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People keep repeating this trope about metadata being worth more than content. Where does this come from? I can understand that metadata is valuable -- of cou

People keep repeating this trope about metadata being worth more than content. Where does this come from? I can understand that metadata is valuable -- of course it is. You can learn a lot from metadata. But more valuable than the actual content? Give me a break. Something can be bad without being literally the worst thing ever. Pointless exaggeration like this does nothing for the cause of privacy.

Scandiravian 5y ago
I think it's important to consider scale when discussing metadata vs raw content Getting high precision is difficult when done on "all content", especially considering the multitude of languages and dialects in Europe. At a certain point, more data does not result in better output, sometimes it's actually detrimental The patterns that arise from metadata are much more generalisable and there's less of it, so it's easier to search through
- novok 5y ago
  Metadata interesting lets you hone in on what you want to inspect full content on. It's definitely an upgrade
pyuser583 5y ago
Metadata is highly structured, standardized, and easily understandable by machines. Content is not.
DocTomoe 5y ago
The article is a bit older, but metadata analytics can be used to "unveil" the key conspirators that led to what we today know as the "American Revolution"[1] - please note how little data they use to find out who calls the shots, and whom you might want to disappear if you wanted to keep the colonies closely aligned with George III. Widespread enough, this can be used to find dissidents today, suppressing ethically legitimate uprisings against injustice. [1] https://blog.wolfram.com/2017/06/29/analyzing-social-networks-of-colonial-boston-revolutionaries-with-the-wolfram-language/ https://blog.wolfram.com/2017/06/29/analyzing-social-network...
raxxorrax 5y ago
Because processing is easier for metadata but analysis of it can answer many questions. Direct communication is only interesting for direct surveillance.

Scandiravian 5y ago

I think it's important to consider scale when discussing metadata vs raw content Getting high precision is difficult when done on "all content", especially considering the multitude of languages and dialects in Europe. At a certain point, more data does not result in better output, sometimes it's actually detrimental The patterns that arise from metadata are much more generalisable and there's less of it, so it's easier to search through

novok 5y ago
Metadata interesting lets you hone in on what you want to inspect full content on. It's definitely an upgrade

pyuser583 5y ago

Metadata is highly structured, standardized, and easily understandable by machines. Content is not.

DocTomoe 5y ago

The article is a bit older, but metadata analytics can be used to "unveil" the key conspirators that led to what we today know as the "American Revolution"[1] - please note how little data they use to find out who calls the shots, and whom you might want to disappear if you wanted to keep the colonies closely aligned with George III. Widespread enough, this can be used to find dissidents today, suppressing ethically legitimate uprisings against injustice. [1] https://blog.wolfram.com/2017/06/29/analyzing-social-networks-of-colonial-boston-revolutionaries-with-the-wolfram-language/ https://blog.wolfram.com/2017/06/29/analyzing-social-network...

raxxorrax 5y ago

Because processing is easier for metadata but analysis of it can answer many questions. Direct communication is only interesting for direct surveillance.