Data’s place in understanding our world and ourselves

We humans are predisposed to find patterns in the world around us. Our comprehension of the world we live in is fundamentally our understanding of how things interact with each other. Our minds observe repeating patterns in the world, from which the idea of cause and effect is born. This is the conclusion that our minds form when observing events that always occur one after the other. It’s this facet of our minds which enables us to form our judgements, predict outcomes and inform our interactions in the world accordingly.

Are YouTubers influencers too?

Last month, it was leaked that Microsoft is embarking on an influencer programme, whereby YouTubers  affiliated with the prolific YouTube gaming network Machinima, would be paid an extra $3 per 1000 views (on top of what they make from their ad revenues) to positively promote the Xbox One. Any videos made as a part of the programme were instructed to use the tag ‘XB1M13’.

Details of the leak were quickly spread around the Internet and outrage quickly ensued. The thing is that ‘influencer programmes’ aren’t anything that out of the ordinary – prolific YouTubers are regularly paid by video game companies to endorse their products: nothing different from typical sponsorship deals in sports, for example. But what made this different is that a line was crossed.