Óticas do invisível : datificação, poder e segredo em tempos de dados

Abstract

The work addresses the complex web of relationships between datification, power, and secrecy in contemporary society. Datification is understood as the contemporary political process that seeks to record phenomena of reality through digital data, collected on a global scale, monitored in real-time, and used to make decisions that affect both individuals and society. This study investigates how datification processes are used to exert power and control, and how different actors compete for control over the production and revelation of data and information, with a focus on the disputes over information disclosure by major digital media platforms. My objective is to understand how datification contributes to informational asymmetry and the concentration of power, as well as to explore tactics and counter-tactics for mobilizing transparency, revelation, and concealment as mechanisms of disputes. The understanding of agonistic democracy and the inherent dissidence and conflict in political life is central to reflecting on the disputes over disclosure and attempts to control the outcomes of algorithmic systems (MOUFFE, 2015). The methodology encompasses a varied interdisciplinary approach, using scientific methods such as literature review, empirical case analysis, documentary analysis of leaked documents, official letters, and administrative acts, operationalized to understand the dynamics of power, interactions between actors, regulatory challenges, and the unequal geolocated distribution of risks. The results indicate that platform transparency practices can be subverted in favor of their own interests, reinforcing informational asymmetry, creating an "environment of obfuscation" that favors the concentration of power in large corporations. Strategies of conflict that permeate disputes between different social actors in political decision-making about the projection of algorithmic systems become opaque due to the lack of informational elements, which is amplified by obfuscation tactics of platforms that mobilize the very notion of transparency to maintain secrecy. By understanding the ambivalence between secrecy and revelation, the work critically considers institutional governance mechanisms of digital platforms, ensuring sufficient safeguards are considered in the processes of building digital platform revelations, preventing regulation itself from becoming a risk to fundamental rights and freedoms. It concludes that datification is a process intrinsically linked to power and secrecy, and that promoting transparency alone is not a guarantee of effective democratization of informational power.