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1 # SOME DESCRIPTIVE TITLE
2 # Copyright (C) YEAR Cory Doctorow
3 # This file is distributed under the same license as the How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism package.
4 # FIRST AUTHOR <EMAIL@ADDRESS>, YEAR.
5 #
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8 "Project-Id-Version: How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism n/a\n"
9 "POT-Creation-Date: 2020-09-07 22:34+0200\n"
10 "PO-Revision-Date: 2020-09-24 08:13+0000\n"
11 "Last-Translator: Petter Reinholdtsen <pere-weblate@hungry.com>\n"
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21 #. type: Attribute 'lang' of: <book>
22 msgid "en"
23 msgstr "nb"
24
25 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
26 msgid "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism"
27 msgstr "Hvordan knuse overvåkningskapitalismen"
28
29 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><authorgroup><author><firstname>
30 msgid "Cory"
31 msgstr "Cory"
32
33 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><authorgroup><author><surname>
34 msgid "Doctorow"
35 msgstr "Doctorow"
36
37 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><publisher><address>
38 #, no-wrap
39 msgid "<city>Oslo</city>"
40 msgstr "<city>Oslo</city>"
41
42 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo>
43 msgid ""
44 "<publisher> <publishername>Petter Reinholdtsen</publishername> <placeholder "
45 "type=\"address\" id=\"0\"/> </publisher> <copyright> <year>2020</year> "
46 "<holder>Petter Reinholdtsen</holder> </copyright>"
47 msgstr ""
48 "<publisher> <publishername>Petter Reinholdtsen</publishername> <placeholder "
49 "type=\"address\" id=\"0\"/> </publisher> <copyright> <year>2020</year> "
50 "<holder>Petter Reinholdtsen</holder> </copyright>"
51
52 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><legalnotice><para>
53 msgid "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism by Cory Doctorow."
54 msgstr "Hvordan knuse overvåkningskapitalismen av Cory Doctorow."
55
56 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><legalnotice><para>
57 msgid "Published by Petter Reinholdtsen."
58 msgstr "Gitt ut av Petter Reinholdtsen."
59
60 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><legalnotice><para><inlinemediaobject>
61 msgid ""
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70 "\"/> </imageobject>"
71
72 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><legalnotice><para><inlinemediaobject><textobject><phrase>
73 msgid "Creative Commons, Some rights reserved"
74 msgstr "Creative Commons, noen rettigheter forbeholdt"
75
76 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><legalnotice><para>
77 msgid "<placeholder type=\"inlinemediaobject\" id=\"0\"/>"
78 msgstr "<placeholder type=\"inlinemediaobject\" id=\"0\"/>"
79
80 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><legalnotice><para>
81 msgid ""
82 "This book is licensed under a Creative Commons license. This license permits "
83 "any use of this work, so long as attribution is given and no derivatived "
84 "material is distributed. For more information about the license visit "
85 "<ulink url=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/\"/>."
86 msgstr ""
87 "Denne boken er lisensiert med en Creative Commons-lisens. Denne lisensen "
88 "tillater all bruk av dette arbeidet, så lenge opphavet navngis og intet "
89 "avledet materiale distribueres. Hvis du vil ha mer informasjon om lisensen, "
90 "besøk <ulink url=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/\"/>."
91
92 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><legalnotice><para>
93 msgid "ISBN 978-82-93828-05-1 (hard cover)"
94 msgstr "ISBN 978-82-93828-05-1 (innbundet)"
95
96 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><legalnotice><para>
97 msgid "ISBN 978-82-93828-06-8 (paperback)"
98 msgstr "ISBN 978-82-93828-06-8 (heftet)"
99
100 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><legalnotice><para>
101 msgid "ISBN 978-82-93828-07-5 (ePub)"
102 msgstr "ISBN 978-82-93828-07-5 (ePub)"
103
104 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
105 msgid "The net of a thousand lies"
106 msgstr "Nettverket av tusen løgner"
107
108 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
109 msgid ""
110 "The most surprising thing about the rebirth of flat Earthers in the 21st "
111 "century is just how widespread the evidence against them is. You can "
112 "understand how, centuries ago, people who’d never gained a high-enough "
113 "vantage point from which to see the Earth’s curvature might come to the "
114 "commonsense belief that the flat-seeming Earth was, indeed, flat."
115 msgstr ""
116 "Den mest overraskende momentet med tilbakekomsten av flatjordtilhengere i "
117 "det 21. århundre er hvor viden tilgjengelig bevisene mot dem er. En kan "
118 "forstå hvordan folk, for noen århundrer siden, som aldri hadde tilgang på et "
119 "høyt nok utsiktspunkt til å se jordens krumning, kunne ende opp med en "
120 "rimelig fornuftig tro på at den tilsynelatende flate jorden, rent faktisk "
121 "var flat."
122
123 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
124 msgid ""
125 "But today, when elementary schools routinely dangle GoPro cameras from "
126 "balloons and loft them high enough to photograph the Earth’s curve — to say "
127 "nothing of the unexceptional sight of the curved Earth from an airplane "
128 "window — it takes a heroic effort to maintain the belief that the world is "
129 "flat."
130 msgstr ""
131 "Men idag, når grunnskoler rutinemessig henger GoPro-kamera fra ballonger og "
132 "sender dem høyt nok til å fotografere jordens krumning, for ikke å snakke om "
133 "det lite eksepsjonelle synet av en krummet jord fra vinduet på et fly. Det "
134 "kreves en heroisk innsats for å holde på troen om at jorden er flat."
135
136 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
137 msgid ""
138 "Likewise for white nationalism and eugenics: In an age where you can become "
139 "a computational genomics datapoint by swabbing your cheek and mailing it to "
140 "a gene-sequencing company along with a modest sum of money, <quote>race "
141 "science</quote> has never been easier to refute."
142 msgstr ""
143 "På samme måten er det med hvit nasjonalisme og eugenikk. I en tidsalder der "
144 "du kan bli et datamaskinberegnet genomdatapunkt ved å sveipe innsiden av "
145 "munnhulen og sende resultatet til et gensekvensieringsselskap sammen med en "
146 "beskjeden sum penger, så har <quote>rasevitenskap</quote> aldri vært enklere "
147 "å avvise."
148
149 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
150 msgid ""
151 "We are living through a golden age of both readily available facts and "
152 "denial of those facts. Terrible ideas that have lingered on the fringes for "
153 "decades or even centuries have gone mainstream seemingly overnight."
154 msgstr ""
155 "Vi lever i en gullalder både med hensyn til enkel faktatilgang og "
156 "fornektelse av dem. Forferdelige idéer som har svevd i utkanten i tiår eller "
157 "til og med århundrer har blitt allemannseie tilsynelatende over natten."
158
159 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
160 msgid ""
161 "When an obscure idea gains currency, there are only two things that can "
162 "explain its ascendance: Either the person expressing that idea has gotten a "
163 "lot better at stating their case, or the proposition has become harder to "
164 "deny in the face of mounting evidence. In other words, if we want people to "
165 "take climate change seriously, we can get a bunch of Greta Thunbergs to make "
166 "eloquent, passionate arguments from podiums, winning our hearts and minds, "
167 "or we can wait for flood, fire, broiling sun, and pandemics to make the case "
168 "for us. In practice, we’ll probably have to do some of both: The more we’re "
169 "boiling and burning and drowning and wasting away, the easier it will be for "
170 "the Greta Thunbergs of the world to convince us."
171 msgstr ""
172 "Når obskure idéer får fotfeste, er det kun to ting som kan forklare at de "
173 "kommer til overflaten: Enten har personen som uttrykker idéen forbedret sin "
174 "formidling av den, eller så har forgodtbefinnendet blitt vanskeligere å "
175 "fornekte i lys av mer bevis. Med andre ord, hvis vi ønsker at folk skal ta "
176 "klimaendringer seriøst, kan vi få et utall Greta Thunberg til å gi "
177 "velformulerte, oppofrende argumenter fra talerstoler, til hjertets og "
178 "sinnets dyst, eller vi kan vente på floden, den stekende sol, og pandemier "
179 "lager argumentene for oss. I praksis må vi antagelig gjøre litt av begge "
180 "deler: Desto mer vi steker, brenner, drukner og forvitrer, dess enklere vil "
181 "det være for dem av oss som Greta Thunberg å overbevise oss."
182
183 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
184 msgid ""
185 "The arguments for ridiculous beliefs in odious conspiracies like anti-"
186 "vaccination, climate denial, a flat Earth, and eugenics are no better than "
187 "they were a generation ago. Indeed, they’re worse because they are being "
188 "pitched to people who have at least a background awareness of the refuting "
189 "facts."
190 msgstr ""
191 "De iboende argumentet for ting som eksempelvis teorien om flat jord har ikke "
192 "blitt bedre i den vordende generasjonen. Faktisk har ting blitt verre, fordi "
193 "folk uten bakgrunn i kildekritikk er gjenstand for dem."
194
195 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
196 msgid ""
197 "Anti-vax has been around since the first vaccines, but the early anti-"
198 "vaxxers were pitching people who were less equipped to understand even the "
199 "most basic ideas from microbiology, and moreover, those people had not "
200 "witnessed the extermination of mass-murdering diseases like polio, smallpox, "
201 "and measles. Today’s anti-vaxxers are no more eloquent than their forebears, "
202 "and they have a much harder job."
203 msgstr ""
204 "Idéen om en flat jord er like gammel som idéene og forståelsen av dem. De "
205 "første presentasjonene av denne teorien kom folk for øre som ikke forstod "
206 "selv grunnleggende geometri. De hadde til gode å se tilbake på det "
207 "heliosentrikere og storsirkelnavigasjon bragte siden. Dagens tilhengere er "
208 "mer finslepne enn tidligere tiders religiøse verdensanskuelse, og de har en "
209 "mye vanskeligere jobb."
210
211 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
212 msgid ""
213 "So can these far-fetched conspiracy theorists really be succeeding on the "
214 "basis of superior arguments?"
215 msgstr ""
216 "Er det tilfelle at disse konspiratorikerne lykkes med utgangspunkt i bedre "
217 "argumenter?"
218
219 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
220 msgid ""
221 "Some people think so. Today, there is a widespread belief that machine "
222 "learning and commercial surveillance can turn even the most fumble-tongued "
223 "conspiracy theorist into a svengali who can warp your perceptions and win "
224 "your belief by locating vulnerable people and then pitching them with A.I.-"
225 "refined arguments that bypass their rational faculties and turn everyday "
226 "people into flat Earthers, anti-vaxxers, or even Nazis. When the RAND "
227 "Corporation <ulink url=\"https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/"
228 "research_reports/RR400/RR453/RAND_RR453.pdf\">blames Facebook for "
229 "<quote>radicalization</quote></ulink> and when Facebook’s role in spreading "
230 "coronavirus misinformation is <ulink url=\"https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/"
231 "en/facebook_threat_health/\">blamed on its algorithm</ulink>, the implicit "
232 "message is that machine learning and surveillance are causing the changes in "
233 "our consensus about what’s true."
234 msgstr ""
235 "Noen synes å tro det. I dag er troen hengitt at maskinlæring og kommersiell "
236 "overvåkning kan gjøre selv en konspirasjonsteoretiker uten taleevner til "
237 "trådtrekker med KI-refinerte argumenter som verktøy til et omvendt "
238 "dukketeater som omgår alle kritiske fakulteter. Når RAND <ulink url=\"https"
239 "://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR400/RR453/RAND_RR453"
240 ".pdf\">beskylder Facebook for <quote>radikalisering</quote></ulink> og når "
241 "Facebook sin rolle i å spre coronavirus-misinformasjon <ulink url=\"https"
242 "://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/facebook_threat_health/\"> blir bortforklart "
243 "i deres algoritme</ulink>, er det underforstått at maskinlæring og "
244 "overvåkning endrer vår oppfattelse av hva som sant er."
245
246 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
247 msgid ""
248 "After all, in a world where sprawling and incoherent conspiracy theories "
249 "like Pizzagate and its successor, QAnon, have widespread followings, "
250 "<emphasis>something</emphasis> must be afoot."
251 msgstr ""
252 "I en verden der enhver konspirasjonsteori har sine ihuga tilhengere, må "
253 "<emphasis>noe</emphasis> være i gjerde."
254
255 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
256 msgid ""
257 "But what if there’s another explanation? What if it’s the material "
258 "circumstances, and not the arguments, that are making the difference for "
259 "these conspiracy pitchmen? What if the trauma of living through "
260 "<emphasis>real conspiracies</emphasis> all around us — conspiracies among "
261 "wealthy people, their lobbyists, and lawmakers to bury inconvenient facts "
262 "and evidence of wrongdoing (these conspiracies are commonly known as "
263 "<quote>corruption</quote>) — is making people vulnerable to conspiracy "
264 "theories?"
265 msgstr ""
266 "Hva om det har sin naturlige forklaring? Er det kanskje ikke argumentene som "
267 "utgjør tyngden på vektskåla for dem? Hva om <emphasis>de ekte "
268 "konspirasjonene</emphasis> vi omgås hvordan det daglige stormaktsspillet og "
269 "i kapitalerværvelsen mellom fut og fogd gravlegger ubeleilig fakta og bevis "
270 "på mislighold? Slike ting som i beste fall kalles korrupsjon, gjør de folk "
271 "sårbare for fiktive konspirasjonsteorier?"
272
273 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
274 msgid ""
275 "If it’s trauma and not contagion — material conditions and not ideology — "
276 "that is making the difference today and enabling a rise of repulsive "
277 "misinformation in the face of easily observed facts, that doesn’t mean our "
278 "computer networks are blameless. They’re still doing the heavy work of "
279 "locating vulnerable people and guiding them through a series of ever-more-"
280 "extreme ideas and communities."
281 msgstr ""
282 "Hvis det er slagskade og ikke smitte – materielle forhold og ikke ideologi – "
283 "som utgjør forskjellen i dag og gjør økningen i frastøtende feilinformasjon "
284 "mulig, i møte med lett observerte fakta, så betyr det ikke at "
285 "datanettverkene vår ikke kan lastes. De gjør fortsatt grovarbeidet med å "
286 "spore opp sårbare mennesker og lede dem gjennom en rekke av stadig mer "
287 "ekstreme ideer og lokalsamfunn."
288
289 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
290 msgid ""
291 "Belief in conspiracy is a raging fire that has done real damage and poses "
292 "real danger to our planet and species, from epidemics <ulink url=\"https://"
293 "www.cdc.gov/measles/cases-outbreaks.html\">kicked off by vaccine denial</"
294 "ulink> to genocides <ulink url=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/"
295 "technology/myanmar-facebook-genocide.html\">kicked off by racist "
296 "conspiracies</ulink> to planetary meltdown caused by denial-inspired climate "
297 "inaction. Our world is on fire, and so we have to put the fires out — to "
298 "figure out how to help people see the truth of the world through the "
299 "conspiracies they’ve been confused by."
300 msgstr ""
301 "Troen på fiktive konspirasjoner har gjort skade og utgjør en fare for "
302 "planeten. Fornektelse av kunstig vaksinasjon kan medføre epidimier, og "
303 "rasisme fører gjerne til folkemord. Det kan tenkes man kan hjelpe folk å se "
304 "sannheten gjennom konspirasjonsteoriene de har blitt forvirret av."
305
306 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
307 msgid ""
308 "But firefighting is reactive. We need fire <emphasis>prevention</emphasis>. "
309 "We need to strike at the traumatic material conditions that make people "
310 "vulnerable to the contagion of conspiracy. Here, too, tech has a role to "
311 "play."
312 msgstr ""
313 "Brannslokking er reaktivt. Det trengs <emphasis>forebygging</emphasis>. Den "
314 "materielle tilværelsen hvis innvirken på folks svakhet for den, smitter over "
315 "i handling. Her kan også teknologi ha noe å si."
316
317 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
318 msgid ""
319 "There’s no shortage of proposals to address this. From the EU’s <ulink url="
320 "\"https://edri.org/tag/terreg/\">Terrorist Content Regulation</ulink>, which "
321 "requires platforms to police and remove <quote>extremist</quote> content, to "
322 "the U.S. proposals to <ulink url=\"https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/"
323 "earn-it-act-violates-constitution\">force tech companies to spy on their "
324 "users</ulink> and hold them liable <ulink url=\"https://www.natlawreview.com/"
325 "article/repeal-cda-section-230\">for their users’ bad speech</ulink>, "
326 "there’s a lot of energy to force tech companies to solve the problems they "
327 "created."
328 msgstr ""
329 "Det skorter ikke på tilsvarsforslag. Fra EU sin <ulink url=\"https://edri."
330 "org/tag/terreg/\">Terroristinnhold-regulering</ulink> som krever at "
331 "plattformer håndhever og fjerner <quote>ekstremistisk</quote>-innhold, til "
332 "USAs forslag om å <ulink url=\"https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/earn-it-"
333 "act-violates-constitution\">tvinge teknologiselskaper til å spionere på sine "
334 "brukere</ulink> og holde dem ansvarlige <ulink url=\"https://www.natlawreview"
335 ".com/article/repeal-cda-section-230\">for brukernes ytringsfrihet</ulink>. "
336 "Det er mange krefter i sving som kan svinge tilbake slik at "
337 "teknologiselskaper må løse problemene de utgjør."
338
339 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
340 msgid ""
341 "There’s a critical piece missing from the debate, though. All these "
342 "solutions assume that tech companies are a fixture, that their dominance "
343 "over the internet is a permanent fact. Proposals to replace Big Tech with a "
344 "more diffused, pluralistic internet are nowhere to be found. Worse: The "
345 "<quote>solutions</quote> on the table today <emphasis>require</emphasis> Big "
346 "Tech to stay big because only the very largest companies can afford to "
347 "implement the systems these laws demand."
348 msgstr ""
349 "Her mangler en kritisk del av debatten. Alle disse løsningene antar at "
350 "teknologiselskaper er en bruksgjenstand, at deres dominanse over Internett "
351 "er evig. Forslag til endring av storteknologien til et mer finmasket, "
352 "mangeslynget Internett lar vente på seg. <quote>Løsningene</quote> som "
353 "forefinnes <emphasis>krever</emphasis> at storteknologien skal forbli "
354 "storartet smålig, fordi kun de største selskapene får råd til å sette i verk "
355 "systemene disse lovene krever."
356
357 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
358 msgid ""
359 "Figuring out what we want our tech to look like is crucial if we’re going to "
360 "get out of this mess. Today, we’re at a crossroads where we’re trying to "
361 "figure out if we want to fix the Big Tech companies that dominate our "
362 "internet or if we want to fix the internet itself by unshackling it from Big "
363 "Tech’s stranglehold. We can’t do both, so we have to choose."
364 msgstr ""
365 "Løsningen på hva teknologien skal være er svaret på hva som skal til for å "
366 "komme oss ut av knipa. I dag er vi på perrongen og prøver å finne ut hva "
367 "tabellen storteknologien har lagt fore skal bety for vårt Internett i "
368 "fortsettelsen, eller om det går noen tog andre veien. Enveisbilletten har vi "
369 "klamt for hånden."
370
371 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
372 msgid ""
373 "I want us to choose wisely. Taming Big Tech is integral to fixing the "
374 "internet, and for that, we need digital rights activism."
375 msgstr ""
376 "Velg med omhu. Temming av storteknologien er iboende viktig for løsningen på "
377 "Internett. Hvorfra vi setter ut i det, en digital rettighetsaktivisme til."
378
379 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
380 msgid "Digital rights activism, a quarter-century on"
381 msgstr "Digital rettighetsaktivisme, et kvart århundre senere"
382
383 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
384 msgid ""
385 "Digital rights activism is more than 30 years old now. The Electronic "
386 "Frontier Foundation turned 30 this year; the Free Software Foundation "
387 "launched in 1985. For most of the history of the movement, the most "
388 "prominent criticism leveled against it was that it was irrelevant: The real "
389 "activist causes were real-world causes (think of the skepticism when <ulink "
390 "url=\"https://www.loc.gov/law/foreign-news/article/finland-legal-right-to-"
391 "broadband-for-all-citizens/#:~:text=Global%20Legal%20Monitor,-Home%20%7C"
392 "%20Search%20%7C%20Browse&amp;text=(July%206%2C%202010)%20On,connection"
393 "%20100%20MBPS%20by%202015.\">Finland declared broadband a human right in "
394 "2010</ulink>), and real-world activism was shoe-leather activism (think of "
395 "Malcolm Gladwell’s <ulink url=\"https://www.newyorker.com/"
396 "magazine/2010/10/04/small-change-malcolm-gladwell\">contempt for "
397 "<quote>clicktivism</quote></ulink>). But as tech has grown more central to "
398 "our daily lives, these accusations of irrelevance have given way first to "
399 "accusations of insincerity (<quote>You only care about tech because you’re "
400 "<ulink url=\"https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2018/06/04/report-engine-eff-shills-"
401 "google-patent-reform/id=98007/\">shilling for tech companies</ulink></"
402 "quote>) to accusations of negligence (<quote>Why didn’t you foresee that "
403 "tech could be such a destructive force?</quote>). But digital rights "
404 "activism is right where it’s always been: looking out for the humans in a "
405 "world where tech is inexorably taking over."
406 msgstr ""
407 "Digital rettighetsaktivisme er eldre enn Internett. GNU-prosjektet er fra "
408 "1983. Elektronisk forpost fra 1990. I brorparten av tiden denne har "
409 "eksistert, var hovedkritikken rettet mot dens formål at det hele var "
410 "irrelevant: De sanne aktivistparolene var blitt virkelighet i lys av "
411 "skepsis. Tenk over hva som ble sagt da <ulink url=\"https://www.loc.gov/law/"
412 "foreign-news/article/finland-legal-right-to-broadband-for-all-citizens/#:~:te"
413 "xt=Global%20Legal%20Monitor,-Home%20%7C%20Search%20%7C%20Browse&amp;text=(Jul"
414 "y%206%2C%202010)%20On,connection%20100%20MBPS%20by%202015.\">Finland snudde "
415 "kjæringa og erklærte breiband en mennskerett i 2010</ulink>. Sann aktivisme "
416 "var for smørkrise å regne den gang. Tenk over Malcolm Gladwell sin <ulink "
417 "url=\"https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/small-change-malcolm-"
418 "gladwell\">forakt for at Finland gjorde resten av verden til skamme i 2010</"
419 "ulink> da han kalte det <quote>klikktivisme.</quote>. Etter at "
420 "storteknologien har blitt sentral i våre liv, om ikke erstattet noen av dem "
421 "helt, har disse uverdige kritikkene blitt kritikk verdige. Først lød pipa av "
422 "at <quote>Du bryr deg kun om teknologi fordi du <ulink url=\"https://www."
423 "ipwatchdog.com/2018/06/04/report-engine-eff-shills-google-patent-reform/id="
424 "98007/\">er en undersått av et teknologiselskap</ulink></quote>. Så ble "
425 "lyden tonelydende <quote>Hvorfor forutså du ikke at teknologi kom til å bli "
426 "en så destruktiv kraft?</quote>. Digital rettighetsaktivisme er riktig der "
427 "det alltid har vært rett: voktende over menneskene i en verden der teknologi "
428 "ubønnhørlig tar grep."
429
430 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
431 msgid ""
432 "The latest version of this critique comes in the form of <quote>surveillance "
433 "capitalism,</quote> a term coined by business professor Shoshana Zuboff in "
434 "her long and influential 2019 book, <emphasis>The Age of Surveillance "
435 "Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power</"
436 "emphasis>. Zuboff argues that <quote>surveillance capitalism</quote> is a "
437 "unique creature of the tech industry and that it is unlike any other abusive "
438 "commercial practice in history, one that is <quote>constituted by unexpected "
439 "and often illegible mechanisms of extraction, commodification, and control "
440 "that effectively exile persons from their own behavior while producing new "
441 "markets of behavioral prediction and modification. Surveillance capitalism "
442 "challenges democratic norms and departs in key ways from the centuries-long "
443 "evolution of market capitalism.</quote> It is a new and deadly form of "
444 "capitalism, a <quote>rogue capitalism,</quote> and our lack of understanding "
445 "of its unique capabilities and dangers represents an existential, species-"
446 "wide threat. She’s right that capitalism today threatens our species, and "
447 "she’s right that tech poses unique challenges to our species and "
448 "civilization, but she’s really wrong about how tech is different and why it "
449 "threatens our species."
450 msgstr ""
451 "Siste versjon av kritikken plystrer til takten av "
452 "<quote>overvåkningskapitalismen</quote>, et begrep Shoshana Zuboff førte i "
453 "pennen i sin innflytelsesrike og lange bok fra 2019, <emphasis>Tidsalderen "
454 "overvåkningskapitalismen: Kampen om en human fremtid i maktens nye "
455 "frontlinjer</emphasis>. Zuboff argumenterer at "
456 "<quote>overvåkningskapitalisme</quote> er en unik funksjon av teknologi-"
457 "industrien, og at til forskjell fra andre skadeinnvirkende kommersielle "
458 "gesjefter i historiens løp, at denne <quote>skriver seg fra uventede og "
459 "illegale mekanismer for utnyttelse, verdiskapning og kontroll som effektivt "
460 "sett løsriver folk fra deres adferd, mens den lager nye markeder for å "
461 "forutsi oppførselsforutsigbarhet og endring av den. Overvåkningskapitalisme "
462 "utfordrer demokratiske normer, og tar avskjed med århundrers "
463 "markedskapitalisme på sentrale punkter.</quote> Det er en ny og dødlig form "
464 "for kapitalisme, en <quote>løsrevet kapitalisme,</quote> og vår "
465 "forståelsesmangel i dens unike muligheter og farer representerer en "
466 "eksistensiell, artsomfattende trussel. Hun skal ha rett i at dagens "
467 "kapitalisme truer vårt artsmangfold, og hun framfører riktig nok at vår art "
468 "og sivilisasjon har utfordringer. Dog tar hun kanskje virkelig feil av "
469 "hvordan teknologi er forskjellig, og hvordan det truer vår art."
470
471 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
472 msgid ""
473 "What’s more, I think that her incorrect diagnosis will lead us down a path "
474 "that ends up making Big Tech stronger, not weaker. We need to take down Big "
475 "Tech, and to do that, we need to start by correctly identifying the problem."
476 msgstr ""
477 "En slik feildiagnostisering vil forlede oss inn på et spor der "
478 "storteknologien har penset inn allerede. Ned med storteknologien, er ikke en "
479 "avsporing av problemet."
480
481 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
482 msgid "Tech exceptionalism, then and now"
483 msgstr "Teknologieksepsjonalisme, da og nå"
484
485 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
486 msgid ""
487 "Early critics of the digital rights movement — perhaps best represented by "
488 "campaigning organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Free "
489 "Software Foundation, Public Knowledge, and others that focused on preserving "
490 "and enhancing basic human rights in the digital realm — damned activists for "
491 "practicing <quote>tech exceptionalism.</quote> Around the turn of the "
492 "millennium, serious people ridiculed any claim that tech policy mattered in "
493 "the <quote>real world.</quote> Claims that tech rules had implications for "
494 "speech, association, privacy, search and seizure, and fundamental rights and "
495 "equities were treated as ridiculous, an elevation of the concerns of sad "
496 "nerds arguing about <emphasis>Star Trek</emphasis> on bulletin board systems "
497 "above the struggles of the Freedom Riders, Nelson Mandela, or the Warsaw "
498 "ghetto uprising."
499 msgstr ""
500 "Tidligere kritikere av bevegelsen av og for digitale rettigheter—kanskje "
501 "best representert ved organisasjoner som GNU-prosjektet, Elektronisk "
502 "forpost, Public Knowledge, og andre som fokuserer på ivaretagelse og "
503 "forbedring av grunnleggende rettigheter fra og i den digitale sfære—ble kalt "
504 "aktivister for å praktisere <quote>teknologieksepsjonalisme</quote>. Rundt "
505 "tusenårets slutt drev seriøse mennesker gjøn og påstod at teknologi-praksis "
506 "ikke hadde innvirkning på den <quote>virkelige verden</quote>. Påstander om "
507 "at teknologiregler hadde innvirkning på talefrihet, assosiasjonsfrihet, vern "
508 "av privatsfæren, ransakelsesordrer, og fundamentale rettigheter og verdier "
509 "ble antatt for latterlige å være, en videre trist fabulering om "
510 "<emphasis>Star Trek</emphasis> på digitale oppslagstavler istedenfor Nelson "
511 "Mandela."
512
513 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
514 #, fuzzy
515 msgid ""
516 "In the decades since, accusations of <quote>tech exceptionalism</quote> have "
517 "only sharpened as tech’s role in everyday life has expanded: Now that tech "
518 "has infiltrated every corner of our life and our online lives have been "
519 "monopolized by a handful of giants, defenders of digital freedoms are "
520 "accused of carrying water for Big Tech, providing cover for its self-"
521 "interested negligence (or worse, nefarious plots)."
522 msgstr ""
523 "I årtiene som fulgte, har anklagene om <quote>teknologieksepsjonalisme</"
524 "quote> økt etter som teknologi har fått en større rolle i folks hverdagslige "
525 "liv. Nå som teknologi har infiltrert hver krink av våre liv, og våre "
526 "nettbaserte liv kun har kommet et knippe monopolister i hende, blir digitale "
527 "rettighetsforkjempere anklaget for å gjøre storteknologiens ærende, i å "
528 "tjene som nyttige idioter for dens tilforlatelighet (eller verre, "
529 "forbryterske hensikter)."
530
531 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
532 msgid ""
533 "From my perspective, the digital rights movement has remained stationary "
534 "while the rest of the world has moved. From the earliest days, the "
535 "movement’s concern was users and the toolsmiths who provided the code they "
536 "needed to realize their fundamental rights. Digital rights activists only "
537 "cared about companies to the extent that companies were acting to uphold "
538 "users’ rights (or, just as often, when companies were acting so foolishly "
539 "that they threatened to bring down new rules that would also make it harder "
540 "for good actors to help users)."
541 msgstr ""
542 "Fra eget perspektiv har bevegelsen for digitale rettigheter forholdt seg der "
543 "den startet, mens resten av verden har flyttet seg. Helt fra dens tidligste "
544 "dager, var det dens brukere også dem som skrev koden fra tanke til "
545 "fundamentale verktøy. Digitale rettighetsaktivister brød seg kun om "
546 "selskaper i den grad de brydde seg om brukernes rettigheter (eller, vel så "
547 "ofte, når selskaper gjorde så tåpelige ting at det truet med nye regelsett "
548 "som også gjorde det vanskeligere for rasjonelle aktører å hjelpe brukere)."
549
550 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
551 msgid ""
552 "The <quote>surveillance capitalism</quote> critique recasts the digital "
553 "rights movement in a new light again: not as alarmists who overestimate the "
554 "importance of their shiny toys nor as shills for big tech but as serene deck-"
555 "chair rearrangers whose long-standing activism is a liability because it "
556 "makes them incapable of perceiving novel threats as they continue to fight "
557 "the last century’s tech battles."
558 msgstr ""
559 "<quote>Overvåkningskapitalisems</quote> kritiker kommer så med en ny "
560 "vinkling mot bevegelsen for digitale rettigheter: Ikke som varslere som "
561 "overdriver hvor viktig de nye leketøyene deres er, ei heller som "
562 "håndtlangere for storteknologien, men som velmenende stolflyttere hvis "
563 "langvarige aktivisme er en belastning fordi det gjør det ute av stand til å "
564 "oppfatte nye truslene som finnes fordi de er opptatt med forrige århundres "
565 "teknologikamp."
566
567 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
568 msgid "But tech exceptionalism is a sin no matter who practices it."
569 msgstr "Men teknologieksepsjonalisme er en synd, uavsett hvem som bedriver den."
570
571 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
572 msgid "Don’t believe the hype"
573 msgstr "Ikke fest din lit til oppstuss"
574
575 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
576 msgid ""
577 "You’ve probably heard that <quote>if you’re not paying for the product, "
578 "you’re the product.</quote> As we’ll see below, that’s true, if incomplete. "
579 "But what is <emphasis>absolutely</emphasis> true is that ad-driven Big "
580 "Tech’s customers are advertisers, and what companies like Google and "
581 "Facebook sell is their ability to convince <emphasis>you</emphasis> to buy "
582 "stuff. Big Tech’s product is persuasion. The services — social media, search "
583 "engines, maps, messaging, and more — are delivery systems for persuasion."
584 msgstr ""
585 "Du har antagelig hørt at <quote>om du ikke betaler for noe, er det du som er "
586 "produktet</quote>. Som vi ser nedenfor, er det riktig, men ikke hele bildet. "
587 "Det som er <emphasis>helt</emphasis> riktig om reklamefinansiert "
588 "storteknologi, er at dens kunder er de som reklamerer, og det selskaper som "
589 "Google og Facebook selger, er deres evne til å overbevise <emphasis>deg</"
590 "emphasis> om å kjøpe ting. Tjenestene—sosiale media, søkemotorer, kart, "
591 "meldingstjenester, med mer—er leveringssystemer for overbeviselse."
592
593 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
594 msgid ""
595 "The fear of surveillance capitalism starts from the (correct) presumption "
596 "that everything Big Tech says about itself is probably a lie. But the "
597 "surveillance capitalism critique makes an exception for the claims Big Tech "
598 "makes in its sales literature — the breathless hype in the pitches to "
599 "potential advertisers online and in ad-tech seminars about the efficacy of "
600 "its products: It assumes that Big Tech is as good at influencing us as they "
601 "claim they are when they’re selling influencing products to credulous "
602 "customers. That’s a mistake because sales literature is not a reliable "
603 "indicator of a product’s efficacy."
604 msgstr ""
605 "Frykten for overvåkningskapitalismen utgår fra den (korrekte) antagelsen om "
606 "at alt Storteknologien sier om seg selv antagelig er løgn. Men kritikken av "
607 "overvåkningskapitalismen gjør unntak fra påstandene Storteknologien kommer "
608 "med i salgsmateriellet sitt - overdrivelsene som tar pusten fra deg i "
609 "salgsfremstøtene til potensielle annonsekjøpere på nettet og i deres "
610 "reklameteknologiseminarer om effekten av produktene. Den antar at "
611 "Storteknologien er så god til å påvirke oss som de påstår de er når de "
612 "selger påvirkningsprodukter til pålitelige kunder. Dette er en tabbe, da "
613 "salgsmateriell ikke er en pålitelig indikator på et produkts "
614 "gjennomføringsevne."
615
616 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
617 msgid ""
618 "Surveillance capitalism assumes that because advertisers buy a lot of what "
619 "Big Tech is selling, Big Tech must be selling something real. But Big Tech’s "
620 "massive sales could just as easily be the result of a popular delusion or "
621 "something even more pernicious: monopolistic control over our communications "
622 "and commerce."
623 msgstr ""
624 "Overvåkningskapitalismen antar det at det kjøpes mye av markedsføringen som "
625 "Storteknologien selges, så må Storteknologien selge noe som virker. Men det "
626 "enorme salget til Storteknologien kan like gjerne være et resultat av en "
627 "felles vrangforestilling eller noe enda mer skadelig, monopolistisk kontroll "
628 "over kommunikasjonen og handelen vår."
629
630 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
631 msgid ""
632 "Being watched changes your behavior, and not for the better. It creates "
633 "risks for our social progress. Zuboff’s book features beautifully wrought "
634 "explanations of these phenomena. But Zuboff also claims that surveillance "
635 "literally robs us of our free will — that when our personal data is mixed "
636 "with machine learning, it creates a system of persuasion so devastating that "
637 "we are helpless before it. That is, Facebook uses an algorithm to analyze "
638 "the data it nonconsensually extracts from your daily life and uses it to "
639 "customize your feed in ways that get you to buy stuff. It is a mind-control "
640 "ray out of a 1950s comic book, wielded by mad scientists whose "
641 "supercomputers guarantee them perpetual and total world domination."
642 msgstr ""
643 "Du endrer oppførsel når noen ser på deg, og ikke til det bedre. Det skaper "
644 "risiko for vår sosiale fremgang. Zuboffs bok inneholder vakkert formulerte "
645 "forklaringer av disse fenomenene. Men Zuboff påstår også at overvåkning "
646 "bokstavlig talt fjerner vår frie vilje, at når våre personlige data blandes "
647 "med maskinlæring, så oppstår et overtalelsessystem så ødeleggende at vi er "
648 "helt hjelpeløse i møte med det. Det vil si at Facebook med en algoritme til "
649 "å analysere data som det henter ut fra ditt daglige liv uten samtykke, "
650 "tilpasser feeden din slik at du kjøper ting. Det er en tankekontrollstråle "
651 "rett ut av en femtitalls-tegneserie, der brukt av gale forskere hvis "
652 "superdatamaskiner garanterer dem evigvarende og total verdensherredømme."
653
654 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
655 msgid "What is persuasion?"
656 msgstr "Hva er overtalelse?"
657
658 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
659 msgid ""
660 "To understand why you shouldn’t worry about mind-control rays — but why you "
661 "<emphasis>should</emphasis> worry about surveillance <emphasis>and</"
662 "emphasis> Big Tech — we must start by unpacking what we mean by "
663 "<quote>persuasion.</quote>"
664 msgstr ""
665 "For å forstå hvorfor du ikke bør bekymre deg over tankekontrollstråler, men "
666 "hvorfor du <emphasis>bør</emphasis> bekymre deg over overvåkning "
667 "<emphasis>og</emphasis> Storteknologi, så må vi starte ved å se på hva vi "
668 "mener med <quote>overtalelse</quote>."
669
670 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
671 msgid ""
672 "Google, Facebook, and other surveillance capitalists promise their customers "
673 "(the advertisers) that if they use machine-learning tools trained on "
674 "unimaginably large data sets of nonconsensually harvested personal "
675 "information, they will be able to uncover ways to bypass the rational "
676 "faculties of the public and direct their behavior, creating a stream of "
677 "purchases, votes, and other desired outcomes."
678 msgstr ""
679 "Google, Facebook, og andre overvåkningskapitalister lover sine kunder (de "
680 "som markedsfører) at hvis de bruker maskinlæringsverktøy opptrent på "
681 "ufattelig store datasett av personinformasjon høstet inn uten samtykke, så "
682 "vil de være i stand til å finne måter å overstyre de rasjonale evnene til "
683 "folket og styre deres oppførsel, og slik skape en strøm av kjøp, stemmer og "
684 "andre ønskede resultater."
685
686 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
687 msgid ""
688 "The impact of dominance far exceeds the impact of manipulation and should be "
689 "central to our analysis and any remedies we seek."
690 msgstr ""
691 "Effekten av dominans er mye større enn effekten av manipulering og bør "
692 "derfor være hovedfokus i vår analyse og bestemmende for hvilke avhjelpende "
693 "midler vi går for."
694
695 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
696 msgid ""
697 "But there’s little evidence that this is happening. Instead, the predictions "
698 "that surveillance capitalism delivers to its customers are much less "
699 "impressive. Rather than finding ways to bypass our rational faculties, "
700 "surveillance capitalists like Mark Zuckerberg mostly do one or more of three "
701 "things:"
702 msgstr ""
703 "Men det finnes få indiser på at det er dette som skjer. I stedet er "
704 "forutsigelsene som overvåkningskapitalismen leverer til sine kunder mye "
705 "mindre imponerende. I stedet for å finne måter å omgå våre rasjonelle "
706 "egenskaper, så gjør overvåkningskapitaliser som Mark Zuckerberg i hovedsak "
707 "en eller flere av tre ting:"
708
709 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
710 msgid "1. Segmenting"
711 msgstr "1. Segmentering"
712
713 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
714 msgid ""
715 "If you’re selling diapers, you have better luck if you pitch them to people "
716 "in maternity wards. Not everyone who enters or leaves a maternity ward just "
717 "had a baby, and not everyone who just had a baby is in the market for "
718 "diapers. But having a baby is a really reliable correlate of being in the "
719 "market for diapers, and being in a maternity ward is highly correlated with "
720 "having a baby. Hence diaper ads around maternity wards (and even pitchmen "
721 "for baby products, who haunt maternity wards with baskets full of freebies)."
722 msgstr ""
723 "Hvis du selger bleier, så er det større sjanse for et salg hvis du forsøker "
724 "å selge dem til folk som er innom fødeavdelinger. Slett ikke alle som "
725 "ankommer eller forlater en fødeavdeling har nettopp fått en baby, og ikke "
726 "alle som har fått en baby er i markedet etter bleier. Men det å ha en baby "
727 "er svært nært knyttet til det å være ute etter å kjøpe bleier, og det å være "
728 "på en fødestue er svært nært knyttet til det å ha en baby. Dermed er det "
729 "bleiereklamer i nærheten av fødeavdelinger (samt selgere av babyprodukter, "
730 "som henger rundt fødeavdelinger med favnen full av gratispakker)."
731
732 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
733 msgid ""
734 "Surveillance capitalism is segmenting times a billion. Diaper vendors can go "
735 "way beyond people in maternity wards (though they can do that, too, with "
736 "things like location-based mobile ads). They can target you based on "
737 "whether you’re reading articles about child-rearing, diapers, or a host of "
738 "other subjects, and data mining can suggest unobvious keywords to advertise "
739 "against. They can target you based on the articles you’ve recently read. "
740 "They can target you based on what you’ve recently purchased. They can target "
741 "you based on whether you receive emails or private messages about these "
742 "subjects — or even if you speak aloud about them (though Facebook and the "
743 "like convincingly claim that’s not happening — yet)."
744 msgstr ""
745 "Overvåkningskapitalisem er segmentering ganger en milliard. "
746 "Bleieprodusenter kan langt overgå å fokusere på folk på fødestuer (selv om "
747 "de også kan gjøre slikt, ved å bruke stedsbaserte mobilreklager). De kan "
748 "rette reklamen mot deg basert på om du leser artikler om barneoppdragelse, "
749 "bleier, eller en hel rekke andre tema, og datautvinningen kan foreslå ikke-"
750 "åpenbare nøkkelord å rette reklamen mot. De kan rette reklamen mot deg "
751 "basert på artikler du nylig har lest. De kan rette reklamen mot deg baser "
752 "på det du nylig har kjøpt. De kan rette reklamen mot deg basert på om du har "
753 "mottatt epost eller private meldinger om disse temaene — eller til og med om "
754 "du snakker høyt om dem (selv om Facebook og dets like overbevisende påstår "
755 "at dette ikke gjøres — ennå)."
756
757 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
758 msgid "This is seriously creepy."
759 msgstr "Dette er veldig ekkelt."
760
761 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
762 msgid "But it’s not mind control."
763 msgstr "Men det er ikke tankekontroll."
764
765 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
766 msgid "It doesn’t deprive you of your free will. It doesn’t trick you."
767 msgstr "Det fratar deg ikke din frie vilje. Det lurer deg ikke."
768
769 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
770 msgid ""
771 "Think of how surveillance capitalism works in politics. Surveillance "
772 "capitalist companies sell political operatives the power to locate people "
773 "who might be receptive to their pitch. Candidates campaigning on finance "
774 "industry corruption seek people struggling with debt; candidates campaigning "
775 "on xenophobia seek out racists. Political operatives have always targeted "
776 "their message whether their intentions were honorable or not: Union "
777 "organizers set up pitches at factory gates, and white supremacists hand out "
778 "fliers at John Birch Society meetings."
779 msgstr ""
780 "Se hvordan overvåkningskapitalisem virker i politikken. "
781 "Overvåkningskapitalistselskapene selger til politiske aktører evnen til å "
782 "spore opp folk som er mottakelige for deres argumenter. Kandidater som "
783 "kjører valgkamp på korrupsjon i finansbransjen leter etter folk som sliter "
784 "med gjeld. Kandidater som kjører valgkamp på fremmedfrykt leter etter "
785 "rasister. Politiske aktører har alltid rettet sine budskap uansett om "
786 "intensjonene var hederlige eller ikke. De som danner fagforeninger sprer "
787 "budskapet ved fabrikkportene, og forkjemperne for hvit overherredømme deler "
788 "ut foldere på møter i John Birch Society (FIXME bedre med norsk analogi?)."
789
790 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
791 msgid ""
792 "But this is an inexact and thus wasteful practice. The union organizer can’t "
793 "know which worker to approach on the way out of the factory gates and may "
794 "waste their time on a covert John Birch Society member; the white "
795 "supremacist doesn’t know which of the Birchers are so delusional that making "
796 "it to a meeting is as much as they can manage and which ones might be "
797 "convinced to cross the country to carry a tiki torch through the streets of "
798 "Charlottesville, Virginia."
799 msgstr ""
800 "Men dette er en unøyaktig og ressurssløsende praksis. Fagforeningenfyren kan "
801 "ikke vite hvilken arbeider de bør ta kontakt med på vei ut fra fabrikken, og "
802 "kan kaste bort tiden sin på en som er John Birch Society-medlem i skjul, og "
803 "forkjemperen for hvitt overherredømme kan ikke hvem ar John Birch Society-"
804 "medlemmene som er så fjern at det å komme seg på et møte er det meste de "
805 "klarer, og hvilke som kan overtales til å reise tvers over hele landet for å "
806 "bære en tiki-fakkel gjennom gatene i Charlottesville, Virginia."
807
808 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
809 msgid ""
810 "Because targeting improves the yields on political pitches, it can "
811 "accelerate the pace of political upheaval by making it possible for everyone "
812 "who has secretly wished for the toppling of an autocrat — or just an 11-term "
813 "incumbent politician — to find everyone else who feels the same way at very "
814 "low cost. This has been critical to the rapid crystallization of recent "
815 "political movements including Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street as "
816 "well as less savory players like the far-right white nationalist movements "
817 "that marched in Charlottesville."
818 msgstr ""
819 "Fordi målretting forbedrer nedslagsfeltet i politiske leire, kan det "
820 "akselerere tempoet i en politisk omveltning ved å åpne for at alle som i "
821 "hemmelighet ønsket å velte en autokrat - eller bare en en politiker som har "
822 "sittet i elleve perioder - i å finne alle andre som føler det samme, og til "
823 "en lav kostnad. Dette har vært avgjørende for den raske utkrystalliseringen "
824 "av de siste politiske bevegelsene, inkludert Black Lives Matter og Occupy "
825 "Wall Street, samt mindre tiltalende aktører, som ytre høyrehvite "
826 "nasjonalistiske bevegelser som marsjerte i Charlottesville."
827
828 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
829 msgid ""
830 "It’s important to differentiate this kind of political organizing from "
831 "influence campaigns; finding people who secretly agree with you isn’t the "
832 "same as convincing people to agree with you. The rise of phenomena like "
833 "nonbinary or otherwise nonconforming gender identities is often "
834 "characterized by reactionaries as the result of online brainwashing "
835 "campaigns that convince impressionable people that they have been secretly "
836 "queer all along."
837 msgstr ""
838 "Det er viktig å skille denne typen politisk organisering fra "
839 "påvirkningskampanjer; å finne folk som i hemmelighet er enige med deg er "
840 "ikke det samme som å overbevise folk til å være enig med deg. Fremveksten av "
841 "fenomener som ikke-binære eller på annen måte avvikende kjønnsidentiteter er "
842 "ofte preget av reaksjonære som følge av hjernevaskingskampanjer på nettet "
843 "som overbeviser påvirkbare mennesker at i hemmelighet her vært skeive hele "
844 "tiden."
845
846 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
847 msgid ""
848 "But the personal accounts of those who have come out tell a different story "
849 "where people who long harbored a secret about their gender were emboldened "
850 "by others coming forward and where people who knew that they were different "
851 "but lacked a vocabulary for discussing that difference learned the right "
852 "words from these low-cost means of finding people and learning about their "
853 "ideas."
854 msgstr ""
855 "Men de personlige beretningene til de som har trådt frem, forteller en annen "
856 "historie hvor folk som lenge hadde en hemmelighet om deres kjønn, ble "
857 "styrket av andre som trådte frem, og der folk som visste at de var "
858 "forskjellige, men manglet et ordforråd for å diskutere denne forskjellen, "
859 "lærte de riktige ordene på disse rimelige måtene ved å finne folk på og lære "
860 "om deres ideer."
861
862 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
863 #, fuzzy
864 msgid "2. Deception"
865 msgstr "2. Bedrag"
866
867 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
868 msgid ""
869 "Lies and fraud are pernicious, and surveillance capitalism supercharges them "
870 "through targeting. If you want to sell a fraudulent payday loan or subprime "
871 "mortgage, surveillance capitalism can help you find people who are both "
872 "desperate and unsophisticated and thus receptive to your pitch. This "
873 "accounts for the rise of many phenomena, like multilevel marketing schemes, "
874 "in which deceptive claims about potential earnings and the efficacy of sales "
875 "techniques are targeted at desperate people by advertising against search "
876 "queries that indicate, for example, someone struggling with ill-advised "
877 "loans."
878 msgstr ""
879 "Løgner og svindel er skadelige, og overvåkingskapitalismen overbelaster dem "
880 "gjennom målretting. Hvis du ønsker å selge et uredelig forskuddslån frem til "
881 "lønningsdagen eller et overbelastet boliglån, kan overvåkingskapitalismen "
882 "hjelpe deg å finne folk som er både desperate og usofistikerte og dermed "
883 "mottakelig for ditt påhopp. Dette står for fremveksten av mange fenomener, "
884 "som flernivå markedsføringsopplegg, der villedende påstander om potensiell "
885 "inntjening og effektive av salgsteknikker er rettet mot desperate mennesker "
886 "ved å annonsere mot søk som indikerer, for eksempel, at noen sliter med lån "
887 "som resultat av dårlig rådgiving."
888
889 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
890 msgid ""
891 "Surveillance capitalism also abets fraud by making it easy to locate other "
892 "people who have been similarly deceived, forming a community of people who "
893 "reinforce one another’s false beliefs. Think of <ulink url=\"https://www."
894 "vulture.com/2020/01/the-dream-podcast-review.html\">the forums</ulink> where "
895 "people who are being victimized by multilevel marketing frauds gather to "
896 "trade tips on how to improve their luck in peddling the product."
897 msgstr ""
898 "Overvåkingskapitalismen fremmer også svindel ved å gjøre det enkelt å finne "
899 "andre mennesker som har blitt tilsvarende bedratt, og danner et fellesskap "
900 "av mennesker som forsterker hverandres falske tro. Tenk på <ulink url="
901 "\"https://www.vulture.com/2020/01/the-dream-podcast-review.html\">forumene</"
902 "ulink> hvor folk, som blir utsatt for flernivå markedsføringssvindel, samles "
903 "for å utveksle tips om hvordan de kan forbedre sin situasjon ved å selv "
904 "selge produktet."
905
906 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
907 msgid ""
908 "Sometimes, online deception involves replacing someone’s correct beliefs "
909 "with incorrect ones, as it does in the anti-vaccination movement, whose "
910 "victims are often people who start out believing in vaccines but are "
911 "convinced by seemingly plausible evidence that leads them into the false "
912 "belief that vaccines are harmful."
913 msgstr ""
914 "Noen ganger innebærer nettbedrageri å erstatte noens korrekte tro med feil, "
915 "som det gjør i anti-vaksinasjonsbevegelsen, hvis ofre ofte er folk som "
916 "begynner å tro på vaksiner, men er overbevist av tilsynelatende plausible "
917 "bevis som fører dem inn i den falske troen på at vaksiner er skadelige."
918
919 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
920 msgid ""
921 "But it’s much more common for fraud to succeed when it doesn’t have to "
922 "displace a true belief. When my daughter contracted head lice at daycare, "
923 "one of the daycare workers told me I could get rid of them by treating her "
924 "hair and scalp with olive oil. I didn’t know anything about head lice, and I "
925 "assumed that the daycare worker did, so I tried it (it didn’t work, and it "
926 "doesn’t work). It’s easy to end up with false beliefs when you simply don’t "
927 "know any better and when those beliefs are conveyed by someone who seems to "
928 "know what they’re doing."
929 msgstr ""
930 "Men det er mye mer vanlig for svindel å lykkes når den ikke trenger å "
931 "fortrenge en riktig overbevisning. Da datteren min fikk hodelus i "
932 "barnehagen, fortalte en av barnehagearbeiderne meg at jeg kunne bli kvitt "
933 "dem ved å behandle håret og hodebunnen med olivenolje. Jeg visste ikke noe "
934 "om hodelus, og jeg antok at barnehagearbeideren gjorde det, så jeg prøvde "
935 "det (det fungerte ikke, og det virker ikke). Det er lett å ende opp med "
936 "falske tro når du rett og slett ikke vet noe bedre, og når disse "
937 "overbevisningene formidles av noen som synes å vite hva de gjør."
938
939 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
940 msgid ""
941 "This is pernicious and difficult — and it’s also the kind of thing the "
942 "internet can help guard against by making true information available, "
943 "especially in a form that exposes the underlying deliberations among parties "
944 "with sharply divergent views, such as Wikipedia. But it’s not brainwashing; "
945 "it’s fraud. In the <ulink url=\"https://datasociety.net/library/data-voids/"
946 "\">majority of cases</ulink>, the victims of these fraud campaigns have an "
947 "informational void filled in the customary way, by consulting a seemingly "
948 "reliable source. If I look up the length of the Brooklyn Bridge and learn "
949 "that it is 5,800 feet long, but in reality, it is 5,989 feet long, the "
950 "underlying deception is a problem, but it’s a problem with a simple remedy. "
951 "It’s a very different problem from the anti-vax issue in which someone’s "
952 "true belief is displaced by a false one by means of sophisticated persuasion."
953 msgstr ""
954 "Dette er skadelig og vanskelig - og det er også den typen ting Internett kan "
955 "bidra til å beskytte mot. Ved å gjøre sann informasjon tilgjengelig, "
956 "spesielt i en form som avslører de underliggende overveielsene blant parter "
957 "med skarpt divergerende synspunkter, som i Wikipedia. Men dette er ikke "
958 "hjernevasking; det er svindel. I <ulink url=\"https://datasociety.net/"
959 "library/data-voids/\"> de fleste tilfellene</ulink>, har ofrene for disse "
960 "svindelkampanjene fått et informasjonstomrom fylt på vanlig måte, ved å "
961 "konsultere en tilsynelatende pålitelig kilde. Hvis jeg undersøker lengden på "
962 "Brooklyn Bridge,og finner at den er 5800 fot lang, men i virkeligheten er "
963 "den 5989 fot lang, er det underliggende bedraget er et problem, men det er "
964 "et problem med en enkelt enkelt hjelpemiddel. Det er et helt annet problem "
965 "enn anti-voksproblemet, der noens korrekte oppfatning er erstattet av en "
966 "falsk ved hjelp av en sofistikert overtalelse."
967
968 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
969 msgid "3. Domination"
970 msgstr "3. Dominans"
971
972 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
973 msgid ""
974 "Surveillance capitalism is the result of monopoly. Monopoly is the cause, "
975 "and surveillance capitalism and its negative outcomes are the effects of "
976 "monopoly. I’ll get into this in depth later, but for now, suffice it to say "
977 "that the tech industry has grown up with a radical theory of antitrust that "
978 "has allowed companies to grow by merging with their rivals, buying up their "
979 "nascent competitors, and expanding to control whole market verticals."
980 msgstr ""
981 "Overvåkingskapitalismen er et resultat av monopol. Monopol er årsaken, og "
982 "overvåkingskapitalismen og dens negative resultater er virkningene av "
983 "monopol. Jeg vil gå dypere inn i dette senere, men nå er det nok å si at "
984 "teknologi-industrien har vokst opp med en radikal teori om antitrust, som "
985 "har tillatt selskaper å vokse ved å fusjonere med sine rivaler, kjøpe opp "
986 "sine gryende konkurrenter, og utvidet til å kontrollere hele markedet "
987 "vertikalt."
988
989 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
990 msgid ""
991 "One example of how monopolism aids in persuasion is through dominance: "
992 "Google makes editorial decisions about its algorithms that determine the "
993 "sort order of the responses to our queries. If a cabal of fraudsters have "
994 "set out to trick the world into thinking that the Brooklyn Bridge is 5,800 "
995 "feet long, and if Google gives a high search rank to this group in response "
996 "to queries like <quote>How long is the Brooklyn Bridge?</quote> then the "
997 "first eight or 10 screens’ worth of Google results could be wrong. And since "
998 "most people don’t go beyond the first couple of results — let alone the "
999 "first <emphasis>page</emphasis> of results — Google’s choice means that many "
1000 "people will be deceived."
1001 msgstr ""
1002 "Et eksempel på hvordan monopolopptreden hjelper til å overtalelse gjennom "
1003 "dominans: Google tar redaksjonelle beslutninger om sine algoritmer som "
1004 "bestemmer sorteringsrekkefølgen for svarene på våre søk. Hvis en samling "
1005 "svindlere vil lure verden til å tro at Brooklyn Bridge er 5800 fot lang, og "
1006 "hvis Google gir en høy søkerangering til den gruppen som svar på spørsmål "
1007 "som <quote>Hvor lang er Brooklyn Bridge? </quote> Da kan de første åtte "
1008 "eller ti Google- skjermene ha feil verdier. Og siden de fleste ikke går "
1009 "lengre enn de første par resultatene – enn si resultatene på den første "
1010 "<emphasis>siden</emphasis> med resultater – betyr Googles valg, at mange "
1011 "mennesker vil bli ført bak lyset."
1012
1013 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
1014 msgid ""
1015 "Google’s dominance over search — more than 86% of web searches are performed "
1016 "through Google — means that the way it orders its search results has an "
1017 "outsized effect on public beliefs. Ironically, Google claims this is why it "
1018 "can’t afford to have any transparency in its algorithm design: Google’s "
1019 "search dominance makes the results of its sorting too important to risk "
1020 "telling the world how it arrives at those results lest some bad actor "
1021 "discover a flaw in the ranking system and exploit it to push its point of "
1022 "view to the top of the search results. There’s an obvious remedy to a "
1023 "company that is too big to audit: break it up into smaller pieces."
1024 msgstr ""
1025 "Googles dominans over søk – mer enn 86 % av nettsøkene utføres via Google – "
1026 "betyr at måten de organiserer søkeresultatene på, har en stor effekt på den "
1027 "offentlige oppfatningen. Ironisk nok hevder Google at det er derfor det ikke "
1028 "har råd til å ha noen åpenhet i sin algoritmedesign: Googles søkedominans "
1029 "gjør resultatene av sorteringen er for viktig til å risikere å fortelle "
1030 "verden hvordan den kommer til disse resultatene, om ikke en dårlig aktør "
1031 "oppdager en feil i rangeringssystemet, og utnytter det til å presse sitt syn "
1032 "frem til toppen av søkeresultatene. Det er et åpenbart hjelpemiddel overfor "
1033 "et selskap som er for stort til å bli gjennomgått: Å bryte det opp i mindre "
1034 "biter."
1035
1036 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
1037 msgid ""
1038 "Zuboff calls surveillance capitalism a <quote>rogue capitalism</quote> whose "
1039 "data-hoarding and machine-learning techniques rob us of our free will. But "
1040 "influence campaigns that seek to displace existing, correct beliefs with "
1041 "false ones have an effect that is small and temporary while monopolistic "
1042 "dominance over informational systems has massive, enduring effects. "
1043 "Controlling the results to the world’s search queries means controlling "
1044 "access both to arguments and their rebuttals and, thus, control over much of "
1045 "the world’s beliefs. If our concern is how corporations are foreclosing on "
1046 "our ability to make up our own minds and determine our own futures, the "
1047 "impact of dominance far exceeds the impact of manipulation and should be "
1048 "central to our analysis and any remedies we seek."
1049 msgstr ""
1050 "Zuboff kaller overvåkingskapitalismen en <quote>rogue kapitalisme</quote> "
1051 "hvis datahamstring og maskinlæringsteknikker frarøver oss vår frie vilje. "
1052 "Men påvirkningskampanjer som søker å fortrenge eksisterende, korrekte "
1053 "overbevisning tro med falsk, har en effekt som er liten og midlertidig, mens "
1054 "monopolistisk dominans over informasjonssystemer har massive, varige "
1055 "effekter. Å kontrollere resultatene til verdens søk, betyr å kontrollere "
1056 "tilgang både til argumenter og deres motsvar, og dermed kontroll over mye av "
1057 "verdens tro. Hvis vår bekymring er hvordan selskaper foregriper vår "
1058 "muligheter å gjøre opp våre egne oppfatninger og bestemme vår egen fremtid. "
1059 "Virkningen av slik dominans overstiger langt virkningen av manipulasjon og "
1060 "bør stå sentralt i vår analyse og for alle verktøy vi søker etter."
1061
1062 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
1063 msgid "4. Bypassing our rational faculties"
1064 msgstr "4. Omgåelse av våre rasjonelle evner"
1065
1066 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
1067 msgid ""
1068 "<emphasis>This</emphasis> is the good stuff: using machine learning, "
1069 "<quote>dark patterns,</quote> engagement hacking, and other techniques to "
1070 "get us to do things that run counter to our better judgment. This is mind "
1071 "control."
1072 msgstr ""
1073 "<emphasis>Dette</emphasis> er de gode greiene: ved hjelp av maskinlæring, "
1074 "<quote>mørke mønstre</quote>, \"engagement hacking\" (FIXME) og andre "
1075 "teknikker for å få oss til å gjøre ting som er i strid med vår egen sunne "
1076 "fornuft. Dette er tankekontroll."
1077
1078 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
1079 msgid ""
1080 "Some of these techniques have proven devastatingly effective (if only in the "
1081 "short term). The use of countdown timers on a purchase completion page can "
1082 "create a sense of urgency that causes you to ignore the nagging internal "
1083 "voice suggesting that you should shop around or sleep on your decision. The "
1084 "use of people from your social graph in ads can provide <quote>social proof</"
1085 "quote> that a purchase is worth making. Even the auction system pioneered by "
1086 "eBay is calculated to play on our cognitive blind spots, letting us feel "
1087 "like we <quote>own</quote> something because we bid on it, thus encouraging "
1088 "us to bid again when we are outbid to ensure that <quote>our</quote> things "
1089 "stay ours."
1090 msgstr ""
1091 "Noen av disse teknikkene har vist seg ødeleggende effektive (om bare på kort "
1092 "sikt). Bruk av nedtellingstidtakere på en kjøpsfullføringsside kan skape en "
1093 "følelse av hast som får deg til å ignorere den gnagende interne stemmen, som "
1094 "antyder at du bør undersøke flere alternativer eller sove på avgjørelsen "
1095 "din. Bruken av personer fra den sosiale grafen i annonser kan gi "
1096 "<quote>sosiale bevis</quote> at et kjøp er verdt å gjøre. Selv "
1097 "auksjonssystemet som eBay har utviklet, er beregnet til å spille på våre "
1098 "kognitive blindsoner, slik at vi kan føle at vi <quote>eier</quote> noe "
1099 "fordi vi byr på det, og dermed oppmuntrer oss til å by igjen, når vi blir "
1100 "overbydd, for å sikre at <quote>våre</quote> ting forblir våre."
1101
1102 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
1103 msgid ""
1104 "Games are extraordinarily good at this. <quote>Free to play</quote> games "
1105 "manipulate us through many techniques, such as presenting players with a "
1106 "series of smoothly escalating challenges that create a sense of mastery and "
1107 "accomplishment but which sharply transition into a set of challenges that "
1108 "are impossible to overcome without paid upgrades. Add some social proof to "
1109 "the mix — a stream of notifications about how well your friends are faring — "
1110 "and before you know it, you’re buying virtual power-ups to get to the next "
1111 "level."
1112 msgstr ""
1113 "Spill er usedvanlig gode på dette. <quote> Gratis å spille</quote>-spill "
1114 "manipulere oss gjennom mange teknikker, for eksempel ved å presentere "
1115 "spillere med en rekke jevnt eskalerende utfordringer, som skaper en følelse "
1116 "av mestring og prestasjon, men som skarpt går over til et sett med "
1117 "utfordringer som er umulige å overvinne uten betalte oppgraderinger. Legg "
1118 "til noen sosiale bevis i blandingen – en strøm av varsler om hvor godt "
1119 "vennene dine klarer det – og før du vet av det, kjøper du virtuelle "
1120 "oppgraderinger for å komme opp til neste nivå."
1121
1122 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
1123 msgid ""
1124 "Companies have risen and fallen on these techniques, and the <quote>fallen</"
1125 "quote> part is worth paying attention to. In general, living things adapt to "
1126 "stimulus: Something that is very compelling or noteworthy when you first "
1127 "encounter it fades with repetition until you stop noticing it altogether. "
1128 "Consider the refrigerator hum that irritates you when it starts up but "
1129 "disappears into the background so thoroughly that you only notice it when it "
1130 "stops again."
1131 msgstr ""
1132 "Selskaper har steget og falt på disse teknikkene, og de <quote>fallende</"
1133 "quote> delen er verdt å vie oppmerksomhet. Generelt tilpasser levende ting "
1134 "seg til stimuli: Noe som er veldig overbevisende eller bemerkelsesverdig når "
1135 "du først møter det, falmer med repetisjon til du slutter å legge merke til "
1136 "det helt. Tenk på lyden fra kjøleskapet, som irriterer deg når det starter "
1137 "opp, men som forsvinner helt i bakgrunnen, slik at du bare legger merke til "
1138 "den når det stopper igjen."
1139
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1141 msgid ""
1142 "That’s why behavioral conditioning uses <quote>intermittent reinforcement "
1143 "schedules.</quote> Instead of giving you a steady drip of encouragement or "
1144 "setbacks, games and gamified services scatter rewards on a randomized "
1145 "schedule — often enough to keep you interested and random enough that you "
1146 "can never quite find the pattern that would make it boring."
1147 msgstr ""
1148 "Det er derfor atferdskondisjonering bruker <quote>periodiske "
1149 "forsterkningsmetodikker.</quote> I stedet for å gi deg et jevnt drypp av "
1150 "oppmuntring eller tilbakeslag, fordeler spill og spill-lignende tjenester "
1151 "belønninger med et randomisert oppsett - ofte nok til å holde deg "
1152 "interessert og tilfeldig nok til at du aldri helt kan finne mønsteret som "
1153 "ville gjøre det kjedelig."
1154
1155 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
1156 msgid ""
1157 "Intermittent reinforcement is a powerful behavioral tool, but it also "
1158 "represents a collective action problem for surveillance capitalism. The "
1159 "<quote>engagement techniques</quote> invented by the behaviorists of "
1160 "surveillance capitalist companies are quickly copied across the whole sector "
1161 "so that what starts as a mysteriously compelling fillip in the design of a "
1162 "service—like <quote>pull to refresh</quote> or alerts when someone likes "
1163 "your posts or side quests that your characters get invited to while in the "
1164 "midst of main quests—quickly becomes dully ubiquitous. The impossible-to-"
1165 "nail-down nonpattern of randomized drips from your phone becomes a grey-"
1166 "noise wall of sound as every single app and site starts to make use of "
1167 "whatever seems to be working at the time."
1168 msgstr ""
1169 "Periodiske forsterkninger er et kraftig atferdsverktøy, men det "
1170 "representerer også et kollektivt handlingsproblem for "
1171 "overvåkingskapitalismen. <quote>Engasjementsteknikkene</quote> er oppfunnet "
1172 "av atferdseksperter i overvåkingskapitalistiske selskaper og kopieres raskt "
1173 "over hele sektoren. Slik at det som starter som en mystisk overbevisende "
1174 "stimuli i utformingen av en tjeneste – som <quote>trykk for å oppdatere</"
1175 "quote> eller varsler når noen liker innleggene eller siden din, og som "
1176 "karakteren din inviteres til, mens den er midt i et kjedelig, "
1177 "allestedsnærværende hovedoppdrag. Videre tikker de tilfeldige dryppene fra "
1178 "din mobil, som det er umulig å ta tak i, og som blir til en grå lydvegg når "
1179 "hver enkelt app og nettsted arbeider."
1180
1181 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
1182 msgid ""
1183 "From the surveillance capitalist’s point of view, our adaptive capacity is "
1184 "like a harmful bacterium that deprives it of its food source — our attention "
1185 "— and novel techniques for snagging that attention are like new antibiotics "
1186 "that can be used to breach our defenses and destroy our self-determination. "
1187 "And there <emphasis>are</emphasis> techniques like that. Who can forget the "
1188 "Great Zynga Epidemic, when all of our friends were caught in "
1189 "<emphasis>FarmVille</emphasis>’s endless, mindless dopamine loops? But every "
1190 "new attention-commanding technique is jumped on by the whole industry and "
1191 "used so indiscriminately that antibiotic resistance sets in. Given enough "
1192 "repetition, almost all of us develop immunity to even the most powerful "
1193 "techniques — by 2013, two years after Zynga’s peak, its user base had halved."
1194 msgstr ""
1195
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1198 "Not everyone, of course. Some people never adapt to stimulus, just as some "
1199 "people never stop hearing the hum of the refrigerator. This is why most "
1200 "people who are exposed to slot machines play them for a while and then move "
1201 "on while a small and tragic minority liquidate their kids’ college funds, "
1202 "buy adult diapers, and position themselves in front of a machine until they "
1203 "collapse."
1204 msgstr ""
1205
1206 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
1207 msgid ""
1208 "But surveillance capitalism’s margins on behavioral modification suck. "
1209 "Tripling the rate at which someone buys a widget sounds great <ulink url="
1210 "\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/priceonomics/2018/03/09/the-advertising-"
1211 "conversion-rates-for-every-major-tech-platform/#2f6a67485957\">unless the "
1212 "base rate is way less than 1%</ulink> with an improved rate of… still less "
1213 "than 1%. Even penny slot machines pull down pennies for every spin while "
1214 "surveillance capitalism rakes in infinitesimal penny fractions."
1215 msgstr ""
1216
1217 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
1218 msgid ""
1219 "Slot machines’ high returns mean that they can be profitable just by "
1220 "draining the fortunes of the small rump of people who are pathologically "
1221 "vulnerable to them and unable to adapt to their tricks. But surveillance "
1222 "capitalism can’t survive on the fractional pennies it brings down from that "
1223 "vulnerable sliver — that’s why, after the Great Zynga Epidemic had finally "
1224 "burned itself out, the small number of still-addicted players left behind "
1225 "couldn’t sustain it as a global phenomenon. And new powerful attention "
1226 "weapons aren’t easy to find, as is evidenced by the long years since the "
1227 "last time Zynga had a hit. Despite the hundreds of millions of dollars that "
1228 "Zynga has to spend on developing new tools to blast through our adaptation, "
1229 "it has never managed to repeat the lucky accident that let it snag so much "
1230 "of our attention for a brief moment in 2009. Powerhouses like Supercell have "
1231 "fared a little better, but they are rare and throw away many failures for "
1232 "every success."
1233 msgstr ""
1234
1235 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
1236 msgid ""
1237 "The vulnerability of small segments of the population to dramatic, efficient "
1238 "corporate manipulation is a real concern that’s worthy of our attention and "
1239 "energy. But it’s not an existential threat to society."
1240 msgstr ""
1241
1242 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
1243 msgid ""
1244 "If data is the new oil, then surveillance capitalism’s engine has a leak"
1245 msgstr "Hvis data er den nye oljen, er motorlekkasje overvåkningskapitalismen"
1246
1247 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1248 msgid ""
1249 "This adaptation problem offers an explanation for one of surveillance "
1250 "capitalism’s most alarming traits: its relentless hunger for data and its "
1251 "endless expansion of data-gathering capabilities through the spread of "
1252 "sensors, online surveillance, and acquisition of data streams from third "
1253 "parties."
1254 msgstr ""
1255
1256 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1257 msgid ""
1258 "Zuboff observes this phenomenon and concludes that data must be very "
1259 "valuable if surveillance capitalism is so hungry for it. (In her words: "
1260 "<quote>Just as industrial capitalism was driven to the continuous "
1261 "intensification of the means of production, so surveillance capitalists and "
1262 "their market players are now locked into the continuous intensification of "
1263 "the means of behavioral modification and the gathering might of "
1264 "instrumentarian power.</quote>) But what if the voracious appetite is "
1265 "because data has such a short half-life — because people become inured so "
1266 "quickly to new, data-driven persuasion techniques — that the companies are "
1267 "locked in an arms race with our limbic system? What if it’s all a Red "
1268 "Queen’s race where they have to run ever faster — collect ever-more data — "
1269 "just to stay in the same spot?"
1270 msgstr ""
1271
1272 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1273 msgid ""
1274 "Of course, all of Big Tech’s persuasion techniques work in concert with one "
1275 "another, and collecting data is useful beyond mere behavioral trickery."
1276 msgstr ""
1277
1278 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1279 msgid ""
1280 "If someone wants to recruit you to buy a refrigerator or join a pogrom, they "
1281 "might use profiling and targeting to send messages to people they judge to "
1282 "be good sales prospects. The messages themselves may be deceptive, making "
1283 "claims about things you’re not very knowledgeable about (food safety and "
1284 "energy efficiency or eugenics and historical claims about racial "
1285 "superiority). They might use search engine optimization and/or armies of "
1286 "fake reviewers and commenters and/or paid placement to dominate the "
1287 "discourse so that any search for further information takes you back to their "
1288 "messages. And finally, they may refine the different pitches using machine "
1289 "learning and other techniques to figure out what kind of pitch works best on "
1290 "someone like you."
1291 msgstr ""
1292
1293 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1294 msgid ""
1295 "Each phase of this process benefits from surveillance: The more data they "
1296 "have, the more precisely they can profile you and target you with specific "
1297 "messages. Think of how you’d sell a fridge if you knew that the warranty on "
1298 "your prospect’s fridge just expired and that they were expecting a tax "
1299 "rebate in April."
1300 msgstr ""
1301
1302 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1303 msgid ""
1304 "Also, the more data they have, the better they can craft deceptive messages "
1305 "— if I know that you’re into genealogy, I might not try to feed you "
1306 "pseudoscience about genetic differences between <quote>races,</quote> "
1307 "sticking instead to conspiratorial secret histories of <quote>demographic "
1308 "replacement</quote> and the like."
1309 msgstr ""
1310
1311 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1312 msgid ""
1313 "Facebook also helps you locate people who have the same odious or antisocial "
1314 "views as you. It makes it possible to find other people who want to carry "
1315 "tiki torches through the streets of Charlottesville in Confederate cosplay. "
1316 "It can help you find other people who want to join your militia and go to "
1317 "the border to look for undocumented migrants to terrorize. It can help you "
1318 "find people who share your belief that vaccines are poison and that the "
1319 "Earth is flat."
1320 msgstr ""
1321
1322 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1323 msgid ""
1324 "There is one way in which targeted advertising uniquely benefits those "
1325 "advocating for socially unacceptable causes: It is invisible. Racism is "
1326 "widely geographically dispersed, and there are few places where racists — "
1327 "and only racists — gather. This is similar to the problem of selling "
1328 "refrigerators in that potential refrigerator purchasers are geographically "
1329 "dispersed and there are few places where you can buy an ad that will be "
1330 "primarily seen by refrigerator customers. But buying a refrigerator is "
1331 "socially acceptable while being a Nazi is not, so you can buy a billboard or "
1332 "advertise in the newspaper sports section for your refrigerator business, "
1333 "and the only potential downside is that your ad will be seen by a lot of "
1334 "people who don’t want refrigerators, resulting in a lot of wasted expense."
1335 msgstr ""
1336
1337 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1338 msgid ""
1339 "But even if you wanted to advertise your Nazi movement on a billboard or "
1340 "prime-time TV or the sports section, you would struggle to find anyone "
1341 "willing to sell you the space for your ad partly because they disagree with "
1342 "your views and partly because they fear censure (boycott, reputational "
1343 "damage, etc.) from other people who disagree with your views."
1344 msgstr ""
1345
1346 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1347 msgid ""
1348 "Targeted ads solve this problem: On the internet, every ad unit can be "
1349 "different for every person, meaning that you can buy ads that are only shown "
1350 "to people who appear to be Nazis and not to people who hate Nazis. When "
1351 "there’s spillover — when someone who hates racism is shown a racist "
1352 "recruiting ad — there is some fallout; the platform or publication might get "
1353 "an angry public or private denunciation. But the nature of the risk assumed "
1354 "by an online ad buyer is different than the risks to a traditional publisher "
1355 "or billboard owner who might want to run a Nazi ad."
1356 msgstr ""
1357
1358 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1359 msgid ""
1360 "Online ads are placed by algorithms that broker between a diverse ecosystem "
1361 "of self-serve ad platforms that anyone can buy an ad through, so the Nazi ad "
1362 "that slips onto your favorite online publication isn’t seen as their moral "
1363 "failing but rather as a failure in some distant, upstream ad supplier. When "
1364 "a publication gets a complaint about an offensive ad that’s appearing in one "
1365 "of its units, it can take some steps to block that ad, but the Nazi might "
1366 "buy a slightly different ad from a different broker serving the same unit. "
1367 "And in any event, internet users increasingly understand that when they see "
1368 "an ad, it’s likely that the advertiser did not choose that publication and "
1369 "that the publication has no idea who its advertisers are."
1370 msgstr ""
1371
1372 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1373 msgid ""
1374 "These layers of indirection between advertisers and publishers serve as "
1375 "moral buffers: Today’s moral consensus is largely that publishers shouldn’t "
1376 "be held responsible for the ads that appear on their pages because they’re "
1377 "not actively choosing to put those ads there. Because of this, Nazis are "
1378 "able to overcome significant barriers to organizing their movement."
1379 msgstr ""
1380
1381 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1382 msgid ""
1383 "Data has a complex relationship with domination. Being able to spy on your "
1384 "customers can alert you to their preferences for your rivals and allow you "
1385 "to head off your rivals at the pass."
1386 msgstr ""
1387
1388 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1389 msgid ""
1390 "More importantly, if you can dominate the information space while also "
1391 "gathering data, then you make other deceptive tactics stronger because it’s "
1392 "harder to break out of the web of deceit you’re spinning. Domination — that "
1393 "is, ultimately becoming a monopoly — and not the data itself is the "
1394 "supercharger that makes every tactic worth pursuing because monopolistic "
1395 "domination deprives your target of an escape route."
1396 msgstr ""
1397
1398 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1399 msgid ""
1400 "If you’re a Nazi who wants to ensure that your prospects primarily see "
1401 "deceptive, confirming information when they search for more, you can improve "
1402 "your odds by seeding the search terms they use through your initial "
1403 "communications. You don’t need to own the top 10 results for <quote>voter "
1404 "suppression</quote> if you can convince your marks to confine their search "
1405 "terms to <quote>voter fraud,</quote> which throws up a very different set of "
1406 "search results."
1407 msgstr ""
1408
1409 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1410 msgid ""
1411 "Surveillance capitalists are like stage mentalists who claim that their "
1412 "extraordinary insights into human behavior let them guess the word that you "
1413 "wrote down and folded up in your pocket but who really use shills, hidden "
1414 "cameras, sleight of hand, and brute-force memorization to amaze you."
1415 msgstr ""
1416
1417 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1418 msgid ""
1419 "Or perhaps they’re more like pick-up artists, the misogynistic cult that "
1420 "promises to help awkward men have sex with women by teaching them "
1421 "<quote>neurolinguistic programming</quote> phrases, body language "
1422 "techniques, and psychological manipulation tactics like <quote>negging</"
1423 "quote> — offering unsolicited negative feedback to women to lower their self-"
1424 "esteem and prick their interest."
1425 msgstr ""
1426
1427 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1428 msgid ""
1429 "Some pick-up artists eventually manage to convince women to go home with "
1430 "them, but it’s not because these men have figured out how to bypass women’s "
1431 "critical faculties. Rather, pick-up artists’ <quote>success</quote> stories "
1432 "are a mix of women who were incapable of giving consent, women who were "
1433 "coerced, women who were intoxicated, self-destructive women, and a few women "
1434 "who were sober and in command of their faculties but who didn’t realize "
1435 "straightaway that they were with terrible men but rectified the error as "
1436 "soon as they could."
1437 msgstr ""
1438
1439 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1440 msgid ""
1441 "Pick-up artists <emphasis>believe</emphasis> they have figured out a secret "
1442 "back door that bypasses women’s critical faculties, but they haven’t. Many "
1443 "of the tactics they deploy, like negging, became the butt of jokes (just "
1444 "like people joke about bad ad targeting), and there’s a good chance that "
1445 "anyone they try these tactics on will immediately recognize them and dismiss "
1446 "the men who use them as irredeemable losers."
1447 msgstr ""
1448
1449 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1450 msgid ""
1451 "Pick-up artists are proof that people can believe they have developed a "
1452 "system of mind control <emphasis>even when it doesn’t work</emphasis>. Pick-"
1453 "up artists simply exploit the fact that one-in-a-million chances can come "
1454 "through for you if you make a million attempts, and then they assume that "
1455 "the other 999,999 times, they simply performed the technique incorrectly and "
1456 "commit themselves to doing better next time. There’s only one group of "
1457 "people who find pick-up artist lore reliably convincing: other would-be pick-"
1458 "up artists whose anxiety and insecurity make them vulnerable to scammers and "
1459 "delusional men who convince them that if they pay for tutelage and follow "
1460 "instructions, then they will someday succeed. Pick-up artists assume they "
1461 "fail to entice women because they are bad at being pick-up artists, not "
1462 "because pick-up artistry is bullshit. Pick-up artists are bad at selling "
1463 "themselves to women, but they’re much better at selling themselves to men "
1464 "who pay to learn the secrets of pick-up artistry."
1465 msgstr ""
1466
1467 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1468 msgid ""
1469 "Department store pioneer John Wanamaker is said to have lamented, "
1470 "<quote>Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I "
1471 "don’t know which half.</quote> The fact that Wanamaker thought that only "
1472 "half of his advertising spending was wasted is a tribute to the "
1473 "persuasiveness of advertising executives, who are <emphasis>much</emphasis> "
1474 "better at convincing potential clients to buy their services than they are "
1475 "at convincing the general public to buy their clients’ wares."
1476 msgstr ""
1477
1478 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
1479 msgid "What is Facebook?"
1480 msgstr "Hva er Facebook?"
1481
1482 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1483 msgid ""
1484 "Facebook is heralded as the origin of all of our modern plagues, and it’s "
1485 "not hard to see why. Some tech companies want to lock their users in but "
1486 "make their money by monopolizing access to the market for apps for their "
1487 "devices and gouging them on prices rather than by spying on them (like "
1488 "Apple). Some companies don’t care about locking in users because they’ve "
1489 "figured out how to spy on them no matter where they are and what they’re "
1490 "doing and can turn that surveillance into money (Google). Facebook alone "
1491 "among the Western tech giants has built a business based on locking in its "
1492 "users <emphasis>and</emphasis> spying on them all the time."
1493 msgstr ""
1494
1495 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1496 msgid ""
1497 "Facebook’s surveillance regime is really without parallel in the Western "
1498 "world. Though Facebook tries to prevent itself from being visible on the "
1499 "public web, hiding most of what goes on there from people unless they’re "
1500 "logged into Facebook, the company has nevertheless booby-trapped the entire "
1501 "web with surveillance tools in the form of Facebook <quote>Like</quote> "
1502 "buttons that web publishers include on their sites to boost their Facebook "
1503 "profiles. Facebook also makes various libraries and other useful code "
1504 "snippets available to web publishers that act as surveillance tendrils on "
1505 "the sites where they’re used, funneling information about visitors to the "
1506 "site — newspapers, dating sites, message boards — to Facebook."
1507 msgstr ""
1508
1509 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
1510 msgid ""
1511 "Big Tech is able to practice surveillance not just because it is tech but "
1512 "because it is <emphasis>big</emphasis>."
1513 msgstr ""
1514
1515 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1516 msgid ""
1517 "Facebook offers similar tools to app developers, so the apps — games, fart "
1518 "machines, business review services, apps for keeping abreast of your kid’s "
1519 "schooling — you use will send information about your activities to Facebook "
1520 "even if you don’t have a Facebook account and even if you don’t download or "
1521 "use Facebook apps. On top of all that, Facebook buys data from third-party "
1522 "brokers on shopping habits, physical location, use of <quote>loyalty</quote> "
1523 "programs, financial transactions, etc., and cross-references that with the "
1524 "dossiers it develops on activity on Facebook and with apps and the public "
1525 "web."
1526 msgstr ""
1527
1528 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1529 msgid ""
1530 "Though it’s easy to integrate the web with Facebook — linking to news "
1531 "stories and such — Facebook products are generally not available to be "
1532 "integrated back into the web itself. You can embed a tweet in a Facebook "
1533 "post, but if you embed a Facebook post in a tweet, you just get a link back "
1534 "to Facebook and must log in before you can see it. Facebook has used extreme "
1535 "technological and legal countermeasures to prevent rivals from allowing "
1536 "their users to embed Facebook snippets in competing services or to create "
1537 "alternative interfaces to Facebook that merge your Facebook inbox with those "
1538 "of other services that you use."
1539 msgstr ""
1540
1541 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1542 msgid ""
1543 "And Facebook is incredibly popular, with 2.3 billion claimed users (though "
1544 "many believe this figure to be inflated). Facebook has been used to organize "
1545 "genocidal pogroms, racist riots, anti-vaccination movements, flat Earth "
1546 "cults, and the political lives of some of the world’s ugliest, most brutal "
1547 "autocrats. There are some really alarming things going on in the world, and "
1548 "Facebook is implicated in many of them, so it’s easy to conclude that these "
1549 "bad things are the result of Facebook’s mind-control system, which it rents "
1550 "out to anyone with a few bucks to spend."
1551 msgstr ""
1552
1553 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1554 msgid ""
1555 "To understand what role Facebook plays in the formulation and mobilization "
1556 "of antisocial movements, we need to understand the dual nature of Facebook."
1557 msgstr ""
1558
1559 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1560 msgid ""
1561 "Because it has a lot of users and a lot of data about those users, Facebook "
1562 "is a very efficient tool for locating people with hard-to-find traits, the "
1563 "kinds of traits that are widely diffused in the population such that "
1564 "advertisers have historically struggled to find a cost-effective way to "
1565 "reach them. Think back to refrigerators: Most of us only replace our major "
1566 "appliances a few times in our entire lives. If you’re a refrigerator "
1567 "manufacturer or retailer, you have these brief windows in the life of a "
1568 "consumer during which they are pondering a purchase, and you have to somehow "
1569 "reach them. Anyone who’s ever registered a title change after buying a house "
1570 "can attest that appliance manufacturers are incredibly desperate to reach "
1571 "anyone who has even the slenderest chance of being in the market for a new "
1572 "fridge."
1573 msgstr ""
1574
1575 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1576 msgid ""
1577 "Facebook makes finding people shopping for refrigerators a <emphasis>lot</"
1578 "emphasis> easier. It can target ads to people who’ve registered a new home "
1579 "purchase, to people who’ve searched for refrigerator buying advice, to "
1580 "people who have complained about their fridge dying, or any combination "
1581 "thereof. It can even target people who’ve recently bought <emphasis>other</"
1582 "emphasis> kitchen appliances on the theory that someone who’s just replaced "
1583 "their stove and dishwasher might be in a fridge-buying kind of mood. The "
1584 "vast majority of people who are reached by these ads will not be in the "
1585 "market for a new fridge, but — crucially — the percentage of people who "
1586 "<emphasis>are</emphasis> looking for fridges that these ads reach is "
1587 "<emphasis>much</emphasis> larger than it is than for any group that might be "
1588 "subjected to traditional, offline targeted refrigerator marketing."
1589 msgstr ""
1590
1591 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1592 msgid ""
1593 "Facebook also makes it a lot easier to find people who have the same rare "
1594 "disease as you, which might have been impossible in earlier eras — the "
1595 "closest fellow sufferer might otherwise be hundreds of miles away. It makes "
1596 "it easier to find people who went to the same high school as you even though "
1597 "decades have passed and your former classmates have all been scattered to "
1598 "the four corners of the Earth."
1599 msgstr ""
1600
1601 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1602 msgid ""
1603 "Facebook also makes it much easier to find people who hold the same rare "
1604 "political beliefs as you. If you’ve always harbored a secret affinity for "
1605 "socialism but never dared utter this aloud lest you be demonized by your "
1606 "neighbors, Facebook can help you discover other people who feel the same way "
1607 "(and it might just demonstrate to you that your affinity is more widespread "
1608 "than you ever suspected). It can make it easier to find people who share "
1609 "your sexual identity. And again, it can help you to understand that what "
1610 "you thought was a shameful secret that affected only you was really a widely "
1611 "shared trait, giving you both comfort and the courage to come out to the "
1612 "people in your life."
1613 msgstr ""
1614
1615 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1616 msgid ""
1617 "All of this presents a dilemma for Facebook: Targeting makes the company’s "
1618 "ads more effective than traditional ads, but it also lets advertisers see "
1619 "just how effective their ads are. While advertisers are pleased to learn "
1620 "that Facebook ads are more effective than ads on systems with less "
1621 "sophisticated targeting, advertisers can also see that in nearly every case, "
1622 "the people who see their ads ignore them. Or, at best, the ads work on a "
1623 "subconscious level, creating nebulous unmeasurables like <quote>brand "
1624 "recognition.</quote> This means that the price per ad is very low in nearly "
1625 "every case."
1626 msgstr ""
1627
1628 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1629 msgid ""
1630 "To make things worse, many Facebook groups spark precious little discussion. "
1631 "Your little-league soccer team, the people with the same rare disease as "
1632 "you, and the people you share a political affinity with may exchange the odd "
1633 "flurry of messages at critical junctures, but on a daily basis, there’s not "
1634 "much to say to your old high school chums or other hockey-card collectors."
1635 msgstr ""
1636
1637 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1638 msgid ""
1639 "With nothing but <quote>organic</quote> discussion, Facebook would not "
1640 "generate enough traffic to sell enough ads to make the money it needs to "
1641 "continually expand by buying up its competitors while returning handsome "
1642 "sums to its investors."
1643 msgstr ""
1644
1645 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1646 msgid ""
1647 "So Facebook has to gin up traffic by sidetracking its own forums: Every time "
1648 "Facebook’s algorithm injects controversial materials — inflammatory "
1649 "political articles, conspiracy theories, outrage stories — into a group, it "
1650 "can hijack that group’s nominal purpose with its desultory discussions and "
1651 "supercharge those discussions by turning them into bitter, unproductive "
1652 "arguments that drag on and on. Facebook is optimized for engagement, not "
1653 "happiness, and it turns out that automated systems are pretty good at "
1654 "figuring out things that people will get angry about."
1655 msgstr ""
1656
1657 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1658 msgid ""
1659 "Facebook <emphasis>can</emphasis> modify our behavior but only in a couple "
1660 "of trivial ways. First, it can lock in all your friends and family members "
1661 "so that you check and check and check with Facebook to find out what they "
1662 "are up to; and second, it can make you angry and anxious. It can force you "
1663 "to choose between being interrupted constantly by updates — a process that "
1664 "breaks your concentration and makes it hard to be introspective — and "
1665 "staying in touch with your friends. This is a very limited form of mind "
1666 "control, and it can only really make us miserable, angry, and anxious."
1667 msgstr ""
1668
1669 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1670 msgid ""
1671 "This is why Facebook’s targeting systems — both the ones it shows to "
1672 "advertisers and the ones that let users find people who share their "
1673 "interests — are so next-gen and smooth and easy to use as well as why its "
1674 "message boards have a toolset that seems like it hasn’t changed since the "
1675 "mid-2000s. If Facebook delivered an equally flexible, sophisticated message-"
1676 "reading system to its users, those users could defend themselves against "
1677 "being nonconsensually eyeball-fucked with Donald Trump headlines."
1678 msgstr ""
1679
1680 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1681 msgid ""
1682 "The more time you spend on Facebook, the more ads it gets to show you. The "
1683 "solution to Facebook’s ads only working one in a thousand times is for the "
1684 "company to try to increase how much time you spend on Facebook by a factor "
1685 "of a thousand. Rather than thinking of Facebook as a company that has "
1686 "figured out how to show you exactly the right ad in exactly the right way to "
1687 "get you to do what its advertisers want, think of it as a company that has "
1688 "figured out how to make you slog through an endless torrent of arguments "
1689 "even though they make you miserable, spending so much time on the site that "
1690 "it eventually shows you at least one ad that you respond to."
1691 msgstr ""
1692
1693 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
1694 msgid "Monopoly and the right to the future tense"
1695 msgstr ""
1696
1697 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1698 msgid ""
1699 "Zuboff and her cohort are particularly alarmed at the extent to which "
1700 "surveillance allows corporations to influence our decisions, taking away "
1701 "something she poetically calls <quote>the right to the future tense</quote> "
1702 "— that is, the right to decide for yourself what you will do in the future."
1703 msgstr ""
1704
1705 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1706 msgid ""
1707 "It’s true that advertising can tip the scales one way or another: When "
1708 "you’re thinking of buying a fridge, a timely fridge ad might end the search "
1709 "on the spot. But Zuboff puts enormous and undue weight on the persuasive "
1710 "power of surveillance-based influence techniques. Most of these don’t work "
1711 "very well, and the ones that do won’t work for very long. The makers of "
1712 "these influence tools are confident they will someday refine them into "
1713 "systems of total control, but they are hardly unbiased observers, and the "
1714 "risks from their dreams coming true are very speculative."
1715 msgstr ""
1716
1717 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1718 msgid ""
1719 "By contrast, Zuboff is rather sanguine about 40 years of lax antitrust "
1720 "practice that has allowed a handful of companies to dominate the internet, "
1721 "ushering in an information age with, <ulink url=\"https://twitter.com/"
1722 "tveastman/status/1069674780826071040\">as one person on Twitter noted</"
1723 "ulink>, five giant websites each filled with screenshots of the other four."
1724 msgstr ""
1725
1726 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1727 msgid ""
1728 "However, if we are to be alarmed that we might lose the right to choose for "
1729 "ourselves what our future will hold, then monopoly’s nonspeculative, "
1730 "concrete, here-and-now harms should be front and center in our debate over "
1731 "tech policy."
1732 msgstr ""
1733
1734 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1735 msgid ""
1736 "Start with <quote>digital rights management.</quote> In 1998, Bill Clinton "
1737 "signed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) into law. It’s a complex "
1738 "piece of legislation with many controversial clauses but none more so than "
1739 "Section 1201, the <quote>anti-circumvention</quote> rule."
1740 msgstr ""
1741
1742 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1743 msgid ""
1744 "This is a blanket ban on tampering with systems that restrict access to "
1745 "copyrighted works. The ban is so thoroughgoing that it prohibits removing a "
1746 "copyright lock even when no copyright infringement takes place. This is by "
1747 "design: The activities that the DMCA’s Section 1201 sets out to ban are not "
1748 "copyright infringements; rather, they are legal activities that frustrate "
1749 "manufacturers’ commercial plans."
1750 msgstr ""
1751
1752 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1753 msgid ""
1754 "For example, Section 1201’s first major application was on DVD players as a "
1755 "means of enforcing the region coding built into those devices. DVD-CCA, the "
1756 "body that standardized DVDs and DVD players, divided the world into six "
1757 "regions and specified that DVD players must check each disc to determine "
1758 "which regions it was authorized to be played in. DVD players would have "
1759 "their own corresponding region (a DVD player bought in the U.S. would be "
1760 "region 1 while one bought in India would be region 5). If the player and the "
1761 "disc’s region matched, the player would play the disc; otherwise, it would "
1762 "reject it."
1763 msgstr ""
1764
1765 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1766 msgid ""
1767 "However, watching a lawfully produced disc in a country other than the one "
1768 "where you purchased it is not copyright infringement — it’s the opposite. "
1769 "Copyright law imposes this duty on customers for a movie: You must go into a "
1770 "store, find a licensed disc, and pay the asking price. Do that — and "
1771 "<emphasis>nothing else</emphasis> — and you and copyright are square with "
1772 "one another."
1773 msgstr ""
1774
1775 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1776 msgid ""
1777 "The fact that a movie studio wants to charge Indians less than Americans or "
1778 "release in Australia later than it releases in the U.K. has no bearing on "
1779 "copyright law. Once you lawfully acquire a DVD, it is no copyright "
1780 "infringement to watch it no matter where you happen to be."
1781 msgstr ""
1782
1783 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1784 msgid ""
1785 "So DVD and DVD player manufacturers would not be able to use accusations of "
1786 "abetting copyright infringement to punish manufacturers who made "
1787 "noncompliant players that would play discs from any region or repair shops "
1788 "that modified players to let you watch out-of-region discs or software "
1789 "programmers who created programs to let you do this."
1790 msgstr ""
1791
1792 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1793 msgid ""
1794 "That’s where Section 1201 of the DMCA comes in: By banning tampering with an "
1795 "<quote>access control,</quote> the rule gave manufacturers and rights "
1796 "holders standing to sue competitors who released superior products with "
1797 "lawful features that the market demanded (in this case, region-free players)."
1798 msgstr ""
1799
1800 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1801 msgid ""
1802 "This is an odious scam against consumers, but as time went by, Section 1201 "
1803 "grew to encompass a rapidly expanding constellation of devices and services "
1804 "as canny manufacturers have realized certain things:"
1805 msgstr ""
1806
1807 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><itemizedlist><listitem><para>
1808 msgid ""
1809 "Any device with software in it contains a <quote>copyrighted work</quote> — "
1810 "i.e., the software."
1811 msgstr ""
1812
1813 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><itemizedlist><listitem><para>
1814 msgid ""
1815 "A device can be designed so that reconfiguring the software requires "
1816 "bypassing an <quote>access control for copyrighted works,</quote> which is a "
1817 "potential felony under Section 1201."
1818 msgstr ""
1819
1820 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><itemizedlist><listitem><para>
1821 msgid ""
1822 "Thus, companies can control their customers’ behavior after they take home "
1823 "their purchases by designing products so that all unpermitted uses require "
1824 "modifications that fall afoul of Section 1201."
1825 msgstr ""
1826
1827 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1828 msgid ""
1829 "Section 1201 then becomes a means for manufacturers of all descriptions to "
1830 "force their customers to arrange their affairs to benefit the manufacturers’ "
1831 "shareholders instead of themselves."
1832 msgstr ""
1833
1834 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1835 msgid ""
1836 "This manifests in many ways: from a new generation of inkjet printers that "
1837 "use countermeasures to prevent third-party ink that cannot be bypassed "
1838 "without legal risks to similar systems in tractors that prevent third-party "
1839 "technicians from swapping in the manufacturer’s own parts that are not "
1840 "recognized by the tractor’s control system until it is supplied with a "
1841 "manufacturer’s unlock code."
1842 msgstr ""
1843
1844 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1845 msgid ""
1846 "Closer to home, Apple’s iPhones use these measures to prevent both third-"
1847 "party service and third-party software installation. This allows Apple to "
1848 "decide when an iPhone is beyond repair and must be shredded and landfilled "
1849 "as opposed to the iPhone’s purchaser. (Apple is notorious for its "
1850 "environmentally catastrophic policy of destroying old electronics rather "
1851 "than permitting them to be cannibalized for parts.) This is a very useful "
1852 "power to wield, especially in light of CEO Tim Cook’s January 2019 warning "
1853 "to investors that the company’s profits are endangered by customers choosing "
1854 "to hold onto their phones for longer rather than replacing them."
1855 msgstr ""
1856
1857 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1858 msgid ""
1859 "Apple’s use of copyright locks also allows it to establish a monopoly over "
1860 "how its customers acquire software for their mobile devices. The App Store’s "
1861 "commercial terms guarantee Apple a share of all revenues generated by the "
1862 "apps sold there, meaning that Apple gets paid when you buy an app from its "
1863 "store and then continues to get paid every time you buy something using that "
1864 "app. This comes out of the bottom line of software developers, who must "
1865 "either charge more or accept lower profits for their products."
1866 msgstr ""
1867
1868 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1869 msgid ""
1870 "Crucially, Apple’s use of copyright locks gives it the power to make "
1871 "editorial decisions about which apps you may and may not install on your own "
1872 "device. Apple has used this power to <ulink url=\"https://www.telegraph.co."
1873 "uk/technology/apple/5982243/Apple-bans-dictionary-from-App-Store-over-swear-"
1874 "words.html\">reject dictionaries</ulink> for containing obscene words; to "
1875 "<ulink url=\"https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/538kan/apple-just-banned-the-"
1876 "app-that-tracks-us-drone-strikes-again\">limit political speech</ulink>, "
1877 "especially from apps that make sensitive political commentary such as an app "
1878 "that notifies you every time a U.S. drone kills someone somewhere in the "
1879 "world; and to <ulink url=\"https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-05-19-"
1880 "palestinian-indie-game-must-not-be-called-a-game-apple-says\">object to a "
1881 "game</ulink> that commented on the Israel-Palestine conflict."
1882 msgstr ""
1883
1884 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1885 msgid ""
1886 "Apple often justifies monopoly power over software installation in the name "
1887 "of security, arguing that its vetting of apps for its store means that it "
1888 "can guard its users against apps that contain surveillance code. But this "
1889 "cuts both ways. In China, the government <ulink url=\"https://www.ft.com/"
1890 "content/ad42e536-cf36-11e7-b781-794ce08b24dc\">ordered Apple to prohibit the "
1891 "sale of privacy tools</ulink> like VPNs with the exception of VPNs that had "
1892 "deliberately introduced flaws designed to let the Chinese state eavesdrop on "
1893 "users. Because Apple uses technological countermeasures — with legal "
1894 "backstops — to block customers from installing unauthorized apps, Chinese "
1895 "iPhone owners cannot readily (or legally) acquire VPNs that would protect "
1896 "them from Chinese state snooping."
1897 msgstr ""
1898
1899 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1900 msgid ""
1901 "Zuboff calls surveillance capitalism a <quote>rogue capitalism.</quote> "
1902 "Theoreticians of capitalism claim that its virtue is that it <ulink url="
1903 "\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_signal\">aggregates information in the "
1904 "form of consumers’ decisions</ulink>, producing efficient markets. "
1905 "Surveillance capitalism’s supposed power to rob its victims of their free "
1906 "will through computationally supercharged influence campaigns means that our "
1907 "markets no longer aggregate customers’ decisions because we customers no "
1908 "longer decide — we are given orders by surveillance capitalism’s mind-"
1909 "control rays."
1910 msgstr ""
1911
1912 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1913 msgid ""
1914 "If our concern is that markets cease to function when consumers can no "
1915 "longer make choices, then copyright locks should concern us at "
1916 "<emphasis>least</emphasis> as much as influence campaigns. An influence "
1917 "campaign might nudge you to buy a certain brand of phone; but the copyright "
1918 "locks on that phone absolutely determine where you get it serviced, which "
1919 "apps can run on it, and when you have to throw it away rather than fixing it."
1920 msgstr ""
1921
1922 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
1923 msgid "Search order and the right to the future tense"
1924 msgstr ""
1925
1926 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1927 msgid ""
1928 "Markets are posed as a kind of magic: By discovering otherwise hidden "
1929 "information conveyed by the free choices of consumers, those consumers’ "
1930 "local knowledge is integrated into a self-correcting system that makes "
1931 "efficient allocations—more efficient than any computer could calculate. But "
1932 "monopolies are incompatible with that notion. When you only have one app "
1933 "store, the owner of the store — not the consumer — decides on the range of "
1934 "choices. As Boss Tweed once said, <quote>I don’t care who does the electing, "
1935 "so long as I get to do the nominating.</quote> A monopolized market is an "
1936 "election whose candidates are chosen by the monopolist."
1937 msgstr ""
1938
1939 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1940 msgid ""
1941 "This ballot rigging is made more pernicious by the existence of monopolies "
1942 "over search order. Google’s search market share is about 90%. When Google’s "
1943 "ranking algorithm puts a result for a popular search term in its top 10, "
1944 "that helps determine the behavior of millions of people. If Google’s answer "
1945 "to <quote>Are vaccines dangerous?</quote> is a page that rebuts anti-vax "
1946 "conspiracy theories, then a sizable portion of the public will learn that "
1947 "vaccines are safe. If, on the other hand, Google sends those people to a "
1948 "site affirming the anti-vax conspiracies, a sizable portion of those "
1949 "millions will come away convinced that vaccines are dangerous."
1950 msgstr ""
1951
1952 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1953 msgid ""
1954 "Google’s algorithm is often tricked into serving disinformation as a "
1955 "prominent search result. But in these cases, Google isn’t persuading people "
1956 "to change their minds; it’s just presenting something untrue as fact when "
1957 "the user has no cause to doubt it."
1958 msgstr ""
1959
1960 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1961 msgid ""
1962 "This is true whether the search is for <quote>Are vaccines dangerous?</"
1963 "quote> or <quote>best restaurants near me.</quote> Most users will never "
1964 "look past the first page of search results, and when the overwhelming "
1965 "majority of people all use the same search engine, the ranking algorithm "
1966 "deployed by that search engine will determine myriad outcomes (whether to "
1967 "adopt a child, whether to have cancer surgery, where to eat dinner, where to "
1968 "move, where to apply for a job) to a degree that vastly outstrips any "
1969 "behavioral outcomes dictated by algorithmic persuasion techniques."
1970 msgstr ""
1971
1972 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1973 msgid ""
1974 "Many of the questions we ask search engines have no empirically correct "
1975 "answers: <quote>Where should I eat dinner?</quote> is not an objective "
1976 "question. Even questions that do have correct answers (<quote>Are vaccines "
1977 "dangerous?</quote>) don’t have one empirically superior source for that "
1978 "answer. Many pages affirm the safety of vaccines, so which one goes first? "
1979 "Under conditions of competition, consumers can choose from many search "
1980 "engines and stick with the one whose algorithmic judgment suits them best, "
1981 "but under conditions of monopoly, we all get our answers from the same place."
1982 msgstr ""
1983
1984 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1985 msgid ""
1986 "Google’s search dominance isn’t a matter of pure merit: The company has "
1987 "leveraged many tactics that would have been prohibited under classical, pre-"
1988 "Ronald-Reagan antitrust enforcement standards to attain its dominance. After "
1989 "all, this is a company that has developed two major products: a really good "
1990 "search engine and a pretty good Hotmail clone. Every other major success "
1991 "it’s had — Android, YouTube, Google Maps, etc. — has come through an "
1992 "acquisition of a nascent competitor. Many of the company’s key divisions, "
1993 "such as the advertising technology of DoubleClick, violate the historical "
1994 "antitrust principle of structural separation, which forbade firms from "
1995 "owning subsidiaries that competed with their customers. Railroads, for "
1996 "example, were barred from owning freight companies that competed with the "
1997 "shippers whose freight they carried."
1998 msgstr ""
1999
2000 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2001 msgid ""
2002 "If we’re worried about giant companies subverting markets by stripping "
2003 "consumers of their ability to make free choices, then vigorous antitrust "
2004 "enforcement seems like an excellent remedy. If we’d denied Google the right "
2005 "to effect its many mergers, we would also have probably denied it its total "
2006 "search dominance. Without that dominance, the pet theories, biases, errors "
2007 "(and good judgment, too) of Google search engineers and product managers "
2008 "would not have such an outsized effect on consumer choice."
2009 msgstr ""
2010
2011 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2012 msgid ""
2013 "This goes for many other companies. Amazon, a classic surveillance "
2014 "capitalist, is obviously the dominant tool for searching Amazon — though "
2015 "many people find their way to Amazon through Google searches and Facebook "
2016 "posts — and obviously, Amazon controls Amazon search. That means that "
2017 "Amazon’s own self-serving editorial choices—like promoting its own house "
2018 "brands over rival goods from its sellers as well as its own pet theories, "
2019 "biases, and errors— determine much of what we buy on Amazon. And since "
2020 "Amazon is the dominant e-commerce retailer outside of China and since it "
2021 "attained that dominance by buying up both large rivals and nascent "
2022 "competitors in defiance of historical antitrust rules, we can blame the "
2023 "monopoly for stripping consumers of their right to the future tense and the "
2024 "ability to shape markets by making informed choices."
2025 msgstr ""
2026
2027 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2028 msgid ""
2029 "Not every monopolist is a surveillance capitalist, but that doesn’t mean "
2030 "they’re not able to shape consumer choices in wide-ranging ways. Zuboff "
2031 "lauds Apple for its App Store and iTunes Store, insisting that adding price "
2032 "tags to the features on its platforms has been the secret to resisting "
2033 "surveillance and thus creating markets. But Apple is the only retailer "
2034 "allowed to sell on its platforms, and it’s the second-largest mobile device "
2035 "vendor in the world. The independent software vendors that sell through "
2036 "Apple’s marketplace accuse the company of the same surveillance sins as "
2037 "Amazon and other big retailers: spying on its customers to find lucrative "
2038 "new products to launch, effectively using independent software vendors as "
2039 "free-market researchers, then forcing them out of any markets they discover."
2040 msgstr ""
2041
2042 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2043 msgid ""
2044 "Because of its use of copyright locks, Apple’s mobile customers are not "
2045 "legally allowed to switch to a rival retailer for its apps if they want to "
2046 "do so on an iPhone. Apple, obviously, is the only entity that gets to decide "
2047 "how it ranks the results of search queries in its stores. These decisions "
2048 "ensure that some apps are often installed (because they appear on page one) "
2049 "and others are never installed (because they appear on page one million). "
2050 "Apple’s search-ranking design decisions have a vastly more significant "
2051 "effect on consumer behaviors than influence campaigns delivered by "
2052 "surveillance capitalism’s ad-serving bots."
2053 msgstr ""
2054
2055 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
2056 msgid "Monopolists can afford sleeping pills for watchdogs"
2057 msgstr "Monopolister har råd til sovepiller for vakthundene"
2058
2059 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2060 msgid ""
2061 "Only the most extreme market ideologues think that markets can self-regulate "
2062 "without state oversight. Markets need watchdogs — regulators, lawmakers, and "
2063 "other elements of democratic control — to keep them honest. When these "
2064 "watchdogs sleep on the job, then markets cease to aggregate consumer choices "
2065 "because those choices are constrained by illegitimate and deceptive "
2066 "activities that companies are able to get away with because no one is "
2067 "holding them to account."
2068 msgstr ""
2069
2070 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2071 msgid ""
2072 "But this kind of regulatory capture doesn’t come cheap. In competitive "
2073 "sectors, where rivals are constantly eroding one another’s margins, "
2074 "individual firms lack the surplus capital to effectively lobby for laws and "
2075 "regulations that serve their ends."
2076 msgstr ""
2077
2078 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2079 msgid ""
2080 "Many of the harms of surveillance capitalism are the result of weak or "
2081 "nonexistent regulation. Those regulatory vacuums spring from the power of "
2082 "monopolists to resist stronger regulation and to tailor what regulation "
2083 "exists to permit their existing businesses."
2084 msgstr ""
2085
2086 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2087 msgid ""
2088 "Here’s an example: When firms over-collect and over-retain our data, they "
2089 "are at increased risk of suffering a breach — you can’t leak data you never "
2090 "collected, and once you delete all copies of that data, you can no longer "
2091 "leak it. For more than a decade, we’ve lived through an endless parade of "
2092 "ever-worsening data breaches, each one uniquely horrible in the scale of "
2093 "data breached and the sensitivity of that data."
2094 msgstr ""
2095
2096 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2097 msgid ""
2098 "But still, firms continue to over-collect and over-retain our data for three "
2099 "reasons:"
2100 msgstr ""
2101
2102 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2103 msgid ""
2104 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">1. They are locked in the aforementioned limbic "
2105 "arms race with our capacity to shore up our attentional defense systems to "
2106 "resist their new persuasion techniques.</emphasis> They’re also locked in an "
2107 "arms race with their competitors to find new ways to target people for sales "
2108 "pitches. As soon as they discover a soft spot in our attentional defenses (a "
2109 "counterintuitive, unobvious way to target potential refrigerator buyers), "
2110 "the public begins to wise up to the tactic, and their competitors leap on "
2111 "it, hastening the day in which all potential refrigerator buyers have been "
2112 "inured to the pitch."
2113 msgstr ""
2114
2115 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2116 msgid ""
2117 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">2. They believe the surveillance capitalism story."
2118 "</emphasis> Data is cheap to aggregate and store, and both proponents and "
2119 "opponents of surveillance capitalism have assured managers and product "
2120 "designers that if you collect enough data, you will be able to perform "
2121 "sorcerous acts of mind control, thus supercharging your sales. Even if you "
2122 "never figure out how to profit from the data, someone else will eventually "
2123 "offer to buy it from you to give it a try. This is the hallmark of all "
2124 "economic bubbles: acquiring an asset on the assumption that someone else "
2125 "will buy it from you for more than you paid for it, often to sell to someone "
2126 "else at an even greater price."
2127 msgstr ""
2128
2129 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2130 msgid ""
2131 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">3. The penalties for leaking data are negligible.</"
2132 "emphasis> Most countries limit these penalties to actual damages, meaning "
2133 "that consumers who’ve had their data breached have to show actual monetary "
2134 "harms to get a reward. In 2014, Home Depot disclosed that it had lost credit-"
2135 "card data for 53 million of its customers, but it settled the matter by "
2136 "paying those customers about $0.34 each — and a third of that $0.34 wasn’t "
2137 "even paid in cash. It took the form of a credit to procure a largely "
2138 "ineffectual credit-monitoring service."
2139 msgstr ""
2140
2141 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2142 msgid ""
2143 "But the harms from breaches are much more extensive than these actual-"
2144 "damages rules capture. Identity thieves and fraudsters are wily and "
2145 "endlessly inventive. All the vast breaches of our century are being "
2146 "continuously recombined, the data sets merged and mined for new ways to "
2147 "victimize the people whose data was present in them. Any reasonable, "
2148 "evidence-based theory of deterrence and compensation for breaches would not "
2149 "confine damages to actual damages but rather would allow users to claim "
2150 "these future harms."
2151 msgstr ""
2152
2153 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2154 msgid ""
2155 "However, even the most ambitious privacy rules, such as the EU General Data "
2156 "Protection Regulation, fall far short of capturing the negative "
2157 "externalities of the platforms’ negligent over-collection and over-"
2158 "retention, and what penalties they do provide are not aggressively pursued "
2159 "by regulators."
2160 msgstr ""
2161
2162 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2163 msgid ""
2164 "This tolerance of — or indifference to — data over-collection and over-"
2165 "retention can be ascribed in part to the sheer lobbying muscle of the "
2166 "platforms. They are so profitable that they can handily afford to divert "
2167 "gigantic sums to fight any real change — that is, change that would force "
2168 "them to internalize the costs of their surveillance activities."
2169 msgstr ""
2170
2171 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2172 msgid ""
2173 "And then there’s state surveillance, which the surveillance capitalism story "
2174 "dismisses as a relic of another era when the big worry was being jailed for "
2175 "your dissident speech, not having your free will stripped away with machine "
2176 "learning."
2177 msgstr ""
2178
2179 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2180 msgid ""
2181 "But state surveillance and private surveillance are intimately related. As "
2182 "we saw when Apple was conscripted by the Chinese government as a vital "
2183 "collaborator in state surveillance, the only really affordable and tractable "
2184 "way to conduct mass surveillance on the scale practiced by modern states — "
2185 "both <quote>free</quote> and autocratic states — is to suborn commercial "
2186 "services."
2187 msgstr ""
2188
2189 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2190 msgid ""
2191 "Whether it’s Google being used as a location tracking tool by local law "
2192 "enforcement across the U.S. or the use of social media tracking by the "
2193 "Department of Homeland Security to build dossiers on participants in "
2194 "protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s family separation "
2195 "practices, any hard limits on surveillance capitalism would hamstring the "
2196 "state’s own surveillance capability. Without Palantir, Amazon, Google, and "
2197 "other major tech contractors, U.S. cops would not be able to spy on Black "
2198 "people, ICE would not be able to manage the caging of children at the U.S. "
2199 "border, and state welfare systems would not be able to purge their rolls by "
2200 "dressing up cruelty as empiricism and claiming that poor and vulnerable "
2201 "people are ineligible for assistance. At least some of the states’ "
2202 "unwillingness to take meaningful action to curb surveillance should be "
2203 "attributed to this symbiotic relationship. There is no mass state "
2204 "surveillance without mass commercial surveillance."
2205 msgstr ""
2206
2207 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2208 msgid ""
2209 "Monopolism is key to the project of mass state surveillance. It’s true that "
2210 "smaller tech firms are apt to be less well-defended than Big Tech, whose "
2211 "security experts are drawn from the tops of their field and who are given "
2212 "enormous resources to secure and monitor their systems against intruders. "
2213 "But smaller firms also have less to protect: fewer users whose data is more "
2214 "fragmented across more systems and have to be suborned one at a time by "
2215 "state actors."
2216 msgstr ""
2217
2218 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2219 msgid ""
2220 "A concentrated tech sector that works with authorities is a much more "
2221 "powerful ally in the project of mass state surveillance than a fragmented "
2222 "one composed of smaller actors. The U.S. tech sector is small enough that "
2223 "all of its top executives fit around a single boardroom table in Trump Tower "
2224 "in 2017, shortly after Trump’s inauguration. Most of its biggest players bid "
2225 "to win JEDI, the Pentagon’s $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense "
2226 "Infrastructure cloud contract. Like other highly concentrated industries, "
2227 "Big Tech rotates its key employees in and out of government service, sending "
2228 "them to serve in the Department of Defense and the White House, then hiring "
2229 "ex-Pentagon and ex-DOD top staffers and officers to work in their own "
2230 "government relations departments."
2231 msgstr ""
2232
2233 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2234 msgid ""
2235 "They can even make a good case for doing this: After all, when there are "
2236 "only four or five big companies in an industry, everyone qualified to "
2237 "regulate those companies has served as an executive in at least a couple of "
2238 "them — because, likewise, when there are only five companies in an industry, "
2239 "everyone qualified for a senior role at any of them is by definition working "
2240 "at one of the other ones."
2241 msgstr ""
2242
2243 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
2244 msgid ""
2245 "While surveillance doesn’t cause monopolies, monopolies certainly abet "
2246 "surveillance."
2247 msgstr ""
2248
2249 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2250 msgid ""
2251 "Industries that are competitive are fragmented — composed of companies that "
2252 "are at each other’s throats all the time and eroding one another’s margins "
2253 "in bids to steal their best customers. This leaves them with much more "
2254 "limited capital to use to lobby for favorable rules and a much harder job of "
2255 "getting everyone to agree to pool their resources to benefit the industry as "
2256 "a whole."
2257 msgstr ""
2258
2259 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2260 msgid ""
2261 "Surveillance combined with machine learning is supposed to be an existential "
2262 "crisis, a species-defining moment at which our free will is just a few more "
2263 "advances in the field from being stripped away. I am skeptical of this "
2264 "claim, but I <emphasis>do</emphasis> think that tech poses an existential "
2265 "threat to our society and possibly our species."
2266 msgstr ""
2267
2268 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2269 msgid "But that threat grows out of monopoly."
2270 msgstr ""
2271
2272 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2273 msgid ""
2274 "One of the consequences of tech’s regulatory capture is that it can shift "
2275 "liability for poor security decisions onto its customers and the wider "
2276 "society. It is absolutely normal in tech for companies to obfuscate the "
2277 "workings of their products, to make them deliberately hard to understand, "
2278 "and to threaten security researchers who seek to independently audit those "
2279 "products."
2280 msgstr ""
2281
2282 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2283 msgid ""
2284 "IT is the only field in which this is practiced: No one builds a bridge or a "
2285 "hospital and keeps the composition of the steel or the equations used to "
2286 "calculate load stresses a secret. It is a frankly bizarre practice that "
2287 "leads, time and again, to grotesque security defects on farcical scales, "
2288 "with whole classes of devices being revealed as vulnerable long after they "
2289 "are deployed in the field and put into sensitive places."
2290 msgstr ""
2291
2292 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2293 msgid ""
2294 "The monopoly power that keeps any meaningful consequences for breaches at "
2295 "bay means that tech companies continue to build terrible products that are "
2296 "insecure by design and that end up integrated into our lives, in possession "
2297 "of our data, and connected to our physical world. For years, Boeing has "
2298 "struggled with the aftermath of a series of bad technology decisions that "
2299 "made its 737 fleet a global pariah, a rare instance in which bad tech "
2300 "decisions have been seriously punished in the market."
2301 msgstr ""
2302
2303 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2304 msgid ""
2305 "These bad security decisions are compounded yet again by the use of "
2306 "copyright locks to enforce business-model decisions against consumers. "
2307 "Recall that these locks have become the go-to means for shaping consumer "
2308 "behavior, making it technically impossible to use third-party ink, insulin, "
2309 "apps, or service depots in connection with your lawfully acquired property."
2310 msgstr ""
2311
2312 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2313 msgid ""
2314 "Recall also that these copyright locks are backstopped by legislation (such "
2315 "as Section 1201 of the DMCA or Article 6 of the 2001 EU Copyright Directive) "
2316 "that ban tampering with (<quote>circumventing</quote>) them, and these "
2317 "statutes have been used to threaten security researchers who make "
2318 "disclosures about vulnerabilities without permission from manufacturers."
2319 msgstr ""
2320
2321 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2322 msgid ""
2323 "This amounts to a manufacturer’s veto over safety warnings and criticism. "
2324 "While this is far from the legislative intent of the DMCA and its sister "
2325 "statutes around the world, Congress has not intervened to clarify the "
2326 "statute nor will it because to do so would run counter to the interests of "
2327 "powerful, large firms whose lobbying muscle is unstoppable."
2328 msgstr ""
2329
2330 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2331 msgid ""
2332 "Copyright locks are a double whammy: They create bad security decisions that "
2333 "can’t be freely investigated or discussed. If markets are supposed to be "
2334 "machines for aggregating information (and if surveillance capitalism’s "
2335 "notional mind-control rays are what make it a <quote>rogue capitalism</"
2336 "quote> because it denies consumers the power to make decisions), then a "
2337 "program of legally enforced ignorance of the risks of products makes "
2338 "monopolism even more of a <quote>rogue capitalism</quote> than surveillance "
2339 "capitalism’s influence campaigns."
2340 msgstr ""
2341
2342 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2343 msgid ""
2344 "And unlike mind-control rays, enforced silence over security is an "
2345 "immediate, documented problem, and it <emphasis>does</emphasis> constitute "
2346 "an existential threat to our civilization and possibly our species. The "
2347 "proliferation of insecure devices — especially devices that spy on us and "
2348 "especially when those devices also can manipulate the physical world by, "
2349 "say, steering your car or flipping a breaker at a power station — is a kind "
2350 "of technology debt."
2351 msgstr ""
2352
2353 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2354 msgid ""
2355 "In software design, <quote>technology debt</quote> refers to old, baked-in "
2356 "decisions that turn out to be bad ones in hindsight. Perhaps a long-ago "
2357 "developer decided to incorporate a networking protocol made by a vendor that "
2358 "has since stopped supporting it. But everything in the product still relies "
2359 "on that superannuated protocol, and so, with each revision, the product team "
2360 "has to work around this obsolete core, adding compatibility layers, "
2361 "surrounding it with security checks that try to shore up its defenses, and "
2362 "so on. These Band-Aid measures compound the debt because every subsequent "
2363 "revision has to make allowances for <emphasis>them</emphasis>, too, like "
2364 "interest mounting on a predatory subprime loan. And like a subprime loan, "
2365 "the interest mounts faster than you can hope to pay it off: The product team "
2366 "has to put so much energy into maintaining this complex, brittle system that "
2367 "they don’t have any time left over to refactor the product from the ground "
2368 "up and <quote>pay off the debt</quote> once and for all."
2369 msgstr ""
2370
2371 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2372 msgid ""
2373 "Typically, technology debt results in a technological bankruptcy: The "
2374 "product gets so brittle and unsustainable that it fails catastrophically. "
2375 "Think of the antiquated COBOL-based banking and accounting systems that fell "
2376 "over at the start of the pandemic emergency when confronted with surges of "
2377 "unemployment claims. Sometimes that ends the product; sometimes it takes "
2378 "the company down with it. Being caught in the default of a technology debt "
2379 "is scary and traumatic, just like losing your house due to bankruptcy is "
2380 "scary and traumatic."
2381 msgstr ""
2382
2383 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2384 msgid ""
2385 "But the technology debt created by copyright locks isn’t individual debt; "
2386 "it’s systemic. Everyone in the world is exposed to this over-leverage, as "
2387 "was the case with the 2008 financial crisis. When that debt comes due — when "
2388 "we face a cascade of security breaches that threaten global shipping and "
2389 "logistics, the food supply, pharmaceutical production pipelines, emergency "
2390 "communications, and other critical systems that are accumulating technology "
2391 "debt in part due to the presence of deliberately insecure and deliberately "
2392 "unauditable copyright locks — it will indeed pose an existential risk."
2393 msgstr ""
2394
2395 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
2396 msgid "Privacy and monopoly"
2397 msgstr "Monopol og vern av privatsfæren"
2398
2399 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2400 msgid ""
2401 "Many tech companies are gripped by an orthodoxy that holds that if they just "
2402 "gather enough data on enough of our activities, everything else is possible "
2403 "— the mind control and endless profits. This is an unfalsifiable hypothesis: "
2404 "If data gives a tech company even a tiny improvement in behavior prediction "
2405 "and modification, the company declares that it has taken the first step "
2406 "toward global domination with no end in sight. If a company <emphasis>fails</"
2407 "emphasis> to attain any improvements from gathering and analyzing data, it "
2408 "declares success to be just around the corner, attainable once more data is "
2409 "in hand."
2410 msgstr ""
2411
2412 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2413 msgid ""
2414 "Surveillance tech is far from the first industry to embrace a nonsensical, "
2415 "self-serving belief that harms the rest of the world, and it is not the "
2416 "first industry to profit handsomely from such a delusion. Long before hedge-"
2417 "fund managers were claiming (falsely) that they could beat the S&amp;P 500, "
2418 "there were plenty of other <quote>respectable</quote> industries that have "
2419 "been revealed as quacks in hindsight. From the makers of radium "
2420 "suppositories (a real thing!) to the cruel sociopaths who claimed they "
2421 "could <quote>cure</quote> gay people, history is littered with the formerly "
2422 "respectable titans of discredited industries."
2423 msgstr ""
2424
2425 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2426 msgid ""
2427 "This is not to say that there’s nothing wrong with Big Tech and its "
2428 "ideological addiction to data. While surveillance’s benefits are mostly "
2429 "overstated, its harms are, if anything, <emphasis>understated</emphasis>."
2430 msgstr ""
2431
2432 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2433 msgid ""
2434 "There’s real irony here. The belief in surveillance capitalism as a "
2435 "<quote>rogue capitalism</quote> is driven by the belief that markets "
2436 "wouldn’t tolerate firms that are gripped by false beliefs. An oil company "
2437 "that has false beliefs about where the oil is will eventually go broke "
2438 "digging dry wells after all."
2439 msgstr ""
2440
2441 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2442 msgid ""
2443 "But monopolists get to do terrible things for a long time before they pay "
2444 "the price. Think of how concentration in the finance sector allowed the "
2445 "subprime crisis to fester as bond-rating agencies, regulators, investors, "
2446 "and critics all fell under the sway of a false belief that complex "
2447 "mathematics could construct <quote>fully hedged</quote> debt instruments "
2448 "that could not possibly default. A small bank that engaged in this kind of "
2449 "malfeasance would simply go broke rather than outrunning the inevitable "
2450 "crisis, perhaps growing so big that it averted it altogether. But large "
2451 "banks were able to continue to attract investors, and when they finally "
2452 "<emphasis>did</emphasis> come a-cropper, the world’s governments bailed them "
2453 "out. The worst offenders of the subprime crisis are bigger than they were in "
2454 "2008, bringing home more profits and paying their execs even larger sums."
2455 msgstr ""
2456
2457 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2458 msgid ""
2459 "Big Tech is able to practice surveillance not just because it is tech but "
2460 "because it is <emphasis>big</emphasis>. The reason every web publisher "
2461 "embeds a Facebook <quote>Like</quote> button is that Facebook dominates the "
2462 "internet’s social media referrals — and every one of those <quote>Like</"
2463 "quote> buttons spies on everyone who lands on a page that contains them (see "
2464 "also: Google Analytics embeds, Twitter buttons, etc.)."
2465 msgstr ""
2466
2467 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2468 msgid ""
2469 "The reason the world’s governments have been slow to create meaningful "
2470 "penalties for privacy breaches is that Big Tech’s concentration produces "
2471 "huge profits that can be used to lobby against those penalties — and Big "
2472 "Tech’s concentration means that the companies involved are able to arrive at "
2473 "a unified negotiating position that supercharges the lobbying."
2474 msgstr ""
2475
2476 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2477 msgid ""
2478 "The reason that the smartest engineers in the world want to work for Big "
2479 "Tech is that Big Tech commands the lion’s share of tech industry jobs."
2480 msgstr ""
2481
2482 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2483 msgid ""
2484 "The reason people who are aghast at Facebook’s and Google’s and Amazon’s "
2485 "data-handling practices continue to use these services is that all their "
2486 "friends are on Facebook; Google dominates search; and Amazon has put all the "
2487 "local merchants out of business."
2488 msgstr ""
2489
2490 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2491 msgid ""
2492 "Competitive markets would weaken the companies’ lobbying muscle by reducing "
2493 "their profits and pitting them against each other in regulatory forums. It "
2494 "would give customers other places to go to get their online services. It "
2495 "would make the companies small enough to regulate and pave the way to "
2496 "meaningful penalties for breaches. It would let engineers with ideas that "
2497 "challenged the surveillance orthodoxy raise capital to compete with the "
2498 "incumbents. It would give web publishers multiple ways to reach audiences "
2499 "and make the case against Facebook and Google and Twitter embeds."
2500 msgstr ""
2501
2502 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2503 msgid ""
2504 "In other words, while surveillance doesn’t cause monopolies, monopolies "
2505 "certainly abet surveillance."
2506 msgstr ""
2507
2508 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
2509 msgid "Ronald Reagan, pioneer of tech monopolism"
2510 msgstr ""
2511
2512 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2513 msgid ""
2514 "Technology exceptionalism is a sin, whether it’s practiced by technology’s "
2515 "blind proponents or by its critics. Both of these camps are prone to "
2516 "explaining away monopolistic concentration by citing some special "
2517 "characteristic of the tech industry, like network effects or first-mover "
2518 "advantage. The only real difference between these two groups is that the "
2519 "tech apologists say monopoly is inevitable so we should just let tech get "
2520 "away with its abuses while competition regulators in the U.S. and the EU say "
2521 "monopoly is inevitable so we should punish tech for its abuses but not try "
2522 "to break up the monopolies."
2523 msgstr ""
2524
2525 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2526 msgid ""
2527 "To understand how tech became so monopolistic, it’s useful to look at the "
2528 "dawn of the consumer tech industry: 1979, the year the Apple II Plus "
2529 "launched and became the first successful home computer. That also happens to "
2530 "be the year that Ronald Reagan hit the campaign trail for the 1980 "
2531 "presidential race — a race he won, leading to a radical shift in the way "
2532 "that antitrust concerns are handled in America. Reagan’s cohort of "
2533 "politicians — including Margaret Thatcher in the U.K., Brian Mulroney in "
2534 "Canada, Helmut Kohl in Germany, and Augusto Pinochet in Chile — went on to "
2535 "enact similar reforms that eventually spread around the world."
2536 msgstr ""
2537
2538 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2539 msgid ""
2540 "Antitrust’s story began nearly a century before all that with laws like the "
2541 "Sherman Act, which took aim at monopolists on the grounds that monopolies "
2542 "were bad in and of themselves — squeezing out competitors, creating "
2543 "<quote>diseconomies of scale</quote> (when a company is so big that its "
2544 "constituent parts go awry and it is seemingly helpless to address the "
2545 "problems), and capturing their regulators to such a degree that they can get "
2546 "away with a host of evils."
2547 msgstr ""
2548
2549 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2550 msgid ""
2551 "Then came a fabulist named Robert Bork, a former solicitor general who "
2552 "Reagan appointed to the powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit "
2553 "and who had created an alternate legislative history of the Sherman Act and "
2554 "its successors out of whole cloth. Bork insisted that these statutes were "
2555 "never targeted at monopolies (despite a wealth of evidence to the contrary, "
2556 "including the transcribed speeches of the acts’ authors) but, rather, that "
2557 "they were intended to prevent <quote>consumer harm</quote> — in the form of "
2558 "higher prices."
2559 msgstr ""
2560
2561 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2562 msgid ""
2563 "Bork was a crank, but he was a crank with a theory that rich people really "
2564 "liked. Monopolies are a great way to make rich people richer by allowing "
2565 "them to receive <quote>monopoly rents</quote> (that is, bigger profits) and "
2566 "capture regulators, leading to a weaker, more favorable regulatory "
2567 "environment with fewer protections for customers, suppliers, the "
2568 "environment, and workers."
2569 msgstr ""
2570
2571 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2572 msgid ""
2573 "Bork’s theories were especially palatable to the same power brokers who "
2574 "backed Reagan, and Reagan’s Department of Justice and other agencies began "
2575 "to incorporate Bork’s antitrust doctrine into their enforcement decisions "
2576 "(Reagan even put Bork up for a Supreme Court seat, but Bork flunked the "
2577 "Senate confirmation hearing so badly that, 40 years later, D.C. insiders use "
2578 "the term <quote>borked</quote> to refer to any catastrophically bad "
2579 "political performance)."
2580 msgstr ""
2581
2582 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2583 msgid ""
2584 "Little by little, Bork’s theories entered the mainstream, and their backers "
2585 "began to infiltrate the legal education field, even putting on junkets where "
2586 "members of the judiciary were treated to lavish meals, fun outdoor "
2587 "activities, and seminars where they were indoctrinated into the consumer "
2588 "harm theory of antitrust. The more Bork’s theories took hold, the more money "
2589 "the monopolists were making — and the more surplus capital they had at their "
2590 "disposal to lobby for even more Borkian antitrust influence campaigns."
2591 msgstr ""
2592
2593 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2594 msgid ""
2595 "The history of Bork’s antitrust theories is a really good example of the "
2596 "kind of covertly engineered shifts in public opinion that Zuboff warns us "
2597 "against, where fringe ideas become mainstream orthodoxy. But Bork didn’t "
2598 "change the world overnight. He played a very long game, for over a "
2599 "generation, and he had a tailwind because the same forces that backed "
2600 "oligarchic antitrust theories also backed many other oligarchic shifts in "
2601 "public opinion. For example, the idea that taxation is theft, that wealth is "
2602 "a sign of virtue, and so on — all of these theories meshed to form a "
2603 "coherent ideology that elevated inequality to a virtue."
2604 msgstr ""
2605
2606 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2607 msgid ""
2608 "Today, many fear that machine learning allows surveillance capitalism to "
2609 "sell <quote>Bork-as-a-Service,</quote> at internet speeds, so that you can "
2610 "contract a machine-learning company to engineer <emphasis>rapid</emphasis> "
2611 "shifts in public sentiment without needing the capital to sustain a "
2612 "multipronged, multigenerational project working at the local, state, "
2613 "national, and global levels in business, law, and philosophy. I do not "
2614 "believe that such a project is plausible, though I agree that this is "
2615 "basically what the platforms claim to be selling. They’re just lying about "
2616 "it. Big Tech lies all the time, <emphasis>including</emphasis> in their "
2617 "sales literature."
2618 msgstr ""
2619
2620 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2621 msgid ""
2622 "The idea that tech forms <quote>natural monopolies</quote> (monopolies that "
2623 "are the inevitable result of the realities of an industry, such as the "
2624 "monopolies that accrue the first company to run long-haul phone lines or "
2625 "rail lines) is belied by tech’s own history: In the absence of anti-"
2626 "competitive tactics, Google was able to unseat AltaVista and Yahoo; Facebook "
2627 "was able to head off Myspace. There are some advantages to gathering "
2628 "mountains of data, but those mountains of data also have disadvantages: "
2629 "liability (from leaking), diminishing returns (from old data), and "
2630 "institutional inertia (big companies, like science, progress one funeral at "
2631 "a time)."
2632 msgstr ""
2633
2634 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2635 msgid ""
2636 "Indeed, the birth of the web saw a mass-extinction event for the existing "
2637 "giant, wildly profitable proprietary technologies that had capital, network "
2638 "effects, and walls and moats surrounding their businesses. The web showed "
2639 "that when a new industry is built around a protocol, rather than a product, "
2640 "the combined might of everyone who uses the protocol to reach their "
2641 "customers or users or communities outweighs even the most massive products. "
2642 "CompuServe, AOL, MSN, and a host of other proprietary walled gardens learned "
2643 "this lesson the hard way: Each believed it could stay separate from the web, "
2644 "offering <quote>curation</quote> and a guarantee of consistency and quality "
2645 "instead of the chaos of an open system. Each was wrong and ended up being "
2646 "absorbed into the public web."
2647 msgstr ""
2648
2649 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2650 msgid ""
2651 "Yes, tech is heavily monopolized and is now closely associated with industry "
2652 "concentration, but this has more to do with a matter of timing than its "
2653 "intrinsically monopolistic tendencies. Tech was born at the moment that "
2654 "antitrust enforcement was being dismantled, and tech fell into exactly the "
2655 "same pathologies that antitrust was supposed to guard against. To a first "
2656 "approximation, it is reasonable to assume that tech’s monopolies are the "
2657 "result of a lack of anti-monopoly action and not the much-touted unique "
2658 "characteristics of tech, such as network effects, first-mover advantage, and "
2659 "so on."
2660 msgstr ""
2661
2662 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2663 msgid ""
2664 "In support of this thesis, I offer the concentration that every "
2665 "<emphasis>other</emphasis> industry has undergone over the same period. From "
2666 "professional wrestling to consumer packaged goods to commercial property "
2667 "leasing to banking to sea freight to oil to record labels to newspaper "
2668 "ownership to theme parks, <emphasis>every</emphasis> industry has undergone "
2669 "a massive shift toward concentration. There’s no obvious network effects or "
2670 "first-mover advantage at play in these industries. However, in every case, "
2671 "these industries attained their concentrated status through tactics that "
2672 "were prohibited before Bork’s triumph: merging with major competitors, "
2673 "buying out innovative new market entrants, horizontal and vertical "
2674 "integration, and a suite of anti-competitive tactics that were once illegal "
2675 "but are not any longer."
2676 msgstr ""
2677
2678 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2679 msgid ""
2680 "Again: When you change the laws intended to prevent monopolies and then "
2681 "monopolies form in exactly the way the law was supposed to prevent, it is "
2682 "reasonable to suppose that these facts are related. Tech’s concentration "
2683 "can be readily explained without recourse to radical theories of network "
2684 "effects — but only if you’re willing to indict unregulated markets as "
2685 "tending toward monopoly. Just as a lifelong smoker can give you a hundred "
2686 "reasons why their smoking didn’t cause their cancer (<quote>It was the "
2687 "environmental toxins</quote>), true believers in unregulated markets have a "
2688 "whole suite of unconvincing explanations for monopoly in tech that leave "
2689 "capitalism intact."
2690 msgstr ""
2691
2692 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
2693 msgid "Steering with the windshield wipers"
2694 msgstr ""
2695
2696 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2697 msgid ""
2698 "It’s been 40 years since Bork’s project to rehabilitate monopolies achieved "
2699 "liftoff, and that is a generation and a half, which is plenty of time to "
2700 "take a common idea and make it seem outlandish and vice versa. Before the "
2701 "1940s, affluent Americans dressed their baby boys in pink while baby girls "
2702 "wore blue (a <quote>delicate and dainty</quote> color). While gendered "
2703 "colors are obviously totally arbitrary, many still greet this news with "
2704 "amazement and find it hard to imagine a time when pink connoted masculinity."
2705 msgstr ""
2706
2707 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2708 msgid ""
2709 "After 40 years of studiously ignoring antitrust analysis and enforcement, "
2710 "it’s not surprising that we’ve all but forgotten that antitrust exists, that "
2711 "in living memory, growth through mergers and acquisitions were largely "
2712 "prohibited under law, that market-cornering strategies like vertical "
2713 "integration could land a company in court."
2714 msgstr ""
2715
2716 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2717 msgid ""
2718 "Antitrust is a market society’s steering wheel, the control of first resort "
2719 "to keep would-be masters of the universe in their lanes. But Bork and his "
2720 "cohort ripped out our steering wheel 40 years ago. The car is still "
2721 "barreling along, and so we’re yanking as hard as we can on all the "
2722 "<emphasis>other</emphasis> controls in the car as well as desperately "
2723 "flapping the doors and rolling the windows up and down in the hopes that one "
2724 "of these other controls can be repurposed to let us choose where we’re "
2725 "heading before we careen off a cliff."
2726 msgstr ""
2727
2728 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2729 msgid ""
2730 "It’s like a 1960s science-fiction plot come to life: People stuck in a "
2731 "<quote>generation ship,</quote> plying its way across the stars, a ship once "
2732 "piloted by their ancestors; and now, after a great cataclysm, the ship’s "
2733 "crew have forgotten that they’re in a ship at all and no longer remember "
2734 "where the control room is. Adrift, the ship is racing toward its extinction, "
2735 "and unless we can seize the controls and execute emergency course "
2736 "correction, we’re all headed for a fiery death in the heart of a sun."
2737 msgstr ""
2738
2739 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
2740 msgid "Surveillance still matters"
2741 msgstr ""
2742
2743 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2744 msgid ""
2745 "None of this is to minimize the problems with surveillance. Surveillance "
2746 "matters, and Big Tech’s use of surveillance <emphasis>is</emphasis> an "
2747 "existential risk to our species, but that’s not because surveillance and "
2748 "machine learning rob us of our free will."
2749 msgstr ""
2750
2751 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2752 msgid ""
2753 "Surveillance has become <emphasis>much</emphasis> more efficient thanks to "
2754 "Big Tech. In 1989, the Stasi — the East German secret police — had the whole "
2755 "country under surveillance, a massive undertaking that recruited one out of "
2756 "every 60 people to serve as an informant or intelligence operative."
2757 msgstr ""
2758
2759 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2760 msgid ""
2761 "Today, we know that the NSA is spying on a significant fraction of the "
2762 "entire world’s population, and its ratio of surveillance operatives to the "
2763 "surveilled is more like 1:10,000 (that’s probably on the low side since it "
2764 "assumes that every American with top-secret clearance is working for the NSA "
2765 "on this project — we don’t know how many of those cleared people are "
2766 "involved in NSA spying, but it’s definitely not all of them)."
2767 msgstr ""
2768
2769 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2770 msgid ""
2771 "How did the ratio of surveillable citizens expand from 1:60 to 1:10,000 in "
2772 "less than 30 years? It’s thanks to Big Tech. Our devices and services gather "
2773 "most of the data that the NSA mines for its surveillance project. We pay for "
2774 "these devices and the services they connect to, and then we painstakingly "
2775 "perform the data-entry tasks associated with logging facts about our lives, "
2776 "opinions, and preferences. This mass surveillance project has been largely "
2777 "useless for fighting terrorism: The NSA can <ulink url=\"https://www."
2778 "washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-cites-case-as-success-of-"
2779 "phone-data-collection-program/2013/08/08/fc915e5a-feda-11e2-96a8-"
2780 "d3b921c0924a_story.html\">only point to a single minor success story</ulink> "
2781 "in which it used its data collection program to foil an attempt by a U.S. "
2782 "resident to wire a few thousand dollars to an overseas terror group. It’s "
2783 "ineffective for much the same reason that commercial surveillance projects "
2784 "are largely ineffective at targeting advertising: The people who want to "
2785 "commit acts of terror, like people who want to buy a refrigerator, are "
2786 "extremely rare. If you’re trying to detect a phenomenon whose base rate is "
2787 "one in a million with an instrument whose accuracy is only 99%, then every "
2788 "true positive will come at the cost of 9,999 false positives."
2789 msgstr ""
2790
2791 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2792 msgid ""
2793 "Let me explain that again: If one in a million people is a terrorist, then "
2794 "there will only be about one terrorist in a random sample of one million "
2795 "people. If your test for detecting terrorists is 99% accurate, it will "
2796 "identify 10,000 terrorists in your million-person sample (1% of one million "
2797 "is 10,000). For every true positive, you’ll get 9,999 false positives."
2798 msgstr ""
2799
2800 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2801 msgid ""
2802 "In reality, the accuracy of algorithmic terrorism detection falls far short "
2803 "of the 99% mark, as does refrigerator ad targeting. The difference is that "
2804 "being falsely accused of wanting to buy a fridge is a minor nuisance while "
2805 "being falsely accused of planning a terror attack can destroy your life and "
2806 "the lives of everyone you love."
2807 msgstr ""
2808
2809 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2810 msgid ""
2811 "Mass state surveillance is only feasible because of surveillance capitalism "
2812 "and its extremely low-yield ad-targeting systems, which require a constant "
2813 "feed of personal data to remain barely viable. Surveillance capitalism’s "
2814 "primary failure mode is mistargeted ads while mass state surveillance’s "
2815 "primary failure mode is grotesque human rights abuses, tending toward "
2816 "totalitarianism."
2817 msgstr ""
2818
2819 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2820 msgid ""
2821 "State surveillance is no mere parasite on Big Tech, sucking up its data and "
2822 "giving nothing in return. In truth, the two are symbiotes: Big Tech sucks up "
2823 "our data for spy agencies, and spy agencies ensure that governments don’t "
2824 "limit Big Tech’s activities so severely that it would no longer serve the "
2825 "spy agencies’ needs. There is no firm distinction between state surveillance "
2826 "and surveillance capitalism; they are dependent on one another."
2827 msgstr ""
2828
2829 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2830 msgid ""
2831 "To see this at work today, look no further than Amazon’s home surveillance "
2832 "device, the Ring doorbell, and its associated app, Neighbors. Ring — a "
2833 "product that Amazon acquired and did not develop in house — makes a camera-"
2834 "enabled doorbell that streams footage from your front door to your mobile "
2835 "device. The Neighbors app allows you to form a neighborhood-wide "
2836 "surveillance grid with your fellow Ring owners through which you can share "
2837 "clips of <quote>suspicious characters.</quote> If you’re thinking that this "
2838 "sounds like a recipe for letting curtain-twitching racists supercharge their "
2839 "suspicions of people with brown skin who walk down their blocks, <ulink url="
2840 "\"https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/07/amazons-ring-enables-over-policing-"
2841 "efforts-some-americas-deadliest-law-enforcement\">you’re right</ulink>. Ring "
2842 "has become a <emphasis>de facto,</emphasis> off-the-books arm of the police "
2843 "without any of the pesky oversight or rules."
2844 msgstr ""
2845
2846 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2847 msgid ""
2848 "In mid-2019, a series of public records requests revealed that Amazon had "
2849 "struck confidential deals with more than 400 local law enforcement agencies "
2850 "through which the agencies would promote Ring and Neighbors and in exchange "
2851 "get access to footage from Ring cameras. In theory, cops would need to "
2852 "request this footage through Amazon (and internal documents reveal that "
2853 "Amazon devotes substantial resources to coaching cops on how to spin a "
2854 "convincing story when doing so), but in practice, when a Ring customer turns "
2855 "down a police request, Amazon only requires the agency to formally request "
2856 "the footage from the company, which it will then produce."
2857 msgstr ""
2858
2859 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2860 msgid ""
2861 "Ring and law enforcement have found many ways to intertwine their "
2862 "activities. Ring strikes secret deals to acquire real-time access to 911 "
2863 "dispatch and then streams alarming crime reports to Neighbors users, which "
2864 "serve as convincers for anyone who’s contemplating a surveillance doorbell "
2865 "but isn’t sure whether their neighborhood is dangerous enough to warrant it."
2866 msgstr ""
2867
2868 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2869 msgid ""
2870 "The more the cops buzz-market the surveillance capitalist Ring, the more "
2871 "surveillance capability the state gets. Cops who rely on private entities "
2872 "for law-enforcement roles then brief against any controls on the deployment "
2873 "of that technology while the companies return the favor by lobbying against "
2874 "rules requiring public oversight of police surveillance technology. The more "
2875 "the cops rely on Ring and Neighbors, the harder it will be to pass laws to "
2876 "curb them. The fewer laws there are against them, the more the cops will "
2877 "rely on them."
2878 msgstr ""
2879
2880 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
2881 msgid "Dignity and sanctuary"
2882 msgstr ""
2883
2884 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2885 msgid ""
2886 "But even if we could exercise democratic control over our states and force "
2887 "them to stop raiding surveillance capitalism’s reservoirs of behavioral "
2888 "data, surveillance capitalism would still harm us."
2889 msgstr ""
2890
2891 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2892 msgid ""
2893 "This is an area where Zuboff shines. Her chapter on <quote>sanctuary</quote> "
2894 "— the feeling of being unobserved — is a beautiful hymn to introspection, "
2895 "calmness, mindfulness, and tranquility."
2896 msgstr ""
2897
2898 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2899 msgid ""
2900 "When you are watched, something changes. Anyone who has ever raised a child "
2901 "knows this. You might look up from your book (or more realistically, from "
2902 "your phone) and catch your child in a moment of profound realization and "
2903 "growth, a moment where they are learning something that is right at the edge "
2904 "of their abilities, requiring their entire ferocious concentration. For a "
2905 "moment, you’re transfixed, watching that rare and beautiful moment of focus "
2906 "playing out before your eyes, and then your child looks up and sees you "
2907 "seeing them, and the moment collapses. To grow, you need to be and expose "
2908 "your authentic self, and in that moment, you are vulnerable like a hermit "
2909 "crab scuttling from one shell to the next. The tender, unprotected tissues "
2910 "you expose in that moment are too delicate to reveal in the presence of "
2911 "another, even someone you trust as implicitly as a child trusts their parent."
2912 msgstr ""
2913
2914 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2915 msgid ""
2916 "In the digital age, our authentic selves are inextricably tied to our "
2917 "digital lives. Your search history is a running ledger of the questions "
2918 "you’ve pondered. Your location history is a record of the places you’ve "
2919 "sought out and the experiences you’ve had there. Your social graph reveals "
2920 "the different facets of your identity, the people you’ve connected with."
2921 msgstr ""
2922
2923 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2924 msgid ""
2925 "To be observed in these activities is to lose the sanctuary of your "
2926 "authentic self."
2927 msgstr ""
2928
2929 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2930 msgid ""
2931 "There’s another way in which surveillance capitalism robs us of our capacity "
2932 "to be our authentic selves: by making us anxious. Surveillance capitalism "
2933 "isn’t really a mind-control ray, but you don’t need a mind-control ray to "
2934 "make someone anxious. After all, another word for anxiety is agitation, and "
2935 "to make someone experience agitation, you need merely to agitate them. To "
2936 "poke them and prod them and beep at them and buzz at them and bombard them "
2937 "on an intermittent schedule that is just random enough that our limbic "
2938 "systems never quite become inured to it."
2939 msgstr ""
2940
2941 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2942 msgid ""
2943 "Our devices and services are <quote>general purpose</quote> in that they can "
2944 "connect anything or anyone to anything or anyone else and that they can run "
2945 "any program that can be written. This means that the distraction rectangles "
2946 "in our pockets hold our most precious moments with our most beloved people "
2947 "and their most urgent or time-sensitive communications (from <quote>running "
2948 "late can you get the kid?</quote> to <quote>doctor gave me bad news and I "
2949 "need to talk to you RIGHT NOW</quote>) as well as ads for refrigerators and "
2950 "recruiting messages from Nazis."
2951 msgstr ""
2952
2953 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2954 msgid ""
2955 "All day and all night, our pockets buzz, shattering our concentration and "
2956 "tearing apart the fragile webs of connection we spin as we think through "
2957 "difficult ideas. If you locked someone in a cell and agitated them like "
2958 "this, we’d call it <quote>sleep deprivation torture,</quote> and it would be "
2959 "<ulink url=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SKpRbvnx6g\">a war crime under "
2960 "the Geneva Conventions</ulink>."
2961 msgstr ""
2962
2963 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
2964 msgid "Afflicting the afflicted"
2965 msgstr ""
2966
2967 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2968 msgid ""
2969 "The effects of surveillance on our ability to be our authentic selves are "
2970 "not equal for all people. Some of us are lucky enough to live in a time and "
2971 "place in which all the most important facts of our lives are widely and "
2972 "roundly socially acceptable and can be publicly displayed without the risk "
2973 "of social consequence."
2974 msgstr ""
2975
2976 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2977 msgid ""
2978 "But for many of us, this is not true. Recall that in living memory, many of "
2979 "the ways of being that we think of as socially acceptable today were once "
2980 "cause for dire social sanction or even imprisonment. If you are 65 years "
2981 "old, you have lived through a time in which people living in <quote>free "
2982 "societies</quote> could be imprisoned or sanctioned for engaging in "
2983 "homosexual activity, for falling in love with a person whose skin was a "
2984 "different color than their own, or for smoking weed."
2985 msgstr ""
2986
2987 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2988 msgid ""
2989 "Today, these activities aren’t just decriminalized in much of the world, "
2990 "they’re considered normal, and the fallen prohibitions are viewed as "
2991 "shameful, regrettable relics of the past."
2992 msgstr ""
2993
2994 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2995 msgid ""
2996 "How did we get from prohibition to normalization? Through private, personal "
2997 "activity: People who were secretly gay or secret pot-smokers or who secretly "
2998 "loved someone with a different skin color were vulnerable to retaliation if "
2999 "they made their true selves known and were limited in how much they could "
3000 "advocate for their own right to exist in the world and be true to "
3001 "themselves. But because there was a private sphere, these people could form "
3002 "alliances with their friends and loved ones who did not share their "
3003 "disfavored traits by having private conversations in which they came out, "
3004 "disclosing their true selves to the people around them and bringing them to "
3005 "their cause one conversation at a time."
3006 msgstr ""
3007
3008 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3009 msgid ""
3010 "The right to choose the time and manner of these conversations was key to "
3011 "their success. It’s one thing to come out to your dad while you’re on a "
3012 "fishing trip away from the world and another thing entirely to blurt it out "
3013 "over the Christmas dinner table while your racist Facebook uncle is there to "
3014 "make a scene."
3015 msgstr ""
3016
3017 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3018 msgid ""
3019 "Without a private sphere, there’s a chance that none of these changes would "
3020 "have come to pass and that the people who benefited from these changes would "
3021 "have either faced social sanction for coming out to a hostile world or would "
3022 "have never been able to reveal their true selves to the people they love."
3023 msgstr ""
3024
3025 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3026 msgid ""
3027 "The corollary is that, unless you think that our society has attained social "
3028 "perfection — that your grandchildren in 50 years will ask you to tell them "
3029 "the story of how, in 2020, every injustice had been righted and no further "
3030 "change had to be made — then you should expect that right now, at this "
3031 "minute, there are people you love, whose happiness is key to your own, who "
3032 "have a secret in their hearts that stops them from ever being their "
3033 "authentic selves with you. These people are sorrowing and will go to their "
3034 "graves with that secret sorrow in their hearts, and the source of that "
3035 "sorrow will be the falsity of their relationship to you."
3036 msgstr ""
3037
3038 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3039 msgid "A private realm is necessary for human progress."
3040 msgstr ""
3041
3042 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
3043 msgid "Any data you collect and retain will eventually leak"
3044 msgstr "Alle data du samler og tar vare på vil til slutt lekke"
3045
3046 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3047 msgid ""
3048 "The lack of a private life can rob vulnerable people of the chance to be "
3049 "their authentic selves and constrain our actions by depriving us of "
3050 "sanctuary, but there is another risk that is borne by everyone, not just "
3051 "people with a secret: crime."
3052 msgstr ""
3053
3054 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3055 msgid ""
3056 "Personally identifying information is of very limited use for the purpose of "
3057 "controlling peoples’ minds, but identity theft — really a catchall term for "
3058 "a whole constellation of terrible criminal activities that can destroy your "
3059 "finances, compromise your personal integrity, ruin your reputation, or even "
3060 "expose you to physical danger — thrives on it."
3061 msgstr ""
3062
3063 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3064 msgid ""
3065 "Attackers are not limited to using data from one breached source, either. "
3066 "Multiple services have suffered breaches that exposed names, addresses, "
3067 "phone numbers, passwords, sexual tastes, school grades, work performance, "
3068 "brushes with the criminal justice system, family details, genetic "
3069 "information, fingerprints and other biometrics, reading habits, search "
3070 "histories, literary tastes, pseudonymous identities, and other sensitive "
3071 "information. Attackers can merge data from these different breaches to build "
3072 "up extremely detailed dossiers on random subjects and then use different "
3073 "parts of the data for different criminal purposes."
3074 msgstr ""
3075
3076 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3077 msgid ""
3078 "For example, attackers can use leaked username and password combinations to "
3079 "hijack whole fleets of commercial vehicles that <ulink url=\"https://www."
3080 "vice.com/en_us/article/zmpx4x/hacker-monitor-cars-kill-engine-gps-tracking-"
3081 "apps\">have been fitted with anti-theft GPS trackers and immobilizers</"
3082 "ulink> or to hijack baby monitors in order to <ulink url=\"https://www."
3083 "washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/04/23/how-nest-designed-keep-intruders-"
3084 "out-peoples-homes-effectively-allowed-hackers-get/?"
3085 "utm_term=.15220e98c550\">terrorize toddlers with the audio tracks from "
3086 "pornography</ulink>. Attackers use leaked data to trick phone companies into "
3087 "giving them your phone number, then they intercept SMS-based two-factor "
3088 "authentication codes in order to take over your email, bank account, and/or "
3089 "cryptocurrency wallets."
3090 msgstr ""
3091
3092 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3093 msgid ""
3094 "Attackers are endlessly inventive in the pursuit of creative ways to "
3095 "weaponize leaked data. One common use of leaked data is to penetrate "
3096 "companies in order to access <emphasis>more</emphasis> data."
3097 msgstr ""
3098
3099 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3100 msgid ""
3101 "Like spies, online fraudsters are totally dependent on companies over-"
3102 "collecting and over-retaining our data. Spy agencies sometimes pay companies "
3103 "for access to their data or intimidate them into giving it up, but sometimes "
3104 "they work just like criminals do — by <ulink url=\"https://www.bbc.com/news/"
3105 "world-us-canada-24751821\">sneaking data out of companies’ databases</ulink>."
3106 msgstr ""
3107
3108 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3109 msgid ""
3110 "The over-collection of data has a host of terrible social consequences, from "
3111 "the erosion of our authentic selves to the undermining of social progress, "
3112 "from state surveillance to an epidemic of online crime. Commercial "
3113 "surveillance is also a boon to people running influence campaigns, but "
3114 "that’s the least of our troubles."
3115 msgstr ""
3116
3117 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
3118 msgid "Critical tech exceptionalism is still tech exceptionalism"
3119 msgstr ""
3120
3121 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3122 msgid ""
3123 "Big Tech has long practiced technology exceptionalism: the idea that it "
3124 "should not be subject to the mundane laws and norms of <quote>meatspace.</"
3125 "quote> Mottoes like Facebook’s <quote>move fast and break things</quote> "
3126 "attracted justifiable scorn of the companies’ self-serving rhetoric."
3127 msgstr ""
3128
3129 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3130 msgid ""
3131 "Tech exceptionalism got us all into a lot of trouble, so it’s ironic and "
3132 "distressing to see Big Tech’s critics committing the same sin."
3133 msgstr ""
3134
3135 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3136 msgid ""
3137 "Big Tech is not a <quote>rogue capitalism</quote> that cannot be cured "
3138 "through the traditional anti-monopoly remedies of trustbusting (forcing "
3139 "companies to divest of competitors they have acquired) and bans on mergers "
3140 "to monopoly and other anti-competitive tactics. Big Tech does not have the "
3141 "power to use machine learning to influence our behavior so thoroughly that "
3142 "markets lose the ability to punish bad actors and reward superior "
3143 "competitors. Big Tech has no rule-writing mind-control ray that necessitates "
3144 "ditching our old toolbox."
3145 msgstr ""
3146
3147 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3148 msgid ""
3149 "The thing is, people have been claiming to have perfected mind-control rays "
3150 "for centuries, and every time, it turned out to be a con — though sometimes "
3151 "the con artists were also conning themselves."
3152 msgstr ""
3153
3154 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3155 msgid ""
3156 "For generations, the advertising industry has been steadily improving its "
3157 "ability to sell advertising services to businesses while only making "
3158 "marginal gains in selling those businesses’ products to prospective "
3159 "customers. John Wanamaker’s lament that <quote>50% of my advertising budget "
3160 "is wasted, I just don’t know which 50%</quote> is a testament to the triumph "
3161 "of <emphasis>ad executives</emphasis>, who successfully convinced Wanamaker "
3162 "that only half of the money he spent went to waste."
3163 msgstr ""
3164
3165 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3166 msgid ""
3167 "The tech industry has made enormous improvements in the science of "
3168 "convincing businesses that they’re good at advertising while their actual "
3169 "improvements to advertising — as opposed to targeting — have been pretty ho-"
3170 "hum. The vogue for machine learning — and the mystical invocation of "
3171 "<quote>artificial intelligence</quote> as a synonym for straightforward "
3172 "statistical inference techniques — has greatly boosted the efficacy of Big "
3173 "Tech’s sales pitch as marketers have exploited potential customers’ lack of "
3174 "technical sophistication to get away with breathtaking acts of overpromising "
3175 "and underdelivering."
3176 msgstr ""
3177
3178 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3179 msgid ""
3180 "It’s tempting to think that if businesses are willing to pour billions into "
3181 "a venture that the venture must be a good one. Yet there are plenty of times "
3182 "when this rule of thumb has led us astray. For example, it’s virtually "
3183 "unheard of for managed investment funds to outperform simple index funds, "
3184 "and investors who put their money into the hands of expert money managers "
3185 "overwhelmingly fare worse than those who entrust their savings to index "
3186 "funds. But managed funds still account for the majority of the money "
3187 "invested in the markets, and they are patronized by some of the richest, "
3188 "most sophisticated investors in the world. Their vote of confidence in an "
3189 "underperforming sector is a parable about the role of luck in wealth "
3190 "accumulation, not a sign that managed funds are a good buy."
3191 msgstr ""
3192
3193 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3194 msgid ""
3195 "The claims of Big Tech’s mind-control system are full of tells that the "
3196 "enterprise is a con. For example, <ulink url=\"https://www.frontiersin.org/"
3197 "articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01415/full\">the reliance on the <quote>Big "
3198 "Five</quote> personality traits</ulink> as a primary means of influencing "
3199 "people even though the <quote>Big Five</quote> theory is unsupported by any "
3200 "large-scale, peer-reviewed studies and is <ulink url=\"https://www.wired.com/"
3201 "story/the-noisy-fallacies-of-psychographic-targeting/\">mostly the realm of "
3202 "marketing hucksters and pop psych</ulink>."
3203 msgstr ""
3204
3205 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3206 msgid ""
3207 "Big Tech’s promotional materials also claim that their algorithms can "
3208 "accurately perform <quote>sentiment analysis</quote> or detect peoples’ "
3209 "moods based on their <quote>microexpressions,</quote> but <ulink url="
3210 "\"https://www.npr.org/2018/09/12/647040758/advertising-on-facebook-is-it-"
3211 "worth-it\">these are marketing claims, not scientific ones</ulink>. These "
3212 "methods are largely untested by independent scientific experts, and where "
3213 "they have been tested, they’ve been found sorely wanting. Microexpressions "
3214 "are particularly suspect as the companies that specialize in training people "
3215 "to detect them <ulink url=\"https://theintercept.com/2017/02/08/tsas-own-"
3216 "files-show-doubtful-science-behind-its-behavior-screening-program/\">have "
3217 "been shown</ulink> to underperform relative to random chance."
3218 msgstr ""
3219
3220 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3221 msgid ""
3222 "Big Tech has been so good at marketing its own supposed superpowers that "
3223 "it’s easy to believe that they can market everything else with similar "
3224 "acumen, but it’s a mistake to believe the hype. Any statement a company "
3225 "makes about the quality of its products is clearly not impartial. The fact "
3226 "that we distrust all the things that Big Tech says about its data handling, "
3227 "compliance with privacy laws, etc., is only reasonable — but why on Earth "
3228 "would we treat Big Tech’s marketing literature as the gospel truth? Big Tech "
3229 "lies about just about <emphasis>everything</emphasis>, including how well "
3230 "its machine-learning fueled persuasion systems work."
3231 msgstr ""
3232
3233 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3234 msgid ""
3235 "That skepticism should infuse all of our evaluations of Big Tech and its "
3236 "supposed abilities, including our perusal of its patents. Zuboff vests these "
3237 "patents with enormous significance, pointing out that Google claimed "
3238 "extensive new persuasion capabilities in <ulink url=\"https://patents.google."
3239 "com/patent/US20050131762A1/en\">its patent filings</ulink>. These claims are "
3240 "doubly suspect: first, because they are so self-serving, and second, because "
3241 "the patent itself is so notoriously an invitation to exaggeration."
3242 msgstr ""
3243
3244 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3245 msgid ""
3246 "Patent applications take the form of a series of claims and range from broad "
3247 "to narrow. A typical patent starts out by claiming that its authors have "
3248 "invented a method or system for doing every conceivable thing that anyone "
3249 "might do, ever, with any tool or device. Then it narrows that claim in "
3250 "successive stages until we get to the actual <quote>invention</quote> that "
3251 "is the true subject of the patent. The hope is that the patent examiner — "
3252 "who is almost certainly overworked and underinformed — will miss the fact "
3253 "that some or all of these claims are ridiculous, or at least suspect, and "
3254 "grant the patent’s broader claims. Patents for unpatentable things are still "
3255 "incredibly useful because they can be wielded against competitors who might "
3256 "license that patent or steer clear of its claims rather than endure the "
3257 "lengthy, expensive process of contesting it."
3258 msgstr ""
3259
3260 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3261 msgid ""
3262 "What’s more, software patents are routinely granted even though the filer "
3263 "doesn’t have any evidence that they can do the thing claimed by the patent. "
3264 "That is, you can patent an <quote>invention</quote> that you haven’t "
3265 "actually made and that you don’t know how to make."
3266 msgstr ""
3267
3268 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3269 msgid ""
3270 "With these considerations in hand, it becomes obvious that the fact that a "
3271 "Big Tech company has patented what it <emphasis>says</emphasis> is an "
3272 "effective mind-control ray is largely irrelevant to whether Big Tech can in "
3273 "fact control our minds."
3274 msgstr ""
3275
3276 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3277 msgid ""
3278 "Big Tech collects our data for many reasons, including the diminishing "
3279 "returns on existing stores of data. But many tech companies also collect "
3280 "data out of a mistaken tech exceptionalist belief in the network effects of "
3281 "data. Network effects occur when each new user in a system increases its "
3282 "value. The classic example is fax machines: A single fax machine is of no "
3283 "use, two fax machines are of limited use, but every new fax machine that’s "
3284 "put to use after the first doubles the number of possible fax-to-fax links."
3285 msgstr ""
3286
3287 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3288 msgid ""
3289 "Data mined for predictive systems doesn’t necessarily produce these "
3290 "dividends. Think of Netflix: The predictive value of the data mined from a "
3291 "million English-speaking Netflix viewers is hardly improved by the addition "
3292 "of one more user’s viewing data. Most of the data Netflix acquires after "
3293 "that first minimum viable sample duplicates existing data and produces only "
3294 "minimal gains. Meanwhile, retraining models with new data gets progressively "
3295 "more expensive as the number of data points increases, and manual tasks like "
3296 "labeling and validating data do not get cheaper at scale."
3297 msgstr ""
3298
3299 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3300 msgid ""
3301 "Businesses pursue fads to the detriment of their profits all the time, "
3302 "especially when the businesses and their investors are not motivated by the "
3303 "prospect of becoming profitable but rather by the prospect of being acquired "
3304 "by a Big Tech giant or by having an IPO. For these firms, ticking faddish "
3305 "boxes like <quote>collects as much data as possible</quote> might realize a "
3306 "bigger return on investment than <quote>collects a business-appropriate "
3307 "quantity of data.</quote>"
3308 msgstr ""
3309
3310 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3311 msgid ""
3312 "This is another harm of tech exceptionalism: The belief that more data "
3313 "always produces more profits in the form of more insights that can be "
3314 "translated into better mind-control rays drives firms to over-collect and "
3315 "over-retain data beyond all rationality. And since the firms are behaving "
3316 "irrationally, a good number of them will go out of business and become ghost "
3317 "ships whose cargo holds are stuffed full of data that can harm people in "
3318 "myriad ways — but which no one is responsible for antey longer. Even if the "
3319 "companies don’t go under, the data they collect is maintained behind the "
3320 "minimum viable security — just enough security to keep the company viable "
3321 "while it waits to get bought out by a tech giant, an amount calculated to "
3322 "spend not one penny more than is necessary on protecting data."
3323 msgstr ""
3324
3325 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
3326 msgid ""
3327 "How monopolies, not mind control, drive surveillance capitalism: The "
3328 "Snapchat story"
3329 msgstr ""
3330
3331 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3332 msgid ""
3333 "For the first decade of its existence, Facebook competed with the social "
3334 "media giants of the day (Myspace, Orkut, etc.) by presenting itself as the "
3335 "pro-privacy alternative. Indeed, Facebook justified its walled garden — "
3336 "which let users bring in data from the web but blocked web services like "
3337 "Google Search from indexing and caching Facebook pages — as a pro-privacy "
3338 "measure that protected users from the surveillance-happy winners of the "
3339 "social media wars like Myspace."
3340 msgstr ""
3341
3342 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3343 msgid ""
3344 "Despite frequent promises that it would never collect or analyze its users’ "
3345 "data, Facebook periodically created initiatives that did just that, like the "
3346 "creepy, ham-fisted Beacon tool, which spied on you as you moved around the "
3347 "web and then added your online activities to your public timeline, allowing "
3348 "your friends to monitor your browsing habits. Beacon sparked a user revolt. "
3349 "Every time, Facebook backed off from its surveillance initiative, but not "
3350 "all the way; inevitably, the new Facebook would be more surveilling than the "
3351 "old Facebook, though not quite as surveilling as the intermediate Facebook "
3352 "following the launch of the new product or service."
3353 msgstr ""
3354
3355 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3356 msgid ""
3357 "The pace at which Facebook ramped up its surveillance efforts seems to have "
3358 "been set by Facebook’s competitive landscape. The more competitors Facebook "
3359 "had, the better it behaved. Every time a major competitor foundered, "
3360 "Facebook’s behavior <ulink url=\"https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?"
3361 "abstract_id=3247362\">got markedly worse</ulink>."
3362 msgstr ""
3363
3364 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3365 msgid ""
3366 "All the while, Facebook was prodigiously acquiring companies, including a "
3367 "company called Onavo. Nominally, Onavo made a battery-monitoring mobile app. "
3368 "But the permissions that Onavo required were so expansive that the app was "
3369 "able to gather fine-grained telemetry on everything users did with their "
3370 "phones, including which apps they used and how they were using them."
3371 msgstr ""
3372
3373 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3374 msgid ""
3375 "Through Onavo, Facebook discovered that it was losing market share to "
3376 "Snapchat, an app that — like Facebook a decade before — billed itself as the "
3377 "pro-privacy alternative to the status quo. Through Onavo, Facebook was able "
3378 "to mine data from the devices of Snapchat users, including both current and "
3379 "former Snapchat users. This spurred Facebook to acquire Instagram — some "
3380 "features of which competed with Snapchat — and then allowed Facebook to fine-"
3381 "tune Instagram’s features and sales pitch to erode Snapchat’s gains and "
3382 "ensure that Facebook would not have to face the kinds of competitive "
3383 "pressures it had earlier inflicted on Myspace and Orkut."
3384 msgstr ""
3385
3386 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3387 msgid ""
3388 "The story of how Facebook crushed Snapchat reveals the relationship between "
3389 "monopoly and surveillance capitalism. Facebook combined surveillance with "
3390 "lax antitrust enforcement to spot the competitive threat of Snapchat on its "
3391 "horizon and then take decisive action against it. Facebook’s surveillance "
3392 "capitalism let it avert competitive pressure with anti-competitive tactics. "
3393 "Facebook users still want privacy — Facebook hasn’t used surveillance to "
3394 "brainwash them out of it — but they can’t get it because Facebook’s "
3395 "surveillance lets it destroy any hope of a rival service emerging that "
3396 "competes on privacy features."
3397 msgstr ""
3398
3399 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
3400 msgid "A monopoly over your friends"
3401 msgstr "Et monopol over vennene dine"
3402
3403 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3404 msgid ""
3405 "A decentralization movement has tried to erode the dominance of Facebook and "
3406 "other Big Tech companies by fielding <quote>indieweb</quote> alternatives — "
3407 "Mastodon as a Twitter alternative, Diaspora as a Facebook alternative, etc. "
3408 "— but these efforts have failed to attain any kind of liftoff."
3409 msgstr ""
3410
3411 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3412 msgid ""
3413 "Fundamentally, each of these services is hamstrung by the same problem: "
3414 "Every potential user for a Facebook or Twitter alternative has to convince "
3415 "all their friends to follow them to a decentralized web alternative in order "
3416 "to continue to realize the benefit of social media. For many of us, the only "
3417 "reason to have a Facebook account is that our friends have Facebook "
3418 "accounts, and the reason they have Facebook accounts is that <emphasis>we</"
3419 "emphasis> have Facebook accounts."
3420 msgstr ""
3421
3422 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3423 msgid ""
3424 "All of this has conspired to make Facebook — and other dominant platforms — "
3425 "into <quote>kill zones</quote> that investors will not fund new entrants for."
3426 msgstr ""
3427
3428 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3429 msgid ""
3430 "And yet, all of today’s tech giants came into existence despite the "
3431 "entrenched advantage of the companies that came before them. To understand "
3432 "how that happened, you have to understand both interoperability and "
3433 "adversarial interoperability."
3434 msgstr ""
3435
3436 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
3437 msgid "The hard problem of our species is coordination."
3438 msgstr ""
3439
3440 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3441 msgid ""
3442 "<quote>Interoperability</quote> is the ability of two technologies to work "
3443 "with one another: Anyone can make an LP that will play on any record player, "
3444 "anyone can make a filter you can install in your stove’s extractor fan, "
3445 "anyone can make gasoline for your car, anyone can make a USB phone charger "
3446 "that fits in your car’s cigarette lighter receptacle, anyone can make a "
3447 "light bulb that works in your light socket, anyone can make bread that will "
3448 "toast in your toaster."
3449 msgstr ""
3450
3451 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3452 msgid ""
3453 "Interoperability is often a source of innovation and consumer benefit: Apple "
3454 "made the first commercially successful PC, but millions of independent "
3455 "software vendors made interoperable programs that ran on the Apple II Plus. "
3456 "The simple analog antenna inputs on the back of TVs first allowed cable "
3457 "operators to connect directly to TVs, then they allowed game console "
3458 "companies and then personal computer companies to use standard televisions "
3459 "as displays. Standard RJ-11 telephone jacks allowed for the production of "
3460 "phones from a variety of vendors in a variety of forms, from the free "
3461 "football-shaped phone that came with a <emphasis>Sports Illustrated</"
3462 "emphasis> subscription to business phones with speakers, hold functions, and "
3463 "so on and then answering machines and finally modems, paving the way for the "
3464 "internet revolution."
3465 msgstr ""
3466
3467 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3468 msgid ""
3469 "<quote>Interoperability</quote> is often used interchangeably with "
3470 "<quote>standardization,</quote> which is the process when manufacturers and "
3471 "other stakeholders hammer out a set of agreed-upon rules for implementing a "
3472 "technology, such as the electrical plug on your wall, the CAN bus used by "
3473 "your car’s computer systems, or the HTML instructions that your browser "
3474 "interprets."
3475 msgstr ""
3476
3477 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3478 msgid ""
3479 "But interoperability doesn’t require standardization — indeed, "
3480 "standardization often proceeds from the chaos of ad hoc interoperability "
3481 "measures. The inventor of the cigarette-lighter USB charger didn’t need to "
3482 "get permission from car manufacturers or even the manufacturers of the "
3483 "dashboard lighter subcomponent. The automakers didn’t take any "
3484 "countermeasures to prevent the use of these aftermarket accessories by their "
3485 "customers, but they also didn’t do anything to make life easier for the "
3486 "chargers’ manufacturers. This is a kind of <quote>neutral interoperability.</"
3487 "quote>"
3488 msgstr ""
3489
3490 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3491 msgid ""
3492 "Beyond neutral interoperability, there is <quote>adversarial "
3493 "interoperability.</quote> That’s when a manufacturer makes a product that "
3494 "interoperates with another manufacturer’s product <emphasis>despite the "
3495 "second manufacturer’s objections</emphasis> and <emphasis>even if that means "
3496 "bypassing a security system designed to prevent interoperability</emphasis>."
3497 msgstr ""
3498
3499 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3500 msgid ""
3501 "Probably the most familiar form of adversarial interoperability is third-"
3502 "party printer ink. Printer manufacturers claim that they sell printers below "
3503 "cost and that the only way they can recoup the losses they incur is by "
3504 "charging high markups on ink. To prevent the owners of printers from buying "
3505 "ink elsewhere, the printer companies deploy a suite of anti-customer "
3506 "security systems that detect and reject both refilled and third-party "
3507 "cartridges."
3508 msgstr ""
3509
3510 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3511 msgid ""
3512 "Owners of printers take the position that HP and Epson and Brother are not "
3513 "charities and that customers for their wares have no obligation to help them "
3514 "survive, and so if the companies choose to sell their products at a loss, "
3515 "that’s their foolish choice and their consequences to live with. Likewise, "
3516 "competitors who make ink or refill kits observe that they don’t owe printer "
3517 "companies anything, and their erosion of printer companies’ margins are the "
3518 "printer companies’ problems, not their competitors’. After all, the printer "
3519 "companies shed no tears when they drive a refiller out of business, so why "
3520 "should the refillers concern themselves with the economic fortunes of the "
3521 "printer companies?"
3522 msgstr ""
3523
3524 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3525 msgid ""
3526 "Adversarial interoperability has played an outsized role in the history of "
3527 "the tech industry: from the founding of the <quote>alt.*</quote> Usenet "
3528 "hierarchy (which was started against the wishes of Usenet’s maintainers and "
3529 "which grew to be bigger than all of Usenet combined) to the browser wars "
3530 "(when Netscape and Microsoft devoted massive engineering efforts to making "
3531 "their browsers incompatible with the other’s special commands and "
3532 "peccadilloes) to Facebook (whose success was built in part by helping its "
3533 "new users stay in touch with friends they’d left behind on Myspace because "
3534 "Facebook supplied them with a tool that scraped waiting messages from "
3535 "Myspace and imported them into Facebook, effectively creating an Facebook-"
3536 "based Myspace reader)."
3537 msgstr ""
3538
3539 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3540 msgid ""
3541 "Today, incumbency is seen as an unassailable advantage. Facebook is where "
3542 "all of your friends are, so no one can start a Facebook competitor. But "
3543 "adversarial compatibility reverses the competitive advantage: If you were "
3544 "allowed to compete with Facebook by providing a tool that imported all your "
3545 "users’ waiting Facebook messages into an environment that competed on lines "
3546 "that Facebook couldn’t cross, like eliminating surveillance and ads, then "
3547 "Facebook would be at a huge disadvantage. It would have assembled all "
3548 "possible ex-Facebook users into a single, easy-to-find service; it would "
3549 "have educated them on how a Facebook-like service worked and what its "
3550 "potential benefits were; and it would have provided an easy means for "
3551 "disgruntled Facebook users to tell their friends where they might expect "
3552 "better treatment."
3553 msgstr ""
3554
3555 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3556 msgid ""
3557 "Adversarial interoperability was once the norm and a key contributor to the "
3558 "dynamic, vibrant tech scene, but now it is stuck behind a thicket of laws "
3559 "and regulations that add legal risks to the tried-and-true tactics of "
3560 "adversarial interoperability. New rules and new interpretations of existing "
3561 "rules mean that a would-be adversarial interoperator needs to steer clear of "
3562 "claims under copyright, terms of service, trade secrecy, tortious "
3563 "interference, and patent."
3564 msgstr ""
3565
3566 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3567 msgid ""
3568 "In the absence of a competitive market, lawmakers have resorted to assigning "
3569 "expensive, state-like duties to Big Tech firms, such as automatically "
3570 "filtering user contributions for copyright infringement or terrorist and "
3571 "extremist content or detecting and preventing harassment in real time or "
3572 "controlling access to sexual material."
3573 msgstr ""
3574
3575 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3576 msgid ""
3577 "These measures put a floor under how small we can make Big Tech because only "
3578 "the very largest companies can afford the humans and automated filters "
3579 "needed to perform these duties."
3580 msgstr ""
3581
3582 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3583 msgid ""
3584 "But that’s not the only way in which making platforms responsible for "
3585 "policing their users undermines competition. A platform that is expected to "
3586 "police its users’ conduct must prevent many vital adversarial "
3587 "interoperability techniques lest these subvert its policing measures. For "
3588 "example, if someone using a Twitter replacement like Mastodon is able to "
3589 "push messages into Twitter and read messages out of Twitter, they could "
3590 "avoid being caught by automated systems that detect and prevent harassment "
3591 "(such as systems that use the timing of messages or IP-based rules to make "
3592 "guesses about whether someone is a harasser)."
3593 msgstr ""
3594
3595 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3596 msgid ""
3597 "To the extent that we are willing to let Big Tech police itself — rather "
3598 "than making Big Tech small enough that users can leave bad platforms for "
3599 "better ones and small enough that a regulation that simply puts a platform "
3600 "out of business will not destroy billions of users’ access to their "
3601 "communities and data — we build the case that Big Tech should be able to "
3602 "block its competitors and make it easier for Big Tech to demand legal "
3603 "enforcement tools to ban and punish attempts at adversarial interoperability."
3604 msgstr ""
3605
3606 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3607 msgid ""
3608 "Ultimately, we can try to fix Big Tech by making it responsible for bad acts "
3609 "by its users, or we can try to fix the internet by cutting Big Tech down to "
3610 "size. But we can’t do both. To replace today’s giant products with "
3611 "pluralistic protocols, we need to clear the legal thicket that prevents "
3612 "adversarial interoperability so that tomorrow’s nimble, personal, small-"
3613 "scale products can federate themselves with giants like Facebook, allowing "
3614 "the users who’ve left to continue to communicate with users who haven’t left "
3615 "yet, reaching tendrils over Facebook’s garden wall that Facebook’s trapped "
3616 "users can use to scale the walls and escape to the global, open web."
3617 msgstr ""
3618
3619 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
3620 msgid "Fake news is an epistemological crisis"
3621 msgstr ""
3622
3623 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3624 msgid ""
3625 "Tech is not the only industry that has undergone massive concentration since "
3626 "the Reagan era. Virtually every major industry — from oil to newspapers to "
3627 "meatpacking to sea freight to eyewear to online pornography — has become a "
3628 "clubby oligarchy that just a few players dominate."
3629 msgstr ""
3630
3631 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3632 msgid ""
3633 "At the same time, every industry has become something of a tech industry as "
3634 "general-purpose computers and general-purpose networks and the promise of "
3635 "efficiencies through data-driven analysis infuse every device, process, and "
3636 "firm with tech."
3637 msgstr ""
3638
3639 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3640 msgid ""
3641 "This phenomenon of industrial concentration is part of a wider story about "
3642 "wealth concentration overall as a smaller and smaller number of people own "
3643 "more and more of our world. This concentration of both wealth and industries "
3644 "means that our political outcomes are increasingly beholden to the parochial "
3645 "interests of the people and companies with all the money."
3646 msgstr ""
3647
3648 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3649 msgid ""
3650 "That means that whenever a regulator asks a question with an obvious, "
3651 "empirical answer (<quote>Are humans causing climate change?</quote> or "
3652 "<quote>Should we let companies conduct commercial mass surveillance?</quote> "
3653 "or <quote>Does society benefit from allowing network neutrality violations?</"
3654 "quote>), the answer that comes out is only correct if that correctness meets "
3655 "with the approval of rich people and the industries that made them so "
3656 "wealthy."
3657 msgstr ""
3658
3659 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3660 msgid ""
3661 "Rich people have always played an outsized role in politics and more so "
3662 "since the Supreme Court’s <emphasis>Citizens United</emphasis> decision "
3663 "eliminated key controls over political spending. Widening inequality and "
3664 "wealth concentration means that the very richest people are now a lot richer "
3665 "and can afford to spend a lot more money on political projects than ever "
3666 "before. Think of the Koch brothers or George Soros or Bill Gates."
3667 msgstr ""
3668
3669 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3670 msgid ""
3671 "But the policy distortions of rich individuals pale in comparison to the "
3672 "policy distortions that concentrated industries are capable of. The "
3673 "companies in highly concentrated industries are much more profitable than "
3674 "companies in competitive industries — no competition means not having to "
3675 "reduce prices or improve quality to win customers — leaving them with bigger "
3676 "capital surpluses to spend on lobbying."
3677 msgstr ""
3678
3679 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3680 msgid ""
3681 "Concentrated industries also find it easier to collaborate on policy "
3682 "objectives than competitive ones. When all the top execs from your industry "
3683 "can fit around a single boardroom table, they often do. And <emphasis>when</"
3684 "emphasis> they do, they can forge a consensus position on regulation."
3685 msgstr ""
3686
3687 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3688 msgid ""
3689 "Rising through the ranks in a concentrated industry generally means working "
3690 "at two or three of the big companies. When there are only relatively few "
3691 "companies in a given industry, each company has a more ossified executive "
3692 "rank, leaving ambitious execs with fewer paths to higher positions unless "
3693 "they are recruited to a rival. This means that the top execs in concentrated "
3694 "industries are likely to have been colleagues at some point and socialize in "
3695 "the same circles — connected through social ties or, say, serving as "
3696 "trustees for each others’ estates. These tight social bonds foster a "
3697 "collegial, rather than competitive, attitude."
3698 msgstr ""
3699
3700 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3701 msgid ""
3702 "Highly concentrated industries also present a regulatory conundrum. When an "
3703 "industry is dominated by just four or five companies, the only people who "
3704 "are likely to truly understand the industry’s practices are its veteran "
3705 "executives. This means that top regulators are often former execs of the "
3706 "companies they are supposed to be regulating. These turns in government are "
3707 "often tacitly understood to be leaves of absence from industry, with former "
3708 "employers welcoming their erstwhile watchdogs back into their executive "
3709 "ranks once their terms have expired."
3710 msgstr ""
3711
3712 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3713 msgid ""
3714 "All this is to say that the tight social bonds, small number of firms, and "
3715 "regulatory capture of concentrated industries give the companies that "
3716 "comprise them the power to dictate many, if not all, of the regulations that "
3717 "bind them."
3718 msgstr ""
3719
3720 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3721 msgid ""
3722 "This is increasingly obvious. Whether it’s payday lenders <ulink url="
3723 "\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/02/25/how-payday-lending-"
3724 "industry-insider-tilted-academic-research-its-favor/\">winning the right to "
3725 "practice predatory lending</ulink> or Apple <ulink url=\"https://www.vice."
3726 "com/en_us/article/mgxayp/source-apple-will-fight-right-to-repair-legislation"
3727 "\">winning the right to decide who can fix your phone</ulink> or Google and "
3728 "Facebook winning the right to breach your private data without suffering "
3729 "meaningful consequences or victories for pipeline companies or impunity for "
3730 "opioid manufacturers or massive tax subsidies for incredibly profitable "
3731 "dominant businesses, it’s increasingly apparent that many of our official, "
3732 "evidence-based truth-seeking processes are, in fact, auctions for sale to "
3733 "the highest bidder."
3734 msgstr ""
3735
3736 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3737 msgid ""
3738 "It’s really impossible to overstate what a terrifying prospect this is. We "
3739 "live in an incredibly high-tech society, and none of us could acquire the "
3740 "expertise to evaluate every technological proposition that stands between us "
3741 "and our untimely, horrible deaths. You might devote your life to acquiring "
3742 "the media literacy to distinguish good scientific journals from corrupt pay-"
3743 "for-play lookalikes and the statistical literacy to evaluate the quality of "
3744 "the analysis in the journals as well as the microbiology and epidemiology "
3745 "knowledge to determine whether you can trust claims about the safety of "
3746 "vaccines — but that would still leave you unqualified to judge whether the "
3747 "wiring in your home will give you a lethal shock <emphasis>and</emphasis> "
3748 "whether your car’s brakes’ software will cause them to fail unpredictably "
3749 "<emphasis>and</emphasis> whether the hygiene standards at your butcher are "
3750 "sufficient to keep you from dying after you finish your dinner."
3751 msgstr ""
3752
3753 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3754 msgid ""
3755 "In a world as complex as this one, we have to defer to authorities, and we "
3756 "keep them honest by making those authorities accountable to us and binding "
3757 "them with rules to prevent conflicts of interest. We can’t possibly acquire "
3758 "the expertise to adjudicate conflicting claims about the best way to make "
3759 "the world safe and prosperous, but we <emphasis>can</emphasis> determine "
3760 "whether the adjudication process itself is trustworthy."
3761 msgstr ""
3762
3763 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3764 msgid "Right now, it’s obviously not."
3765 msgstr ""
3766
3767 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3768 msgid ""
3769 "The past 40 years of rising inequality and industry concentration, together "
3770 "with increasingly weak accountability and transparency for expert agencies, "
3771 "has created an increasingly urgent sense of impending doom, the sense that "
3772 "there are vast conspiracies afoot that operate with tacit official approval "
3773 "despite the likelihood they are working to better themselves by ruining the "
3774 "rest of us."
3775 msgstr ""
3776
3777 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3778 msgid ""
3779 "For example, it’s been decades since Exxon’s own scientists concluded that "
3780 "its products would render the Earth uninhabitable by humans. And yet those "
3781 "decades were lost to us, in large part because Exxon lobbied governments and "
3782 "sowed doubt about the dangers of its products and did so with the "
3783 "cooperation of many public officials. When the survival of you and everyone "
3784 "you love is threatened by conspiracies, it’s not unreasonable to start "
3785 "questioning the things you think you know in an attempt to determine whether "
3786 "they, too, are the outcome of another conspiracy."
3787 msgstr ""
3788
3789 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3790 msgid ""
3791 "The collapse of the credibility of our systems for divining and upholding "
3792 "truths has left us in a state of epistemological chaos. Once, most of us "
3793 "might have assumed that the system was working and that our regulations "
3794 "reflected our best understanding of the empirical truths of the world as "
3795 "they were best understood — now we have to find our own experts to help us "
3796 "sort the true from the false."
3797 msgstr ""
3798
3799 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3800 msgid ""
3801 "If you’re like me, you probably believe that vaccines are safe, but you "
3802 "(like me) probably also can’t explain the microbiology or statistics. Few of "
3803 "us have the math skills to review the literature on vaccine safety and "
3804 "describe why their statistical reasoning is sound. Likewise, few of us can "
3805 "review the stats in the (now discredited) literature on opioid safety and "
3806 "explain how those stats were manipulated. Both vaccines and opioids were "
3807 "embraced by medical authorities, after all, and one is safe while the other "
3808 "could ruin your life. You’re left with a kind of inchoate constellation of "
3809 "rules of thumb about which experts you trust to fact-check controversial "
3810 "claims and then to explain how all those respectable doctors with their peer-"
3811 "reviewed research on opioid safety <emphasis>were</emphasis> an aberration "
3812 "and then how you know that the doctors writing about vaccine safety are "
3813 "<emphasis>not</emphasis> an aberration."
3814 msgstr ""
3815
3816 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3817 msgid ""
3818 "I’m 100% certain that vaccinating is safe and effective, but I’m also at "
3819 "something of a loss to explain exactly, <emphasis>precisely,</emphasis> why "
3820 "I believe this, given all the corruption I know about and the many times the "
3821 "stamp of certainty has turned out to be a parochial lie told to further "
3822 "enrich the super rich."
3823 msgstr ""
3824
3825 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3826 msgid ""
3827 "Fake news — conspiracy theories, racist ideologies, scientific denialism — "
3828 "has always been with us. What’s changed today is not the mix of ideas in the "
3829 "public discourse but the popularity of the worst ideas in that mix. "
3830 "Conspiracy and denial have skyrocketed in lockstep with the growth of Big "
3831 "Inequality, which has also tracked the rise of Big Tech and Big Pharma and "
3832 "Big Wrestling and Big Car and Big Movie Theater and Big Everything Else."
3833 msgstr ""
3834
3835 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3836 msgid ""
3837 "No one can say for certain why this has happened, but the two dominant camps "
3838 "are idealism (the belief that the people who argue for these conspiracies "
3839 "have gotten better at explaining them, maybe with the help of machine-"
3840 "learning tools) or materialism (the ideas have become more attractive "
3841 "because of material conditions in the world)."
3842 msgstr ""
3843
3844 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3845 msgid ""
3846 "I’m a materialist. I’ve been exposed to the arguments of conspiracy "
3847 "theorists all my life, and I have not experienced any qualitative leap in "
3848 "the quality of those arguments."
3849 msgstr ""
3850
3851 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3852 msgid ""
3853 "The major difference is in the world, not the arguments. In a time where "
3854 "actual conspiracies are commonplace, conspiracy theories acquire a ring of "
3855 "plausibility."
3856 msgstr ""
3857
3858 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3859 msgid ""
3860 "We have always had disagreements about what’s true, but today, we have a "
3861 "disagreement over how we know whether something is true. This is an "
3862 "epistemological crisis, not a crisis over belief. It’s a crisis over the "
3863 "credibility of our truth-seeking exercises, from scientific journals (in an "
3864 "era where the biggest journal publishers have been caught producing pay-to-"
3865 "play journals for junk science) to regulations (in an era where regulators "
3866 "are routinely cycling in and out of business) to education (in an era where "
3867 "universities are dependent on corporate donations to keep their lights on)."
3868 msgstr ""
3869
3870 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3871 msgid ""
3872 "Targeting — surveillance capitalism — makes it easier to find people who are "
3873 "undergoing this epistemological crisis, but it doesn’t create the crisis. "
3874 "For that, you need to look to corruption."
3875 msgstr ""
3876
3877 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3878 msgid ""
3879 "And, conveniently enough, it’s corruption that allows surveillance "
3880 "capitalism to grow by dismantling monopoly protections, by permitting "
3881 "reckless collection and retention of personal data, by allowing ads to be "
3882 "targeted in secret, and by foreclosing on the possibility of going somewhere "
3883 "else where you might continue to enjoy your friends without subjecting "
3884 "yourself to commercial surveillance."
3885 msgstr ""
3886
3887 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
3888 msgid "Tech is different"
3889 msgstr ""
3890
3891 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3892 msgid ""
3893 "I reject both iterations of technological exceptionalism. I reject the idea "
3894 "that tech is uniquely terrible and led by people who are greedier or worse "
3895 "than the leaders of other industries, and I reject the idea that tech is so "
3896 "good — or so intrinsically prone to concentration — that it can’t be blamed "
3897 "for its present-day monopolistic status."
3898 msgstr ""
3899
3900 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3901 msgid ""
3902 "I think tech is just another industry, albeit one that grew up in the "
3903 "absence of real monopoly constraints. It may have been first, but it isn’t "
3904 "the worst nor will it be the last."
3905 msgstr ""
3906
3907 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3908 msgid ""
3909 "But there’s one way in which I <emphasis>am</emphasis> a tech "
3910 "exceptionalist. I believe that online tools are the key to overcoming "
3911 "problems that are much more urgent than tech monopolization: climate change, "
3912 "inequality, misogyny, and discrimination on the basis of race, gender "
3913 "identity, and other factors. The internet is how we will recruit people to "
3914 "fight those fights, and how we will coordinate their labor. Tech is not a "
3915 "substitute for democratic accountability, the rule of law, fairness, or "
3916 "stability — but it’s a means to achieve these things."
3917 msgstr ""
3918
3919 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3920 msgid ""
3921 "The hard problem of our species is coordination. Everything from climate "
3922 "change to social change to running a business to making a family work can be "
3923 "viewed as a collective action problem."
3924 msgstr ""
3925
3926 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3927 msgid ""
3928 "The internet makes it easier than at any time before to find people who want "
3929 "to work on a project with you — hence the success of free and open-source "
3930 "software, crowdfunding, and racist terror groups — and easier than ever to "
3931 "coordinate the work you do."
3932 msgstr ""
3933
3934 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3935 msgid ""
3936 "The internet and the computers we connect to it also possess an exceptional "
3937 "quality: general-purposeness. The internet is designed to allow any two "
3938 "parties to communicate any data, using any protocol, without permission from "
3939 "anyone else. The only production design we have for computers is the general-"
3940 "purpose, <quote>Turing complete</quote> computer that can run every program "
3941 "we can express in symbolic logic."
3942 msgstr ""
3943
3944 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3945 msgid ""
3946 "This means that every time someone with a special communications need "
3947 "invests in infrastructure and techniques to make the internet faster, "
3948 "cheaper, and more robust, this benefit redounds to everyone else who is "
3949 "using the internet to communicate. And this also means that every time "
3950 "someone with a special computing need invests to make computers faster, "
3951 "cheaper, and more robust, every other computing application is a potential "
3952 "beneficiary of this work."
3953 msgstr ""
3954
3955 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3956 msgid ""
3957 "For these reasons, every type of communication is gradually absorbed into "
3958 "the internet, and every type of device — from airplanes to pacemakers — "
3959 "eventually becomes a computer in a fancy case."
3960 msgstr ""
3961 "På grunn av dette, vil enhver form for kommunikasjon gradvis absorberes inn "
3962 "i Internett, og enhver type dings — fra fly til pacemakere — på sikt bli en "
3963 "datamaskin i en stilig boks."
3964
3965 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3966 msgid ""
3967 "While these considerations don’t preclude regulating networks and computers, "
3968 "they do call for gravitas and caution when doing so because changes to "
3969 "regulatory frameworks could ripple out to have unintended consequences in "
3970 "many, many other domains."
3971 msgstr ""
3972
3973 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3974 msgid ""
3975 "The upshot of this is that our best hope of solving the big coordination "
3976 "problems — climate change, inequality, etc. — is with free, fair, and open "
3977 "tech. Our best hope of keeping tech free, fair, and open is to exercise "
3978 "caution in how we regulate tech and to attend closely to the ways in which "
3979 "interventions to solve one problem might create problems in other domains."
3980 msgstr ""
3981
3982 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
3983 msgid "Ownership of facts"
3984 msgstr "Eierskap til fakta"
3985
3986 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3987 msgid ""
3988 "Big Tech has a funny relationship with information. When you’re generating "
3989 "information — anything from the location data streaming off your mobile "
3990 "device to the private messages you send to friends on a social network — it "
3991 "claims the rights to make unlimited use of that data."
3992 msgstr ""
3993
3994 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3995 msgid ""
3996 "But when you have the audacity to turn the tables — to use a tool that "
3997 "blocks ads or slurps your waiting updates out of a social network and puts "
3998 "them in another app that lets you set your own priorities and suggestions or "
3999 "crawls their system to allow you to start a rival business — they claim that "
4000 "you’re stealing from them."
4001 msgstr ""
4002
4003 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4004 msgid ""
4005 "The thing is, information is a very bad fit for any kind of private property "
4006 "regime. Property rights are useful for establishing markets that can lead to "
4007 "the effective development of fallow assets. These markets depend on clear "
4008 "titles to ensure that the things being bought and sold in them can, in fact, "
4009 "be bought and sold."
4010 msgstr ""
4011
4012 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4013 msgid ""
4014 "Information rarely has such a clear title. Take phone numbers: There’s "
4015 "clearly something going wrong when Facebook slurps up millions of users’ "
4016 "address books and uses the phone numbers it finds in them to plot out social "
4017 "graphs and fill in missing information about other users."
4018 msgstr ""
4019
4020 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4021 msgid ""
4022 "But the phone numbers Facebook nonconsensually acquires in this transaction "
4023 "are not the <quote>property</quote> of the users they’re taken from nor do "
4024 "they belong to the people whose phones ring when you dial those numbers. The "
4025 "numbers are mere integers, 10 digits in the U.S. and Canada, and they "
4026 "appear in millions of places, including somewhere deep in pi as well as "
4027 "numerous other contexts. Giving people ownership titles to integers is an "
4028 "obviously terrible idea."
4029 msgstr ""
4030
4031 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4032 msgid ""
4033 "Likewise for the facts that Facebook and other commercial surveillance "
4034 "operators acquire about us, like that we are the children of our parents or "
4035 "the parents to our children or that we had a conversation with someone else "
4036 "or went to a public place. These data points can’t be property in the sense "
4037 "that your house or your shirt is your property because the title to them is "
4038 "intrinsically muddy: Does your mom own the fact that she is your mother? Do "
4039 "you? Do both of you? What about your dad — does he own this fact too, or "
4040 "does he have to license the fact from you (or your mom or both of you) in "
4041 "order to use this fact? What about the hundreds or thousands of other people "
4042 "who know these facts?"
4043 msgstr ""
4044
4045 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4046 msgid ""
4047 "If you go to a Black Lives Matter demonstration, do the other demonstrators "
4048 "need your permission to post their photos from the event? The online fights "
4049 "over <ulink url=\"https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-take-photos-at-protests/"
4050 "\">when and how to post photos from demonstrations</ulink> reveal a nuanced, "
4051 "complex issue that cannot be easily hand-waved away by giving one party a "
4052 "property right that everyone else in the mix has to respect."
4053 msgstr ""
4054
4055 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4056 msgid ""
4057 "The fact that information isn’t a good fit with property and markets doesn’t "
4058 "mean that it’s not valuable. Babies aren’t property, but they’re inarguably "
4059 "valuable. In fact, we have a whole set of rules just for babies as well as a "
4060 "subset of those rules that apply to humans more generally. Someone who "
4061 "argues that babies won’t be truly valuable until they can be bought and sold "
4062 "like loaves of bread would be instantly and rightfully condemned as a "
4063 "monster."
4064 msgstr ""
4065
4066 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4067 msgid ""
4068 "It’s tempting to reach for the property hammer when Big Tech treats your "
4069 "information like a nail — not least because Big Tech are such prolific "
4070 "abusers of property hammers when it comes to <emphasis>their</emphasis> "
4071 "information. But this is a mistake. If we allow markets to dictate the use "
4072 "of our information, then we’ll find that we’re sellers in a buyers’ market "
4073 "where the Big Tech monopolies set a price for our data that is so low as to "
4074 "be insignificant or, more likely, set at a nonnegotiable price of zero in a "
4075 "click-through agreement that you don’t have the opportunity to modify."
4076 msgstr ""
4077
4078 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4079 msgid ""
4080 "Meanwhile, establishing property rights over information will create "
4081 "insurmountable barriers to independent data processing. Imagine that we "
4082 "require a license to be negotiated when a translated document is compared "
4083 "with its original, something Google has done and continues to do billions of "
4084 "times to train its automated language translation tools. Google can afford "
4085 "this, but independent third parties cannot. Google can staff a clearances "
4086 "department to negotiate one-time payments to the likes of the EU (one of the "
4087 "major repositories of translated documents) while independent watchdogs "
4088 "wanting to verify that the translations are well-prepared, or to root out "
4089 "bias in translations, will find themselves needing a staffed-up legal "
4090 "department and millions for licenses before they can even get started."
4091 msgstr ""
4092
4093 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4094 msgid ""
4095 "The same goes for things like search indexes of the web or photos of "
4096 "peoples’ houses, which have become contentious thanks to Google’s Street "
4097 "View project. Whatever problems may exist with Google’s photographing of "
4098 "street scenes, resolving them by letting people decide who can take pictures "
4099 "of the facades of their homes from a public street will surely create even "
4100 "worse ones. Think of how street photography is important for newsgathering — "
4101 "including informal newsgathering, like photographing abuses of authority — "
4102 "and how being able to document housing and street life are important for "
4103 "contesting eminent domain, advocating for social aid, reporting planning and "
4104 "zoning violations, documenting discriminatory and unequal living conditions, "
4105 "and more."
4106 msgstr ""
4107
4108 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4109 msgid ""
4110 "The ownership of facts is antithetical to many kinds of human progress. It’s "
4111 "hard to imagine a rule that limits Big Tech’s exploitation of our collective "
4112 "labors without inadvertently banning people from gathering data on online "
4113 "harassment or compiling indexes of changes in language or simply "
4114 "investigating how the platforms are shaping our discourse — all of which "
4115 "require scraping data that other people have created and subjecting it to "
4116 "scrutiny and analysis."
4117 msgstr ""
4118
4119 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
4120 msgid "Persuasion works… slowly"
4121 msgstr "Overtalelse virker… sakte"
4122
4123 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4124 msgid ""
4125 "The platforms may oversell their ability to persuade people, but obviously, "
4126 "persuasion works sometimes. Whether it’s the private realm that LGBTQ people "
4127 "used to recruit allies and normalize sexual diversity or the decadeslong "
4128 "project to convince people that markets are the only efficient way to solve "
4129 "complicated resource allocation problems, it’s clear that our societal "
4130 "attitudes <emphasis>can</emphasis> change."
4131 msgstr ""
4132
4133 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4134 msgid ""
4135 "The project of shifting societal attitudes is a game of inches and years. "
4136 "For centuries, svengalis have purported to be able to accelerate this "
4137 "process, but even the most brutal forms of propaganda have struggled to make "
4138 "permanent changes. Joseph Goebbels was able to subject Germans to daily, "
4139 "mandatory, hourslong radio broadcasts, to round up and torture and murder "
4140 "dissidents, and to seize full control over their children’s education while "
4141 "banning any literature, broadcasts, or films that did not comport with his "
4142 "worldview."
4143 msgstr ""
4144
4145 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4146 msgid ""
4147 "Yet, after 12 years of terror, once the war ended, Nazi ideology was largely "
4148 "discredited in both East and West Germany, and a program of national truth "
4149 "and reconciliation was put in its place. Racism and authoritarianism were "
4150 "never fully abolished in Germany, but neither were the majority of Germans "
4151 "irrevocably convinced of Nazism — and the rise of racist authoritarianism in "
4152 "Germany today tells us that the liberal attitudes that replaced Nazism were "
4153 "no more permanent than Nazism itself."
4154 msgstr ""
4155
4156 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4157 msgid ""
4158 "Racism and authoritarianism have also always been with us. Anyone who’s "
4159 "reviewed the kind of messages and arguments that racists put forward today "
4160 "would be hard-pressed to say that they have gotten better at presenting "
4161 "their ideas. The same pseudoscience, appeals to fear, and circular logic "
4162 "that racists presented in the 1980s, when the cause of white supremacy was "
4163 "on the wane, are to be found in the communications of leading white "
4164 "nationalists today."
4165 msgstr ""
4166
4167 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4168 msgid ""
4169 "If racists haven’t gotten more convincing in the past decade, then how is it "
4170 "that more people were convinced to be openly racist at that time? I believe "
4171 "that the answer lies in the material world, not the world of ideas. The "
4172 "ideas haven’t gotten more convincing, but people have become more afraid. "
4173 "Afraid that the state can’t be trusted to act as an honest broker in life-or-"
4174 "death decisions, from those regarding the management of the economy to the "
4175 "regulation of painkillers to the rules for handling private information. "
4176 "Afraid that the world has become a game of musical chairs in which the "
4177 "chairs are being taken away at a never-before-seen rate. Afraid that justice "
4178 "for others will come at their expense. Monopolism isn’t the cause of these "
4179 "fears, but the inequality and material desperation and policy malpractice "
4180 "that monopolism contributes to is a significant contributor to these "
4181 "conditions. Inequality creates the conditions for both conspiracies and "
4182 "violent racist ideologies, and then surveillance capitalism lets "
4183 "opportunists target the fearful and the conspiracy-minded."
4184 msgstr ""
4185
4186 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
4187 msgid "Paying won’t help"
4188 msgstr "Det hjelper ikke å betale"
4189
4190 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4191 msgid ""
4192 "As the old saw goes, <quote>If you’re not paying for the product, you’re the "
4193 "product.</quote>"
4194 msgstr ""
4195
4196 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4197 msgid ""
4198 "It’s a commonplace belief today that the advent of free, ad-supported media "
4199 "was the original sin of surveillance capitalism. The reasoning is that the "
4200 "companies that charged for access couldn’t <quote>compete with free</quote> "
4201 "and so they were driven out of business. Their ad-supported competitors, "
4202 "meanwhile, declared open season on their users’ data in a bid to improve "
4203 "their ad targeting and make more money and then resorted to the most "
4204 "sensationalist tactics to generate clicks on those ads. If only we’d pay for "
4205 "media again, we’d have a better, more responsible, more sober discourse that "
4206 "would be better for democracy."
4207 msgstr ""
4208
4209 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4210 msgid ""
4211 "But the degradation of news products long precedes the advent of ad-"
4212 "supported online news. Long before newspapers were online, lax antitrust "
4213 "enforcement had opened the door for unprecedented waves of consolidation and "
4214 "roll-ups in newsrooms. Rival newspapers were merged, reporters and ad sales "
4215 "staff were laid off, physical plants were sold and leased back, leaving the "
4216 "companies loaded up with debt through leveraged buyouts and subsequent "
4217 "profit-taking by the new owners. In other words, it wasn’t merely shifts in "
4218 "the classified advertising market, which was long held to be the primary "
4219 "driver in the decline of the traditional newsroom, that made news companies "
4220 "unable to adapt to the internet — it was monopolism."
4221 msgstr ""
4222
4223 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4224 msgid ""
4225 "Then, as news companies <emphasis>did</emphasis> come online, the ad "
4226 "revenues they commanded dropped even as the number of internet users (and "
4227 "thus potential online readers) increased. That shift was a function of "
4228 "consolidation in the ad sales market, with Google and Facebook emerging as "
4229 "duopolists who made more money every year from advertising while paying less "
4230 "and less of it to the publishers whose work the ads appeared alongside. "
4231 "Monopolism created a buyer’s market for ad inventory with Facebook and "
4232 "Google acting as gatekeepers."
4233 msgstr ""
4234
4235 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4236 msgid ""
4237 "Paid services continue to exist alongside free ones, and often it is these "
4238 "paid services — anxious to prevent people from bypassing their paywalls or "
4239 "sharing paid media with freeloaders — that exert the most control over their "
4240 "customers. Apple’s iTunes and App Stores are paid services, but to maximize "
4241 "their profitability, Apple has to lock its platforms so that third parties "
4242 "can’t make compatible software without permission. These locks allow the "
4243 "company to exercise both editorial control (enabling it to exclude <ulink "
4244 "url=\"https://ncac.org/news/blog/does-apples-strict-app-store-content-policy-"
4245 "limit-freedom-of-expression\">controversial political material</ulink>) and "
4246 "technological control, including control over who can repair the devices it "
4247 "makes. If we’re worried that ad-supported products deprive people of their "
4248 "right to self-determination by using persuasion techniques to nudge their "
4249 "purchase decisions a few degrees in one direction or the other, then the "
4250 "near-total control a single company holds over the decision of who gets to "
4251 "sell you software, parts, and service for your iPhone should have us very "
4252 "worried indeed."
4253 msgstr ""
4254
4255 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4256 msgid ""
4257 "We shouldn’t just be concerned about payment and control: The idea that "
4258 "paying will improve discourse is also dangerously wrong. The poor success "
4259 "rate of targeted advertising means that the platforms have to incentivize "
4260 "you to <quote>engage</quote> with posts at extremely high levels to generate "
4261 "enough pageviews to safeguard their profits. As discussed earlier, to "
4262 "increase engagement, platforms like Facebook use machine learning to guess "
4263 "which messages will be most inflammatory and make a point of shoving those "
4264 "into your eyeballs at every turn so that you will hate-click and argue with "
4265 "people."
4266 msgstr ""
4267
4268 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4269 msgid ""
4270 "Perhaps paying would fix this, the reasoning goes. If platforms could be "
4271 "economically viable even if you stopped clicking on them once your "
4272 "intellectual and social curiosity had been slaked, then they would have no "
4273 "reason to algorithmically enrage you to get more clicks out of you, right?"
4274 msgstr ""
4275
4276 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4277 msgid ""
4278 "There may be something to that argument, but it still ignores the wider "
4279 "economic and political context of the platforms and the world that allowed "
4280 "them to grow so dominant."
4281 msgstr ""
4282
4283 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4284 msgid ""
4285 "Platforms are world-spanning and all-encompassing because they are "
4286 "monopolies, and they are monopolies because we have gutted our most "
4287 "important and reliable anti-monopoly rules. Antitrust was neutered as a key "
4288 "part of the project to make the wealthy wealthier, and that project has "
4289 "worked. The vast majority of people on Earth have a negative net worth, and "
4290 "even the dwindling middle class is in a precarious state, undersaved for "
4291 "retirement, underinsured for medical disasters, and undersecured against "
4292 "climate and technology shocks."
4293 msgstr ""
4294
4295 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4296 msgid ""
4297 "In this wildly unequal world, paying doesn’t improve the discourse; it "
4298 "simply prices discourse out of the range of the majority of people. Paying "
4299 "for the product is dandy, if you can afford it."
4300 msgstr ""
4301
4302 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4303 msgid ""
4304 "If you think today’s filter bubbles are a problem for our discourse, imagine "
4305 "what they’d be like if rich people inhabited free-flowing Athenian "
4306 "marketplaces of ideas where you have to pay for admission while everyone "
4307 "else lives in online spaces that are subsidized by wealthy benefactors who "
4308 "relish the chance to establish conversational spaces where the <quote>house "
4309 "rules</quote> forbid questioning the status quo. That is, imagine if the "
4310 "rich seceded from Facebook, and then, instead of running ads that made money "
4311 "for shareholders, Facebook became a billionaire’s vanity project that also "
4312 "happened to ensure that nobody talked about whether it was fair that only "
4313 "billionaires could afford to hang out in the rarified corners of the "
4314 "internet."
4315 msgstr ""
4316
4317 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4318 msgid ""
4319 "Behind the idea of paying for access is a belief that free markets will "
4320 "address Big Tech’s dysfunction. After all, to the extent that people have a "
4321 "view of surveillance at all, it is generally an unfavorable one, and the "
4322 "longer and more thoroughly one is surveilled, the less one tends to like it. "
4323 "Same goes for lock-in: If HP’s ink or Apple’s App Store were really "
4324 "obviously fantastic, they wouldn’t need technical measures to prevent users "
4325 "from choosing a rival’s product. The only reason these technical "
4326 "countermeasures exist is that the companies don’t believe their customers "
4327 "would <emphasis>voluntarily</emphasis> submit to their terms, and they want "
4328 "to deprive them of the choice to take their business elsewhere."
4329 msgstr ""
4330
4331 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4332 msgid ""
4333 "Advocates for markets laud their ability to aggregate the diffused knowledge "
4334 "of buyers and sellers across a whole society through demand signals, price "
4335 "signals, and so on. The argument for surveillance capitalism being a "
4336 "<quote>rogue capitalism</quote> is that machine-learning-driven persuasion "
4337 "techniques distort decision-making by consumers, leading to incorrect "
4338 "signals — consumers don’t buy what they prefer, they buy what they’re "
4339 "tricked into preferring. It follows that the monopolistic practices of lock-"
4340 "in, which do far more to constrain consumers’ free choices, are even more of "
4341 "a <quote>rogue capitalism.</quote>"
4342 msgstr ""
4343
4344 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4345 msgid ""
4346 "The profitability of any business is constrained by the possibility that its "
4347 "customers will take their business elsewhere. Both surveillance and lock-in "
4348 "are anti-features that no customer wants. But monopolies can capture their "
4349 "regulators, crush their competitors, insert themselves into their customers’ "
4350 "lives, and corral people into <quote>choosing</quote> their services "
4351 "regardless of whether they want them — it’s fine to be terrible when there "
4352 "is no alternative."
4353 msgstr ""
4354
4355 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4356 msgid ""
4357 "Ultimately, surveillance and lock-in are both simply business strategies "
4358 "that monopolists can choose. Surveillance companies like Google are "
4359 "perfectly capable of deploying lock-in technologies — just look at the "
4360 "onerous Android licensing terms that require device-makers to bundle in "
4361 "Google’s suite of applications. And lock-in companies like Apple are "
4362 "perfectly capable of subjecting their users to surveillance if it means "
4363 "keeping the Chinese government happy and preserving ongoing access to "
4364 "Chinese markets. Monopolies may be made up of good, ethical people, but as "
4365 "institutions, they are not your friend — they will do whatever they can get "
4366 "away with to maximize their profits, and the more monopolistic they are, the "
4367 "more they <emphasis>can</emphasis> get away with."
4368 msgstr ""
4369
4370 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
4371 msgid "An <quote>ecology</quote> moment for trustbusting"
4372 msgstr ""
4373
4374 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4375 msgid ""
4376 "If we’re going to break Big Tech’s death grip on our digital lives, we’re "
4377 "going to have to fight monopolies. That may sound pretty mundane and old-"
4378 "fashioned, something out of the New Deal era, while ending the use of "
4379 "automated behavioral modification feels like the plotline of a really cool "
4380 "cyberpunk novel."
4381 msgstr ""
4382
4383 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4384 msgid ""
4385 "Meanwhile, breaking up monopolies is something we seem to have forgotten how "
4386 "to do. There is a bipartisan, trans-Atlantic consensus that breaking up "
4387 "companies is a fool’s errand at best — liable to mire your federal "
4388 "prosecutors in decades of litigation — and counterproductive at worst, "
4389 "eroding the <quote>consumer benefits</quote> of large companies with massive "
4390 "efficiencies of scale."
4391 msgstr ""
4392
4393 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4394 msgid ""
4395 "But trustbusters once strode the nation, brandishing law books, terrorizing "
4396 "robber barons, and shattering the illusion of monopolies’ all-powerful grip "
4397 "on our society. The trustbusting era could not begin until we found the "
4398 "political will — until the people convinced politicians they’d have their "
4399 "backs when they went up against the richest, most powerful men in the world."
4400 msgstr ""
4401
4402 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4403 msgid "Could we find that political will again?"
4404 msgstr ""
4405
4406 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4407 msgid ""
4408 "Copyright scholar James Boyle has described how the term <quote>ecology</"
4409 "quote> marked a turning point in environmental activism. Prior to the "
4410 "adoption of this term, people who wanted to preserve whale populations "
4411 "didn’t necessarily see themselves as fighting the same battle as people who "
4412 "wanted to protect the ozone layer or fight freshwater pollution or beat back "
4413 "smog or acid rain."
4414 msgstr ""
4415
4416 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4417 msgid ""
4418 "But the term <quote>ecology</quote> welded these disparate causes together "
4419 "into a single movement, and the members of this movement found solidarity "
4420 "with one another. The people who cared about smog signed petitions "
4421 "circulated by the people who wanted to end whaling, and the anti-whalers "
4422 "marched alongside the people demanding action on acid rain. This uniting "
4423 "behind a common cause completely changed the dynamics of environmentalism, "
4424 "setting the stage for today’s climate activism and the sense that preserving "
4425 "the habitability of the planet Earth is a shared duty among all people."
4426 msgstr ""
4427
4428 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4429 msgid ""
4430 "I believe we are on the verge of a new <quote>ecology</quote> moment "
4431 "dedicated to combating monopolies. After all, tech isn’t the only "
4432 "concentrated industry nor is it even the <emphasis>most</emphasis> "
4433 "concentrated of industries."
4434 msgstr ""
4435
4436 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4437 msgid ""
4438 "You can find partisans for trustbusting in every sector of the economy. "
4439 "Everywhere you look, you can find people who’ve been wronged by monopolists "
4440 "who’ve trashed their finances, their health, their privacy, their "
4441 "educations, and the lives of people they love. Those people have the same "
4442 "cause as the people who want to break up Big Tech and the same enemies. When "
4443 "most of the world’s wealth is in the hands of a very few, it follows that "
4444 "nearly every large company will have overlapping shareholders."
4445 msgstr ""
4446
4447 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4448 msgid ""
4449 "That’s the good news: With a little bit of work and a little bit of "
4450 "coalition building, we have more than enough political will to break up Big "
4451 "Tech and every other concentrated industry besides. First we take Facebook, "
4452 "then we take AT&amp;T/WarnerMedia."
4453 msgstr ""
4454
4455 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4456 msgid ""
4457 "But here’s the bad news: Much of what we’re doing to tame Big Tech "
4458 "<emphasis>instead</emphasis> of breaking up the big companies also "
4459 "forecloses on the possibility of breaking them up later."
4460 msgstr ""
4461 "Men her er de dårlige nyhetene: Mye av det vi gjør for å temme "
4462 "Storteknologien <emphasis>i stedet</emphasis> for å bryte opp de store "
4463 "selskapene, vil gjøre det vanskeligere å bryte dem opp senere."
4464
4465 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4466 msgid ""
4467 "Big Tech’s concentration currently means that their inaction on harassment, "
4468 "for example, leaves users with an impossible choice: absent themselves from "
4469 "public discourse by, say, quitting Twitter or endure vile, constant abuse. "
4470 "Big Tech’s over-collection and over-retention of data results in horrific "
4471 "identity theft. And their inaction on extremist recruitment means that white "
4472 "supremacists who livestream their shooting rampages can reach an audience of "
4473 "billions. The combination of tech concentration and media concentration "
4474 "means that artists’ incomes are falling even as the revenue generated by "
4475 "their creations are increasing."
4476 msgstr ""
4477
4478 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4479 msgid ""
4480 "Yet governments confronting all of these problems all inevitably converge on "
4481 "the same solution: deputize the Big Tech giants to police their users and "
4482 "render them liable for their users’ bad actions. The drive to force Big Tech "
4483 "to use automated filters to block everything from copyright infringement to "
4484 "sex-trafficking to violent extremism means that tech companies will have to "
4485 "allocate hundreds of millions to run these compliance systems."
4486 msgstr ""
4487
4488 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4489 msgid ""
4490 "These rules — the EU’s new Directive on Copyright, Australia’s new terror "
4491 "regulation, America’s FOSTA/SESTA sex-trafficking law and more — are not "
4492 "just death warrants for small, upstart competitors that might challenge Big "
4493 "Tech’s dominance but who lack the deep pockets of established incumbents to "
4494 "pay for all these automated systems. Worse still, these rules put a floor "
4495 "under how small we can hope to make Big Tech."
4496 msgstr ""
4497
4498 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4499 msgid ""
4500 "That’s because any move to break up Big Tech and cut it down to size will "
4501 "have to cope with the hard limit of not making these companies so small that "
4502 "they can no longer afford to perform these duties — and it’s "
4503 "<emphasis>expensive</emphasis> to invest in those automated filters and "
4504 "outsource content moderation. It’s already going to be hard to unwind these "
4505 "deeply concentrated, chimeric behemoths that have been welded together in "
4506 "the pursuit of monopoly profits. Doing so while simultaneously finding some "
4507 "way to fill the regulatory void that will be left behind if these self-"
4508 "policing rulers were forced to suddenly abdicate will be much, much harder."
4509 msgstr ""
4510
4511 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4512 msgid ""
4513 "Allowing the platforms to grow to their present size has given them a "
4514 "dominance that is nearly insurmountable — deputizing them with public duties "
4515 "to redress the pathologies created by their size makes it virtually "
4516 "impossible to reduce that size. Lather, rinse, repeat: If the platforms "
4517 "don’t get smaller, they will get larger, and as they get larger, they will "
4518 "create more problems, which will give rise to more public duties for the "
4519 "companies, which will make them bigger still."
4520 msgstr ""
4521
4522 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4523 msgid ""
4524 "We can work to fix the internet by breaking up Big Tech and depriving them "
4525 "of monopoly profits, or we can work to fix Big Tech by making them spend "
4526 "their monopoly profits on governance. But we can’t do both. We have to "
4527 "choose between a vibrant, open internet or a dominated, monopolized internet "
4528 "commanded by Big Tech giants that we struggle with constantly to get them to "
4529 "behave themselves."
4530 msgstr ""
4531
4532 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
4533 msgid "Make Big Tech small again"
4534 msgstr "Gjør Storteknologien liten igjen"
4535
4536 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4537 msgid ""
4538 "Trustbusting is hard. Breaking big companies into smaller ones is expensive "
4539 "and time-consuming. So time-consuming that by the time you’re done, the "
4540 "world has often moved on and rendered years of litigation irrelevant. From "
4541 "1969 to 1982, the U.S. government pursued an antitrust case against IBM over "
4542 "its dominance of mainframe computing — but the case collapsed in 1982 "
4543 "because mainframes were being speedily replaced by PCs."
4544 msgstr ""
4545
4546 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
4547 msgid ""
4548 "A future U.S. president could simply direct their attorney general to "
4549 "enforce the law as it was written."
4550 msgstr ""
4551 "En fremtidig president i USA kunne ganske enkelt be sin justisminister om å "
4552 "håndheve loven slik den er skrevet."
4553
4554 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4555 msgid ""
4556 "It’s far easier to prevent concentration than to fix it, and reinstating the "
4557 "traditional contours of U.S. antitrust enforcement will, at the very least, "
4558 "prevent further concentration. That means bans on mergers between large "
4559 "companies, on big companies acquiring nascent competitors, and on platform "
4560 "companies competing directly with the companies that rely on the platforms."
4561 msgstr ""
4562
4563 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4564 msgid ""
4565 "These powers are all in the plain language of U.S. antitrust laws, so in "
4566 "theory, a future U.S. president could simply direct their attorney general "
4567 "to enforce the law as it was written. But after decades of judicial "
4568 "<quote>education</quote> in the benefits of monopolies, after multiple "
4569 "administrations that have packed the federal courts with lifetime-appointed "
4570 "monopoly cheerleaders, it’s not clear that mere administrative action would "
4571 "do the trick."
4572 msgstr ""
4573
4574 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4575 msgid ""
4576 "If the courts frustrate the Justice Department and the president, the next "
4577 "stop would be Congress, which could eliminate any doubt about how antitrust "
4578 "law should be enforced in the U.S. by passing new laws that boil down to "
4579 "saying, <quote>Knock it off. We all know what the Sherman Act says. Robert "
4580 "Bork was a deranged fantasist. For avoidance of doubt, <emphasis>fuck that "
4581 "guy</emphasis>.</quote> In other words, the problem with monopolies is "
4582 "<emphasis>monopolism</emphasis> — the concentration of power into too few "
4583 "hands, which erodes our right to self-determination. If there is a monopoly, "
4584 "the law wants it gone, period. Sure, get rid of monopolies that create "
4585 "<quote>consumer harm</quote> in the form of higher prices, but also, "
4586 "<emphasis>get rid of other monopolies, too.</emphasis>"
4587 msgstr ""
4588
4589 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4590 msgid ""
4591 "But this only prevents things from getting worse. To help them get better, "
4592 "we will have to build coalitions with other activists in the anti-monopoly "
4593 "ecology movement — a pluralism movement or a self-determination movement — "
4594 "and target existing monopolies in every industry for breakup and structural "
4595 "separation rules that prevent, for example, the giant eyewear monopolist "
4596 "Luxottica from dominating both the sale and the manufacture of spectacles."
4597 msgstr ""
4598
4599 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4600 msgid ""
4601 "In an important sense, it doesn’t matter which industry the breakups begin "
4602 "in. Once they start, shareholders in <emphasis>every</emphasis> industry "
4603 "will start to eye their investments in monopolists skeptically. As "
4604 "trustbusters ride into town and start making lives miserable for "
4605 "monopolists, the debate around every corporate boardroom’s table will shift. "
4606 "People within corporations who’ve always felt uneasy about monopolism will "
4607 "gain a powerful new argument to fend off their evil rivals in the corporate "
4608 "hierarchy: <quote>If we do it my way, we make less money; if we do it your "
4609 "way, a judge will fine us billions and expose us to ridicule and public "
4610 "disapprobation. So even though I get that it would be really cool to do that "
4611 "merger, lock out that competitor, or buy that little company and kill it "
4612 "before it can threaten it, we really shouldn’t — not if we don’t want to get "
4613 "tied to the DOJ’s bumper and get dragged up and down Trustbuster Road for "
4614 "the next 10 years.</quote>"
4615 msgstr ""
4616
4617 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
4618 msgid "20 GOTO 10"
4619 msgstr "20 GOTO 10"
4620
4621 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4622 msgid ""
4623 "Fixing Big Tech will require a lot of iteration. As cyber lawyer Lawrence "
4624 "Lessig wrote in his 1999 book, <emphasis>Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace</"
4625 "emphasis>, our lives are regulated by four forces: law (what’s legal), code "
4626 "(what’s technologically possible), norms (what’s socially acceptable), and "
4627 "markets (what’s profitable)."
4628 msgstr ""
4629
4630 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4631 msgid ""
4632 "If you could wave a wand and get Congress to pass a law that re-fanged the "
4633 "Sherman Act tomorrow, you could use the impending breakups to convince "
4634 "venture capitalists to fund competitors to Facebook, Google, Twitter, and "
4635 "Apple that would be waiting in the wings after they were cut down to size."
4636 msgstr ""
4637 "Hvis du kunne svinge en tryllestav å få kongressen til å vedta en lov som "
4638 "vedtok Sherman-loven på nytt i morgen, så kunne du bruke den påfølgende "
4639 "oppsplittingen til å overbevise risikokapitalister om å finansiere "
4640 "konkurrentene til Facebook, Google, Twitter og Apple som ville vente i "
4641 "utkanten etter at disse ble gjort mindre."
4642
4643 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4644 msgid ""
4645 "But getting Congress to act will require a massive normative shift, a mass "
4646 "movement of people who care about monopolies — and pulling them apart."
4647 msgstr ""
4648 "Men å få kongressen til å gjøre noe vil kreve en massiv normativ endring, en "
4649 "massebevegelse av folk som bryr seg om monopoler — og hvordan bryte dem opp."
4650
4651 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4652 msgid ""
4653 "Getting people to care about monopolies will take technological "
4654 "interventions that help them to see what a world free from Big Tech might "
4655 "look like. Imagine if someone could make a beloved (but unauthorized) third-"
4656 "party Facebook or Twitter client that dampens the anxiety-producing "
4657 "algorithmic drumbeat and still lets you talk to your friends without being "
4658 "spied upon — something that made social media more sociable and less toxic. "
4659 "Now imagine that it gets shut down in a brutal legal battle. It’s always "
4660 "easier to convince people that something must be done to save a thing they "
4661 "love than it is to excite them about something that doesn’t even exist yet."
4662 msgstr ""
4663
4664 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4665 msgid ""
4666 "Neither tech nor law nor code nor markets are sufficient to reform Big Tech. "
4667 "But a profitable competitor to Big Tech could bankroll a legislative push; "
4668 "legal reform can embolden a toolsmith to make a better tool; the tool can "
4669 "create customers for a potential business who value the benefits of the "
4670 "internet but want them delivered without Big Tech; and that business can get "
4671 "funded and divert some of its profits to legal reform. 20 GOTO 10 (or "
4672 "lather, rinse, repeat). Do it again, but this time, get farther! After all, "
4673 "this time you’re starting with weaker Big Tech adversaries, a constituency "
4674 "that understands things can be better, Big Tech rivals who’ll help ensure "
4675 "their own future by bankrolling reform, and code that other programmers can "
4676 "build on to weaken Big Tech even further."
4677 msgstr ""
4678
4679 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4680 msgid ""
4681 "The surveillance capitalism hypothesis — that Big Tech’s products really "
4682 "work as well as they say they do and that’s why everything is so screwed up "
4683 "— is way too easy on surveillance and even easier on capitalism. Companies "
4684 "spy because they believe their own BS, and companies spy because governments "
4685 "let them, and companies spy because any advantage from spying is so short-"
4686 "lived and minor that they have to do more and more of it just to stay in "
4687 "place."
4688 msgstr ""
4689
4690 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4691 msgid ""
4692 "As to why things are so screwed up? Capitalism. Specifically, the monopolism "
4693 "that creates inequality and the inequality that creates monopolism. It’s a "
4694 "form of capitalism that rewards sociopaths who destroy the real economy to "
4695 "inflate the bottom line, and they get away with it for the same reason "
4696 "companies get away with spying: because our governments are in thrall to "
4697 "both the ideology that says monopolies are actually just fine and in thrall "
4698 "to the ideology that says that in a monopolistic world, you’d better not "
4699 "piss off the monopolists."
4700 msgstr ""
4701
4702 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4703 msgid ""
4704 "Surveillance doesn’t make capitalism rogue. Capitalism’s unchecked rule "
4705 "begets surveillance. Surveillance isn’t bad because it lets people "
4706 "manipulate us. It’s bad because it crushes our ability to be our authentic "
4707 "selves — and because it lets the rich and powerful figure out who might be "
4708 "thinking of building guillotines and what dirt they can use to discredit "
4709 "those embryonic guillotine-builders before they can even get to the "
4710 "lumberyard."
4711 msgstr ""
4712 "Overvåkning får ikke kapitalismen ut av kontroll. Kapitalismens "
4713 "ukontrollerte styre startet før overvåkningen. Overvåkning er ikke ille "
4714 "fordi det lar folk manipulere oss. Den er ille fordi den knuser vår "
4715 "mulighet til å være oss selv — og fordi det lar de rike og mektige finne ut "
4716 "hvem som kan vurdere å bygge gilliotiner og hva slags dritt de kan bruke for "
4717 "å diskredittere disse begynnende gilliotin-byggerne før de i det hele tatt "
4718 "kommer seg til treverkforhandleren."
4719
4720 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
4721 msgid "Up and through"
4722 msgstr ""
4723
4724 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4725 msgid ""
4726 "With all the problems of Big Tech, it’s tempting to imagine solving the "
4727 "problem by returning to a world without tech at all. Resist that temptation."
4728 msgstr ""
4729 "Men alle problemene med Storteknologien, så er det fristende å forestille "
4730 "seg å løse problemet ved å gå tilbake til en verden helt uten teknologi. Stå "
4731 "imot den fristelsen."
4732
4733 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4734 msgid ""
4735 "The only way out of our Big Tech problem is up and through. If our future is "
4736 "not reliant upon high tech, it will be because civilization has fallen. Big "
4737 "Tech wired together a planetary, species-wide nervous system that, with the "
4738 "proper reforms and course corrections, is capable of seeing us through the "
4739 "existential challenge of our species and planet. Now it’s up to us to seize "
4740 "the means of computation, putting that electronic nervous system under "
4741 "democratic, accountable control."
4742 msgstr ""
4743
4744 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4745 msgid ""
4746 "I am, secretly, despite what I have said earlier, a tech exceptionalist. Not "
4747 "in the sense of thinking that tech should be given a free pass to monopolize "
4748 "because it has <quote>economies of scale</quote> or some other nebulous "
4749 "feature. I’m a tech exceptionalist because I believe that getting tech right "
4750 "matters and that getting it wrong will be an unmitigated catastrophe — and "
4751 "doing it right can give us the power to work together to save our "
4752 "civilization, our species, and our planet."
4753 msgstr ""
4754 "Jeg er også, i smug, på tross av det jeg tidligere har sagt, en "
4755 "teknologieksepsjonalist. Ikke på den måten at jeg tenker at teknologi bør få "
4756 "lov til å danne monoploer fordi det har <quote>stordriftsfordeler</quote>, "
4757 "eller andre tåkeforklaring. Jeg er teknologieksepsjonalist fordi jeg tror "
4758 "det betyr noe å gjøre det riktig med teknologi, og at å gjøre det feil vil "
4759 "være en ubøtelig katastrofe — og det å gjøre det riktig kan gi oss evnen til "
4760 "å jobbe sammen om å redde sivilisasjonen, arten og planeten vår."