Public Dissentiment is an online tool that helps protestors negatively impact the price of a publicly traded stock by using the same sentiment analysis tools used by stock trading algorithms. In the contemporary stock markets, high-frequency trading bots that continuously buy and sell stocks perform the role of market makers. These bots provide the market with liquidity by usually being ready to take the buy-or-sell end of a stock trade. However, these algorithms are also reading news stories and social media posts at lightning speed, and when they detect uncertainty they will pull out of the market causing a stock, or group of stocks, to drop rapidly in value. Public Dissentiment helps protestors generate social media posts about targeted companies that financial sentiment analysis algorithms will believe to be exceptionally bad. When the app is used by a large group or swarm, the price of the company’s stock will temporarily drop, allowing the protestors to make the shareholders aware of the public’s negative sentiment towards their company.
download the app. gather a group. start protesting.
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Watch the video.
Your instructions.
+ download. print. distribute.
Explain it to your friends.
+ Jessica Mairena’s inspired manifesto for Public Dissentiment.
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Derek Curry’s artistic practice and academic research investigates how automated decision-making technology used in algorithmic stock trading and Open Source Intelligence gathering have augmented the nature of human agency and provided new spaces for intervention. Curry received his MFA in New Genres from UCLA in 2010 and is currently PhD candidate in Media Study at SUNY Buffalo. He has participated in many international exhibitions and conferences including ADAF 2016, SECRET at Science Gallery Dublin, MediaLive at the Boulder MoCA, Radical Networks, and the upcoming Web Biennial 2017.
