"Face to Facebook" by Paolo Cirio and Alessandro Ludovico (IT) was a social experiment: stealing 1 million Facebook profiles, filtering them with face-recognition software and then posting them on a custom-made dating website, sorted by their facial expression characteristics. Their mission mission was to give all these virtual identities a new shared place to expose themselves freely, breaking Facebook's constraints and boring social rules. So they established a new website (lovely-faces.com) giving them justice and granting them the possibility of soon being face to face with anybody who is attracted by their facial expression and related data. The action was set in five days of intense media coverage and fast-pace thrilling events, which became a Global Mass Media Hack Performance. It has been defined as a performance since it happened after a long preparation as an unique live act during a short time span, and it involved the audience in a trasformation through an evolving storyline. credit: Paolo Cirio, Alessandro Ludovico

Die Initiative „Europe vs. Facebook“ verlangt vor allem vier Dinge vom weltgrößten sozialen Netzwerk: Mehr Transparenz, was die Verwendung personenbezogener Daten angeht, Opt-In statt Opt-Out, sprich jede/r UserIn soll sich nicht gegen die Veröffentlichung von Daten aussprechen müssen, sondern sich dafür entscheiden können, echte Kontrolle über die eigenen Daten, die bislang auch von FreundInnen an Facebook weitergegeben werden, sowie Datensparsamkeit, um dem schier endlosen Datenmüll entgegenzuwirken, der sich über die Zeit ansammelt. Darüber hinaus stößt sich „Europe vs. Facebook“ daran, dass das soziale Netzwerk manche Daten für immer und ewig speichert – das Löschen dieser Daten ist den UserInnen unmöglich.

Photo showing Max Schrems (AT) of Europe vs. Facebook. credit: Martin Hieslmair

This project was a social experiment: stealing 1 million Facebook profiles, filtering them with face-recognition software and then posting them on a custom-made dating website, sorted by their facial expression characteristics. Our mission was to give all these virtual identities a new shared place to expose themselves freely, breaking Facebook's constraints and boring social rules. So we established a new website (lovely-faces.com) giving them justice and granting them the possibility of soon being face to face with anybody who is attracted by their facial expression and related data. The action was set in five days of intense media coverage and fast-pace thrilling events, which became a Global Mass Media Hack Performance. It has been defined as a performance since it happened after a long preparation as an unique live act during a short time span, and it involved the audience in a trasformation through an evolving storyline. face to facebook is a project by Paolo Cirio (IT), Alessandro Ludovico (IT). credit: Martin Hieslmair