Potential inputs that are not machine readable become irrelevant, since the goal is always to increase N, the aggregate of what can be counted as data. Meanwhile, data subjects are generating material for machine reading all the time. We are constantly encouraged to act in ways that stimulate further counting, gain us more followers, and achieve better analytics. … This “Truth” is not the truth about society at which nineteenth-century statisticians were aiming—it is a branded, tethered, contract-specific, only conditionally sharable, personally targeted truth that is both the reward and price of continuous connection.

Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, loc. 401