msgid ""
msgstr ""
"Project-Id-Version: How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism n/a\n"
-"POT-Creation-Date: 2020-09-07 22:34+0200\n"
+"POT-Creation-Date: 2020-10-11 16:56+0200\n"
"PO-Revision-Date: YEAR-MO-DA HO:MI+ZONE\n"
"Last-Translator: FULL NAME <EMAIL@ADDRESS>\n"
"Language-Team: LANGUAGE <LL@li.org>\n"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:6 complete-book.xml:65
+#: complete-book.xml:6 complete-book.xml:71
msgid "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism"
msgstr ""
msgid ""
"<publisher> <publishername>Petter Reinholdtsen</publishername> <placeholder "
"type=\"address\" id=\"0\"/> </publisher> <copyright> <year>2020</year> "
+"<holder>Cory Doctorow</holder> </copyright> <copyright> <year>2020</year> "
"<holder>Petter Reinholdtsen</holder> </copyright>"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><legalnotice><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:27
+#: complete-book.xml:32
msgid "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism by Cory Doctorow."
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><legalnotice><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:30
+#: complete-book.xml:35
msgid "Published by Petter Reinholdtsen."
msgstr ""
+#. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><legalnotice><para>
+#: complete-book.xml:39
+msgid "ISBN 978-82-93828-05-1 (hard cover)"
+msgstr ""
+
+#. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><legalnotice><para>
+#: complete-book.xml:42
+msgid "ISBN 978-82-93828-06-8 (paperback)"
+msgstr ""
+
+#. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><legalnotice><para>
+#: complete-book.xml:45
+msgid "ISBN 978-82-93828-07-5 (ePub)"
+msgstr ""
+
#. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><legalnotice><para><inlinemediaobject>
-#: complete-book.xml:34
+#: complete-book.xml:50
msgid ""
"<imageobject> <imagedata fileref=\"images/cc.png\" contentdepth=\"3em\" "
"width=\"100%\" align=\"center\"/> </imageobject> <imageobject> <imagedata "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><legalnotice><para><inlinemediaobject><textobject><phrase>
-#: complete-book.xml:41
+#: complete-book.xml:57
msgid "Creative Commons, Some rights reserved"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><legalnotice><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:33
+#: complete-book.xml:49
msgid "<placeholder type=\"inlinemediaobject\" id=\"0\"/>"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><legalnotice><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:47
+#: complete-book.xml:63
msgid ""
"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 "
"<ulink url=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/\"/>."
msgstr ""
-#. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><legalnotice><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:54
-msgid "ISBN 978-82-93828-05-1 (hard cover)"
-msgstr ""
-
-#. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><legalnotice><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:57
-msgid "ISBN 978-82-93828-06-8 (paperback)"
-msgstr ""
-
-#. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><legalnotice><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:60
-msgid "ISBN 978-82-93828-07-5 (ePub)"
-msgstr ""
-
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:67
+#: complete-book.xml:73
msgid "The net of a thousand lies"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:69
+#: complete-book.xml:75
msgid ""
"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 "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:77
+#: complete-book.xml:83
msgid ""
"But today, when elementary schools routinely dangle GoPro cameras from "
"balloons and loft them high enough to photograph the Earth’s curve — to say "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:84
+#: complete-book.xml:90
msgid ""
"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 "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:90
+#: complete-book.xml:96
msgid ""
"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 "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:96
+#: complete-book.xml:102
msgid ""
"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 "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:109
+#: complete-book.xml:115
msgid ""
"The arguments for ridiculous beliefs in odious conspiracies like "
"anti-vaccination, climate denial, a flat Earth, and eugenics are no better "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:116
+#: complete-book.xml:122
msgid ""
"Anti-vax has been around since the first vaccines, but the early "
"anti-vaxxers were pitching people who were less equipped to understand even "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:125
+#: complete-book.xml:131
msgid ""
"So can these far-fetched conspiracy theorists really be succeeding on the "
"basis of superior arguments?"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:129
+#: complete-book.xml:135
msgid ""
"Some people think so. Today, there is a widespread belief that machine "
"learning and commercial surveillance can turn even the most fumble-tongued "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:145
+#: complete-book.xml:151
msgid ""
"After all, in a world where sprawling and incoherent conspiracy theories "
"like Pizzagate and its successor, QAnon, have widespread followings, "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:150
+#: complete-book.xml:156
msgid ""
"But what if there’s another explanation? What if it’s the material "
"circumstances, and not the arguments, that are making the difference for "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:160
+#: complete-book.xml:166
msgid ""
"If it’s trauma and not contagion — material conditions and not ideology — "
"that is making the difference today and enabling a rise of repulsive "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:168
+#: complete-book.xml:174
msgid ""
"Belief in conspiracy is a raging fire that has done real damage and poses "
"real danger to our planet and species, from epidemics <ulink "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:180
+#: complete-book.xml:186
msgid ""
"But firefighting is reactive. We need fire "
"<emphasis>prevention</emphasis>. We need to strike at the traumatic material "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:186
+#: complete-book.xml:192
msgid ""
"There’s no shortage of proposals to address this. From the EU’s <ulink "
"url=\"https://edri.org/tag/terreg/\">Terrorist Content Regulation</ulink>, "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:197
+#: complete-book.xml:203
msgid ""
"There’s a critical piece missing from the debate, though. All these "
"solutions assume that tech companies are a fixture, that their dominance "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:207
+#: complete-book.xml:213
msgid ""
"Figuring out what we want our tech to look like is crucial if we’re going to "
"get out of this mess. Today, we’re at a crossroads where we’re trying to "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:215
+#: complete-book.xml:221
msgid ""
"I want us to choose wisely. Taming Big Tech is integral to fixing the "
"internet, and for that, we need digital rights activism."
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:219
+#: complete-book.xml:225
msgid "Digital rights activism, a quarter-century on"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:221
+#: complete-book.xml:227
msgid ""
"Digital rights activism is more than 30 years old now. The Electronic "
"Frontier Foundation turned 30 this year; the Free Software Foundation "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:242
+#: complete-book.xml:248
msgid ""
"The latest version of this critique comes in the form of <quote>surveillance "
"capitalism,</quote> a term coined by business professor Shoshana Zuboff in "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:263
+#: complete-book.xml:269
msgid ""
"What’s 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 "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:269
+#: complete-book.xml:275
msgid "Tech exceptionalism, then and now"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:271
+#: complete-book.xml:277
msgid ""
"Early critics of the digital rights movement — perhaps best represented by "
"campaigning organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Free "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:286
+#: complete-book.xml:292
msgid ""
"In the decades since, accusations of <quote>tech exceptionalism</quote> have "
"only sharpened as tech’s role in everyday life has expanded: Now that tech "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:294
+#: complete-book.xml:300
msgid ""
"From my perspective, the digital rights movement has remained stationary "
"while the rest of the world has moved. From the earliest days, the "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:305
+#: complete-book.xml:311
msgid ""
"The <quote>surveillance capitalism</quote> critique recasts the digital "
"rights movement in a new light again: not as alarmists who overestimate the "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:313
+#: complete-book.xml:319
msgid "But tech exceptionalism is a sin no matter who practices it."
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:316
+#: complete-book.xml:322
msgid "Don’t believe the hype"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:318
+#: complete-book.xml:324
msgid ""
"You’ve probably heard that <quote>if you’re not paying for the product, "
"you’re the product.</quote> As we’ll see below, that’s true, if incomplete. "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:328
+#: complete-book.xml:334
msgid ""
"The fear of surveillance capitalism starts from the (correct) presumption "
"that everything Big Tech says about itself is probably a lie. But the "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:340
+#: complete-book.xml:346
msgid ""
"Surveillance capitalism assumes that because advertisers buy a lot of what "
"Big Tech is selling, Big Tech must be selling something real. But Big Tech’s "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:347
+#: complete-book.xml:353
msgid ""
"Being watched changes your behavior, and not for the better. It creates "
"risks for our social progress. Zuboff’s book features beautifully wrought "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:361
+#: complete-book.xml:367
msgid "What is persuasion?"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:363
+#: complete-book.xml:369
msgid ""
"To understand why you shouldn’t worry about mind-control rays — but why you "
"<emphasis>should</emphasis> worry about surveillance "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:369
+#: complete-book.xml:375
msgid ""
"Google, Facebook, and other surveillance capitalists promise their customers "
"(the advertisers) that if they use machine-learning tools trained on "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:378
+#: complete-book.xml:384
msgid ""
"The impact of dominance far exceeds the impact of manipulation and should be "
"central to our analysis and any remedies we seek."
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:383
+#: complete-book.xml:389
msgid ""
"But there’s little evidence that this is happening. Instead, the predictions "
"that surveillance capitalism delivers to its customers are much less "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:390
+#: complete-book.xml:396
msgid "1. Segmenting"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:392
+#: complete-book.xml:398
msgid ""
"If you’re 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 "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:403
+#: complete-book.xml:409
msgid ""
"Surveillance capitalism is segmenting times a billion. Diaper vendors can go "
"way beyond people in maternity wards (though they can do that, too, with "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:417
+#: complete-book.xml:423
msgid "This is seriously creepy."
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:420
+#: complete-book.xml:426
msgid "But it’s not mind control."
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:423
+#: complete-book.xml:429
msgid "It doesn’t deprive you of your free will. It doesn’t trick you."
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:426
+#: complete-book.xml:432
msgid ""
"Think of how surveillance capitalism works in politics. Surveillance "
"capitalist companies sell political operatives the power to locate people "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:437
+#: complete-book.xml:443
msgid ""
"But this is an inexact and thus wasteful practice. The union organizer can’t "
"know which worker to approach on the way out of the factory gates and may "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:447
+#: complete-book.xml:453
msgid ""
"Because targeting improves the yields on political pitches, it can "
"accelerate the pace of political upheaval by making it possible for everyone "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:458
+#: complete-book.xml:464
msgid ""
"It’s important to differentiate this kind of political organizing from "
"influence campaigns; finding people who secretly agree with you isn’t the "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:467
+#: complete-book.xml:473
msgid ""
"But the personal accounts of those who have come out tell a different story "
"where people who long harbored a secret about their gender were emboldened "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:476
+#: complete-book.xml:482
msgid "2. Deception"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:478
+#: complete-book.xml:484
msgid ""
"Lies and fraud are pernicious, and surveillance capitalism supercharges them "
"through targeting. If you want to sell a fraudulent payday loan or subprime "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:490
+#: complete-book.xml:496
msgid ""
"Surveillance capitalism also abets fraud by making it easy to locate other "
"people who have been similarly deceived, forming a community of people who "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:500
+#: complete-book.xml:506
msgid ""
"Sometimes, online deception involves replacing someone’s correct beliefs "
"with incorrect ones, as it does in the anti-vaccination movement, whose "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:507
+#: complete-book.xml:513
msgid ""
"But it’s much more common for fraud to succeed when it doesn’t have to "
"displace a true belief. When my daughter contracted head lice at daycare, "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:518
+#: complete-book.xml:524
msgid ""
"This is pernicious and difficult — and it’s also the kind of thing the "
"internet can help guard against by making true information available, "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:535
+#: complete-book.xml:541
msgid "3. Domination"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:537
+#: complete-book.xml:543
msgid ""
"Surveillance capitalism is the result of monopoly. Monopoly is the cause, "
"and surveillance capitalism and its negative outcomes are the effects of "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:546
+#: complete-book.xml:552
msgid ""
"One example of how monopolism aids in persuasion is through dominance: "
"Google makes editorial decisions about its algorithms that determine the "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:559
+#: complete-book.xml:565
msgid ""
"Google’s dominance over search — more than 86% of web searches are performed "
"through Google — means that the way it orders its search results has an "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:571
+#: complete-book.xml:577
msgid ""
"Zuboff calls surveillance capitalism a <quote>rogue capitalism</quote> whose "
"data-hoarding and machine-learning techniques rob us of our free will. But "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:586
+#: complete-book.xml:592
msgid "4. Bypassing our rational faculties"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:588
+#: complete-book.xml:594
msgid ""
"<emphasis>This</emphasis> is the good stuff: using machine learning, "
"<quote>dark patterns,</quote> engagement hacking, and other techniques to "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:594
+#: complete-book.xml:600
msgid ""
"Some of these techniques have proven devastatingly effective (if only in the "
"short term). The use of countdown timers on a purchase completion page can "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:607
+#: complete-book.xml:613
msgid ""
"Games are extraordinarily good at this. <quote>Free to play</quote> games "
"manipulate us through many techniques, such as presenting players with a "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:618
+#: complete-book.xml:624
msgid ""
"Companies have risen and fallen on these techniques, and the "
"<quote>fallen</quote> part is worth paying attention to. In general, living "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:628
+#: complete-book.xml:634
msgid ""
"That’s why behavioral conditioning uses <quote>intermittent reinforcement "
"schedules.</quote> Instead of giving you a steady drip of encouragement or "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:636
+#: complete-book.xml:642
msgid ""
"Intermittent reinforcement is a powerful behavioral tool, but it also "
"represents a collective action problem for surveillance capitalism. The "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:651
+#: complete-book.xml:657
msgid ""
"From the surveillance capitalist’s point of view, our adaptive capacity is "
"like a harmful bacterium that deprives it of its food source — our attention "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:666
+#: complete-book.xml:672
msgid ""
"Not everyone, of course. Some people never adapt to stimulus, just as some "
"people never stop hearing the hum of the refrigerator. This is why most "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:674
+#: complete-book.xml:680
msgid ""
"But surveillance capitalism’s margins on behavioral modification "
"suck. Tripling the rate at which someone buys a widget sounds great <ulink "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:684
+#: complete-book.xml:690
msgid ""
"Slot machines’ high returns mean that they can be profitable just by "
"draining the fortunes of the small rump of people who are pathologically "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:702
+#: complete-book.xml:708
msgid ""
"The vulnerability of small segments of the population to dramatic, efficient "
"corporate manipulation is a real concern that’s worthy of our attention and "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:709
+#: complete-book.xml:715
msgid "If data is the new oil, then surveillance capitalism’s engine has a leak"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:712
+#: complete-book.xml:718
msgid ""
"This adaptation problem offers an explanation for one of surveillance "
"capitalism’s most alarming traits: its relentless hunger for data and its "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:719
+#: complete-book.xml:725
msgid ""
"Zuboff observes this phenomenon and concludes that data must be very "
"valuable if surveillance capitalism is so hungry for it. (In her words: "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:734
+#: complete-book.xml:740
msgid ""
"Of course, all of Big Tech’s persuasion techniques work in concert with one "
"another, and collecting data is useful beyond mere behavioral trickery."
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:739
+#: complete-book.xml:745
msgid ""
"If someone wants to recruit you to buy a refrigerator or join a pogrom, they "
"might use profiling and targeting to send messages to people they judge to "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:753
+#: complete-book.xml:759
msgid ""
"Each phase of this process benefits from surveillance: The more data they "
"have, the more precisely they can profile you and target you with specific "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:760
+#: complete-book.xml:766
msgid ""
"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 "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:767
+#: complete-book.xml:773
msgid ""
"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 "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:777
+#: complete-book.xml:783
msgid ""
"There is one way in which targeted advertising uniquely benefits those "
"advocating for socially unacceptable causes: It is invisible. Racism is "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:792
+#: complete-book.xml:798
msgid ""
"But even if you wanted to advertise your Nazi movement on a billboard or "
"prime-time TV or the sports section, you would struggle to find anyone "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:800
+#: complete-book.xml:806
msgid ""
"Targeted ads solve this problem: On the internet, every ad unit can be "
"different for every person, meaning that you can buy ads that are only shown "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:811
+#: complete-book.xml:817
msgid ""
"Online ads are placed by algorithms that broker between a diverse ecosystem "
"of self-serve ad platforms that anyone can buy an ad through, so the Nazi ad "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:825
+#: complete-book.xml:831
msgid ""
"These layers of indirection between advertisers and publishers serve as "
"moral buffers: Today’s moral consensus is largely that publishers shouldn’t "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:833
+#: complete-book.xml:839
msgid ""
"Data has a complex relationship with domination. Being able to spy on your "
"customers can alert you to their preferences for your rivals and allow you "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:838
+#: complete-book.xml:844
msgid ""
"More importantly, if you can dominate the information space while also "
"gathering data, then you make other deceptive tactics stronger because it’s "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:847
+#: complete-book.xml:853
msgid ""
"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 "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:856
+#: complete-book.xml:862
msgid ""
"Surveillance capitalists are like stage mentalists who claim that their "
"extraordinary insights into human behavior let them guess the word that you "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:863
+#: complete-book.xml:869
msgid ""
"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 "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:871
+#: complete-book.xml:877
msgid ""
"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 "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:882
+#: complete-book.xml:888
msgid ""
"Pick-up artists <emphasis>believe</emphasis> they have figured out a secret "
"back door that bypasses women’s critical faculties, but they haven’t. Many "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:891
+#: complete-book.xml:897
msgid ""
"Pick-up artists are proof that people can believe they have developed a "
"system of mind control <emphasis>even when it doesn’t "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:909
+#: complete-book.xml:915
msgid ""
"Department store pioneer John Wanamaker is said to have lamented, "
"<quote>Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:919
+#: complete-book.xml:925
msgid "What is Facebook?"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:921
+#: complete-book.xml:927
msgid ""
"Facebook is heralded as the origin of all of our modern plagues, and it’s "
"not hard to see why. Some tech companies want to lock their users in but "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:933
+#: complete-book.xml:939
msgid ""
"Facebook’s surveillance regime is really without parallel in the Western "
"world. Though Facebook tries to prevent itself from being visible on the "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:947
+#: complete-book.xml:953
msgid ""
"Big Tech is able to practice surveillance not just because it is tech but "
"because it is <emphasis>big</emphasis>."
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:952
+#: complete-book.xml:958
msgid ""
"Facebook offers similar tools to app developers, so the apps — games, fart "
"machines, business review services, apps for keeping abreast of your kid’s "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:963
+#: complete-book.xml:969
msgid ""
"Though it’s easy to integrate the web with Facebook — linking to news "
"stories and such — Facebook products are generally not available to be "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:975
+#: complete-book.xml:981
msgid ""
"And Facebook is incredibly popular, with 2.3 billion claimed users (though "
"many believe this figure to be inflated). Facebook has been used to organize "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:986
+#: complete-book.xml:992
msgid ""
"To understand what role Facebook plays in the formulation and mobilization "
"of antisocial movements, we need to understand the dual nature of Facebook."
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:991
+#: complete-book.xml:997
msgid ""
"Because it has a lot of users and a lot of data about those users, Facebook "
"is a very efficient tool for locating people with hard-to-find traits, the "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1006
+#: complete-book.xml:1012
msgid ""
"Facebook makes finding people shopping for refrigerators a "
"<emphasis>lot</emphasis> easier. It can target ads to people who’ve "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1022
+#: complete-book.xml:1028
msgid ""
"Facebook also makes it a lot easier to find people who have the same rare "
"disease as you, which might have been impossible in earlier eras — the "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1030
+#: complete-book.xml:1036
msgid ""
"Facebook also makes it much easier to find people who hold the same rare "
"political beliefs as you. If you’ve always harbored a secret affinity for "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1043
+#: complete-book.xml:1049
msgid ""
"All of this presents a dilemma for Facebook: Targeting makes the company’s "
"ads more effective than traditional ads, but it also lets advertisers see "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1054
+#: complete-book.xml:1060
msgid ""
"To make things worse, many Facebook groups spark precious little "
"discussion. Your little-league soccer team, the people with the same rare "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1062
+#: complete-book.xml:1068
msgid ""
"With nothing but <quote>organic</quote> discussion, Facebook would not "
"generate enough traffic to sell enough ads to make the money it needs to "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1068
+#: complete-book.xml:1074
msgid ""
"So Facebook has to gin up traffic by sidetracking its own forums: Every time "
"Facebook’s algorithm injects controversial materials — inflammatory "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1079
+#: complete-book.xml:1085
msgid ""
"Facebook <emphasis>can</emphasis> modify our behavior but only in a couple "
"of trivial ways. First, it can lock in all your friends and family members "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1090
+#: complete-book.xml:1096
msgid ""
"This is why Facebook’s targeting systems — both the ones it shows to "
"advertisers and the ones that let users find people who share their "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1100
+#: complete-book.xml:1106
msgid ""
"The more time you spend on Facebook, the more ads it gets to show you. The "
"solution to Facebook’s ads only working one in a thousand times is for the "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:1112
+#: complete-book.xml:1118
msgid "Monopoly and the right to the future tense"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1114
+#: complete-book.xml:1120
msgid ""
"Zuboff and her cohort are particularly alarmed at the extent to which "
"surveillance allows corporations to influence our decisions, taking away "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1121
+#: complete-book.xml:1127
msgid ""
"It’s true that advertising can tip the scales one way or another: When "
"you’re thinking of buying a fridge, a timely fridge ad might end the search "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1132
+#: complete-book.xml:1138
msgid ""
"By contrast, Zuboff is rather sanguine about 40 years of lax antitrust "
"practice that has allowed a handful of companies to dominate the internet, "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1140
+#: complete-book.xml:1146
msgid ""
"However, if we are to be alarmed that we might lose the right to choose for "
"ourselves what our future will hold, then monopoly’s nonspeculative, "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1146
+#: complete-book.xml:1152
msgid ""
"Start with <quote>digital rights management.</quote> In 1998, Bill Clinton "
"signed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) into law. It’s a complex "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1152
+#: complete-book.xml:1158
msgid ""
"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 "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1160
+#: complete-book.xml:1166
msgid ""
"For example, Section 1201’s first major application was on DVD players as a "
"means of enforcing the region coding built into those devices. DVD-CCA, the "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1172
+#: complete-book.xml:1178
msgid ""
"However, watching a lawfully produced disc in a country other than the one "
"where you purchased it is not copyright infringement — it’s the "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1180
+#: complete-book.xml:1186
msgid ""
"The fact that a movie studio wants to charge Indians less than Americans or "
"release in Australia later than it releases in the U.K. has no bearing on "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1187
+#: complete-book.xml:1193
msgid ""
"So DVD and DVD player manufacturers would not be able to use accusations of "
"abetting copyright infringement to punish manufacturers who made "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1195
+#: complete-book.xml:1201
msgid ""
"That’s where Section 1201 of the DMCA comes in: By banning tampering with an "
"<quote>access control,</quote> the rule gave manufacturers and rights "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1202
+#: complete-book.xml:1208
msgid ""
"This is an odious scam against consumers, but as time went by, Section 1201 "
"grew to encompass a rapidly expanding constellation of devices and services "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><itemizedlist><listitem><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1210
+#: complete-book.xml:1216
msgid ""
"Any device with software in it contains a <quote>copyrighted work</quote> — "
"i.e., the software."
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><itemizedlist><listitem><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1216
+#: complete-book.xml:1222
msgid ""
"A device can be designed so that reconfiguring the software requires "
"bypassing an <quote>access control for copyrighted works,</quote> which is a "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><itemizedlist><listitem><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1223
+#: complete-book.xml:1229
msgid ""
"Thus, companies can control their customers’ behavior after they take home "
"their purchases by designing products so that all unpermitted uses require "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1231
+#: complete-book.xml:1237
msgid ""
"Section 1201 then becomes a means for manufacturers of all descriptions to "
"force their customers to arrange their affairs to benefit the manufacturers’ "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1236
+#: complete-book.xml:1242
msgid ""
"This manifests in many ways: from a new generation of inkjet printers that "
"use countermeasures to prevent third-party ink that cannot be bypassed "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1245
+#: complete-book.xml:1251
msgid ""
"Closer to home, Apple’s iPhones use these measures to prevent both "
"third-party service and third-party software installation. This allows Apple "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1258
+#: complete-book.xml:1264
msgid ""
"Apple’s use of copyright locks also allows it to establish a monopoly over "
"how its customers acquire software for their mobile devices. The App Store’s "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1268
+#: complete-book.xml:1274
msgid ""
"Crucially, Apple’s use of copyright locks gives it the power to make "
"editorial decisions about which apps you may and may not install on your own "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1281
+#: complete-book.xml:1287
msgid ""
"Apple often justifies monopoly power over software installation in the name "
"of security, arguing that its vetting of apps for its store means that it "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1295
+#: complete-book.xml:1301
msgid ""
"Zuboff calls surveillance capitalism a <quote>rogue capitalism.</quote> "
"Theoreticians of capitalism claim that its virtue is that it <ulink "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1306
+#: complete-book.xml:1312
msgid ""
"If our concern is that markets cease to function when consumers can no "
"longer make choices, then copyright locks should concern us at "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:1315
+#: complete-book.xml:1321
msgid "Search order and the right to the future tense"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1317
+#: complete-book.xml:1323
msgid ""
"Markets are posed as a kind of magic: By discovering otherwise hidden "
"information conveyed by the free choices of consumers, those consumers’ "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1329
+#: complete-book.xml:1335
msgid ""
"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 "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1341
+#: complete-book.xml:1347
msgid ""
"Google’s algorithm is often tricked into serving disinformation as a "
"prominent search result. But in these cases, Google isn’t persuading people "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1347
+#: complete-book.xml:1353
msgid ""
"This is true whether the search is for <quote>Are vaccines "
"dangerous?</quote> or <quote>best restaurants near me.</quote> Most users "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1358
+#: complete-book.xml:1364
msgid ""
"Many of the questions we ask search engines have no empirically correct "
"answers: <quote>Where should I eat dinner?</quote> is not an objective "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1369
+#: complete-book.xml:1375
msgid ""
"Google’s search dominance isn’t a matter of pure merit: The company has "
"leveraged many tactics that would have been prohibited under classical, "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1385
+#: complete-book.xml:1391
msgid ""
"If we’re worried about giant companies subverting markets by stripping "
"consumers of their ability to make free choices, then vigorous antitrust "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1395
+#: complete-book.xml:1401
msgid ""
"This goes for many other companies. Amazon, a classic surveillance "
"capitalist, is obviously the dominant tool for searching Amazon — though "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1410
+#: complete-book.xml:1416
msgid ""
"Not every monopolist is a surveillance capitalist, but that doesn’t mean "
"they’re not able to shape consumer choices in wide-ranging ways. Zuboff "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1425
+#: complete-book.xml:1431
msgid ""
"Because of its use of copyright locks, Apple’s mobile customers are not "
"legally allowed to switch to a rival retailer for its apps if they want to "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:1437
+#: complete-book.xml:1443
msgid "Monopolists can afford sleeping pills for watchdogs"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1439
+#: complete-book.xml:1445
msgid ""
"Only the most extreme market ideologues think that markets can self-regulate "
"without state oversight. Markets need watchdogs — regulators, lawmakers, and "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1449
+#: complete-book.xml:1455
msgid ""
"But this kind of regulatory capture doesn’t come cheap. In competitive "
"sectors, where rivals are constantly eroding one another’s margins, "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1455
+#: complete-book.xml:1461
msgid ""
"Many of the harms of surveillance capitalism are the result of weak or "
"nonexistent regulation. Those regulatory vacuums spring from the power of "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1461
+#: complete-book.xml:1467
msgid ""
"Here’s an example: When firms over-collect and over-retain our data, they "
"are at increased risk of suffering a breach — you can’t leak data you never "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1470
+#: complete-book.xml:1476
msgid ""
"But still, firms continue to over-collect and over-retain our data for three "
"reasons:"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1474
+#: complete-book.xml:1480
msgid ""
"<emphasis role=\"strong\">1. They are locked in the aforementioned limbic "
"arms race with our capacity to shore up our attentional defense systems to "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1486
+#: complete-book.xml:1492
msgid ""
"<emphasis role=\"strong\">2. They believe the surveillance capitalism "
"story.</emphasis> Data is cheap to aggregate and store, and both proponents "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1499
+#: complete-book.xml:1505
msgid ""
"<emphasis role=\"strong\">3. The penalties for leaking data are "
"negligible.</emphasis> Most countries limit these penalties to actual "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1510
+#: complete-book.xml:1516
msgid ""
"But the harms from breaches are much more extensive than these "
"actual-damages rules capture. Identity thieves and fraudsters are wily and "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1520
+#: complete-book.xml:1526
msgid ""
"However, even the most ambitious privacy rules, such as the EU General Data "
"Protection Regulation, fall far short of capturing the negative "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1527
+#: complete-book.xml:1533
msgid ""
"This tolerance of — or indifference to — data over-collection and "
"over-retention can be ascribed in part to the sheer lobbying muscle of the "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1535
+#: complete-book.xml:1541
msgid ""
"And then there’s state surveillance, which the surveillance capitalism story "
"dismisses as a relic of another era when the big worry was being jailed for "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1541
+#: complete-book.xml:1547
msgid ""
"But state surveillance and private surveillance are intimately related. As "
"we saw when Apple was conscripted by the Chinese government as a vital "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1549
+#: complete-book.xml:1555
msgid ""
"Whether it’s Google being used as a location tracking tool by local law "
"enforcement across the U.S. or the use of social media tracking by the "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1567
+#: complete-book.xml:1573
msgid ""
"Monopolism is key to the project of mass state surveillance. It’s true that "
"smaller tech firms are apt to be less well-defended than Big Tech, whose "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1576
+#: complete-book.xml:1582
msgid ""
"A concentrated tech sector that works with authorities is a much more "
"powerful ally in the project of mass state surveillance than a fragmented "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1590
+#: complete-book.xml:1596
msgid ""
"They can even make a good case for doing this: After all, when there are "
"only four or five big companies in an industry, everyone qualified to "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1599
+#: complete-book.xml:1605
msgid ""
"While surveillance doesn’t cause monopolies, monopolies certainly abet "
"surveillance."
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1604
+#: complete-book.xml:1610
msgid ""
"Industries that are competitive are fragmented — composed of companies that "
"are at each other’s throats all the time and eroding one another’s margins "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1612
+#: complete-book.xml:1618
msgid ""
"Surveillance combined with machine learning is supposed to be an existential "
"crisis, a species-defining moment at which our free will is just a few more "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1620
+#: complete-book.xml:1626
msgid "But that threat grows out of monopoly."
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1623
+#: complete-book.xml:1629
msgid ""
"One of the consequences of tech’s regulatory capture is that it can shift "
"liability for poor security decisions onto its customers and the wider "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1631
+#: complete-book.xml:1637
msgid ""
"IT is the only field in which this is practiced: No one builds a bridge or a "
"hospital and keeps the composition of the steel or the equations used to "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1640
+#: complete-book.xml:1646
msgid ""
"The monopoly power that keeps any meaningful consequences for breaches at "
"bay means that tech companies continue to build terrible products that are "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1650
+#: complete-book.xml:1656
msgid ""
"These bad security decisions are compounded yet again by the use of "
"copyright locks to enforce business-model decisions against "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1658
+#: complete-book.xml:1664
msgid ""
"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) "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1666
+#: complete-book.xml:1672
msgid ""
"This amounts to a manufacturer’s veto over safety warnings and "
"criticism. While this is far from the legislative intent of the DMCA and its "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1674
+#: complete-book.xml:1680
msgid ""
"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 "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1684
+#: complete-book.xml:1690
msgid ""
"And unlike mind-control rays, enforced silence over security is an "
"immediate, documented problem, and it <emphasis>does</emphasis> constitute "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1693
+#: complete-book.xml:1699
msgid ""
"In software design, <quote>technology debt</quote> refers to old, baked-in "
"decisions that turn out to be bad ones in hindsight. Perhaps a long-ago "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1711
+#: complete-book.xml:1717
msgid ""
"Typically, technology debt results in a technological bankruptcy: The "
"product gets so brittle and unsustainable that it fails "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1722
+#: complete-book.xml:1728
msgid ""
"But the technology debt created by copyright locks isn’t individual debt; "
"it’s systemic. Everyone in the world is exposed to this over-leverage, as "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:1734
+#: complete-book.xml:1740
msgid "Privacy and monopoly"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1736
+#: complete-book.xml:1742
msgid ""
"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 "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1748
+#: complete-book.xml:1754
msgid ""
"Surveillance tech is far from the first industry to embrace a nonsensical, "
"self-serving belief that harms the rest of the world, and it is not the "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1760
+#: complete-book.xml:1766
msgid ""
"This is not to say that there’s nothing wrong with Big Tech and its "
"ideological addiction to data. While surveillance’s benefits are mostly "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1766
+#: complete-book.xml:1772
msgid ""
"There’s real irony here. The belief in surveillance capitalism as a "
"<quote>rogue capitalism</quote> is driven by the belief that markets "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1773
+#: complete-book.xml:1779
msgid ""
"But monopolists get to do terrible things for a long time before they pay "
"the price. Think of how concentration in the finance sector allowed the "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1788
+#: complete-book.xml:1794
msgid ""
"Big Tech is able to practice surveillance not just because it is tech but "
"because it is <emphasis>big</emphasis>. The reason every web publisher "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1797
+#: complete-book.xml:1803
msgid ""
"The reason the world’s governments have been slow to create meaningful "
"penalties for privacy breaches is that Big Tech’s concentration produces "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1805
+#: complete-book.xml:1811
msgid ""
"The reason that the smartest engineers in the world want to work for Big "
"Tech is that Big Tech commands the lion’s share of tech industry jobs."
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1810
+#: complete-book.xml:1816
msgid ""
"The reason people who are aghast at Facebook’s and Google’s and Amazon’s "
"data-handling practices continue to use these services is that all their "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1816
+#: complete-book.xml:1822
msgid ""
"Competitive markets would weaken the companies’ lobbying muscle by reducing "
"their profits and pitting them against each other in regulatory forums. It "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1827
+#: complete-book.xml:1833
msgid ""
"In other words, while surveillance doesn’t cause monopolies, monopolies "
"certainly abet surveillance."
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:1831
+#: complete-book.xml:1837
msgid "Ronald Reagan, pioneer of tech monopolism"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1833
+#: complete-book.xml:1839
msgid ""
"Technology exceptionalism is a sin, whether it’s practiced by technology’s "
"blind proponents or by its critics. Both of these camps are prone to "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1845
+#: complete-book.xml:1851
msgid ""
"To understand how tech became so monopolistic, it’s useful to look at the "
"dawn of the consumer tech industry: 1979, the year the Apple II Plus "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1857
+#: complete-book.xml:1863
msgid ""
"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 "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1866
+#: complete-book.xml:1872
msgid ""
"Then came a fabulist named Robert Bork, a former solicitor general who "
"Reagan appointed to the powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1876
+#: complete-book.xml:1882
msgid ""
"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 "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1884
+#: complete-book.xml:1890
msgid ""
"Bork’s theories were especially palatable to the same power brokers who "
"backed Reagan, and Reagan’s Department of Justice and other agencies began "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1893
+#: complete-book.xml:1899
msgid ""
"Little by little, Bork’s theories entered the mainstream, and their backers "
"began to infiltrate the legal education field, even putting on junkets where "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1903
+#: complete-book.xml:1909
msgid ""
"The history of Bork’s antitrust theories is a really good example of the "
"kind of covertly engineered shifts in public opinion that Zuboff warns us "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1915
+#: complete-book.xml:1921
msgid ""
"Today, many fear that machine learning allows surveillance capitalism to "
"sell <quote>Bork-as-a-Service,</quote> at internet speeds, so that you can "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1928
+#: complete-book.xml:1934
msgid ""
"The idea that tech forms <quote>natural monopolies</quote> (monopolies that "
"are the inevitable result of the realities of an industry, such as the "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1940
+#: complete-book.xml:1946
msgid ""
"Indeed, the birth of the web saw a mass-extinction event for the existing "
"giant, wildly profitable proprietary technologies that had capital, network "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1954
+#: complete-book.xml:1960
msgid ""
"Yes, tech is heavily monopolized and is now closely associated with industry "
"concentration, but this has more to do with a matter of timing than its "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1966
+#: complete-book.xml:1972
msgid ""
"In support of this thesis, I offer the concentration that every "
"<emphasis>other</emphasis> industry has undergone over the same period. From "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1981
+#: complete-book.xml:1987
msgid ""
"Again: When you change the laws intended to prevent monopolies and then "
"monopolies form in exactly the way the law was supposed to prevent, it is "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:1993
+#: complete-book.xml:1999
msgid "Steering with the windshield wipers"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:1995
+#: complete-book.xml:2001
msgid ""
"It’s been 40 years since Bork’s project to rehabilitate monopolies achieved "
"liftoff, and that is a generation and a half, which is plenty of time to "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2005
+#: complete-book.xml:2011
msgid ""
"After 40 years of studiously ignoring antitrust analysis and enforcement, "
"it’s not surprising that we’ve all but forgotten that antitrust exists, that "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2013
+#: complete-book.xml:2019
msgid ""
"Antitrust is a market society’s steering wheel, the control of first resort "
"to keep would-be masters of the universe in their lanes. But Bork and his "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2023
+#: complete-book.xml:2029
msgid ""
"It’s like a 1960s science-fiction plot come to life: People stuck in a "
"<quote>generation ship,</quote> plying its way across the stars, a ship once "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:2033
+#: complete-book.xml:2039
msgid "Surveillance still matters"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2035
+#: complete-book.xml:2041
msgid ""
"None of this is to minimize the problems with surveillance. Surveillance "
"matters, and Big Tech’s use of surveillance <emphasis>is</emphasis> an "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2042
+#: complete-book.xml:2048
msgid ""
"Surveillance has become <emphasis>much</emphasis> more efficient thanks to "
"Big Tech. In 1989, the Stasi — the East German secret police — had the whole "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2049
+#: complete-book.xml:2055
msgid ""
"Today, we know that the NSA is spying on a significant fraction of the "
"entire world’s population, and its ratio of surveillance operatives to the "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2058
+#: complete-book.xml:2064
msgid ""
"How did the ratio of surveillable citizens expand from 1:60 to 1:10,000 in "
"less than 30 years? It’s thanks to Big Tech. Our devices and services gather "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2079
+#: complete-book.xml:2085
msgid ""
"Let me explain that again: If one in a million people is a terrorist, then "
"there will only be about one terrorist in a random sample of one million "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2087
+#: complete-book.xml:2093
msgid ""
"In reality, the accuracy of algorithmic terrorism detection falls far short "
"of the 99% mark, as does refrigerator ad targeting. The difference is that "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2094
+#: complete-book.xml:2100
msgid ""
"Mass state surveillance is only feasible because of surveillance capitalism "
"and its extremely low-yield ad-targeting systems, which require a constant "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2102
+#: complete-book.xml:2108
msgid ""
"State surveillance is no mere parasite on Big Tech, sucking up its data and "
"giving nothing in return. In truth, the two are symbiotes: Big Tech sucks up "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2111
+#: complete-book.xml:2117
msgid ""
"To see this at work today, look no further than Amazon’s home surveillance "
"device, the Ring doorbell, and its associated app, Neighbors. Ring — a "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2127
+#: complete-book.xml:2133
msgid ""
"In mid-2019, a series of public records requests revealed that Amazon had "
"struck confidential deals with more than 400 local law enforcement agencies "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2139
+#: complete-book.xml:2145
msgid ""
"Ring and law enforcement have found many ways to intertwine their "
"activities. Ring strikes secret deals to acquire real-time access to 911 "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2147
+#: complete-book.xml:2153
msgid ""
"The more the cops buzz-market the surveillance capitalist Ring, the more "
"surveillance capability the state gets. Cops who rely on private entities "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:2158
+#: complete-book.xml:2164
msgid "Dignity and sanctuary"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2160
+#: complete-book.xml:2166
msgid ""
"But even if we could exercise democratic control over our states and force "
"them to stop raiding surveillance capitalism’s reservoirs of behavioral "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2165
+#: complete-book.xml:2171
msgid ""
"This is an area where Zuboff shines. Her chapter on <quote>sanctuary</quote> "
"— the feeling of being unobserved — is a beautiful hymn to introspection, "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2170
+#: complete-book.xml:2176
msgid ""
"When you are watched, something changes. Anyone who has ever raised a child "
"knows this. You might look up from your book (or more realistically, from "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2186
+#: complete-book.xml:2192
msgid ""
"In the digital age, our authentic selves are inextricably tied to our "
"digital lives. Your search history is a running ledger of the questions "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2194
+#: complete-book.xml:2200
msgid ""
"To be observed in these activities is to lose the sanctuary of your "
"authentic self."
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2198
+#: complete-book.xml:2204
msgid ""
"There’s another way in which surveillance capitalism robs us of our capacity "
"to be our authentic selves: by making us anxious. Surveillance capitalism "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2209
+#: complete-book.xml:2215
msgid ""
"Our devices and services are <quote>general purpose</quote> in that they can "
"connect anything or anyone to anything or anyone else and that they can run "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2219
+#: complete-book.xml:2225
msgid ""
"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 "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:2228
+#: complete-book.xml:2234
msgid "Afflicting the afflicted"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2230
+#: complete-book.xml:2236
msgid ""
"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 "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2237
+#: complete-book.xml:2243
msgid ""
"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 "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2247
+#: complete-book.xml:2253
msgid ""
"Today, these activities aren’t just decriminalized in much of the world, "
"they’re considered normal, and the fallen prohibitions are viewed as "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2252
+#: complete-book.xml:2258
msgid ""
"How did we get from prohibition to normalization? Through private, personal "
"activity: People who were secretly gay or secret pot-smokers or who secretly "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2265
+#: complete-book.xml:2271
msgid ""
"The right to choose the time and manner of these conversations was key to "
"their success. It’s one thing to come out to your dad while you’re on a "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2272
+#: complete-book.xml:2278
msgid ""
"Without a private sphere, there’s a chance that none of these changes would "
"have come to pass and that the people who benefited from these changes would "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2279
+#: complete-book.xml:2285
msgid ""
"The corollary is that, unless you think that our society has attained social "
"perfection — that your grandchildren in 50 years will ask you to tell them "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2291
+#: complete-book.xml:2297
msgid "A private realm is necessary for human progress."
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:2294
+#: complete-book.xml:2300
msgid "Any data you collect and retain will eventually leak"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2296
+#: complete-book.xml:2302
msgid ""
"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 "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2302
+#: complete-book.xml:2308
msgid ""
"Personally identifying information is of very limited use for the purpose of "
"controlling peoples’ minds, but identity theft — really a catchall term for "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2310
+#: complete-book.xml:2316
msgid ""
"Attackers are not limited to using data from one breached source, "
"either. Multiple services have suffered breaches that exposed names, "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2322
+#: complete-book.xml:2328
msgid ""
"For example, attackers can use leaked username and password combinations to "
"hijack whole fleets of commercial vehicles that <ulink "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2335
+#: complete-book.xml:2341
msgid ""
"Attackers are endlessly inventive in the pursuit of creative ways to "
"weaponize leaked data. One common use of leaked data is to penetrate "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2340
+#: complete-book.xml:2346
msgid ""
"Like spies, online fraudsters are totally dependent on companies "
"over-collecting and over-retaining our data. Spy agencies sometimes pay "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2348
+#: complete-book.xml:2354
msgid ""
"The over-collection of data has a host of terrible social consequences, from "
"the erosion of our authentic selves to the undermining of social progress, "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:2356
+#: complete-book.xml:2362
msgid "Critical tech exceptionalism is still tech exceptionalism"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2359
+#: complete-book.xml:2365
msgid ""
"Big Tech has long practiced technology exceptionalism: the idea that it "
"should not be subject to the mundane laws and norms of "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2365
+#: complete-book.xml:2371
msgid ""
"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."
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2369
+#: complete-book.xml:2375
msgid ""
"Big Tech is not a <quote>rogue capitalism</quote> that cannot be cured "
"through the traditional anti-monopoly remedies of trustbusting (forcing "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2379
+#: complete-book.xml:2385
msgid ""
"The thing is, people have been claiming to have perfected mind-control rays "
"for centuries, and every time, it turned out to be a con — though sometimes "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2385
+#: complete-book.xml:2391
msgid ""
"For generations, the advertising industry has been steadily improving its "
"ability to sell advertising services to businesses while only making "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2395
+#: complete-book.xml:2401
msgid ""
"The tech industry has made enormous improvements in the science of "
"convincing businesses that they’re good at advertising while their actual "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2407
+#: complete-book.xml:2413
msgid ""
"It’s tempting to think that if businesses are willing to pour billions into "
"a venture that the venture must be a good one. Yet there are plenty of times "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2421
+#: complete-book.xml:2427
msgid ""
"The claims of Big Tech’s mind-control system are full of tells that the "
"enterprise is a con. For example, <ulink "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2431
+#: complete-book.xml:2437
msgid ""
"Big Tech’s promotional materials also claim that their algorithms can "
"accurately perform <quote>sentiment analysis</quote> or detect peoples’ "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2444
+#: complete-book.xml:2450
msgid ""
"Big Tech has been so good at marketing its own supposed superpowers that "
"it’s easy to believe that they can market everything else with similar "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2456
+#: complete-book.xml:2462
msgid ""
"That skepticism should infuse all of our evaluations of Big Tech and its "
"supposed abilities, including our perusal of its patents. Zuboff vests these "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2466
+#: complete-book.xml:2472
msgid ""
"Patent applications take the form of a series of claims and range from broad "
"to narrow. A typical patent starts out by claiming that its authors have "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2481
+#: complete-book.xml:2487
msgid ""
"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 "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2487
+#: complete-book.xml:2493
msgid ""
"With these considerations in hand, it becomes obvious that the fact that a "
"Big Tech company has patented what it <emphasis>says</emphasis> is an "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2494
+#: complete-book.xml:2500
msgid ""
"Big Tech collects our data for many reasons, including the diminishing "
"returns on existing stores of data. But many tech companies also collect "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2504
+#: complete-book.xml:2510
msgid ""
"Data mined for predictive systems doesn’t necessarily produce these "
"dividends. Think of Netflix: The predictive value of the data mined from a "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2515
+#: complete-book.xml:2521
msgid ""
"Businesses pursue fads to the detriment of their profits all the time, "
"especially when the businesses and their investors are not motivated by the "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2524
+#: complete-book.xml:2530
msgid ""
"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 "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:2538
+#: complete-book.xml:2544
msgid ""
"How monopolies, not mind control, drive surveillance capitalism: The "
"Snapchat story"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2541
+#: complete-book.xml:2547
msgid ""
"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 "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2551
+#: complete-book.xml:2557
msgid ""
"Despite frequent promises that it would never collect or analyze its users’ "
"data, Facebook periodically created initiatives that did just that, like the "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2563
+#: complete-book.xml:2569
msgid ""
"The pace at which Facebook ramped up its surveillance efforts seems to have "
"been set by Facebook’s competitive landscape. The more competitors Facebook "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2571
+#: complete-book.xml:2577
msgid ""
"All the while, Facebook was prodigiously acquiring companies, including a "
"company called Onavo. Nominally, Onavo made a battery-monitoring mobile "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2579
+#: complete-book.xml:2585
msgid ""
"Through Onavo, Facebook discovered that it was losing market share to "
"Snapchat, an app that — like Facebook a decade before — billed itself as the "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2591
+#: complete-book.xml:2597
msgid ""
"The story of how Facebook crushed Snapchat reveals the relationship between "
"monopoly and surveillance capitalism. Facebook combined surveillance with "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:2603
+#: complete-book.xml:2609
msgid "A monopoly over your friends"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2605
+#: complete-book.xml:2611
msgid ""
"A decentralization movement has tried to erode the dominance of Facebook and "
"other Big Tech companies by fielding <quote>indieweb</quote> alternatives — "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2612
+#: complete-book.xml:2618
msgid ""
"Fundamentally, each of these services is hamstrung by the same problem: "
"Every potential user for a Facebook or Twitter alternative has to convince "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2622
+#: complete-book.xml:2628
msgid ""
"All of this has conspired to make Facebook — and other dominant platforms — "
"into <quote>kill zones</quote> that investors will not fund new entrants "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2627
+#: complete-book.xml:2633
msgid ""
"And yet, all of today’s tech giants came into existence despite the "
"entrenched advantage of the companies that came before them. To understand "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2634
+#: complete-book.xml:2640
msgid "The hard problem of our species is coordination."
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2638
+#: complete-book.xml:2644
msgid ""
"<quote>Interoperability</quote> is the ability of two technologies to work "
"with one another: Anyone can make an LP that will play on any record player, "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2647
+#: complete-book.xml:2653
msgid ""
"Interoperability is often a source of innovation and consumer benefit: Apple "
"made the first commercially successful PC, but millions of independent "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2662
+#: complete-book.xml:2668
msgid ""
"<quote>Interoperability</quote> is often used interchangeably with "
"<quote>standardization,</quote> which is the process when manufacturers and "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2670
+#: complete-book.xml:2676
msgid ""
"But interoperability doesn’t require standardization — indeed, "
"standardization often proceeds from the chaos of ad hoc interoperability "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2681
+#: complete-book.xml:2687
msgid ""
"Beyond neutral interoperability, there is <quote>adversarial "
"interoperability.</quote> That’s when a manufacturer makes a product that "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2689
+#: complete-book.xml:2695
msgid ""
"Probably the most familiar form of adversarial interoperability is "
"third-party printer ink. Printer manufacturers claim that they sell printers "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2698
+#: complete-book.xml:2704
msgid ""
"Owners of printers take the position that HP and Epson and Brother are not "
"charities and that customers for their wares have no obligation to help them "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2711
+#: complete-book.xml:2717
msgid ""
"Adversarial interoperability has played an outsized role in the history of "
"the tech industry: from the founding of the <quote>alt.*</quote> Usenet "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2725
+#: complete-book.xml:2731
msgid ""
"Today, incumbency is seen as an unassailable advantage. Facebook is where "
"all of your friends are, so no one can start a Facebook competitor. But "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2740
+#: complete-book.xml:2746
msgid ""
"Adversarial interoperability was once the norm and a key contributor to the "
"dynamic, vibrant tech scene, but now it is stuck behind a thicket of laws "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2750
+#: complete-book.xml:2756
msgid ""
"In the absence of a competitive market, lawmakers have resorted to assigning "
"expensive, state-like duties to Big Tech firms, such as automatically "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2758
+#: complete-book.xml:2764
msgid ""
"These measures put a floor under how small we can make Big Tech because only "
"the very largest companies can afford the humans and automated filters "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2763
+#: complete-book.xml:2769
msgid ""
"But that’s not the only way in which making platforms responsible for "
"policing their users undermines competition. A platform that is expected to "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2775
+#: complete-book.xml:2781
msgid ""
"To the extent that we are willing to let Big Tech police itself — rather "
"than making Big Tech small enough that users can leave bad platforms for "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2785
+#: complete-book.xml:2791
msgid ""
"Ultimately, we can try to fix Big Tech by making it responsible for bad acts "
"by its users, or we can try to fix the internet by cutting Big Tech down to "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:2797
+#: complete-book.xml:2803
msgid "Fake news is an epistemological crisis"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2799
+#: complete-book.xml:2805
msgid ""
"Tech is not the only industry that has undergone massive concentration since "
"the Reagan era. Virtually every major industry — from oil to newspapers to "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2806
+#: complete-book.xml:2812
msgid ""
"At the same time, every industry has become something of a tech industry as "
"general-purpose computers and general-purpose networks and the promise of "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2812
+#: complete-book.xml:2818
msgid ""
"This phenomenon of industrial concentration is part of a wider story about "
"wealth concentration overall as a smaller and smaller number of people own "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2820
+#: complete-book.xml:2826
msgid ""
"That means that whenever a regulator asks a question with an obvious, "
"empirical answer (<quote>Are humans causing climate change?</quote> or "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2829
+#: complete-book.xml:2835
msgid ""
"Rich people have always played an outsized role in politics and more so "
"since the Supreme Court’s <emphasis>Citizens United</emphasis> decision "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2838
+#: complete-book.xml:2844
msgid ""
"But the policy distortions of rich individuals pale in comparison to the "
"policy distortions that concentrated industries are capable of. The "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2847
+#: complete-book.xml:2853
msgid ""
"Concentrated industries also find it easier to collaborate on policy "
"objectives than competitive ones. When all the top execs from your industry "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2854
+#: complete-book.xml:2860
msgid ""
"Rising through the ranks in a concentrated industry generally means working "
"at two or three of the big companies. When there are only relatively few "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2866
+#: complete-book.xml:2872
msgid ""
"Highly concentrated industries also present a regulatory conundrum. When an "
"industry is dominated by just four or five companies, the only people who "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2877
+#: complete-book.xml:2883
msgid ""
"All this is to say that the tight social bonds, small number of firms, and "
"regulatory capture of concentrated industries give the companies that "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2883
+#: complete-book.xml:2889
msgid ""
"This is increasingly obvious. Whether it’s payday lenders <ulink "
"url=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/02/25/how-payday-lending-industry-insider-tilted-academic-research-its-favor/\">winning "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2897
+#: complete-book.xml:2903
msgid ""
"It’s really impossible to overstate what a terrifying prospect this is. We "
"live in an incredibly high-tech society, and none of us could acquire the "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2914
+#: complete-book.xml:2920
msgid ""
"In a world as complex as this one, we have to defer to authorities, and we "
"keep them honest by making those authorities accountable to us and binding "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2923
+#: complete-book.xml:2929
msgid "Right now, it’s obviously not."
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2926
+#: complete-book.xml:2932
msgid ""
"The past 40 years of rising inequality and industry concentration, together "
"with increasingly weak accountability and transparency for expert agencies, "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2934
+#: complete-book.xml:2940
msgid ""
"For example, it’s been decades since Exxon’s own scientists concluded that "
"its products would render the Earth uninhabitable by humans. And yet those "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2945
+#: complete-book.xml:2951
msgid ""
"The collapse of the credibility of our systems for divining and upholding "
"truths has left us in a state of epistemological chaos. Once, most of us "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2954
+#: complete-book.xml:2960
msgid ""
"If you’re like me, you probably believe that vaccines are safe, but you "
"(like me) probably also can’t explain the microbiology or statistics. Few of "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2971
+#: complete-book.xml:2977
msgid ""
"I’m 100% certain that vaccinating is safe and effective, but I’m also at "
"something of a loss to explain exactly, <emphasis>precisely,</emphasis> why "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2979
+#: complete-book.xml:2985
msgid ""
"Fake news — conspiracy theories, racist ideologies, scientific denialism — "
"has always been with us. What’s changed today is not the mix of ideas in the "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2988
+#: complete-book.xml:2994
msgid ""
"No one can say for certain why this has happened, but the two dominant camps "
"are idealism (the belief that the people who argue for these conspiracies "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:2996
+#: complete-book.xml:3002
msgid ""
"I’m a materialist. I’ve been exposed to the arguments of conspiracy "
"theorists all my life, and I have not experienced any qualitative leap in "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3001
+#: complete-book.xml:3007
msgid ""
"The major difference is in the world, not the arguments. In a time where "
"actual conspiracies are commonplace, conspiracy theories acquire a ring of "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3006
+#: complete-book.xml:3012
msgid ""
"We have always had disagreements about what’s true, but today, we have a "
"disagreement over how we know whether something is true. This is an "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3017
+#: complete-book.xml:3023
msgid ""
"Targeting — surveillance capitalism — makes it easier to find people who are "
"undergoing this epistemological crisis, but it doesn’t create the "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3022
+#: complete-book.xml:3028
msgid ""
"And, conveniently enough, it’s corruption that allows surveillance "
"capitalism to grow by dismantling monopoly protections, by permitting "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:3031
+#: complete-book.xml:3037
msgid "Tech is different"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3033
+#: complete-book.xml:3039
msgid ""
"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 "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3041
+#: complete-book.xml:3047
msgid ""
"I think tech is just another industry, albeit one that grew up in the "
"absence of real monopoly constraints. It may have been first, but it isn’t "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3046
+#: complete-book.xml:3052
msgid ""
"But there’s one way in which I <emphasis>am</emphasis> a tech "
"exceptionalist. I believe that online tools are the key to overcoming "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3057
+#: complete-book.xml:3063
msgid ""
"The hard problem of our species is coordination. Everything from climate "
"change to social change to running a business to making a family work can be "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3062
+#: complete-book.xml:3068
msgid ""
"The internet makes it easier than at any time before to find people who want "
"to work on a project with you — hence the success of free and open-source "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3068
+#: complete-book.xml:3074
msgid ""
"The internet and the computers we connect to it also possess an exceptional "
"quality: general-purposeness. The internet is designed to allow any two "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3077
+#: complete-book.xml:3083
msgid ""
"This means that every time someone with a special communications need "
"invests in infrastructure and techniques to make the internet faster, "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3086
+#: complete-book.xml:3092
msgid ""
"For these reasons, every type of communication is gradually absorbed into "
"the internet, and every type of device — from airplanes to pacemakers — "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3091
+#: complete-book.xml:3097
msgid ""
"While these considerations don’t preclude regulating networks and computers, "
"they do call for gravitas and caution when doing so because changes to "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3097
+#: complete-book.xml:3103
msgid ""
"The upshot of this is that our best hope of solving the big coordination "
"problems — climate change, inequality, etc. — is with free, fair, and open "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:3105
+#: complete-book.xml:3111
msgid "Ownership of facts"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3107
+#: complete-book.xml:3113
msgid ""
"Big Tech has a funny relationship with information. When you’re generating "
"information — anything from the location data streaming off your mobile "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3114
+#: complete-book.xml:3120
msgid ""
"But when you have the audacity to turn the tables — to use a tool that "
"blocks ads or slurps your waiting updates out of a social network and puts "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3121
+#: complete-book.xml:3127
msgid ""
"The thing is, information is a very bad fit for any kind of private property "
"regime. Property rights are useful for establishing markets that can lead to "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3128
+#: complete-book.xml:3134
msgid ""
"Information rarely has such a clear title. Take phone numbers: There’s "
"clearly something going wrong when Facebook slurps up millions of users’ "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3135
+#: complete-book.xml:3141
msgid ""
"But the phone numbers Facebook nonconsensually acquires in this transaction "
"are not the <quote>property</quote> of the users they’re taken from nor do "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3144
+#: complete-book.xml:3150
msgid ""
"Likewise for the facts that Facebook and other commercial surveillance "
"operators acquire about us, like that we are the children of our parents or "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3157
+#: complete-book.xml:3163
msgid ""
"If you go to a Black Lives Matter demonstration, do the other demonstrators "
"need your permission to post their photos from the event? The online fights "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3166
+#: complete-book.xml:3172
msgid ""
"The fact that information isn’t a good fit with property and markets doesn’t "
"mean that it’s not valuable. Babies aren’t property, but they’re inarguably "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3175
+#: complete-book.xml:3181
msgid ""
"It’s tempting to reach for the property hammer when Big Tech treats your "
"information like a nail — not least because Big Tech are such prolific "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3186
+#: complete-book.xml:3192
msgid ""
"Meanwhile, establishing property rights over information will create "
"insurmountable barriers to independent data processing. Imagine that we "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3201
+#: complete-book.xml:3207
msgid ""
"The same goes for things like search indexes of the web or photos of "
"peoples’ houses, which have become contentious thanks to Google’s Street "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3215
+#: complete-book.xml:3221
msgid ""
"The ownership of facts is antithetical to many kinds of human progress. It’s "
"hard to imagine a rule that limits Big Tech’s exploitation of our collective "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:3225
+#: complete-book.xml:3231
msgid "Persuasion works… slowly"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3227
+#: complete-book.xml:3233
msgid ""
"The platforms may oversell their ability to persuade people, but obviously, "
"persuasion works sometimes. Whether it’s the private realm that LGBTQ people "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3236
+#: complete-book.xml:3242
msgid ""
"The project of shifting societal attitudes is a game of inches and "
"years. For centuries, svengalis have purported to be able to accelerate this "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3247
+#: complete-book.xml:3253
msgid ""
"Yet, after 12 years of terror, once the war ended, Nazi ideology was largely "
"discredited in both East and West Germany, and a program of national truth "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3257
+#: complete-book.xml:3263
msgid ""
"Racism and authoritarianism have also always been with us. Anyone who’s "
"reviewed the kind of messages and arguments that racists put forward today "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3266
+#: complete-book.xml:3272
msgid ""
"If racists haven’t gotten more convincing in the past decade, then how is it "
"that more people were convinced to be openly racist at that time? I believe "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:3285
+#: complete-book.xml:3291
msgid "Paying won’t help"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3287
+#: complete-book.xml:3293
msgid ""
"As the old saw goes, <quote>If you’re not paying for the product, you’re the "
"product.</quote>"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3291
+#: complete-book.xml:3297
msgid ""
"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 "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3303
+#: complete-book.xml:3309
msgid ""
"But the degradation of news products long precedes the advent of "
"ad-supported online news. Long before newspapers were online, lax antitrust "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3316
+#: complete-book.xml:3322
msgid ""
"Then, as news companies <emphasis>did</emphasis> come online, the ad "
"revenues they commanded dropped even as the number of internet users (and "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3326
+#: complete-book.xml:3332
msgid ""
"Paid services continue to exist alongside free ones, and often it is these "
"paid services — anxious to prevent people from bypassing their paywalls or "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3345
+#: complete-book.xml:3351
msgid ""
"We shouldn’t just be concerned about payment and control: The idea that "
"paying will improve discourse is also dangerously wrong. The poor success "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3356
+#: complete-book.xml:3362
msgid ""
"Perhaps paying would fix this, the reasoning goes. If platforms could be "
"economically viable even if you stopped clicking on them once your "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3363
+#: complete-book.xml:3369
msgid ""
"There may be something to that argument, but it still ignores the wider "
"economic and political context of the platforms and the world that allowed "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3368
+#: complete-book.xml:3374
msgid ""
"Platforms are world-spanning and all-encompassing because they are "
"monopolies, and they are monopolies because we have gutted our most "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3379
+#: complete-book.xml:3385
msgid ""
"In this wildly unequal world, paying doesn’t improve the discourse; it "
"simply prices discourse out of the range of the majority of people. Paying "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3384
+#: complete-book.xml:3390
msgid ""
"If you think today’s filter bubbles are a problem for our discourse, imagine "
"what they’d be like if rich people inhabited free-flowing Athenian "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3398
+#: complete-book.xml:3404
msgid ""
"Behind the idea of paying for access is a belief that free markets will "
"address Big Tech’s dysfunction. After all, to the extent that people have a "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3411
+#: complete-book.xml:3417
msgid ""
"Advocates for markets laud their ability to aggregate the diffused knowledge "
"of buyers and sellers across a whole society through demand signals, price "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3423
+#: complete-book.xml:3429
msgid ""
"The profitability of any business is constrained by the possibility that its "
"customers will take their business elsewhere. Both surveillance and lock-in "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3433
+#: complete-book.xml:3439
msgid ""
"Ultimately, surveillance and lock-in are both simply business strategies "
"that monopolists can choose. Surveillance companies like Google are "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:3448
+#: complete-book.xml:3454
msgid "An <quote>ecology</quote> moment for trustbusting"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3450
+#: complete-book.xml:3456
msgid ""
"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 "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3457
+#: complete-book.xml:3463
msgid ""
"Meanwhile, breaking up monopolies is something we seem to have forgotten how "
"to do. There is a bipartisan, trans-Atlantic consensus that breaking up "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3465
+#: complete-book.xml:3471
msgid ""
"But trustbusters once strode the nation, brandishing law books, terrorizing "
"robber barons, and shattering the illusion of monopolies’ all-powerful grip "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3473
+#: complete-book.xml:3479
msgid "Could we find that political will again?"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3476
+#: complete-book.xml:3482
msgid ""
"Copyright scholar James Boyle has described how the term "
"<quote>ecology</quote> marked a turning point in environmental "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3484
+#: complete-book.xml:3490
msgid ""
"But the term <quote>ecology</quote> welded these disparate causes together "
"into a single movement, and the members of this movement found solidarity "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3495
+#: complete-book.xml:3501
msgid ""
"I believe we are on the verge of a new <quote>ecology</quote> moment "
"dedicated to combating monopolies. After all, tech isn’t the only "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3501
+#: complete-book.xml:3507
msgid ""
"You can find partisans for trustbusting in every sector of the "
"economy. Everywhere you look, you can find people who’ve been wronged by "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3511
+#: complete-book.xml:3517
msgid ""
"That’s the good news: With a little bit of work and a little bit of "
"coalition building, we have more than enough political will to break up Big "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3517
+#: complete-book.xml:3523
msgid ""
"But here’s the bad news: Much of what we’re doing to tame Big Tech "
"<emphasis>instead</emphasis> of breaking up the big companies also "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3522
+#: complete-book.xml:3528
msgid ""
"Big Tech’s concentration currently means that their inaction on harassment, "
"for example, leaves users with an impossible choice: absent themselves from "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3534
+#: complete-book.xml:3540
msgid ""
"Yet governments confronting all of these problems all inevitably converge on "
"the same solution: deputize the Big Tech giants to police their users and "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3543
+#: complete-book.xml:3549
msgid ""
"These rules — the EU’s new Directive on Copyright, Australia’s new terror "
"regulation, America’s FOSTA/SESTA sex-trafficking law and more — are not "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3552
+#: complete-book.xml:3558
msgid ""
"That’s because any move to break up Big Tech and cut it down to size will "
"have to cope with the hard limit of not making these companies so small that "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3564
+#: complete-book.xml:3570
msgid ""
"Allowing the platforms to grow to their present size has given them a "
"dominance that is nearly insurmountable — deputizing them with public duties "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3574
+#: complete-book.xml:3580
msgid ""
"We can work to fix the internet by breaking up Big Tech and depriving them "
"of monopoly profits, or we can work to fix Big Tech by making them spend "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:3582
+#: complete-book.xml:3588
msgid "Make Big Tech small again"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3584
+#: complete-book.xml:3590
msgid ""
"Trustbusting is hard. Breaking big companies into smaller ones is expensive "
"and time-consuming. So time-consuming that by the time you’re done, the "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3594
+#: complete-book.xml:3600
msgid ""
"A future U.S. president could simply direct their attorney general to "
"enforce the law as it was written."
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3599
+#: complete-book.xml:3605
msgid ""
"It’s far easier to prevent concentration than to fix it, and reinstating the "
"traditional contours of U.S. antitrust enforcement will, at the very least, "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3607
+#: complete-book.xml:3613
msgid ""
"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 "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3616
+#: complete-book.xml:3622
msgid ""
"If the courts frustrate the Justice Department and the president, the next "
"stop would be Congress, which could eliminate any doubt about how antitrust "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3630
+#: complete-book.xml:3636
msgid ""
"But this only prevents things from getting worse. To help them get better, "
"we will have to build coalitions with other activists in the anti-monopoly "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3639
+#: complete-book.xml:3645
msgid ""
"In an important sense, it doesn’t matter which industry the breakups begin "
"in. Once they start, shareholders in <emphasis>every</emphasis> industry "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:3656
+#: complete-book.xml:3662
msgid "20 GOTO 10"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3658
+#: complete-book.xml:3664
msgid ""
"Fixing Big Tech will require a lot of iteration. As cyber lawyer Lawrence "
"Lessig wrote in his 1999 book, <emphasis>Code and Other Laws of "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3665
+#: complete-book.xml:3671
msgid ""
"If you could wave a wand and get Congress to pass a law that re-fanged the "
"Sherman Act tomorrow, you could use the impending breakups to convince "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3672
+#: complete-book.xml:3678
msgid ""
"But getting Congress to act will require a massive normative shift, a mass "
"movement of people who care about monopolies — and pulling them apart."
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3677
+#: complete-book.xml:3683
msgid ""
"Getting people to care about monopolies will take technological "
"interventions that help them to see what a world free from Big Tech might "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3689
+#: complete-book.xml:3695
msgid ""
"Neither tech nor law nor code nor markets are sufficient to reform Big "
"Tech. But a profitable competitor to Big Tech could bankroll a legislative "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3703
+#: complete-book.xml:3709
msgid ""
"The surveillance capitalism hypothesis — that Big Tech’s products really "
"work as well as they say they do and that’s why everything is so screwed up "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3712
+#: complete-book.xml:3718
msgid ""
"As to why things are so screwed up? Capitalism. Specifically, the monopolism "
"that creates inequality and the inequality that creates monopolism. It’s a "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3723
+#: complete-book.xml:3729
msgid ""
"Surveillance doesn’t make capitalism rogue. Capitalism’s unchecked rule "
"begets surveillance. Surveillance isn’t bad because it lets people "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
-#: complete-book.xml:3732
+#: complete-book.xml:3738
msgid "Up and through"
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3734
+#: complete-book.xml:3740
msgid ""
"With all the problems of Big Tech, it’s tempting to imagine solving the "
"problem by returning to a world without tech at all. Resist that temptation."
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3739
+#: complete-book.xml:3745
msgid ""
"The only way out of our Big Tech problem is up and through. If our future is "
"not reliant upon high tech, it will be because civilization has fallen. Big "
msgstr ""
#. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
-#: complete-book.xml:3749
+#: complete-book.xml:3755
msgid ""
"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 "
projects / text-destroy-surveillance.git / commitdiff