Social Media, Financial Algorithms and the Hack Crash

Theory, Culture & Society

Volumn 33, Issue 1, 2016, Pages 73-92

  Karppi, Tero ^a   Crawford, Kate ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO   (United States)

^b MICROSOFT RESEARCH   (United States)

Author keywords

affect; Christian Marazzi; data; digital; financial markets; Gabriel Tarde; new media; technological culture; time

Indexed keywords

EID: 84950349893     PISSN: 02632764     EISSN: 14603616     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0263276415583139     Document Type: Article

References (65)

1. Akhtar O (2013) Should Bloomberg be afraid of Twitter? CNNMoney, 24 April. Available at: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/04/24/should-bloomberg-be-afraid-of-twitter/ (accessed November 2013).
2. Aldridge I (2010) High-Frequency Trading, Hoboken: NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
3. Armitage J (1999)) From modernism to hypermodernism and beyond: An interview with Paul Virilio. Theory, Culture & Society 16(5–6): 25–55.
4. Barry A, Thrift N (2007) Gabriel Tarde: Imitation, invention and economy. Economy and Society 36(4): 509–525.
5. Borch C (2007) Crowds and economic life: Bringing an old figure back in. Economy and Society 36(4): 549–573.
6. Boyd D, Crawford K (2012) Critical questions for big data. Information, Communication, & Society 15(5): 662–679.
7. Bradshaw T, Massoudi A and Scannell K (2013) Bogus terror tweet sparks shares blip. Financial Times, 23 April. Available at: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/33685e56-ac3d-11e2-a063-00144feabdc0.html (accessed November 2014).
8. Butler J (2010) Performative agency. Journal of Cultural Economy 3(2): 147–161.
9. Callon M (2007) What does it mean to say that economics is performative? In: MacKenzie D, Muniesa F, Siu L (eds) Do Economists Make Markets? On the Performativity of Economics, Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 311–357.
10. Chaboud A, Chiquoine B, Hjalmarsson E, Vega C (2009) Rise of the machines: Algorithmic trading in the Foreign Exchange Market. International Finance Discussion Papers No. 980, October. Washington, DC: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
11. Clarkson D (2013) Financial dangers of Twitter. MSN Money, 24 April. Available at: http://money.uk.msn.com/features/financial-dangers-of-twitter (accessed November 2013).
12. Corpina J (2013) Ap Twitter hack highlights the vulnerability of financial markets to algorithmic trading (J. Menton, interviewer). IBTIMES.TV, 24 April. Available at: http://tv.ibtimes.com/ap-twitter-hack-highlights-vulnerability-financial-markets-algorithmic-trading-10467 (consulted November 2013).
13. Crawford K (2013a) Can an algorithm be agonistic? Ten scenes about living in calculated publics. Conference paper, ‘Governing Algorithms’. Available at: http://governingalgorithms.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/1-response-crawford.pdf (accessed November 2013).
14. Crawford K (2013b) Hidden biases of big data. Harvard Business Review, 1 April. Available at: http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/04/the-hidden-biases-in-big-data (accessed November 2013).
15. Demos T (2013) Mining tweets for cash: Dataminr raises $30 million (interviewed by S Ante in WSJ LIVE: Digits), 12 June. Available at: http://live.wsj.com/video/mining-tweets-for-cash-dataminr-raises-30-million/E43F15A8-9B4A-4133-B10E-FFF7557EF634.html#!E43F15A8-9B4A-4133-B10E-FFF7557EF634 (accessed November 2013).
16. Didier E (2007) Do statistics ‘perform’ the economy?’ In: MacKenzie D, Muniesa F and Siu L (eds) Do Economists Make Markets? On the Performativity of Economics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 276–310.
17. Domm P (2013) False rumor of explosion at White House causes stocks to briefly plunge; AP confirms its Twitter feed was hacked. CNBC.COM, 23 April. Available at: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100646197 (consulted November 2013).
18. Elmer G, Opel A (2013) Preemption, premediation, prediction: Betting on the future. In: Gates K (ed.) Future Media Studies, New York: Blackwell Available at: http://www.academia.edu/848377/Preemption_Premediation_Prediction_Betting_on_the_Future (accessed November 2013).
19. Foxton W (2013) Syrian hackers claim AP hack that tipped stock market by $136 billion. Is it terrorism? The Washington Post, 23 April. Available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/04/23/syrian-hackers-claim-ap-hack-that-tipped-stock-market-by-136-billion-is-it-terrorism/ (accessed October 2014).
20. Foxton W (2013) AP Twitter hack: Why the Dow fell so incredibly fast – and why it's a problem. The Telegraph, 23 April. Available at: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/willardfoxton2/100009077/ap-twitter-hack-why-the-dow-fell-so-incredibly-fast-and-why-its-a-problem/ (accessed November 2013).
21. Galloway A (2012) The Interface Effect, Cambridge: Polity.
22. Goldstein I (2013) Empirical literature on financial crises: Fundamentals vs. panic. In: Caprio G (ed.) The Evidence and Impact of Financial Globalization, London: Elsevier, pp. 523–534.
23. Hayles KN (2013) Speculation: Playing in the participation gap. Keynote at ‘Participatory Condition’ conference, Montreal. Unpublished manuscript.
24. Hendershott T, Moulton PC (2011) Automation, speed and stock market quality: The NYSE's hybrid. Journal of Financial Markets 14: 568–604.
25. Hendershott T, Jones CM, Menkveld AJ (2011) Does algorithmic trading improve liquidity? The Journal of Finance LXVI 1: 1–34.
26. Jackson R (2013) Algorithms and control. Furtherfield, 7 January. Available at: http://www.furtherfield.org/features/algorithms-and-control (accessed October 2014).
27. Jeff L (2009) Algorithmic trading comes of age. Financial News, 24 August. Available at: http://www.efinancialnews.com/story/2009-08-24/algorithmic-trading-comes-of-age (accessed November 2013).
28. Johnson N, Zhao G, Hunsader E, Qi H, Johnson N, Meng J and Tivnan B (2013) Abrupt rise of new machine ecology beyond human response time. Scientific Reports 3(2627). Available at: http://www.nature.com/srep/2013/130911/srep02627/full/srep02627.html (accessed November 2013).
29. Kelly H (2013) The power of one wrong tweet. edition.CNN.com, 24 April. Available at: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/23/tech/social-media/tweet-ripple–effect/(accessed April 2014).
30. Kim R (2012) Dataminr builds a Twitter-powered early warning system. Gigaom.com, 8 August. Available at: http://gigaom.com/2012/04/09/dataminr-builds-a-twitter-powered-early-warning-system/ (accessed November 2013).
31. Kirilenko AA, Kyle AS, Samadi M and Tuzun T (2011) The flash crash: Impact of high frequency trading on an electronic market. Working Papers Series, 26 May. SSRN. Available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1686004 (accessed November 2013).
32. Knorr Cetina K, Preda A (2007) The temporalization of financial markets: From network to flow. Theory, Culture & Society 24(7–8): 116–138.
33. Lauricella T, Stewart CS and Ovide S (2013) Twitter hoax sparks swift stock swoon. The Wall Street Journal, 23 April. Available at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323735604578441201605193488.html (accessed November 2013).
34. Latour B, Lepinay V (2009) The Science of Passionate Interests: An Introduction to Gabriel Tarde's Economic Anthropology, Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press.
35. Lenglet M (2011) Conflicting codes and codings: How algorithmic trading is reshaping financial regulation. Theory, Culture & Society 28(6): 44–66.
36. MacKenzie D (2001) Physics and finance: S-Terms and modern finance as a topic for science studies. Science, Technology & Human Values 26(2): 115–144.
37. MacKenzie D (2007) Is economics performative? Option theory and the construction of derivatives markets. In: MacKenzie D, Muniesa F, Siu L (eds) Do Economists Make Markets? On the Performativity of Economics, Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 54–86.
38. MacKenzie D (2009) Material Markets: How Economic Agents Are Constructed, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
39. MacKenzie D (2012) Mechanizing the Merc: The Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the rise of high-frequency trading. Working Paper. Available at: http://www.sps.ed.ac.’uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/93867/Merc11.pdf (accessed November 2013).
40. Marazzi C (2014) The Linguistic Nature of Money and Finance, New York: Semiotext(e).
41. Massumi B (1995) Autonomy of affect. Cultural Critique 31: 83–109.
42. Massumi B (n.d.) Interview with Brian Massumi by Mary Zournazi. Assembly International. Available at: http://www.international-festival.org/node/111 (accessed November 2013).
43. Menkveld AJ (2013) High frequency trading and the new market makers, 12 May. Available at: http//ssrn.com/abstract=1722924 (consulted November 2013).
44. Merton RK (1949) The self-fulfilling prophecy. In: Merton RK (ed.) Social Theory and Social Structure, New York: Free Press, pp. 179–95.
45. Moore H and Roberts D (2013) AP Twitter hack causes panic on Wall Street and sends Dow plunging. The Guardian, 23 April. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/apr/23/ap-tweet-hack-wall-street-freefall (accessed November 2013).
46. Murphie A (2010) Affect – A basic summary of approaches. Available at: http://www.andrewmurphie.org/blog/?p = 93 (accessed November 2013).
47. Parikka J (2011) Operative media archaeology: Wolfgang Ernst's materialist media diagrammatics. Theory, Culture & Society 28(5): 52–74.
48. Parikka J (2014) Crowd, power and post-democracy in the 21st century: Jussi Parikka's interview on digital populism and recent European political phenomena, held on 17 May 2013 with the author of Obsolete Capitalism. Available at: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9s9JFWZcpHob1pqTmxWT25kNUk/edit (accessed 4 April 2015).
49. Philips M (2013a) How many HFT firms actually use Twitter for trade? Bloomberg Businessweek, 24 April. Available at: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-24/how-many-hft-firms-actually-use-twitter-to-trade#p1 (accessed November 2013).
50. Philips M (2013b) How the robots lost: High-frequency tradings rise and fall. Bloomberg Businessweek, 6 June. Available at: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-06-06/how-the-robots-lost-high-frequency-tradings-rise-and-fall (accessed November 2014).
51. Price M (2013) Twitter ‘hack crash’ raises questions of market integrity. Financial News, 24 April. Available at: http://www.efinancialnews.com/story/2013-04-24/twitter-hack-crash-raises-questions-of-market-integrity (accessed November 2013).
52. Rogow G and Demos T (2013) In the wired world, feeds drive trading. The Wall Street Journal (U.S. Edition), 25 April, p. C1.
53. Sampson T (2011) Contagion theory beyond the microbe. CTheory, 1 November. Available at: http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=675 (accessed 8 August 2014).
54. Sampson T (2012) Virality: Contagion Theory in the Age of Networks, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
55. Seigworth GJ, Tiessen M (2012) Mobile affects, open secrets, and global illiquidity: Pockets, pools, and plasma. Theory, Culture & Society 29(6): 47–77.
56. Selyukh A (2013) Hackers send fake market-moving AP tweet on White House explosions. Reuters, 23 April. Available at: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/23/net-us-usa-whitehouse-ap-idUSBRE93M12Y20130423 (accessed November 2014).
57. Shaw G (2013) Hacking Twitter ‘incredibly easy,’ security specialist says. The Vancouver Sun, 23 April. Available at: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/technology/Hacking+Twitter+incredibly+easy+security+specialist/8284161/story.html (accessed November 2013).
58. Subbaraman N (2013) Dataminr hooks financial firms on speed. Fast Company, 8 October. Available at: http://www.fastcompany.com/3001791/dataminr-hooks-financial-firms-speed (accessed November 2013).
59. Tarde G (2000) Social Laws: An Outline of Sociology, Kitchener: Batoche Books.
60. Tarde G (2010) Opinion and conversation. In: Clark T (ed.) Gabriel Tarde on Communication & Social Influence: Selected Papers, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 297–318.
61. Terranova T (2013) Ordinary psychopathologies of cognitive capitalism. In: de Boever A, Neiditch W (eds) The Psychopathologies of Cognitive Capitalism, Part One, Berlin: Archive Books, pp. 1–17.
62. US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (2010) Report of the staffs of the CFTC and secretary to the joint advisory committee on emerging regulatory issues. Findings regarding the market events of May 6, 2010. Available at: http://www.cftc.gov/ucm/groups/public/@otherif/documents/ifdocs/staff-findings050610.pdf (accessed October 2014).
63. van Dijck J (2013) The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
64. Vlastelica R (2013) Hoax tweet tests firms that filter social media for Wall Street. Reuters, 24 April. Available at: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/24/us-twitter-analytics-idUSBRE93N19020130424 (accessed November 2013).
65. Wark M (2014) Where next for media theory? CTRL-Z: New Media Philosophy 4. Available at: http://www.ctrl-z.net.au/articles/issue-4/wark-where-next-for-media-theory/ (consulted October 2014).