statuses—a fact which alone is alarming— but also kept track of users’ locations and contact information, shared all of this information with third parties, and, by selling itself to a Chinese company, placed its user data firmly within reach of the Chinese government. This is just one of multiple privacy abuses perpetrated by Grindr, which has received multiple fines for mishandling user data. And Grindr is just a small node in the vast network of online dating.
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Thus, Grindr not only collected users’ HIV statuses—a fact which alone is alarming— but also kept track of users’ locations and contact information, shared all of this information with third parties, and, by selling itself to a Chinese company, placed its user data firmly within reach of the Chinese government. This is just one of several privacy abuses perpetrated by Grindr, which has received multiple fines for mishandling user data. And Grindr is just a small node in the vast network of online dating.
 

The Indignity of Online Dating Apps

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In her opinion piece, “You Are Now Remotely Controlled,” Shoshana Zuboff begins with an anecdote from a 1997 FTC hearing on technology, privacy, and liberty. One participant stated, “We have to decide what human beings are in the electronic age. Are we just going to be chattel for commerce?” Decades later, the online dating industry has gone to great lengths to make the fear expressed in this statement a reality.
>
>
In her opinion piece, “You Are Now Remotely Controlled,” Shoshana Zuboff begins with an anecdote from a 1997 FTC hearing on technology, privacy, and liberty. One participant stated, “We have to decide what human beings are in the electronic age. Are we just going to be chattel for commerce?” Decades later, the online dating industry has gone to great lengths to make the fear expressed in this statement a reality.
 
Changed:
<
<
Like Facebook or Google, the business model of dating apps are based on, as Zuboff puts it, trading in “human futures.” But the way these apps engage users and cause them to engage with others is particularly dehumanizing. Users are not only the products, but the ones selling theirselves. They are prompted to craft profiles to catch the attention of another person swiping through a catalogue of thousands of other humans. Moreover, the user interface is often deliberately made to feel like a game and keep you swiping. The purpose of all this is not to help you find love, but to keep you playing the game and boost the company’s earnings.
>
>
Like Facebook or Google, the business models of dating apps are based on, as Zuboff puts it, trading in “human futures.” But the way these apps engage users and cause them to engage with others is particularly dehumanizing. Users are not only the products, but the ones selling theirselves. They are prompted to craft profiles to catch the attention of another person swiping through a catalogue of thousands of other humans. Moreover, the user interface is often deliberately made to feel like a game and keep you swiping. The purpose of all this is not to help you find love, but to keep you playing the game and boost the company’s earnings.
 This set up encourages users to treat others without dignity: to view dating as online shopping and fellow daters as replaceable commodities. Nobody enjoys this, but as dating applications monopolize dating and bring more and more users into the fold, many feel that there is no alternative. Of course, people still find enjoyment and fulfillment through dating apps. But dating apps make the process a dehumanizing one in which users are spied upon, have their secrets sold, and are treated like objects.

[Word count: 999]

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References

 
Why aren't these standard links in the text? That would make it much easier for readers, wouldn't it?

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https://www.statista.com/topics/7443/online-dating/#topicHeader__wrapper https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2020/11/20/this-cuffing-season-its-time-to-consider-the-privacy-of-dating-apps/ https://news.stanford.edu/2019/08/21/online-dating-popular-way-u-s-couples-meet https://www.nyulawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/NYULAWREVIEW-94-4-Gilbert.pdf https://mashable.com/article/facebook-tinder-user-data-access https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/26/tinder-personal-data-dating-app-messages-hacked-sold https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/04/03/599069424/grindr-admits-it-shared-hiv-status-of-users https://www.techrepublic.com/article/mozilla-privacy-report-on-dating-apps-singles-out-grindr-for-serious-security-lapses/ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-grindr-exclusive-idUSKCN1SS10H https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/02/grindr-sends-hiv-status-to-third-parties-and-some-personal-data-unencrypted/ https://www.datatilsynet.no/en/regulations-and-tools/regulations/avgjorelser-fra-datatilsynet/2021/gebyr-til-grindr/ https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/15/grindr-final-gdpr-fine/ https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/opinion/sunday/surveillance-capitalism.html
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Who feels there is no alternative? Leaving aside the forced isolation of the epidemic, meeting people has never stopped being possible. Those of us who have been doing it all our lives are still doing it. Human pair-bonding has in no sense come to depend on the Parasite with the Mind of God. The forms of relationship based on commoditization haven't become dependent on the machine either.

JustinFlaumenhaftFirstPaper 3 - 17 Apr 2022 - Main.EbenMoglen
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It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted.
 

The Dat(a min)ing Game

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The Love Monopolists

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In Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating, Moira Weigel argues that modern dating emerged in the 19th century. According to Weigel, before the modern dating paradigm began, courtship was supervised in homes, synagogues, and other non-commercial spaces. Modern dating, she contends, “takes that process out of the home, out of supervised and mostly noncommercial spaces, to movie theaters and dance halls.” Increasingly, however, that process is supervised—supervised by online dating applications.
>
>
In Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating, Moira Weigel argues that modern dating emerged in the 19th century. According to Weigel, before the modern dating paradigm began, courtship was supervised in homes, synagogues, and other non-commercial spaces. Modern dating, she contends, “takes that process out of the home, out of supervised and mostly noncommercial spaces, to movie theaters and dance halls.” Increasingly, however, that process is supervised—supervised by online dating applications.
 The worldwide online dating pool includes hundreds of millions of users. In the United States, approximately 30% of adults and 49% of individuals aged 18-29 have used dating sites or applications. And a recent study of heterosexual American couples found that 39% met online, making it the most common way of meeting among the respondents. Dating now not only takes places in commercial settings, but is intermediated by commercial forces. Online datings applications have become the primary matchmakers of modern society.
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References

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Why aren't these standard links in the text? That would make it much easier for readers, wouldn't it?

 https://www.statista.com/topics/7443/online-dating/#topicHeader__wrapper https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2020/11/20/this-cuffing-season-its-time-to-consider-the-privacy-of-dating-apps/ https://news.stanford.edu/2019/08/21/online-dating-popular-way-u-s-couples-meet
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 https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/15/grindr-final-gdpr-fine/ https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/opinion/sunday/surveillance-capitalism.html
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>
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Who feels there is no alternative? Leaving aside the forced isolation of the epidemic, meeting people has never stopped being possible. Those of us who have been doing it all our lives are still doing it. Human pair-bonding has in no sense come to depend on the Parasite with the Mind of God. The forms of relationship based on commoditization haven't become dependent on the machine either.

So the analysis would benefit from a clearer definition of dating, a clearer sense of who "we" are, and perhaps even a little more sense of surprise that people are surprised to discover that entrusting their sexual and emotional lives to the surveillance system doesn't work out well for them individually or collectively. If we understand more clearly who is trying to get what, and why they turn to the machine to do it (that is, what does convenience mean in this regard) we will surely get more insight.

 
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The Love Monopolists

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In Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating, Moira Weigel argues that modern dating emerged in the 19th century. According to Weigel, before the modern dating paradigm began, courtship was supervised in homes, synagogues, and other non-commercial spaces. Modern dating, she contends, “takes that process out of the home, out of supervised and mostly noncommercial spaces, to movie theaters and dance halls.” Increasingly, however, that process is supervised—supervised by online dating applications.
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In Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating, Moira Weigel argues that modern dating emerged in the 19th century. According to Weigel, before the modern dating paradigm began, courtship was supervised in homes, synagogues, and other non-commercial spaces. Modern dating, she contends, “takes that process out of the home, out of supervised and mostly noncommercial spaces, to movie theaters and dance halls.” Increasingly, however, that process is supervised—supervised by online dating applications.
 The worldwide online dating pool includes hundreds of millions of users. In the United States, approximately 30% of adults and 49% of individuals aged 18-29 have used dating sites or applications. And a recent study of heterosexual American couples found that 39% met online, making it the most common way of meeting among the respondents. Dating now not only takes places in commercial settings, but is intermediated by commercial forces. Online datings applications have become the primary matchmakers of modern society.

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It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted.

The Dat(a min)ing Game

-- By JustinFlaumenhaft - 16 Apr 2022

The Love Monopolists

In Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating, Moira Weigel argues that modern dating emerged in the 19th century. According to Weigel, before the modern dating paradigm began, courtship was supervised in homes, synagogues, and other non-commercial spaces. Modern dating, she contends, “takes that process out of the home, out of supervised and mostly noncommercial spaces, to movie theaters and dance halls.” Increasingly, however, that process is supervised—supervised by online dating applications.

The worldwide online dating pool includes hundreds of millions of users. In the United States, approximately 30% of adults and 49% of individuals aged 18-29 have used dating sites or applications. And a recent study of heterosexual American couples found that 39% met online, making it the most common way of meeting among the respondents. Dating now not only takes places in commercial settings, but is intermediated by commercial forces. Online datings applications have become the primary matchmakers of modern society.

Match Group, Inc. has taken over much of the responsibility for pairing couples. The conglomerate owns over 40 distinct online dating apps—including Hinge, OKCupid, and Tinder—and upwards of 60% of the online dating market share. Some commentators argue that this level of consolidation amounts to monopolization of the dating app industry. But such arguments elide a more serious issue: who are we letting pull the strings of people’s romantic lives? And what are they doing with this power? Match Group may have monopolized the dating industry, but the dating industry is on a quest to monopolize our collective search for love.

Social Media Symbiosis

Students of this course will not be surprised to learn that there are deep connections between large social media companies and popular dating apps. The relationship between these entities is symbiotic. For example, in 2015, leaked Facebook documents revealed that the company granted Tinder, Hinge, and other popular dating apps special access to Facebook user data, even amid policy changes that excluded third party apps from this kind of access. Meanwhile, these same dating apps often ask users to build their profiles around their existing social media accounts. Social media accounts have become part of the price of admission to the online dating scene.

The consequences of this shady symbiosis is reflected in a Guardian article in which the author recounts her experience requesting access to the personal data Tinder had collected on her. Tinder responded to her request with an 800-page-long document, which included extensive information about her Facebook activity and other social media use. This disturbing dossier underscores the fact that online dating apps are not distinct from social media companies, but continuous with them. They are merely another appendage of the PwMOG? , charged with overseeing, recording, and manipulating the most intimate aspects of users’ personal lives.

The Privacy Nightmare of Online Dating Apps

Dating apps have proven to be profoundly untrustworthy stewards of their users’ personal information and romantic lives. Grindr, a dating app geared toward the LGBTQ community, is among the worst. This is especially troubling given the discrimination and hostility that the LGBTQ community faces around the world—merely being outed as a user of the app could be dangerous. Nonetheless, in 2018, Grindr faced criticism for sharing the HIV status of its users with third party companies, which the company fully admitted to doing. It shared that data along with information about users’ phone, email, and GPS location.

Additionally, shortly after the HIV status controversy, Grindr was sold to a Chinese gaming company. The US intervened and forced the gaming company to sell Grindr, for fear the acquisition would provide China with fodder for blackmailing US citizens. However, in the short time before this intervention, the company had already provided its engineers with access to user databases for several months.

Thus, Grindr not only collected users’ HIV statuses—a fact which alone is alarming— but also kept track of users’ locations and contact information, shared all of this information with third parties, and, by selling itself to a Chinese company, placed its user data firmly within reach of the Chinese government. This is just one of multiple privacy abuses perpetrated by Grindr, which has received multiple fines for mishandling user data. And Grindr is just a small node in the vast network of online dating.

The Indignity of Online Dating Apps

In her opinion piece, “You Are Now Remotely Controlled,” Shoshana Zuboff begins with an anecdote from a 1997 FTC hearing on technology, privacy, and liberty. One participant stated, “We have to decide what human beings are in the electronic age. Are we just going to be chattel for commerce?” Decades later, the online dating industry has gone to great lengths to make the fear expressed in this statement a reality.

Like Facebook or Google, the business model of dating apps are based on, as Zuboff puts it, trading in “human futures.” But the way these apps engage users and cause them to engage with others is particularly dehumanizing. Users are not only the products, but the ones selling theirselves. They are prompted to craft profiles to catch the attention of another person swiping through a catalogue of thousands of other humans. Moreover, the user interface is often deliberately made to feel like a game and keep you swiping. The purpose of all this is not to help you find love, but to keep you playing the game and boost the company’s earnings.

This set up encourages users to treat others without dignity: to view dating as online shopping and fellow daters as replaceable commodities. Nobody enjoys this, but as dating applications monopolize dating and bring more and more users into the fold, many feel that there is no alternative. Of course, people still find enjoyment and fulfillment through dating apps. But dating apps make the process a dehumanizing one in which users are spied upon, have their secrets sold, and are treated like objects.

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References

https://www.statista.com/topics/7443/online-dating/#topicHeader__wrapper https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2020/11/20/this-cuffing-season-its-time-to-consider-the-privacy-of-dating-apps/ https://news.stanford.edu/2019/08/21/online-dating-popular-way-u-s-couples-meet https://www.nyulawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/NYULAWREVIEW-94-4-Gilbert.pdf https://mashable.com/article/facebook-tinder-user-data-access https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/26/tinder-personal-data-dating-app-messages-hacked-sold https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/04/03/599069424/grindr-admits-it-shared-hiv-status-of-users https://www.techrepublic.com/article/mozilla-privacy-report-on-dating-apps-singles-out-grindr-for-serious-security-lapses/ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-grindr-exclusive-idUSKCN1SS10H https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/02/grindr-sends-hiv-status-to-third-parties-and-some-personal-data-unencrypted/ https://www.datatilsynet.no/en/regulations-and-tools/regulations/avgjorelser-fra-datatilsynet/2021/gebyr-til-grindr/ https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/15/grindr-final-gdpr-fine/ https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/opinion/sunday/surveillance-capitalism.html


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