-<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"><title>How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism</title><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.79.1"><meta name="description" content="Our devices and services gather most of the data that the NSA mines for its surveillance project. We pay for these devices and the services they connect to, and then we painstakingly perform the data-entry tasks associated with logging facts about our lives, opinions, and preferences. Thanks to Big Tech, Surveillance capitalism is everywhere. This is not because it is really good at manipulating our behaviour, or the rogue abuse of corporate power. It is the result of unchecked monopolism and the abusive behavior it abets. It is the system working as intended and expected. Cory Doctorow has written an extended critique of Shoshana Zuboff's The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, with a non-magical analysis of the problem leading to a different proposal for a solution."><style type="text/css">
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- }</style></head><body bgcolor="white" text="black" link="#0000FF" vlink="#840084" alink="#0000FF"><div lang="en" class="article"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title"><a name="index"></a>How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism</h2></div><div><div class="authorgroup"><div class="author"><h3 class="author"><span class="firstname">Cory</span> <span class="surname">Doctorow</span></h3></div></div></div><div><p class="copyright">Copyright © 2020 Cory Doctorow</p></div><div><p class="copyright">Copyright © 2020 Petter Reinholdtsen</p></div><div><div class="legalnotice"><a name="idm18"></a><p>
- How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism by Cory Doctorow.
+<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"><title>Comment détruire le capitalisme de la surveillance</title><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.79.1"></head><body bgcolor="white" text="black" link="#0000FF" vlink="#840084" alink="#0000FF"><div lang="fr" class="article"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title"><a name="index"></a>Comment détruire le capitalisme de la surveillance</h2></div><div><div class="authorgroup"><div class="author"><h3 class="author"><span class="firstname">Cory</span> <span class="surname">Doctorow</span></h3></div></div></div><div><p class="copyright">Copyright © 2020 Cory Doctorow</p></div><div><p class="copyright">Copyright © 2020 Petter Reinholdtsen</p></div><div><div class="legalnotice"><a name="idm18"></a><p>
+ Comment détruire le capitalisme de la surveillance par Cory Doctorow.
</p><p>
- Published by Petter Reinholdtsen.
+ Publié par Petter Reinholdtsen.
</p><p>
- ISBN 978-82-93828-XX-X (hard cover)
+ <a class="ulink" href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/publisher/" target="_top">http://www.hungry.com/~pere/publisher/</a>.
</p><p>
- ISBN 978-82-93828-XX-X (paperback)
+ ISBN 978-82-93828-XX-X (livre de poche)
</p><p>
ISBN 978-82-93828-XX-X (ePub)
</p><p>
-
This book is available for purchase from <a class="ulink" href="https://www.lulu.com/" target="_top">https://www.lulu.com/</a>.
+
Ce livre est disponible à la vente sur <a class="ulink" href="https://www.lulu.com/" target="_top">https://www.lulu.com/</a>.
</p><p>
- If you find typos, error or have other corrections to the translated text,
-please update on <a class="ulink" href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/rms-personal-data-safe/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism/nb_NO/" target="_top">https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/rms-personal-data-safe/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism/nb_NO/</a>.
+ <span class="inlinemediaobject"><img src="images/cc-some-rights-reserved.png" align="middle" height="38" alt="Creative Commons, certains droits réservés"></span>
</p><p>
- <span class="inlinemediaobject"><img src="images/cc-some-rights-reserved.png" align="middle" height="38" alt="Creative Commons, Some rights reserved"></span>
- </p><p>
- This book is licensed under a Creative Commons license. This license permits
-any use of this work, so long as attribution is given and no derivatived
-material is distributed. For more information about the license visit
-<a class="ulink" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/" target="_top">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/</a>.
- </p></div></div><div><div class="abstract"><p class="title"><b>Abstract</b></p><p>
- Our devices and services gather most of the data that the NSA mines for its
-surveillance project. We pay for these devices and the services they connect
-to, and then we painstakingly perform the data-entry tasks associated with
-logging facts about our lives, opinions, and preferences.
- </p><p>
- Thanks to Big Tech, Surveillance capitalism is everywhere. This is not
-because it is really good at manipulating our behaviour, or the rogue abuse
-of corporate power. It is the result of unchecked monopolism and the
-abusive behavior it abets. It is the system working as intended and
-expected. Cory Doctorow has written an extended critique of Shoshana
-Zuboff's The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at
-the New Frontier of Power, with a non-magical analysis of the problem
-leading to a different proposal for a solution.
- </p></div></div></div><hr></div><div class="toc"><p><b>Table of Contents</b></p><dl class="toc"><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#the-net-of-a-thousand-lies">The net of a thousand lies</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#digital-rights-activism-a-quarter-century-on">Digital rights activism, a quarter-century on</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#tech-exceptionalism-then-and-now">Tech exceptionalism, then and now</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#dont-believe-the-hype">Don’t believe the hype</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#what-is-persuasion">What is persuasion?</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#segmenting">1. Segmenting</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#deception">2. Deception</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#domination">3. Domination</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#bypassing-our-rational-faculties">4. Bypassing our rational faculties</a></span></dt></dl></dd><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#if-data-is-the-new-oil-then-surveillance-capitalisms-engine-has-a-leak">If data is the new oil, then surveillance capitalism’s engine has a leak</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#what-is-facebook">What is Facebook?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#monopoly-and-the-right-to-the-future-tense">Monopoly and the right to the future tense</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#search-order-and-the-right-to-the-future-tense">Search order and the right to the future tense</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#monopolists-can-afford-sleeping-pills-for-watchdogs">Monopolists can afford sleeping pills for watchdogs</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#privacy-and-monopoly">Privacy and monopoly</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#ronald-reagan-pioneer-of-tech-monopolism">Ronald Reagan, pioneer of tech monopolism</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#steering-with-the-windshield-wipers">Steering with the windshield wipers</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#surveillance-still-matters">Surveillance still matters</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#dignity-and-sanctuary">Dignity and sanctuary</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#afflicting-the-afflicted">Afflicting the afflicted</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#any-data-you-collect-and-retain-will-eventually-leak">Any data you collect and retain will eventually leak</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#critical-tech-exceptionalism-is-still-tech-exceptionalism">Critical tech exceptionalism is still tech exceptionalism</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#how-monopolies-not-mind-control-drive-surveillance-capitalism-the-snapchat-story">How monopolies, not mind control, drive surveillance capitalism: The
-Snapchat story</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#a-monopoly-over-your-friends">A monopoly over your friends</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#fake-news-is-an-epistemological-crisis">Fake news is an epistemological crisis</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#tech-is-different">Tech is different</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#ownership-of-facts">Ownership of facts</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#persuasion-works-slowly">Persuasion works… slowly</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#paying-wont-help">Paying won’t help</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#an-ecology-moment-for-trustbusting">An <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">ecology</span>”</span> moment for trustbusting</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#make-big-tech-small-again">Make Big Tech small again</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#goto-10">20 GOTO 10</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#up-and-through">Up and through</a></span></dt></dl></div><div class="sect1"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a name="the-net-of-a-thousand-lies"></a>The net of a thousand lies</h2></div></div></div><p>
+ Ce livre est sous licence Creative Commons. Cette licence permet toute
+utilisation de ce travail, tant que l'attribution est donnée et qu'aucun
+matériel dérivé n'est distribué. Pour plus d'informations sur la licence,
+visitez <a class="ulink" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/" target="_top">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/</a>.
+ </p></div></div></div><hr></div><div class="toc"><p><b>Table des matières</b></p><dl class="toc"><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#the-net-of-a-thousand-lies">The net of a thousand lies</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#digital-rights-activism-a-quarter-century-on">Digital rights activism, a quarter-century on</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#tech-exceptionalism-then-and-now">Tech exceptionalism, then and now</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#dont-believe-the-hype">Don’t believe the hype</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#what-is-persuasion">What is persuasion?</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#segmenting">1. Segmenting</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#deception">2. Deception</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#domination">3. Domination</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="#bypassing-our-rational-faculties">4. Bypassing our rational faculties</a></span></dt></dl></dd><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#if-data-is-the-new-oil-then-surveillance-capitalisms-engine-has-a-leak">If data is the new oil, then surveillance capitalism’s engine has a leak</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#what-is-facebook">What is Facebook?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#monopoly-and-the-right-to-the-future-tense">Monopoly and the right to the future tense</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#search-order-and-the-right-to-the-future-tense">Search order and the right to the future tense</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#monopolists-can-afford-sleeping-pills-for-watchdogs">Monopolists can afford sleeping pills for watchdogs</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#privacy-and-monopoly">Privacy and monopoly</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#ronald-reagan-pioneer-of-tech-monopolism">Ronald Reagan, pioneer of tech monopolism</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#steering-with-the-windshield-wipers">Steering with the windshield wipers</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#surveillance-still-matters">Surveillance still matters</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#dignity-and-sanctuary">Dignity and sanctuary</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#afflicting-the-afflicted">Afflicting the afflicted</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#any-data-you-collect-and-retain-will-eventually-leak">Any data you collect and retain will eventually leak</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#critical-tech-exceptionalism-is-still-tech-exceptionalism">Critical tech exceptionalism is still tech exceptionalism</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#how-monopolies-not-mind-control-drive-surveillance-capitalism-the-snapchat-story">How monopolies, not mind control, drive surveillance capitalism: The
+Snapchat story</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#a-monopoly-over-your-friends">A monopoly over your friends</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#fake-news-is-an-epistemological-crisis">Fake news is an epistemological crisis</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#tech-is-different">Tech is different</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#ownership-of-facts">Ownership of facts</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#persuasion-works-slowly">Persuasion works… slowly</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#paying-wont-help">Paying won’t help</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#an-ecology-moment-for-trustbusting">An <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">ecology</span> »</span> moment for trustbusting</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#make-big-tech-small-again">Make Big Tech small again</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#goto-10">20 GOTO 10</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="#up-and-through">Up and through</a></span></dt></dl></div><div class="sect1"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a name="the-net-of-a-thousand-lies"></a>The net of a thousand lies</h2></div></div></div><p>
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 who’d never gained a high-enough
</p><p>
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, <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">race
-science</span>”</span> has never been easier to refute.
+a gene-sequencing company along with a modest sum of money, <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">race
+science</span> »</span> has never been easier to refute.
</p><p>
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
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 <a class="ulink" href="https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR400/RR453/RAND_RR453.pdf" target="_top">blames
-Facebook for <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">radicalization</span>”</span></a> and when Facebook’s role
+Facebook for <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">radicalization</span> »</span></a> and when Facebook’s role
in spreading coronavirus misinformation is <a class="ulink" href="https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/facebook_threat_health/" target="_top">blamed on
its algorithm</a>, the implicit message is that machine learning and
surveillance are causing the changes in our consensus about what’s true.
<span class="emphasis"><em>real conspiracies</em></span> all around us — conspiracies among
wealthy people, their lobbyists, and lawmakers to bury inconvenient facts
and evidence of wrongdoing (these conspiracies are commonly known as
-<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">corruption</span>”</span>) — is making people vulnerable to conspiracy
+<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">corruption</span> »</span>) — is making people vulnerable to conspiracy
theories?
</p><p>
If it’s trauma and not contagion — material conditions and not ideology —
too, tech has a role to play.
</p><p>
There’s no shortage of proposals to address this. From the EU’s <a class="ulink" href="https://edri.org/tag/terreg/" target="_top">Terrorist Content Regulation</a>,
-which requires platforms to police and remove <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">extremist</span>”</span>
+which requires platforms to police and remove <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">extremist</span> »</span>
content, to the U.S. proposals to <a class="ulink" href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/earn-it-act-violates-constitution" target="_top">force
tech companies to spy on their users</a> and hold them liable <a class="ulink" href="https://www.natlawreview.com/article/repeal-cda-section-230" target="_top">for their
users’ bad speech</a>, there’s a lot of energy to force tech companies
solutions assume that tech companies are a fixture, that their dominance
over the internet is a permanent fact. Proposals to replace Big Tech with a
more diffused, pluralistic internet are nowhere to be found. Worse: The
-<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">solutions</span>”</span> on the table today <span class="emphasis"><em>require</em></span> Big
+<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">solutions</span> »</span> on the table today <span class="emphasis"><em>require</em></span> Big
Tech to stay big because only the very largest companies can afford to
implement the systems these laws demand.
</p><p>
activist causes were real-world causes (think of the skepticism when <a class="ulink" href="https://www.loc.gov/law/foreign-news/article/finland-legal-right-to-broadband-for-all-citizens/#:~:text=Global%20Legal%20Monitor,-Home%20%7C%20Search%20%7C%20Browse&text=(July%206%2C%202010)%20On,connection%20100%20MBPS%20by%202015." target="_top">Finland
declared broadband a human right in 2010</a>), and real-world activism
was shoe-leather activism (think of Malcolm Gladwell’s <a class="ulink" href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/small-change-malcolm-gladwell" target="_top">contempt
-for <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">clicktivism</span>”</span></a>). But as tech has grown more central
+for <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">clicktivism</span> »</span></a>). But as tech has grown more central
to our daily lives, these accusations of irrelevance have given way first to
-accusations of insincerity (<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">You only care about tech because you’re
+accusations of insincerity (<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">You only care about tech because you’re
<a class="ulink" href="https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2018/06/04/report-engine-eff-shills-google-patent-reform/id=98007/" target="_top">shilling
-for tech companies</a></span>”</span>) to accusations of negligence (<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">Why
-didn’t you foresee that tech could be such a destructive force?</span>”</span>).
+for tech companies</a></span> »</span>) to accusations of negligence (<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">Why
+didn’t you foresee that tech could be such a destructive force?</span> »</span>).
But digital rights activism is right where it’s always been: looking out for
the humans in a world where tech is inexorably taking over.
</p><p>
- The latest version of this critique comes in the form of <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">surveillance
-capitalism,</span>”</span> a term coined by business professor Shoshana Zuboff in
+ The latest version of this critique comes in the form of <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">surveillance
+capitalism,</span> »</span> a term coined by business professor Shoshana Zuboff in
her long and influential 2019 book, <span class="emphasis"><em>The Age of Surveillance
Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of
-Power</em></span>. Zuboff argues that <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">surveillance capitalism</span>”</span>
+Power</em></span>. Zuboff argues that <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">surveillance capitalism</span> »</span>
is a unique creature of the tech industry and that it is unlike any other
-abusive commercial practice in history, one that is <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">constituted by
+abusive commercial practice in history, one that is <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">constituted by
unexpected and often illegible mechanisms of extraction, commodification,
and control that effectively exile persons from their own behavior while
producing new markets of behavioral prediction and
modification. Surveillance capitalism challenges democratic norms and
departs in key ways from the centuries-long evolution of market
-capitalism.</span>”</span> It is a new and deadly form of capitalism, a
-<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">rogue capitalism,</span>”</span> and our lack of understanding of its unique
+capitalism.</span> »</span> It is a new and deadly form of capitalism, a
+<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">rogue capitalism,</span> »</span> and our lack of understanding of its unique
capabilities and dangers represents an existential, species-wide
threat. She’s right that capitalism today threatens our species, and she’s
right that tech poses unique challenges to our species and civilization, but
campaigning organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Free
Software Foundation, Public Knowledge, and others that focused on preserving
and enhancing basic human rights in the digital realm — damned activists for
-practicing <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">tech exceptionalism.</span>”</span> Around the turn of the
+practicing <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">tech exceptionalism.</span> »</span> Around the turn of the
millennium, serious people ridiculed any claim that tech policy mattered in
-the <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">real world.</span>”</span> Claims that tech rules had implications for
+the <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">real world.</span> »</span> Claims that tech rules had implications for
speech, association, privacy, search and seizure, and fundamental rights and
equities were treated as ridiculous, an elevation of the concerns of sad
nerds arguing about <span class="emphasis"><em>Star Trek</em></span> on bulletin board systems
above the struggles of the Freedom Riders, Nelson Mandela, or the Warsaw
ghetto uprising.
</p><p>
- In the decades since, accusations of <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">tech exceptionalism</span>”</span> have
+ In the decades since, accusations of <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">tech exceptionalism</span> »</span> have
only sharpened as tech’s role in everyday life has expanded: Now that tech
has infiltrated every corner of our life and our online lives have been
monopolized by a handful of giants, defenders of digital freedoms are
that they threatened to bring down new rules that would also make it harder
for good actors to help users).
</p><p>
- The <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">surveillance capitalism</span>”</span> critique recasts the digital
+ The <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">surveillance capitalism</span> »</span> critique recasts the digital
rights movement in a new light again: not as alarmists who overestimate the
importance of their shiny toys nor as shills for big tech but as serene
deck-chair rearrangers whose long-standing activism is a liability because
</p><p>
But tech exceptionalism is a sin no matter who practices it.
</p></div><div class="sect1"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a name="dont-believe-the-hype"></a>Don’t believe the hype</h2></div></div></div><p>
- You’ve probably heard that <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">if you’re not paying for the product,
-you’re the product.</span>”</span> As we’ll see below, that’s true, if incomplete.
+ You’ve probably heard that <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">if you’re not paying for the product,
+you’re the product.</span> »</span> As we’ll see below, that’s true, if incomplete.
But what is <span class="emphasis"><em>absolutely</em></span> true is that ad-driven Big
Tech’s customers are advertisers, and what companies like Google and
Facebook sell is their ability to convince <span class="emphasis"><em>you</em></span> to buy
To understand why you shouldn’t worry about mind-control rays — but why you
<span class="emphasis"><em>should</em></span> worry about surveillance
<span class="emphasis"><em>and</em></span> Big Tech — we must start by unpacking what we mean
-by <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">persuasion.</span>”</span>
+by <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">persuasion.</span> »</span>
</p><p>
Google, Facebook, and other surveillance capitalists promise their customers
(the advertisers) that if they use machine-learning tools trained on
having a baby. Hence diaper ads around maternity wards (and even pitchmen
for baby products, who haunt maternity wards with baskets full of freebies).
</p><p>
- Surveillance capitalism is segmenting times a billion. Diaper vendors can go
-way beyond people in maternity wards (though they can do that, too, with
-things like location-based mobile ads). They can target you based on
-whether you’re reading articles about child-rearing, diapers, or a host of
-other subjects, and data mining can suggest unobvious keywords to advertise
-against. They can target you based on the articles you’ve recently
-read. They can target you based on what you’ve recently purchased. They can
-target you based on whether you receive emails or private messages about
-these subjects — or even if you speak aloud about them (though Facebook and
-the like convincingly claim that’s not happening — yet).
+ Le capitalisme de surveillance se segmente par milliard. Les vendeurs de
+couches peuvent aller bien au-delà des personnes dans les maternités (bien
+qu’ils puissent le faire aussi, avec des choses comme les annonces mobiles
+basées sur la localisation). Ils peuvent vous cibler selon que vous lisez
+des articles sur l’éducation des enfants, les couches ou une foule d’autres
+sujets, et l’exploration de données peut suggérer des mots-clés non évidents
+sur lesquels faire de la publicité. Ils peuvent vous cibler en fonction des
+articles que vous avez récemment lus. Ils peuvent vous cibler en fonction de
+ce que vous avez récemment acheté. Ils peuvent vous cibler selon que vous
+recevez des courriels ou des messages privés sur ces sujets – ou même si
+vous en parlez à haute voix (bien que Facebook et autres affirment de
+manière convaincante que cela ne se produit pas encore).
</p><p>
This is seriously creepy.
</p><p>
sort order of the responses to our queries. If a cabal of fraudsters have
set out to trick the world into thinking that the Brooklyn Bridge is 5,800
feet long, and if Google gives a high search rank to this group in response
-to queries like <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">How long is the Brooklyn Bridge?</span>”</span> then the
+to queries like <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">How long is the Brooklyn Bridge?</span> »</span> then the
first eight or 10 screens’ worth of Google results could be wrong. And since
most people don’t go beyond the first couple of results — let alone the
first <span class="emphasis"><em>page</em></span> of results — Google’s choice means that many
view to the top of the search results. There’s an obvious remedy to a
company that is too big to audit: break it up into smaller pieces.
</p><p>
- Zuboff calls surveillance capitalism a <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">rogue capitalism</span>”</span> whose
+ Zuboff calls surveillance capitalism a <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">rogue capitalism</span> »</span> whose
data-hoarding and machine-learning techniques rob us of our free will. But
influence campaigns that seek to displace existing, correct beliefs with
false ones have an effect that is small and temporary while monopolistic
should be central to our analysis and any remedies we seek.
</p></div><div class="sect2"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="bypassing-our-rational-faculties"></a>4. Bypassing our rational faculties</h3></div></div></div><p>
<span class="emphasis"><em>This</em></span> is the good stuff: using machine learning,
-<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">dark patterns,</span>”</span> engagement hacking, and other techniques to
+<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">dark patterns,</span> »</span> engagement hacking, and other techniques to
get us to do things that run counter to our better judgment. This is mind
control.
</p><p>
short term). The use of countdown timers on a purchase completion page can
create a sense of urgency that causes you to ignore the nagging internal
voice suggesting that you should shop around or sleep on your decision. The
-use of people from your social graph in ads can provide <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">social
-proof</span>”</span> that a purchase is worth making. Even the auction system
+use of people from your social graph in ads can provide <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">social
+proof</span> »</span> that a purchase is worth making. Even the auction system
pioneered by eBay is calculated to play on our cognitive blind spots,
-letting us feel like we <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">own</span>”</span> something because we bid on it,
+letting us feel like we <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">own</span> »</span> something because we bid on it,
thus encouraging us to bid again when we are outbid to ensure that
-<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">our</span>”</span> things stay ours.
+<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">our</span> »</span> things stay ours.
</p><p>
- Games are extraordinarily good at this. <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">Free to play</span>”</span> games
+ Games are extraordinarily good at this. <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">Free to play</span> »</span> games
manipulate us through many techniques, such as presenting players with a
series of smoothly escalating challenges that create a sense of mastery and
accomplishment but which sharply transition into a set of challenges that
level.
</p><p>
Companies have risen and fallen on these techniques, and the
-<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">fallen</span>”</span> part is worth paying attention to. In general, living
+<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">fallen</span> »</span> part is worth paying attention to. In general, living
things adapt to stimulus: Something that is very compelling or noteworthy
when you first encounter it fades with repetition until you stop noticing it
altogether. Consider the refrigerator hum that irritates you when it starts
up but disappears into the background so thoroughly that you only notice it
when it stops again.
</p><p>
- That’s why behavioral conditioning uses <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">intermittent reinforcement
-schedules.</span>”</span> Instead of giving you a steady drip of encouragement or
+ That’s why behavioral conditioning uses <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">intermittent reinforcement
+schedules.</span> »</span> Instead of giving you a steady drip of encouragement or
setbacks, games and gamified services scatter rewards on a randomized
schedule — often enough to keep you interested and random enough that you
can never quite find the pattern that would make it boring.
</p><p>
Intermittent reinforcement is a powerful behavioral tool, but it also
represents a collective action problem for surveillance capitalism. The
-<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">engagement techniques</span>”</span> invented by the behaviorists of
+<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">engagement techniques</span> »</span> invented by the behaviorists of
surveillance capitalist companies are quickly copied across the whole sector
so that what starts as a mysteriously compelling fillip in the design of a
-service—like <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">pull to refresh</span>”</span> or alerts when someone likes
+service—like <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">pull to refresh</span> »</span> or alerts when someone likes
your posts or side quests that your characters get invited to while in the
midst of main quests—quickly becomes dully ubiquitous. The
impossible-to-nail-down nonpattern of randomized drips from your phone
</p><p>
Zuboff observes this phenomenon and concludes that data must be very
valuable if surveillance capitalism is so hungry for it. (In her words:
-<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">Just as industrial capitalism was driven to the continuous
+<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">Just as industrial capitalism was driven to the continuous
intensification of the means of production, so surveillance capitalists and
their market players are now locked into the continuous intensification of
the means of behavioral modification and the gathering might of
-instrumentarian power.</span>”</span>) But what if the voracious appetite is
+instrumentarian power.</span> »</span>) But what if the voracious appetite is
because data has such a short half-life — because people become inured so
quickly to new, data-driven persuasion techniques — that the companies are
locked in an arms race with our limbic system? What if it’s all a Red
</p><p>
Also, the more data they have, the better they can craft deceptive messages
— if I know that you’re into genealogy, I might not try to feed you
-pseudoscience about genetic differences between <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">races,</span>”</span>
-sticking instead to conspiratorial secret histories of <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">demographic
-replacement</span>”</span> and the like.
+pseudoscience about genetic differences between <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">races,</span> »</span>
+sticking instead to conspiratorial secret histories of <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">demographic
+replacement</span> »</span> and the like.
</p><p>
Facebook also helps you locate people who have the same odious or antisocial
views as you. It makes it possible to find other people who want to carry
If you’re a Nazi who wants to ensure that your prospects primarily see
deceptive, confirming information when they search for more, you can improve
your odds by seeding the search terms they use through your initial
-communications. You don’t need to own the top 10 results for <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">voter
-suppression</span>”</span> if you can convince your marks to confine their search
-terms to <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">voter fraud,</span>”</span> which throws up a very different set of
+communications. You don’t need to own the top 10 results for <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">voter
+suppression</span> »</span> if you can convince your marks to confine their search
+terms to <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">voter fraud,</span> »</span> which throws up a very different set of
search results.
</p><p>
Surveillance capitalists are like stage mentalists who claim that their
</p><p>
Or perhaps they’re more like pick-up artists, the misogynistic cult that
promises to help awkward men have sex with women by teaching them
-<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">neurolinguistic programming</span>”</span> phrases, body language
+<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">neurolinguistic programming</span> »</span> phrases, body language
techniques, and psychological manipulation tactics like
-<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">negging</span>”</span> — offering unsolicited negative feedback to women to
+<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">negging</span> »</span> — offering unsolicited negative feedback to women to
lower their self-esteem and prick their interest.
</p><p>
Some pick-up artists eventually manage to convince women to go home with
them, but it’s not because these men have figured out how to bypass women’s
-critical faculties. Rather, pick-up artists’ <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">success</span>”</span> stories
+critical faculties. Rather, pick-up artists’ <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">success</span> »</span> stories
are a mix of women who were incapable of giving consent, women who were
coerced, women who were intoxicated, self-destructive women, and a few women
who were sober and in command of their faculties but who didn’t realize
secrets of pick-up artistry.
</p><p>
Department store pioneer John Wanamaker is said to have lamented,
-<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I
-don’t know which half.</span>”</span> The fact that Wanamaker thought that only
+<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I
+don’t know which half.</span> »</span> The fact that Wanamaker thought that only
half of his advertising spending was wasted is a tribute to the
persuasiveness of advertising executives, who are <span class="emphasis"><em>much</em></span>
better at convincing potential clients to buy their services than they are
world. Though Facebook tries to prevent itself from being visible on the
public web, hiding most of what goes on there from people unless they’re
logged into Facebook, the company has nevertheless booby-trapped the entire
-web with surveillance tools in the form of Facebook <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">Like</span>”</span>
+web with surveillance tools in the form of Facebook <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">Like</span> »</span>
buttons that web publishers include on their sites to boost their Facebook
profiles. Facebook also makes various libraries and other useful code
snippets available to web publishers that act as surveillance tendrils on
schooling — you use will send information about your activities to Facebook
even if you don’t have a Facebook account and even if you don’t download or
use Facebook apps. On top of all that, Facebook buys data from third-party
-brokers on shopping habits, physical location, use of <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">loyalty</span>”</span>
+brokers on shopping habits, physical location, use of <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">loyalty</span> »</span>
programs, financial transactions, etc., and cross-references that with the
dossiers it develops on activity on Facebook and with apps and the public
web.
that Facebook ads are more effective than ads on systems with less
sophisticated targeting, advertisers can also see that in nearly every case,
the people who see their ads ignore them. Or, at best, the ads work on a
-subconscious level, creating nebulous unmeasurables like <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">brand
-recognition.</span>”</span> This means that the price per ad is very low in nearly
+subconscious level, creating nebulous unmeasurables like <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">brand
+recognition.</span> »</span> This means that the price per ad is very low in nearly
every case.
</p><p>
To make things worse, many Facebook groups spark precious little
basis, there’s not much to say to your old high school chums or other
hockey-card collectors.
</p><p>
- With nothing but <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">organic</span>”</span> discussion, Facebook would not
+ With nothing but <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">organic</span> »</span> discussion, Facebook would not
generate enough traffic to sell enough ads to make the money it needs to
continually expand by buying up its competitors while returning handsome
sums to its investors.
</p></div><div class="sect1"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a name="monopoly-and-the-right-to-the-future-tense"></a>Monopoly and the right to the future tense</h2></div></div></div><p>
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 <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">the right to the future tense</span>”</span>
+something she poetically calls <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">the right to the future tense</span> »</span>
— that is, the right to decide for yourself what you will do in the future.
</p><p>
It’s true that advertising can tip the scales one way or another: When
concrete, here-and-now harms should be front and center in our debate over
tech policy.
</p><p>
- Start with <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">digital rights management.</span>”</span> In 1998, Bill Clinton
+ Start with <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">digital rights management.</span> »</span> In 1998, Bill Clinton
signed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) into law. It’s a complex
piece of legislation with many controversial clauses but none more so than
-Section 1201, the <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">anti-circumvention</span>”</span> rule.
+Section 1201, the <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">anti-circumvention</span> »</span> rule.
</p><p>
This is a blanket ban on tampering with systems that restrict access to
copyrighted works. The ban is so thoroughgoing that it prohibits removing a
programmers who created programs to let you do this.
</p><p>
That’s where Section 1201 of the DMCA comes in: By banning tampering with an
-<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">access control,</span>”</span> the rule gave manufacturers and rights
+<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">access control,</span> »</span> the rule gave manufacturers and rights
holders standing to sue competitors who released superior products with
lawful features that the market demanded (in this case, region-free
players).
grew to encompass a rapidly expanding constellation of devices and services
as canny manufacturers have realized certain things:
</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist compact" style="list-style-type: disc; "><li class="listitem"><p>
- Any device with software in it contains a <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">copyrighted work</span>”</span> —
+ Any device with software in it contains a <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">copyrighted work</span> »</span> —
i.e., the software.
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
A device can be designed so that reconfiguring the software requires
-bypassing an <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">access control for copyrighted works,</span>”</span> which is a
+bypassing an <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">access control for copyrighted works,</span> »</span> which is a
potential felony under Section 1201.
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
Thus, companies can control their customers’ behavior after they take home
unauthorized apps, Chinese iPhone owners cannot readily (or legally) acquire
VPNs that would protect them from Chinese state snooping.
</p><p>
- Zuboff calls surveillance capitalism a <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">rogue capitalism.</span>”</span>
+ Zuboff calls surveillance capitalism a <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">rogue capitalism.</span> »</span>
Theoreticians of capitalism claim that its virtue is that it <a class="ulink" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_signal" target="_top">aggregates information in
the form of consumers’ decisions</a>, producing efficient
markets. Surveillance capitalism’s supposed power to rob its victims of
efficient allocations—more efficient than any computer could calculate. But
monopolies are incompatible with that notion. When you only have one app
store, the owner of the store — not the consumer — decides on the range of
-choices. As Boss Tweed once said, <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">I don’t care who does the electing,
-so long as I get to do the nominating.</span>”</span> A monopolized market is an
+choices. As Boss Tweed once said, <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">I don’t care who does the electing,
+so long as I get to do the nominating.</span> »</span> A monopolized market is an
election whose candidates are chosen by the monopolist.
</p><p>
This ballot rigging is made more pernicious by the existence of monopolies
over search order. Google’s search market share is about 90%. When Google’s
ranking algorithm puts a result for a popular search term in its top 10,
that helps determine the behavior of millions of people. If Google’s answer
-to <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">Are vaccines dangerous?</span>”</span> is a page that rebuts anti-vax
+to <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">Are vaccines dangerous?</span> »</span> is a page that rebuts anti-vax
conspiracy theories, then a sizable portion of the public will learn that
vaccines are safe. If, on the other hand, Google sends those people to a
site affirming the anti-vax conspiracies, a sizable portion of those
to change their minds; it’s just presenting something untrue as fact when
the user has no cause to doubt it.
</p><p>
- This is true whether the search is for <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">Are vaccines
-dangerous?</span>”</span> or <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">best restaurants near me.</span>”</span> Most users
+ This is true whether the search is for <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">Are vaccines
+dangerous?</span> »</span> or <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">best restaurants near me.</span> »</span> Most users
will never look past the first page of search results, and when the
overwhelming majority of people all use the same search engine, the ranking
algorithm deployed by that search engine will determine myriad outcomes
techniques.
</p><p>
Many of the questions we ask search engines have no empirically correct
-answers: <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">Where should I eat dinner?</span>”</span> is not an objective
-question. Even questions that do have correct answers (<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">Are vaccines
-dangerous?</span>”</span>) don’t have one empirically superior source for that
+answers: <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">Where should I eat dinner?</span> »</span> is not an objective
+question. Even questions that do have correct answers (<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">Are vaccines
+dangerous?</span> »</span>) don’t have one empirically superior source for that
answer. Many pages affirm the safety of vaccines, so which one goes first?
Under conditions of competition, consumers can choose from many search
engines and stick with the one whose algorithmic judgment suits them best,
we saw when Apple was conscripted by the Chinese government as a vital
collaborator in state surveillance, the only really affordable and tractable
way to conduct mass surveillance on the scale practiced by modern states —
-both <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">free</span>”</span> and autocratic states — is to suborn commercial
+both <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">free</span> »</span> and autocratic states — is to suborn commercial
services.
</p><p>
Whether it’s Google being used as a location tracking tool by local law
</p><p>
Recall also that these copyright locks are backstopped by legislation (such
as Section 1201 of the DMCA or Article 6 of the 2001 EU Copyright Directive)
-that ban tampering with (<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">circumventing</span>”</span>) them, and these
+that ban tampering with (<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">circumventing</span> »</span>) them, and these
statutes have been used to threaten security researchers who make
disclosures about vulnerabilities without permission from manufacturers.
</p><p>
Copyright locks are a double whammy: They create bad security decisions that
can’t be freely investigated or discussed. If markets are supposed to be
machines for aggregating information (and if surveillance capitalism’s
-notional mind-control rays are what make it a <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">rogue
-capitalism</span>”</span> because it denies consumers the power to make decisions),
+notional mind-control rays are what make it a <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">rogue
+capitalism</span> »</span> because it denies consumers the power to make decisions),
then a program of legally enforced ignorance of the risks of products makes
-monopolism even more of a <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">rogue capitalism</span>”</span> than surveillance
+monopolism even more of a <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">rogue capitalism</span> »</span> than surveillance
capitalism’s influence campaigns.
</p><p>
And unlike mind-control rays, enforced silence over security is an
say, steering your car or flipping a breaker at a power station — is a kind
of technology debt.
</p><p>
- In software design, <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">technology debt</span>”</span> refers to old, baked-in
+ In software design, <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">technology debt</span> »</span> refers to old, baked-in
decisions that turn out to be bad ones in hindsight. Perhaps a long-ago
developer decided to incorporate a networking protocol made by a vendor that
has since stopped supporting it. But everything in the product still relies
the interest mounts faster than you can hope to pay it off: The product team
has to put so much energy into maintaining this complex, brittle system that
they don’t have any time left over to refactor the product from the ground
-up and <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">pay off the debt</span>”</span> once and for all.
+up and <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">pay off the debt</span> »</span> once and for all.
</p><p>
Typically, technology debt results in a technological bankruptcy: The
product gets so brittle and unsustainable that it fails
self-serving belief that harms the rest of the world, and it is not the
first industry to profit handsomely from such a delusion. Long before
hedge-fund managers were claiming (falsely) that they could beat the
-S&P 500, there were plenty of other <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">respectable</span>”</span>
+S&P 500, there were plenty of other <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">respectable</span> »</span>
industries that have been revealed as quacks in hindsight. From the makers
of radium suppositories (a real thing!) to the cruel sociopaths who claimed
-they could <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">cure</span>”</span> gay people, history is littered with the
+they could <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">cure</span> »</span> gay people, history is littered with the
formerly respectable titans of discredited industries.
</p><p>
This is not to say that there’s nothing wrong with Big Tech and its
overstated, its harms are, if anything, <span class="emphasis"><em>understated</em></span>.
</p><p>
There’s real irony here. The belief in surveillance capitalism as a
-<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">rogue capitalism</span>”</span> is driven by the belief that markets
+<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">rogue capitalism</span> »</span> is driven by the belief that markets
wouldn’t tolerate firms that are gripped by false beliefs. An oil company
that has false beliefs about where the oil is will eventually go broke
digging dry wells after all.
the price. Think of how concentration in the finance sector allowed the
subprime crisis to fester as bond-rating agencies, regulators, investors,
and critics all fell under the sway of a false belief that complex
-mathematics could construct <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">fully hedged</span>”</span> debt instruments
+mathematics could construct <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">fully hedged</span> »</span> debt instruments
that could not possibly default. A small bank that engaged in this kind of
malfeasance would simply go broke rather than outrunning the inevitable
crisis, perhaps growing so big that it averted it altogether. But large
</p><p>
Big Tech is able to practice surveillance not just because it is tech but
because it is <span class="emphasis"><em>big</em></span>. The reason every web publisher
-embeds a Facebook <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">Like</span>”</span> button is that Facebook dominates the
+embeds a Facebook <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">Like</span> »</span> button is that Facebook dominates the
internet’s social media referrals — and every one of those
-<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">Like</span>”</span> buttons spies on everyone who lands on a page that
+<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">Like</span> »</span> buttons spies on everyone who lands on a page that
contains them (see also: Google Analytics embeds, Twitter buttons, etc.).
</p><p>
The reason the world’s governments have been slow to create meaningful
Antitrust’s story began nearly a century before all that with laws like the
Sherman Act, which took aim at monopolists on the grounds that monopolies
were bad in and of themselves — squeezing out competitors, creating
-<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">diseconomies of scale</span>”</span> (when a company is so big that its
+<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">diseconomies of scale</span> »</span> (when a company is so big that its
constituent parts go awry and it is seemingly helpless to address the
problems), and capturing their regulators to such a degree that they can get
away with a host of evils.
its successors out of whole cloth. Bork insisted that these statutes were
never targeted at monopolies (despite a wealth of evidence to the contrary,
including the transcribed speeches of the acts’ authors) but, rather, that
-they were intended to prevent <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">consumer harm</span>”</span> — in the form of
+they were intended to prevent <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">consumer harm</span> »</span> — in the form of
higher prices.
</p><p>
Bork was a crank, but he was a crank with a theory that rich people really
liked. Monopolies are a great way to make rich people richer by allowing
-them to receive <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">monopoly rents</span>”</span> (that is, bigger profits) and
+them to receive <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">monopoly rents</span> »</span> (that is, bigger profits) and
capture regulators, leading to a weaker, more favorable regulatory
environment with fewer protections for customers, suppliers, the
environment, and workers.
to incorporate Bork’s antitrust doctrine into their enforcement decisions
(Reagan even put Bork up for a Supreme Court seat, but Bork flunked the
Senate confirmation hearing so badly that, 40 years later, D.C. insiders use
-the term <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">borked</span>”</span> to refer to any catastrophically bad
+the term <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">borked</span> »</span> to refer to any catastrophically bad
political performance).
</p><p>
Little by little, Bork’s theories entered the mainstream, and their backers
coherent ideology that elevated inequality to a virtue.
</p><p>
Today, many fear that machine learning allows surveillance capitalism to
-sell <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">Bork-as-a-Service,</span>”</span> at internet speeds, so that you can
+sell <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">Bork-as-a-Service,</span> »</span> at internet speeds, so that you can
contract a machine-learning company to engineer <span class="emphasis"><em>rapid</em></span>
shifts in public sentiment without needing the capital to sustain a
multipronged, multigenerational project working at the local, state,
it. Big Tech lies all the time, <span class="emphasis"><em>including</em></span> in their
sales literature.
</p><p>
- The idea that tech forms <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">natural monopolies</span>”</span> (monopolies that
+ The idea that tech forms <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">natural monopolies</span> »</span> (monopolies that
are the inevitable result of the realities of an industry, such as the
monopolies that accrue the first company to run long-haul phone lines or
rail lines) is belied by tech’s own history: In the absence of
customers or users or communities outweighs even the most massive
products. CompuServe, AOL, MSN, and a host of other proprietary walled
gardens learned this lesson the hard way: Each believed it could stay
-separate from the web, offering <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">curation</span>”</span> and a guarantee of
+separate from the web, offering <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">curation</span> »</span> and a guarantee of
consistency and quality instead of the chaos of an open system. Each was
wrong and ended up being absorbed into the public web.
</p><p>
can be readily explained without recourse to radical theories of network
effects — but only if you’re willing to indict unregulated markets as
tending toward monopoly. Just as a lifelong smoker can give you a hundred
-reasons why their smoking didn’t cause their cancer (<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">It was the
-environmental toxins</span>”</span>), true believers in unregulated markets have a
+reasons why their smoking didn’t cause their cancer (<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">It was the
+environmental toxins</span> »</span>), true believers in unregulated markets have a
whole suite of unconvincing explanations for monopoly in tech that leave
capitalism intact.
</p></div><div class="sect1"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a name="steering-with-the-windshield-wipers"></a>Steering with the windshield wipers</h2></div></div></div><p>
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
1940s, affluent Americans dressed their baby boys in pink while baby girls
-wore blue (a <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">delicate and dainty</span>”</span> color). While gendered
+wore blue (a <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">delicate and dainty</span> »</span> color). While gendered
colors are obviously totally arbitrary, many still greet this news with
amazement and find it hard to imagine a time when pink connoted masculinity.
</p><p>
heading before we careen off a cliff.
</p><p>
It’s like a 1960s science-fiction plot come to life: People stuck in a
-<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">generation ship,</span>”</span> plying its way across the stars, a ship once
+<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">generation ship,</span> »</span> plying its way across the stars, a ship once
piloted by their ancestors; and now, after a great cataclysm, the ship’s
crew have forgotten that they’re in a ship at all and no longer remember
where the control room is. Adrift, the ship is racing toward its extinction,
camera-enabled doorbell that streams footage from your front door to your
mobile device. The Neighbors app allows you to form a neighborhood-wide
surveillance grid with your fellow Ring owners through which you can share
-clips of <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">suspicious characters.</span>”</span> If you’re thinking that this
+clips of <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">suspicious characters.</span> »</span> If you’re thinking that this
sounds like a recipe for letting curtain-twitching racists supercharge their
suspicions of people with brown skin who walk down their blocks, <a class="ulink" href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/07/amazons-ring-enables-over-policing-efforts-some-americas-deadliest-law-enforcement" target="_top">you’re
right</a>. Ring has become a <span class="emphasis"><em>de facto,</em></span>
them to stop raiding surveillance capitalism’s reservoirs of behavioral
data, surveillance capitalism would still harm us.
</p><p>
- This is an area where Zuboff shines. Her chapter on <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">sanctuary</span>”</span>
+ This is an area where Zuboff shines. Her chapter on <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">sanctuary</span> »</span>
— the feeling of being unobserved — is a beautiful hymn to introspection,
calmness, mindfulness, and tranquility.
</p><p>
on an intermittent schedule that is just random enough that our limbic
systems never quite become inured to it.
</p><p>
- Our devices and services are <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">general purpose</span>”</span> in that they can
+ Our devices and services are <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">general purpose</span> »</span> in that they can
connect anything or anyone to anything or anyone else and that they can run
any program that can be written. This means that the distraction rectangles
in our pockets hold our most precious moments with our most beloved people
-and their most urgent or time-sensitive communications (from <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">running
-late can you get the kid?</span>”</span> to <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">doctor gave me bad news and I
-need to talk to you RIGHT NOW</span>”</span>) as well as ads for refrigerators and
+and their most urgent or time-sensitive communications (from <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">running
+late can you get the kid?</span> »</span> to <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">doctor gave me bad news and I
+need to talk to you RIGHT NOW</span> »</span>) as well as ads for refrigerators and
recruiting messages from Nazis.
</p><p>
All day and all night, our pockets buzz, shattering our concentration and
tearing apart the fragile webs of connection we spin as we think through
difficult ideas. If you locked someone in a cell and agitated them like
-this, we’d call it <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">sleep deprivation torture,</span>”</span> and it would be
+this, we’d call it <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">sleep deprivation torture,</span> »</span> and it would be
<a class="ulink" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SKpRbvnx6g" target="_top">a war crime under
the Geneva Conventions</a>.
</p></div><div class="sect1"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a name="afflicting-the-afflicted"></a>Afflicting the afflicted</h2></div></div></div><p>
But for many of us, this is not true. Recall that in living memory, many of
the ways of being that we think of as socially acceptable today were once
cause for dire social sanction or even imprisonment. If you are 65 years
-old, you have lived through a time in which people living in <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">free
-societies</span>”</span> could be imprisoned or sanctioned for engaging in
+old, you have lived through a time in which people living in <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">free
+societies</span> »</span> could be imprisoned or sanctioned for engaging in
homosexual activity, for falling in love with a person whose skin was a
different color than their own, or for smoking weed.
</p><p>
</p></div><div class="sect1"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a name="critical-tech-exceptionalism-is-still-tech-exceptionalism"></a>Critical tech exceptionalism is still tech exceptionalism</h2></div></div></div><p>
Big Tech has long practiced technology exceptionalism: the idea that it
should not be subject to the mundane laws and norms of
-<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">meatspace.</span>”</span> Mottoes like Facebook’s <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">move fast and break
-things</span>”</span> attracted justifiable scorn of the companies’ self-serving
+<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">meatspace.</span> »</span> Mottoes like Facebook’s <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">move fast and break
+things</span> »</span> attracted justifiable scorn of the companies’ self-serving
rhetoric.
</p><p>
Tech exceptionalism got us all into a lot of trouble, so it’s ironic and
distressing to see Big Tech’s critics committing the same sin.
</p><p>
- Big Tech is not a <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">rogue capitalism</span>”</span> that cannot be cured
+ Big Tech is not a <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">rogue capitalism</span> »</span> that cannot be cured
through the traditional anti-monopoly remedies of trustbusting (forcing
companies to divest of competitors they have acquired) and bans on mergers
to monopoly and other anti-competitive tactics. Big Tech does not have the
For generations, the advertising industry has been steadily improving its
ability to sell advertising services to businesses while only making
marginal gains in selling those businesses’ products to prospective
-customers. John Wanamaker’s lament that <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">50% of my advertising budget
-is wasted, I just don’t know which 50%</span>”</span> is a testament to the triumph
+customers. John Wanamaker’s lament that <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">50% of my advertising budget
+is wasted, I just don’t know which 50%</span> »</span> is a testament to the triumph
of <span class="emphasis"><em>ad executives</em></span>, who successfully convinced Wanamaker
that only half of the money he spent went to waste.
</p><p>
convincing businesses that they’re good at advertising while their actual
improvements to advertising — as opposed to targeting — have been pretty
ho-hum. The vogue for machine learning — and the mystical invocation of
-<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">artificial intelligence</span>”</span> as a synonym for straightforward
+<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">artificial intelligence</span> »</span> as a synonym for straightforward
statistical inference techniques — has greatly boosted the efficacy of Big
Tech’s sales pitch as marketers have exploited potential customers’ lack of
technical sophistication to get away with breathtaking acts of overpromising
</p><p>
The claims of Big Tech’s mind-control system are full of tells that the
enterprise is a con. For example, <a class="ulink" href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01415/full" target="_top">the
-reliance on the <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">Big Five</span>”</span> personality traits</a> as a
-primary means of influencing people even though the <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">Big Five</span>”</span>
+reliance on the <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">Big Five</span> »</span> personality traits</a> as a
+primary means of influencing people even though the <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">Big Five</span> »</span>
theory is unsupported by any large-scale, peer-reviewed studies and is
<a class="ulink" href="https://www.wired.com/story/the-noisy-fallacies-of-psychographic-targeting/" target="_top">mostly
the realm of marketing hucksters and pop psych</a>.
</p><p>
Big Tech’s promotional materials also claim that their algorithms can
-accurately perform <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">sentiment analysis</span>”</span> or detect peoples’
-moods based on their <span class="quote">
“<span class="quote">microexpressions,</span>”</span> but <a class="ulink" href="https://www.npr.org/2018/09/12/647040758/advertising-on-facebook-is-it-worth-it" target="_top">these
+accurately perform <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">sentiment analysis</span> »</span> or detect peoples’
+moods based on their <span class="quote">
« <span class="quote">microexpressions,</span> »</span> but <a class="ulink" href="https://www.npr.org/2018/09/12/647040758/advertising-on-facebook-is-it-worth-it" target="_top">these
are marketing claims, not scientific ones</a>. These methods are largely
untested by independent scientific experts, and where they have been tested,
they’ve been found sorely wanting. Microexpressions are particularly
to narrow. A typical patent starts out by claiming that its authors have
invented a method or system for doing every conceivable thing that anyone
might do, ever, with any tool or device. Then it narrows that claim in
-successive stages until we get to the actual <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">invention</span>”</span> that
+successive stages until we get to the actual <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">invention</span> »</span> that
is the true subject of the patent. The hope is that the patent examiner —
who is almost certainly overworked and underinformed — will miss the fact
that some or all of these claims are ridiculous, or at least suspect, and
</p><p>
What’s more, software patents are routinely granted even though the filer
doesn’t have any evidence that they can do the thing claimed by the
-patent. That is, you can patent an <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">invention</span>”</span> that you haven’t
+patent. That is, you can patent an <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">invention</span> »</span> that you haven’t
actually made and that you don’t know how to make.
</p><p>
With these considerations in hand, it becomes obvious that the fact that a
especially when the businesses and their investors are not motivated by the
prospect of becoming profitable but rather by the prospect of being acquired
by a Big Tech giant or by having an IPO. For these firms, ticking faddish
-boxes like <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">collects as much data as possible</span>”</span> might realize a
-bigger return on investment than <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">collects a business-appropriate
-quantity of data.</span>”</span>
+boxes like <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">collects as much data as possible</span> »</span> might realize a
+bigger return on investment than <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">collects a business-appropriate
+quantity of data.</span> »</span>
</p><p>
This is another harm of tech exceptionalism: The belief that more data
always produces more profits in the form of more insights that can be
that competes on privacy features.
</p></div><div class="sect1"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a name="a-monopoly-over-your-friends"></a>A monopoly over your friends</h2></div></div></div><p>
A decentralization movement has tried to erode the dominance of Facebook and
-other Big Tech companies by fielding <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">indieweb</span>”</span> alternatives —
+other Big Tech companies by fielding <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">indieweb</span> »</span> alternatives —
Mastodon as a Twitter alternative, Diaspora as a Facebook alternative,
etc. — but these efforts have failed to attain any kind of liftoff.
</p><p>
<span class="emphasis"><em>we</em></span> have Facebook accounts.
</p><p>
All of this has conspired to make Facebook — and other dominant platforms —
-into <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">kill zones</span>”</span> that investors will not fund new entrants
+into <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">kill zones</span> »</span> that investors will not fund new entrants
for.
</p><p>
And yet, all of today’s tech giants came into existence despite the
</p><div class="blockquote"><blockquote class="blockquote"><p>
The hard problem of our species is coordination.
</p></blockquote></div><p>
- <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">Interoperability</span>”</span> is the ability of two technologies to work
+ <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">Interoperability</span> »</span> is the ability of two technologies to work
with one another: Anyone can make an LP that will play on any record player,
anyone can make a filter you can install in your stove’s extractor fan,
anyone can make gasoline for your car, anyone can make a USB phone charger
functions, and so on and then answering machines and finally modems, paving
the way for the internet revolution.
</p><p>
- <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">Interoperability</span>”</span> is often used interchangeably with
-<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">standardization,</span>”</span> which is the process when manufacturers and
+ <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">Interoperability</span> »</span> is often used interchangeably with
+<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">standardization,</span> »</span> which is the process when manufacturers and
other stakeholders hammer out a set of agreed-upon rules for implementing a
technology, such as the electrical plug on your wall, the CAN bus used by
your car’s computer systems, or the HTML instructions that your browser
dashboard lighter subcomponent. The automakers didn’t take any
countermeasures to prevent the use of these aftermarket accessories by their
customers, but they also didn’t do anything to make life easier for the
-chargers’ manufacturers. This is a kind of <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">neutral
-interoperability.</span>”</span>
+chargers’ manufacturers. This is a kind of <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">neutral
+interoperability.</span> »</span>
</p><p>
- Beyond neutral interoperability, there is <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">adversarial
-interoperability.</span>”</span> That’s when a manufacturer makes a product that
+ Beyond neutral interoperability, there is <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">adversarial
+interoperability.</span> »</span> That’s when a manufacturer makes a product that
interoperates with another manufacturer’s product <span class="emphasis"><em>despite the
second manufacturer’s objections</em></span> and <span class="emphasis"><em>even if that means
bypassing a security system designed to prevent interoperability</em></span>.
printer companies?
</p><p>
Adversarial interoperability has played an outsized role in the history of
-the tech industry: from the founding of the <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">alt.*</span>”</span> Usenet
+the tech industry: from the founding of the <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">alt.*</span> »</span> Usenet
hierarchy (which was started against the wishes of Usenet’s maintainers and
which grew to be bigger than all of Usenet combined) to the browser wars
(when Netscape and Microsoft devoted massive engineering efforts to making
interests of the people and companies with all the money.
</p><p>
That means that whenever a regulator asks a question with an obvious,
-empirical answer (<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">Are humans causing climate change?</span>”</span> or
-<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">Should we let companies conduct commercial mass surveillance?</span>”</span>
-or <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">Does society benefit from allowing network neutrality
-violations?</span>”</span>), the answer that comes out is only correct if that
+empirical answer (<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">Are humans causing climate change?</span> »</span> or
+<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">Should we let companies conduct commercial mass surveillance?</span> »</span>
+or <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">Does society benefit from allowing network neutrality
+violations?</span> »</span>), the answer that comes out is only correct if that
correctness meets with the approval of rich people and the industries that
made them so wealthy.
</p><p>
quality: general-purposeness. The internet is designed to allow any two
parties to communicate any data, using any protocol, without permission from
anyone else. The only production design we have for computers is the
-general-purpose, <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">Turing complete</span>”</span> computer that can run every
+general-purpose, <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">Turing complete</span> »</span> computer that can run every
program we can express in symbolic logic.
</p><p>
This means that every time someone with a special communications need
graphs and fill in missing information about other users.
</p><p>
But the phone numbers Facebook nonconsensually acquires in this transaction
-are not the <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">property</span>”</span> of the users they’re taken from nor do
+are not the <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">property</span> »</span> of the users they’re taken from nor do
they belong to the people whose phones ring when you dial those numbers. The
numbers are mere integers, 10 digits in the U.S. and Canada, and they
appear in millions of places, including somewhere deep in pi as well as
and violent racist ideologies, and then surveillance capitalism lets
opportunists target the fearful and the conspiracy-minded.
</p></div><div class="sect1"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a name="paying-wont-help"></a>Paying won’t help</h2></div></div></div><p>
- As the old saw goes, <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">If you’re not paying for the product, you’re the
-product.</span>”</span>
+ As the old saw goes, <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">If you’re not paying for the product, you’re the
+product.</span> »</span>
</p><p>
It’s a commonplace belief today that the advent of free, ad-supported media
was the original sin of surveillance capitalism. The reasoning is that the
-companies that charged for access couldn’t <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">compete with free</span>”</span>
+companies that charged for access couldn’t <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">compete with free</span> »</span>
and so they were driven out of business. Their ad-supported competitors,
meanwhile, declared open season on their users’ data in a bid to improve
their ad targeting and make more money and then resorted to the most
We shouldn’t just be concerned about payment and control: The idea that
paying will improve discourse is also dangerously wrong. The poor success
rate of targeted advertising means that the platforms have to incentivize
-you to <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">engage</span>”</span> with posts at extremely high levels to generate
+you to <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">engage</span> »</span> with posts at extremely high levels to generate
enough pageviews to safeguard their profits. As discussed earlier, to
increase engagement, platforms like Facebook use machine learning to guess
which messages will be most inflammatory and make a point of shoving those
what they’d be like if rich people inhabited free-flowing Athenian
marketplaces of ideas where you have to pay for admission while everyone
else lives in online spaces that are subsidized by wealthy benefactors who
-relish the chance to establish conversational spaces where the <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">house
-rules</span>”</span> forbid questioning the status quo. That is, imagine if the
+relish the chance to establish conversational spaces where the <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">house
+rules</span> »</span> forbid questioning the status quo. That is, imagine if the
rich seceded from Facebook, and then, instead of running ads that made money
for shareholders, Facebook became a billionaire’s vanity project that also
happened to ensure that nobody talked about whether it was fair that only
Advocates for markets laud their ability to aggregate the diffused knowledge
of buyers and sellers across a whole society through demand signals, price
signals, and so on. The argument for surveillance capitalism being a
-<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">rogue capitalism</span>”</span> is that machine-learning-driven persuasion
+<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">rogue capitalism</span> »</span> is that machine-learning-driven persuasion
techniques distort decision-making by consumers, leading to incorrect
signals — consumers don’t buy what they prefer, they buy what they’re
tricked into preferring. It follows that the monopolistic practices of
lock-in, which do far more to constrain consumers’ free choices, are even
-more of a <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">rogue capitalism.</span>”</span>
+more of a <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">rogue capitalism.</span> »</span>
</p><p>
The profitability of any business is constrained by the possibility that its
customers will take their business elsewhere. Both surveillance and lock-in
are anti-features that no customer wants. But monopolies can capture their
regulators, crush their competitors, insert themselves into their customers’
-lives, and corral people into <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">choosing</span>”</span> their services
+lives, and corral people into <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">choosing</span> »</span> their services
regardless of whether they want them — it’s fine to be terrible when there
is no alternative.
</p><p>
institutions, they are not your friend — they will do whatever they can get
away with to maximize their profits, and the more monopolistic they are, the
more they <span class="emphasis"><em>can</em></span> get away with.
- </p></div><div class="sect1"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a name="an-ecology-moment-for-trustbusting"></a>An <span class="quote">
“<span class="quote">ecology</span>”</span> moment for trustbusting</h2></div></div></div><p>
+ </p></div><div class="sect1"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a name="an-ecology-moment-for-trustbusting"></a>An <span class="quote">
« <span class="quote">ecology</span> »</span> moment for trustbusting</h2></div></div></div><p>
If we’re going to break Big Tech’s death grip on our digital lives, we’re
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
to do. There is a bipartisan, trans-Atlantic consensus that breaking up
companies is a fool’s errand at best — liable to mire your federal
prosecutors in decades of litigation — and counterproductive at worst,
-eroding the <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">consumer benefits</span>”</span> of large companies with massive
+eroding the <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">consumer benefits</span> »</span> of large companies with massive
efficiencies of scale.
</p><p>
But trustbusters once strode the nation, brandishing law books, terrorizing
Could we find that political will again?
</p><p>
Copyright scholar James Boyle has described how the term
-<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">ecology</span>”</span> marked a turning point in environmental
+<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">ecology</span> »</span> marked a turning point in environmental
activism. Prior to the adoption of this term, people who wanted to preserve
whale populations didn’t necessarily see themselves as fighting the same
battle as people who wanted to protect the ozone layer or fight freshwater
pollution or beat back smog or acid rain.
</p><p>
- But the term <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">ecology</span>”</span> welded these disparate causes together
+ But the term <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">ecology</span> »</span> welded these disparate causes together
into a single movement, and the members of this movement found solidarity
with one another. The people who cared about smog signed petitions
circulated by the people who wanted to end whaling, and the anti-whalers
setting the stage for today’s climate activism and the sense that preserving
the habitability of the planet Earth is a shared duty among all people.
</p><p>
- I believe we are on the verge of a new <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">ecology</span>”</span> moment
+ I believe we are on the verge of a new <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">ecology</span> »</span> moment
dedicated to combating monopolies. After all, tech isn’t the only
concentrated industry nor is it even the <span class="emphasis"><em>most</em></span>
concentrated of industries.
These powers are all in the plain language of U.S. antitrust laws, so in
theory, a future U.S. president could simply direct their attorney general
to enforce the law as it was written. But after decades of judicial
-<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">education</span>”</span> in the benefits of monopolies, after multiple
+<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">education</span> »</span> in the benefits of monopolies, after multiple
administrations that have packed the federal courts with lifetime-appointed
monopoly cheerleaders, it’s not clear that mere administrative action would
do the trick.
If the courts frustrate the Justice Department and the president, the next
stop would be Congress, which could eliminate any doubt about how antitrust
law should be enforced in the U.S. by passing new laws that boil down to
-saying, <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">Knock it off. We all know what the Sherman Act says. Robert
+saying, <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">Knock it off. We all know what the Sherman Act says. Robert
Bork was a deranged fantasist. For avoidance of doubt, <span class="emphasis"><em>fuck that
-guy</em></span>.</span>”</span> In other words, the problem with monopolies is
+guy</em></span>.</span> »</span> In other words, the problem with monopolies is
<span class="emphasis"><em>monopolism</em></span> — the concentration of power into too few
hands, which erodes our right to self-determination. If there is a monopoly,
the law wants it gone, period. Sure, get rid of monopolies that create
-<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">consumer harm</span>”</span> in the form of higher prices, but also,
+<span class="quote">« <span class="quote">consumer harm</span> »</span> in the form of higher prices, but also,
<span class="emphasis"><em>get rid of other monopolies, too</em></span>.
</p><p>
But this only prevents things from getting worse. To help them get better,
monopolists, the debate around every corporate boardroom’s table will
shift. People within corporations who’ve always felt uneasy about monopolism
will gain a powerful new argument to fend off their evil rivals in the
-corporate hierarchy: <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">If we do it my way, we make less money; if we do
+corporate hierarchy: <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">If we do it my way, we make less money; if we do
it your way, a judge will fine us billions and expose us to ridicule and
public disapprobation. So even though I get that it would be really cool to
do that merger, lock out that competitor, or buy that little company and
kill it before it can threaten it, we really shouldn’t — not if we don’t
want to get tied to the DOJ’s bumper and get dragged up and down Trustbuster
-Road for the next 10 years.</span>”</span>
+Road for the next 10 years.</span> »</span>
</p></div><div class="sect1"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a name="goto-10"></a>20 GOTO 10</h2></div></div></div><p>
Fixing Big Tech will require a lot of iteration. As cyber lawyer Lawrence
Lessig wrote in his 1999 book, <span class="emphasis"><em>Code and Other Laws of
</p><p>
I am, secretly, despite what I have said earlier, a tech exceptionalist. Not
in the sense of thinking that tech should be given a free pass to monopolize
-because it has <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">economies of scale</span>”</span> or some other nebulous
+because it has <span class="quote">« <span class="quote">economies of scale</span> »</span> or some other nebulous
feature. I’m a tech exceptionalist because I believe that getting tech right
matters and that getting it wrong will be an unmitigated catastrophe — and
doing it right can give us the power to work together to save our
projects / text-destroy-surveillance.git / blobdiff