Copyright © 2020 Cory Doctorow
Copyright © 2020 Petter Reinholdtsen
- How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism by Cory Doctorow. + }
Copyright © 2020 Cory Doctorow
Copyright © 2020 Petter Reinholdtsen
+ Jak zniszczyÄ kapitalizm oparty na inwigilacyjnych systemach nadzoru Autor: +Cory Doctorow.
Wydawca: Petter Reinholdtsen.
ISBN 978-82-93828-XX-X (oprawa twarda)
- ISBN 978-82-93828-XX-X (oprawa papierowa) + ISBN 978-82-93828-XX-X (oprawa miÄkka)
ISBN 978-82-93828-XX-X (ePub)
@@ -22,106 +23,134 @@ body { background-image: url('images/draft.png'); JeÅli znajdziesz literówkÄ, bÅÄ d lub masz inne uwagi na temat poprawienia tekstu, proszÄ zaktualizuj to na https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/rms-personal-data-safe/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism/nb_NO/.
- 
+ 
Ta ksiÄ Å¼ka jest wydana na licencji Creative Commons. Licencja ta pozwala na -dowolny użytek tej pracy tak dÅugo, dopóki podane jest jej autorstwo i nie -jest rozpowszechniany żaden materiaÅ pochodny. WiÄcej informacji na temat -tej licencji znajdziesz na https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/. -
Table of Contents
- SieÄ tysiÄcy kÅamstw
- Digital rights activism, a quarter-century on
- Tech exceptionalism, then and now
- Donât believe the hype
- What is persuasion?
- If data is the new oil, then surveillance capitalismâs engine has a leak
- What is Facebook?
- Monopoly and the right to the future tense
- Search order and the right to the future tense
- Monopolists can afford sleeping pills for watchdogs
- Privacy and monopoly
- Ronald Reagan, pioneer of tech monopolism
- Steering with the windshield wipers
- Surveillance still matters
- Dignity and sanctuary
- Afflicting the afflicted
- Any data you collect and retain will eventually leak
- Critical tech exceptionalism is still tech exceptionalism
- How monopolies, not mind control, drive surveillance capitalism: The -Snapchat story
- A monopoly over your friends
- Fake news is an epistemological crisis
- Tech is different
- Ownership of facts
- Persuasion works⦠slowly
- Paying wonât help
- An âecologyâ moment for trustbusting
- Make Big Tech small again
- 20 GOTO 10
- Up and through
- The most surprising thing about the rebirth of flat Earthers in the 21st -century is just how widespread the evidence against them is. You can -understand how, centuries ago, people whoâd never gained a high-enough -vantage point from which to see the Earthâs curvature might come to the -commonsense belief that the flat-seeming Earth was, indeed, flat. -
- But today, when elementary schools routinely dangle GoPro cameras from -balloons and loft them high enough to photograph the Earthâs curve â to say -nothing of the unexceptional sight of the curved Earth from an airplane -window â it takes a heroic effort to maintain the belief that the world is -flat. -
- Likewise for white nationalism and eugenics: In an age where you can become -a computational genomics datapoint by swabbing your cheek and mailing it to -a gene-sequencing company along with a modest sum of money, ârace -scienceâ has never been easier to refute. -
- We are living through a golden age of both readily available facts and -denial of those facts. Terrible ideas that have lingered on the fringes for -decades or even centuries have gone mainstream seemingly overnight. -
- When an obscure idea gains currency, there are only two things that can -explain its ascendance: Either the person expressing that idea has gotten a -lot better at stating their case, or the proposition has become harder to -deny in the face of mounting evidence. In other words, if we want people to -take climate change seriously, we can get a bunch of Greta Thunbergs to make -eloquent, passionate arguments from podiums, winning our hearts and minds, -or we can wait for flood, fire, broiling sun, and pandemics to make the case -for us. In practice, weâll probably have to do some of both: The more weâre -boiling and burning and drowning and wasting away, the easier it will be for -the Greta Thunbergs of the world to convince us. -
- The arguments for ridiculous beliefs in odious conspiracies like -anti-vaccination, climate denial, a flat Earth, and eugenics are no better -than they were a generation ago. Indeed, theyâre worse because they are -being pitched to people who have at least a background awareness of the -refuting facts. -
- Anti-vax has been around since the first vaccines, but the early -anti-vaxxers were pitching people who were less equipped to understand even -the most basic ideas from microbiology, and moreover, those people had not -witnessed the extermination of mass-murdering diseases like polio, smallpox, -and measles. Todayâs anti-vaxxers are no more eloquent than their forebears, -and they have a much harder job. -
- So can these far-fetched conspiracy theorists really be succeeding on the -basis of superior arguments? -
- Some people think so. Today, there is a widespread belief that machine -learning and commercial surveillance can turn even the most fumble-tongued -conspiracy theorist into a svengali who can warp your perceptions and win -your belief by locating vulnerable people and then pitching them with -A.I.-refined arguments that bypass their rational faculties and turn -everyday people into flat Earthers, anti-vaxxers, or even Nazis. When the -RAND Corporation blames -Facebook for âradicalizationâ and when Facebookâs role -in spreading coronavirus misinformation is blamed on -its algorithm, the implicit message is that machine learning and -surveillance are causing the changes in our consensus about whatâs true. -
- After all, in a world where sprawling and incoherent conspiracy theories -like Pizzagate and its successor, QAnon, have widespread followings, -something must be afoot. -
- But what if thereâs another explanation? What if itâs the material -circumstances, and not the arguments, that are making the difference for -these conspiracy pitchmen? What if the trauma of living through -real conspiracies all around us â conspiracies among -wealthy people, their lobbyists, and lawmakers to bury inconvenient facts -and evidence of wrongdoing (these conspiracies are commonly known as -âcorruptionâ) â is making people vulnerable to conspiracy -theories? -
- If itâs trauma and not contagion â material conditions and not ideology â -that is making the difference today and enabling a rise of repulsive -misinformation in the face of easily observed facts, that doesnât mean our -computer networks are blameless. Theyâre still doing the heavy work of -locating vulnerable people and guiding them through a series of -ever-more-extreme ideas and communities. -
- Belief in conspiracy is a raging fire that has done real damage and poses -real danger to our planet and species, from epidemics kicked off by vaccine -denial to genocides kicked -off by racist conspiracies to planetary meltdown caused by -denial-inspired climate inaction. Our world is on fire, and so we have to -put the fires out â to figure out how to help people see the truth of the -world through the conspiracies theyâve been confused by. -
- But firefighting is reactive. We need fire -prevention. We need to strike at the traumatic material -conditions that make people vulnerable to the contagion of conspiracy. Here, -too, tech has a role to play. +dowolny użytek tej pracy tak dÅugo, jak dÅugo podane jest jej autorstwo i +nie jest rozpowszechniany żaden materiaÅ pochodny. WiÄcej informacji na +temat tej licencji znajdziesz na https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/. +
Abstract
+ Nasze urzÄ dzenia i usÅugi zbierajÄ wiÄkszoÅÄ danych, które NSA nastÄpnie +wydobywa w ramach swojego inwigilacyjnego projektu nadzoru. PÅacimy za te +urzÄ dzenia i usÅugi, z którymi siÄ ÅÄ czÄ , a nastÄpnie skrupulatnie +wykonujemy zadania zwiÄ zane z wprowadzaniem danych, które rejestrujÄ fakty +dotyczÄ ce naszego życia, opinii i preferencji. +
+ DziÄki `Big Tech` kapitalizm oparty na inwigilacyjnym systemie nadzoru jest +wszÄdzie. Nie dzieje siÄ tak dlatego, że jest naprawdÄ dobry w manipulowaniu +naszym zachowaniem lub nieuczciwym nadużywaniu wÅadzy korporacji. Jest to +wynik niekontrolowanego monopolizmu i obelżywego zachowania, jakie on +wywoÅuje. Jest to system dziaÅajÄ cy zgodnie z zamierzeniami i +oczekiwaniami. Cory Doctorow napisaÅ obszernÄ krytykÄ ksiÄ Å¼ki Shoshana +Zuboff pt. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future +at the New Frontier of Power, z obiektywnÄ , nie-magicznÄ analizÄ problemu, +prowadzÄ cÄ do innej propozycji jego rozwiÄ zania. +
Table of Contents
- SieÄ tysiÄcy kÅamstw
- Aktywizm praw cyfrowych, krótka historia 25 lat dziaÅalnoÅci
- WyjÄ tkowoÅÄ Technologii, dawniej i obecnie
- Nie wierz 'szumom' medialnym
- Co to jest przekonywanie?
- JeÅli dane sÄ nowym paliwem, to silnik kapitalistycznych systemów nadzoru ma +wyciek
- Co to jest Facebook?
- Monopol i prawo do czasu przyszÅego
- PorzÄ dek wyszukiwania i prawo do czasu przyszÅego
- MonopoliÅci mogÄ sobie pozwoliÄ na proszki nasenne dla strażników
- PrywatnoÅÄ a monopol
- Ronald Reagan, pionier monopolizmu technologicznego
- Sterowanie za pomocÄ wycieraczek przedniej szyby
- Systemy nadzoru majÄ ciÄ gle znaczenie
- GodnoÅÄ i sanktuarium
- DrÄczenie udrÄczonych
- Jakiekolwiek dane, które zbierasz i przetwarzasz, kiedyÅ w koÅcu wycieknÄ
- PrzeÅomowa wyjÄ tkowoÅÄ technologiczna jest nadal technologicznÄ +wyjÄ tkowoÅciÄ
- Jak monopole, a nie kontrola umysÅu, sterujÄ kapitalizmen opartym na +systemach nadzoru: historia Snapchat
- Monopol sprawowany nad twoimi przyjacióÅmi
- FaÅszywe wiadomoÅci to oznaka kryzysu epistemologicznego
- Technologia jest czymÅ odmiennym
- WÅasnoÅÄ faktów
- Przekonywanie dziaÅa⦠powoli
- PÅacenie nie pomoże
- â ekologiaâ chwila na zerwanie zaufania
- Spraw, aby 'Big Tech' staÅa siÄ ponownie 'maÅÄ ' technologiÄ
- 20 GOTO 10
- W górÄ i na wylot
+ Najbardziej zaskakujÄ cÄ kwestiÄ w dziedzinie powtórnych narodzin `pÅaskich` +Ziemian w XXI wieku jest to, jak szeroko rozpowszechnione sÄ przeciwko nim +dowody. Można teraz zrozumieÄ, jak przed wiekami ludzie, którzy nigdy nie +mieli okazji zobaczyÄ Ziemi z orbity ziemskiej, mogli dojÅÄ do przekonania, +opartego na zdrowym rozsÄ dku, że Ziemia - wyglÄ dajÄ ca na pÅaskÄ - jest +faktycznie, pÅaska. +
+ Lecz dzisiaj, gdy szkoÅy podstawowe rutynowo podczepiajÄ do balonów kamery +GoPro i umieszczajÄ je na tyle wysoko, aby sfotografowaÄ krzywÄ Ziemi â nie +mówiÄ c już o niezrównanie wyjÄ tkowym widoku zakrzywionej Ziemi z okna +samolotu â trzeba naprawdÄ heroicznego wysiÅku, aby uwierzyÄ, że Ziemia jest +pÅaska. +
+ Podobnie jest z eugenikÄ i biaÅym nacjonalizmem: w epoce, w której można +staÄ siÄ obliczeniowym punktem danych genomicznych, poprzez pobranie wymazu +z policzka, i przesÅanie go â za pomocÄ poczty elektronicznej â do firmy +sekwencjonujoÄ cej geny, wraz ze skromnÄ sumÄ pieniÄdzy, nigdy nie byÅo +Åatwiej zaprzeczyÄ twierdzeniom wysuwanym podczas ânaukowego wyÅcigu +po sukcesâ. +
+ Å»yjemy w zÅotej epoce, zarówno Åatwo dostÄpnych faktów, jak i zaprzeczenia +tym faktom. Okropne idee, które pozostawaÅy na marginesie przez +dziesiÄciolecia, a nawet stulecia, z dnia na dzieÅ weszÅy do gÅównego nurtu. +
+ Kiedy niejasny pomysÅ zyskuje na popularnoÅci, istniejÄ tylko dwie rzeczy, +które mogÄ wyjaÅniÄ jego przewagÄ: albo osoba wyrażajÄ ca ten pomysÅ znacznie +lepiej radzi sobie z przedstawieniem swojej racji, albo twierdzenie staje +siÄ trudniejsze do zaprzeczenia w obliczu rosnÄ cych dowodów. Innymi sÅowy, +jeÅli chcemy, aby ludzie poważnie podchodzili do zmian klimatycznych, możemy +skÅoniÄ grupÄ Grety Thunberg do wyrażenia wymownych, namiÄtnych argumentów w +sposób publiczny, przez co zdobÄdzie ona nasze serca i umysÅy, lub możemy +poczekaÄ na powódź, ogieÅ, palÄ ce sÅoÅce i pandemie, aby przemówiÅa za +nami. W praktyce prawdopodobnie bÄdziemy musieli zrobiÄ jedno i drugie: im +wiÄcej bÄdziemy gotowaÄ, paliÄ, topiÄ i marnowaÄ, tym Åatwiej bÄdzie Grecie +Thunberg nas przekonaÄ. +
+ Argumenty za absurdalnymi wierzeniami w oparciu o teorie spiskowe, takie jak +teoria antyszczepionkowa, teoria negujÄ ca zmiany klimatu, teoria o istnieniu +pÅaskiej Ziemi i teoria eugeniczna, wcale nie sÄ lepsze niż w pokoleniu +wczeÅniejszym. W rzeczywistoÅci, sÄ gorsze, ponieważ sÄ przedstawiane +ludziom, którzy majÄ przynajmniej podstawowÄ ÅwiadomoÅÄ faktów obalajÄ cych +te teorie. +
+ Antyszczepionkowcy pojawiali siÄ już od czasu wynalezienia pierwszych +szczepionek, lecz pierwsi z nich byli ludźmi sÅabo przygotowanymi do +zrozumienia nawet najbardziej podstawowych kwestii mikrobiologii, a â +ponadto - ludzie ci nie byli Åwiadkami masowej eksterminacji, spowodowanej +takimi morderczymi chorobami, jak polio, ospa czy odra. Dzisiejsi +przeciwnicy szczepieÅ nie sÄ bardziej elokwentni niż ich przodkowie, a majÄ +znacznie ciÄższÄ pracÄ. +
+ A wiÄc, czy ci wyrafinowani zwolennicy teorii spiskowych mogÄ , tak naprawdÄ, +odnieÅÄ sukces w oparciu o lepsze argumenty? +
+ Niektórzy ludzie myÅlÄ , że tak. Obecnie panuje powszechne przekonanie, że +uczenie maszynowe i komercyjne systemy inwigilacji mogÄ zmieniÄ nawet +najbardziej nieudolnego teoretyka spiskowego w `swengali`, osobÄ, która może +wypaczyÄ czyjeÅ spostrzeżenia i zdobyÄ jego /jej zaufanie, lokalizujÄ c osoby +wrażliwe, a nastÄpnie przedstawiajÄ c im wyrafinowane argumenty Sztucznej +Inteligencji, omijajÄ ce racjonalne umiejÄtnoÅci ludzi i zmieniajÄ ce ich w +`pÅaskich` Ziemian, przeciwników szczepieÅ, a nawet nazistów. Gdy the RAND +Corporation oskarża +Facebook'a za âradykalizacjÄâ, kiedy Facebook'a oskarża +siÄ o rozpowszechnianie dezinformacji na temat koronawirusa, a jest to +spowodowane jego algorytmem, to domyÅlnym przesÅaniem jest fakt, że +uczenie maszynowe i systemy inwigilacyjnego nadzoru powodujÄ zmiany w naszym +konsensusie wobec tego, co jest prawdÄ . +
+ W koÅcu, w Åwiecie, w którym rozlegÅe i niespójne teorie spiskowe, takie jak +Pizzagate i jej nastepczyni, QAnon, majÄ szeroko rozpowszechnionych +nastÄpców, coÅ, musi trwaÄ nadal. +
+ Lecz co zrobiÄ, jeÅli jest inne wytÅumaczenie? JeÅli sÄ to warunki +materialne, a nie argumenty, stanowiÄ ce różnicÄ dla tych wygadanych +zwolenników konspiracji? A co, jeÅli trauma spowodowana życiem w +rzeczywistych konspiracjach wszystkiego wokóŠnas â +konspiracjach ludzi bogatych, ich lobbystów i prawników, ukrywajÄ cych +niewygodne fakty i dowody wykróczeÅ (te konspiracje sÄ powszechnie znane +jako âkorupcjaâ â tworzy ludzi podatnych na teorie +konspiracyjne? +
+ JeÅli to trauma, materialne uwarunkowania a nie âzarazaâ ideologiczna +stanowiÄ dziÅ różnicÄ i umożliwiajÄ tworzenienie odpychajÄ cych dezinformacji +w obliczu Åatwo obserwowalnych faktów, nie oznacza to jeszcze, że nasze +sieci komputerowe sÄ bez winy. Nadal wykonujÄ one ciÄżkÄ pracÄ, polegajÄ cÄ +na lokalizowaniu osób bezbronnych i prowadzeniu ich przez seriÄ coraz +bardziej ekstremalnych pomysÅów i spoÅecznoÅci. +
+ Wiara w konspiracjÄ to szalejÄ cy pożar, który wyrzÄ dziÅ już rzeczywiste +szkody i staÅ siÄ realnym zagrożeniem dla naszej planety i jej gatunków w +wyniku epidemii rozpoczÄtej odmowÄ +szczepieÅ poprzez ludobójstwa wywoÅane +przez rasistowskich konspiratorów. Prowadzi to do planetarnego +stapiajÄ cego wszystko tygla, spowodowanego bezczynnoÅciÄ , zainspirowanÄ +zaprzeczeniem problemu klimatycznego. Nasz Åwiat pÅonie, wiÄc musimy ugasiÄ +pożary, aby dowiedzieÄ siÄ, jak pomóc ludziom w zobaczeniu prawdy o Åwiecie +poprzez spiski, które ich zmyliÅy. +
+ Ale gaszenie pożarów jest ma reaktywny charakter. Musimy +takżezapobiegaÄ pożarom. Musimy uderzyÄ w traumatyczne +warunki materialne, które czyniÄ ludzi podatnymi na zarażenie +konspiracjÄ . Tutaj również technologia ma do odegrania ważnÄ rolÄ.
Thereâs no shortage of proposals to address this. From the EUâs Terrorist Content Regulation, which requires platforms to police and remove âextremistâ @@ -146,7 +175,7 @@ Techâs stranglehold. We canât do both, so we have to choose.
I want us to choose wisely. Taming Big Tech is integral to fixing the Internet, and for that, we need digital rights activism. -
Digital rights activism is more than 30 years old now. The Electronic Frontier Foundation turned 30 this year; the Free Software Foundation launched in 1985. For most of the history of the movement, the most @@ -186,7 +215,7 @@ species. Whatâs more, I think that her incorrect diagnosis will lead us down a path that ends up making Big Tech stronger, not weaker. We need to take down Big Tech, and to do that, we need to start by correctly identifying the problem. -
Early critics of the digital rights movement â perhaps best represented by campaigning organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Free Software Foundation, Public Knowledge, and others that focused on preserving @@ -224,7 +253,7 @@ it makes them incapable of perceiving novel threats as they continue to fight the last centuryâs tech battles.
But tech exceptionalism is a sin no matter who practices it. -
Youâve probably heard that âif youâre not paying for the product, youâre the product.â As weâll see below, thatâs true, if incomplete. But what is absolutely true is that ad-driven Big @@ -259,7 +288,7 @@ the data it nonconsensually extracts from your daily life and uses it to customize your feed in ways that get you to buy stuff. It is a mind-control ray out of a 1950s comic book, wielded by mad scientists whose supercomputers guarantee them perpetual and total world domination. -
To understand why you shouldnât worry about mind-control rays â but why you should worry about surveillance and Big Tech â we must start by unpacking what we mean @@ -280,7 +309,7 @@ that surveillance capitalism delivers to its customers are much less impressive. Rather than finding ways to bypass our rational faculties, surveillance capitalists like Mark Zuckerberg mostly do one or more of three things: -
+
If youâre selling diapers, you have better luck if you pitch them to people in maternity wards. Not everyone who enters or leaves a maternity ward just had a baby, and not everyone who just had a baby is in the market for @@ -346,7 +375,7 @@ by others coming forward and where people who knew that they were different but lacked a vocabulary for discussing that difference learned the right words from these low-cost means of finding people and learning about their ideas. -
Lies and fraud are pernicious, and surveillance capitalism supercharges them through targeting. If you want to sell a fraudulent payday loan or subprime mortgage, surveillance capitalism can help you find people who are both @@ -391,7 +420,7 @@ in reality, it is 5,989 feet long, the underlying deception is a problem, but itâs a problem with a simple remedy. Itâs a very different problem from the anti-vax issue in which someoneâs true belief is displaced by a false one by means of sophisticated persuasion. -
Surveillance capitalism is the result of monopoly. Monopoly is the cause, and surveillance capitalism and its negative outcomes are the effects of monopoly. Iâll get into this in depth later, but for now, suffice it to say @@ -431,7 +460,7 @@ over much of the worldâs beliefs. If our concern is how corporations are foreclosing on our ability to make up our own minds and determine our own futures, the impact of dominance far exceeds the impact of manipulation and should be central to our analysis and any remedies we seek. -
This is the good stuff: using machine learning, âdark patterns,â engagement hacking, and other techniques to get us to do things that run counter to our better judgment. This is mind @@ -527,7 +556,8 @@ every success. The vulnerability of small segments of the population to dramatic, efficient corporate manipulation is a real concern thatâs worthy of our attention and energy. But itâs not an existential threat to society. -
This adaptation problem offers an explanation for one of surveillance capitalismâs most alarming traits: its relentless hunger for data and its endless expansion of data-gathering capabilities through the spread of @@ -696,7 +726,7 @@ half of his advertising spending was wasted is a tribute to the persuasiveness of advertising executives, who are much better at convincing potential clients to buy their services than they are at convincing the general public to buy their clientsâ wares. -
Facebook is heralded as the origin of all of our modern plagues, and itâs not hard to see why. Some tech companies want to lock their users in but make their money by monopolizing access to the market for apps for their @@ -854,7 +884,7 @@ get you to do what its advertisers want, think of it as a company that has figured out how to make you slog through an endless torrent of arguments even though they make you miserable, spending so much time on the site that it eventually shows you at least one ad that you respond to. -
Zuboff and her cohort are particularly alarmed at the extent to which surveillance allows corporations to influence our decisions, taking away something she poetically calls âthe right to the future tenseâ @@ -1006,7 +1036,7 @@ campaign might nudge you to buy a certain brand of phone; but the copyright locks on that phone absolutely determine where you get it serviced, which apps can run on it, and when you have to throw it away rather than fixing it. -
Markets are posed as a kind of magic: By discovering otherwise hidden information conveyed by the free choices of consumers, those consumersâ local knowledge is integrated into a self-correcting system that makes @@ -1107,7 +1137,7 @@ and others are never installed (because they appear on page one million). Appleâs search-ranking design decisions have a vastly more significant effect on consumer behaviors than influence campaigns delivered by surveillance capitalismâs ad-serving bots. -
Only the most extreme market ideologues think that markets can self-regulate without state oversight. Markets need watchdogs â regulators, lawmakers, and other elements of democratic control â to keep them honest. When these @@ -1349,7 +1379,7 @@ logistics, the food supply, pharmaceutical production pipelines, emergency communications, and other critical systems that are accumulating technology debt in part due to the presence of deliberately insecure and deliberately unauditable copyright locks â it will indeed pose an existential risk. -
Many tech companies are gripped by an orthodoxy that holds that if they just gather enough data on enough of our activities, everything else is possible â the mind control and endless profits. This is an unfalsifiable hypothesis: @@ -1425,7 +1455,7 @@ and make the case against Facebook and Google and Twitter embeds.
In other words, while surveillance doesnât cause monopolies, monopolies certainly abet surveillance. -
Technology exceptionalism is a sin, whether itâs practiced by technologyâs
blind proponents or by its critics. Both of these camps are prone to
explaining away monopolistic concentration by citing some special
@@ -1563,7 +1593,7 @@ reasons why their smoking didnât cause their cancer (ââ), true believers in unregulated markets have a
whole suite of unconvincing explanations for monopoly in tech that leave
capitalism intact.
-
Itâs been 40 years since Borkâs project to rehabilitate monopolies achieved liftoff, and that is a generation and a half, which is plenty of time to take a common idea and make it seem outlandish and vice versa. Before the @@ -1594,7 +1624,7 @@ crew have forgotten that theyâre in a ship at all and no longer remember where the control room is. Adrift, the ship is racing toward its extinction, and unless we can seize the controls and execute emergency course correction, weâre all headed for a fiery death in the heart of a sun. -
None of this is to minimize the problems with surveillance. Surveillance matters, and Big Techâs use of surveillance is an existential risk to our species, but thatâs not because surveillance and @@ -1691,7 +1721,7 @@ rules requiring public oversight of police surveillance technology. The more the cops rely on Ring and Neighbors, the harder it will be to pass laws to curb them. The fewer laws there are against them, the more the cops will rely on them. -
But even if we could exercise democratic control over our states and force them to stop raiding surveillance capitalismâs reservoirs of behavioral data, surveillance capitalism would still harm us. @@ -1747,7 +1777,7 @@ difficult ideas. If you locked someone in a cell and agitated them like this, weâd call it âsleep deprivation torture,â and it would be a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. -
The effects of surveillance on our ability to be our authentic selves are not equal for all people. Some of us are lucky enough to live in a time and place in which all the most important facts of our lives are widely and @@ -1798,8 +1828,8 @@ authentic selves with you. These people are sorrowing and will go to their graves with that secret sorrow in their hearts, and the source of that sorrow will be the falsity of their relationship to you.
- A private realm is necessary for human progress. -
+ Prywatna rzeczywistoÅÄ jest konieczna dla rozwoju ludzkoÅci. +
The lack of a private life can rob vulnerable people of the chance to be their authentic selves and constrain our actions by depriving us of sanctuary, but there is another risk that is borne by everyone, not just @@ -1845,7 +1875,8 @@ the erosion of our authentic selves to the undermining of social progress, from state surveillance to an epidemic of online crime. Commercial surveillance is also a boon to people running influence campaigns, but thatâs the least of our troubles. -
Big Tech has long practiced technology exceptionalism: the idea that it should not be subject to the mundane laws and norms of âmeatspace.â Mottoes like Facebookâs âmove fast and break @@ -1993,8 +2024,8 @@ companies donât go under, the data they collect is maintained behind the minimum viable security â just enough security to keep the company viable while it waits to get bought out by a tech giant, an amount calculated to spend not one penny more than is necessary on protecting data. -
For the first decade of its existence, Facebook competed with the social media giants of the day (Myspace, Orkut, etc.) by presenting itself as the pro-privacy alternative. Indeed, Facebook justified its walled garden â @@ -2044,7 +2075,7 @@ tactics. Facebook users still want privacy â Facebook hasnât used surveillance to brainwash them out of it â but they canât get it because Facebookâs surveillance lets it destroy any hope of a rival service emerging that competes on privacy features. -
A decentralization movement has tried to erode the dominance of Facebook and other Big Tech companies by fielding âindiewebâ alternatives â Mastodon as a Twitter alternative, Diaspora as a Facebook alternative, @@ -2067,7 +2098,7 @@ entrenched advantage of the companies that came before them. To understand how that happened, you have to understand both interoperability and adversarial interoperability.
- The hard problem of our species is coordination. + Trudnym problemem naszego gatunku jest koordynacja.
âInteroperabilityâ is the ability of two technologies to work with one another: Anyone can make an LP that will play on any record player, @@ -2204,7 +2235,7 @@ allowing the users whoâve left to continue to communicate with users who havenât left yet, reaching tendrils over Facebookâs garden wall that Facebookâs trapped users can use to scale the walls and escape to the global, open web. -
Tech is not the only industry that has undergone massive concentration since the Reagan era. Virtually every major industry â from oil to newspapers to meatpacking to sea freight to eyewear to online pornography â has become a @@ -2390,7 +2421,7 @@ reckless collection and retention of personal data, by allowing ads to be targeted in secret, and by foreclosing on the possibility of going somewhere else where you might continue to enjoy your friends without subjecting yourself to commercial surveillance. -
I reject both iterations of technological exceptionalism. I reject the idea that tech is uniquely terrible and led by people who are greedier or worse than the leaders of other industries, and I reject the idea that tech is so @@ -2448,7 +2479,7 @@ problems â climate change, inequality, etc. â is with free, fair, and open tech. Our best hope of keeping tech free, fair, and open is to exercise caution in how we regulate tech and to attend closely to the ways in which interventions to solve one problem might create problems in other domains. -
Big Tech has a funny relationship with information. When youâre generating information â anything from the location data streaming off your mobile device to the private messages you send to friends on a social network â it @@ -2545,7 +2576,7 @@ harassment or compiling indexes of changes in language or simply investigating how the platforms are shaping our discourse â all of which require scraping data that other people have created and subjecting it to scrutiny and analysis. -
The platforms may oversell their ability to persuade people, but obviously, persuasion works sometimes. Whether itâs the private realm that LGBTQ people used to recruit allies and normalize sexual diversity or the decadeslong @@ -2593,7 +2624,7 @@ malpractice that monopolism contributes to is a significant contributor to these conditions. Inequality creates the conditions for both conspiracies and violent racist ideologies, and then surveillance capitalism lets opportunists target the fearful and the conspiracy-minded. -
As the old saw goes, âIf youâre not paying for the product, youâre the product.â
@@ -2726,7 +2757,7 @@ Chinese markets. Monopolies may be made up of good, ethical people, but as institutions, they are not your friend â they will do whatever they can get away with to maximize their profits, and the more monopolistic they are, the more they can get away with. -
If weâre going to break Big Techâs death grip on our digital lives, weâre going to have to fight monopolies. That may sound pretty mundane and old-fashioned, something out of the New Deal era, while ending the use of @@ -2746,7 +2777,7 @@ on our society. The trustbusting era could not begin until we found the political will â until the people convinced politicians theyâd have their backs when they went up against the richest, most powerful men in the world.
- Could we find that political will again? + Czy moglibyÅmy ponownie znaleÅºÄ tÄ wolÄ politycznÄ ?
Copyright scholar James Boyle has described how the term âecologyâ marked a turning point in environmental @@ -2835,7 +2866,7 @@ their monopoly profits on governance. But we canât do both. We have to choose between a vibrant, open internet or a dominated, monopolized internet commanded by Big Tech giants that we struggle with constantly to get them to behave themselves. -
Trustbusting is hard. Breaking big companies into smaller ones is expensive and time-consuming. So time-consuming that by the time youâre done, the world has often moved on and rendered years of litigation irrelevant. From @@ -2955,7 +2986,7 @@ selves â and because it lets the rich and powerful figure out who might be thinking of building guillotines and what dirt they can use to discredit those embryonic guillotine-builders before they can even get to the lumberyard. -