How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism

Wie man den Ãberwachungskapitalismus zerstÃ¶rt

Cory Doctorow

Wie man den Ãberwachungskapitalismus zerstÃ¶rt, von Cory Doctorow.

- Published by Petter Reinholdtsen. + Herausgegeben von Petter Reinholdtsen.

- ISBN 978-82-93828-XX-X (hard cover) + ISBN 978-82-93828-XX-X (gebundenes Buch)

- ISBN 978-82-93828-XX-X (paperback) + ISBN 978-82-93828-XX-X (Taschenbuch)

ISBN 978-82-93828-XX-X (ePub)

@@ -55,7 +55,7 @@ ausreichend hohen Beobachtungspunkt erreichen konnten, von dem aus sie die ErdkrÃ¼mmung hÃ¤tten sehen kÃ¶nnen.

Aber heutzutage braucht es schon einen auÃergewÃ¶hnlichen Glauben, um -weiterhin an die Theorie der Flachen Erde zu glauben - wo man doch bereits +weiterhin an die Theorie der Flachen Erde zu glauben â wo man doch bereits in Grundschulen GoPro-Kameras an Ballons befestigt und sie hoch genug aufsteigen lÃ¤sst, um die ErdkrÃ¼mmung zu fotografieren, vom gewÃ¶hnlichen Ausblick aus einem Flugzeugfenster ganz zu schweigen. @@ -308,17 +308,17 @@ kaufst. Es handelt sich um einen Strahl zur Gedankensteuerung wie aus einem Comic der 1950er Jahre, der von verrÃ¼ckten Wissenschaftlern bedient wird, deren Supercomputer ihnen ewige und umfassende Weltherrschaft garantiert.

Was ist Ãberzeugung?

- Um zu verstehen, weshalb du dich nicht um Strahlen zur Gedankenkontrolle - + Um zu verstehen, weshalb du dich nicht um Strahlen zur Gedankenkontrolle â aber weshalb du dich um Ãberwachung und Big Tech sorgen solltest -, mÃ¼ssen wir einordnen, was wir mit âÃberzeugungâ meinen.

Google, Facebook und andere Ãberwachungkapitalisten versprechen ihren Kunden -(den Werbeunternehmen), dass sich diesen - durch Werkzeuge maschinellen +(den Werbeunternehmen), dass sich diesen â durch Werkzeuge maschinellen Lernes, die mit unvorstellbar groÃen Mengen an persÃ¶nlichen Daten ohne -Zustimmung trainier wurden - Wege erÃ¶ffnen, um das rationale Denken der +Zustimmung trainier wurden â Wege erÃ¶ffnen, um das rationale Denken der Ãffentlichkeit umgehen und ihr Verhalten lenken zu kÃ¶nnen, so dass ein ein -Strom an KÃ¤ufen, Stimmen und anderer erwÃ¼nschter Ergebnisse erzeugt wird +Strom an KÃ¤ufen, Stimmen und anderer erwÃ¼nschter Ergebnisse erzeugt wird.

Die Auswirkungen von Vorherrschaft Ã¼berwiegt die der Manipulation bei weitem und sie sollen im Mittelpunkt unserer Analyse und etwaiger Gegenmittel diff --git a/public/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism.de.pdf b/public/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism.de.pdf index 8ae1a5c..ff06e98 100644 Binary files a/public/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism.de.pdf and b/public/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism.de.pdf differ diff --git a/public/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism.fr.epub b/public/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism.fr.epub index cc8c132..948771a 100644 Binary files a/public/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism.fr.epub and b/public/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism.fr.epub differ diff --git a/public/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism.fr.html b/public/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism.fr.html index d967354..712a5ef 100644 --- a/public/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism.fr.html +++ b/public/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism.fr.html @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism
How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism
Cory Doctorow
Copyright Â© 2020 Cory Doctorow
Copyright Â© 2020 Petter Reinholdtsen
- How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism by Cory Doctorow. + }
Comment dÃ©truire le capitalisme de la surveillance
Cory Doctorow
Copyright Â© 2020 Cory Doctorow
Copyright Â© 2020 Petter Reinholdtsen
+ Comment dÃ©truire le capitalisme de la surveillance par Cory Doctorow.
- Published by Petter Reinholdtsen. + PubliÃ© par Petter Reinholdtsen.
- ISBN 978-82-93828-XX-X (hard cover) + ISBN 978-82-93828-XX-X (Ã©dition reliÃ©e)
- ISBN 978-82-93828-XX-X (paperback) + ISBN 978-82-93828-XX-X (livre de poche)
ISBN 978-82-93828-XX-X (ePub)
- This book is available for purchase from https://www.lulu.com/. + Ce livre est disponible Ã la vente sur https://www.lulu.com/.
- If you find typos, error or have other corrections to the translated text, -please update on https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/rms-personal-data-safe/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism/nb_NO/. + Si vous trouvez des fautes de frappe, des erreurs ou si vous avez d'autres +corrections sur le texte traduit, veuillez mettre Ã jour https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/rms-personal-data-safe/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism/fr/.
- +
- This book is licensed under a Creative Commons license. This license permits -any use of this work, so long as attribution is given and no derivatived -material is distributed. For more information about the license visit -https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/. -
Abstract
+ Ce livre est sous licence Creative Commons. Cette licence permet toute +utilisation de ce travail, tant que l'attribution est donnÃ©e et qu'aucun +matÃ©riel dÃ©rivÃ© n'est distribuÃ©. Pour plus d'informations sur la licence, +visitez https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/. +
RÃ©sumÃ©
Our devices and services gather most of the data that the NSA mines for its surveillance project. We pay for these devices and the services they connect to, and then we painstakingly perform the data-entry tasks associated with @@ -42,8 +42,8 @@ expected. Cory Doctorow has written an extended critique of Shoshana Zuboff's The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, with a non-magical analysis of the problem leading to a different proposal for a solution. -
Table of Contents
The net of a thousand lies
Digital rights activism, a quarter-century on
Tech exceptionalism, then and now
Donât believe the hype
What is persuasion?
1. Segmenting
2. Deception
3. Domination
4. Bypassing our rational faculties
If data is the new oil, then surveillance capitalismâs engine has a leak
What is Facebook?
Monopoly and the right to the future tense
Search order and the right to the future tense
Monopolists can afford sleeping pills for watchdogs
Privacy and monopoly
Ronald Reagan, pioneer of tech monopolism
Steering with the windshield wipers
Surveillance still matters
Dignity and sanctuary
Afflicting the afflicted
Any data you collect and retain will eventually leak
Critical tech exceptionalism is still tech exceptionalism
How monopolies, not mind control, drive surveillance capitalism: The -Snapchat story
A monopoly over your friends
Fake news is an epistemological crisis
Tech is different
Ownership of facts
Persuasion worksâ¦ slowly
Paying wonât help
An âecologyâ moment for trustbusting
Make Big Tech small again
20 GOTO 10
Up and through
The net of a thousand lies
+
Table des matiÃ¨res
The net of a thousand lies
Digital rights activism, a quarter-century on
Tech exceptionalism, then and now
Donât believe the hype
What is persuasion?
1. Segmenting
2. Deception
3. Domination
4. Bypassing our rational faculties
If data is the new oil, then surveillance capitalismâs engine has a leak
What is Facebook?
Monopoly and the right to the future tense
Search order and the right to the future tense
Monopolists can afford sleeping pills for watchdogs
Privacy and monopoly
Ronald Reagan, pioneer of tech monopolism
Steering with the windshield wipers
Surveillance still matters
Dignity and sanctuary
Afflicting the afflicted
Any data you collect and retain will eventually leak
Critical tech exceptionalism is still tech exceptionalism
How monopolies, not mind control, drive surveillance capitalism: The +Snapchat story
A monopoly over your friends
Fake news is an epistemological crisis
Tech is different
Ownership of facts
Persuasion worksâ¦ slowly
Paying wonât help
An Â«Â ecologyÂ Â» moment for trustbusting
Make Big Tech small again
20 GOTO 10
Up and through
The net of a thousand lies
The most surprising thing about the rebirth of flat Earthers in the 21st century is just how widespread the evidence against them is. You can understand how, centuries ago, people whoâd never gained a high-enough @@ -58,8 +58,8 @@ flat.
Likewise for white nationalism and eugenics: In an age where you can become a computational genomics datapoint by swabbing your cheek and mailing it to -a gene-sequencing company along with a modest sum of money, ârace -scienceâ has never been easier to refute. +a gene-sequencing company along with a modest sum of money, Â«Â race +scienceÂ Â» has never been easier to refute.
We are living through a golden age of both readily available facts and denial of those facts. Terrible ideas that have lingered on the fringes for @@ -99,7 +99,7 @@ your belief by locating vulnerable people and then pitching them with A.I.-refined arguments that bypass their rational faculties and turn everyday people into flat Earthers, anti-vaxxers, or even Nazis. When the RAND Corporation blames -Facebook for âradicalizationâ and when Facebookâs role +Facebook for Â«Â radicalizationÂ Â» and when Facebookâs role in spreading coronavirus misinformation is blamed on its algorithm, the implicit message is that machine learning and surveillance are causing the changes in our consensus about whatâs true. @@ -114,7 +114,7 @@ these conspiracy pitchmen? What if the trauma of living through real conspiracies all around us â conspiracies among wealthy people, their lobbyists, and lawmakers to bury inconvenient facts and evidence of wrongdoing (these conspiracies are commonly known as -âcorruptionâ) â is making people vulnerable to conspiracy +Â«Â corruptionÂ Â») â is making people vulnerable to conspiracy theories?
If itâs trauma and not contagion â material conditions and not ideology â @@ -138,7 +138,7 @@ conditions that make people vulnerable to the contagion of conspiracy. Here, too, tech has a role to play.
Thereâs no shortage of proposals to address this. From the EUâs Terrorist Content Regulation, -which requires platforms to police and remove âextremistâ +which requires platforms to police and remove Â«Â extremistÂ Â» content, to the U.S. proposals to force tech companies to spy on their users and hold them liable for their usersâ bad speech, thereâs a lot of energy to force tech companies @@ -148,7 +148,7 @@ to solve the problems they created. solutions assume that tech companies are a fixture, that their dominance over the internet is a permanent fact. Proposals to replace Big Tech with a more diffused, pluralistic internet are nowhere to be found. Worse: The -âsolutionsâ on the table today require Big +Â«Â solutionsÂ Â» on the table today require Big Tech to stay big because only the very largest companies can afford to implement the systems these laws demand.
@@ -168,29 +168,29 @@ prominent criticism leveled against it was that it was irrelevant: The real activist causes were real-world causes (think of the skepticism when Finland declared broadband a human right in 2010), and real-world activism was shoe-leather activism (think of Malcolm Gladwellâs contempt -for âclicktivismâ). But as tech has grown more central +for Â«Â clicktivismÂ Â»). But as tech has grown more central to our daily lives, these accusations of irrelevance have given way first to -accusations of insincerity (âYou only care about tech because youâre +accusations of insincerity (Â«Â You only care about tech because youâre shilling -for tech companiesâ) to accusations of negligence (âWhy -didnât you foresee that tech could be such a destructive force?â). +for tech companiesÂ Â») to accusations of negligence (Â«Â Why +didnât you foresee that tech could be such a destructive force?Â Â»). But digital rights activism is right where itâs always been: looking out for the humans in a world where tech is inexorably taking over.
- The latest version of this critique comes in the form of âsurveillance -capitalism,â a term coined by business professor Shoshana Zuboff in + The latest version of this critique comes in the form of Â«Â surveillance +capitalism,Â Â» a term coined by business professor Shoshana Zuboff in her long and influential 2019 book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of -Power. Zuboff argues that âsurveillance capitalismâ +Power. Zuboff argues that Â«Â surveillance capitalismÂ Â» is a unique creature of the tech industry and that it is unlike any other -abusive commercial practice in history, one that is âconstituted by +abusive commercial practice in history, one that is Â«Â constituted by unexpected and often illegible mechanisms of extraction, commodification, and control that effectively exile persons from their own behavior while producing new markets of behavioral prediction and modification. Surveillance capitalism challenges democratic norms and departs in key ways from the centuries-long evolution of market -capitalism.â It is a new and deadly form of capitalism, a -ârogue capitalism,â and our lack of understanding of its unique +capitalism.Â Â» It is a new and deadly form of capitalism, a +Â«Â rogue capitalism,Â Â» and our lack of understanding of its unique capabilities and dangers represents an existential, species-wide threat. Sheâs right that capitalism today threatens our species, and sheâs right that tech poses unique challenges to our species and civilization, but @@ -205,16 +205,16 @@ Tech, and to do that, we need to start by correctly identifying the problem. campaigning organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Free Software Foundation, Public Knowledge, and others that focused on preserving and enhancing basic human rights in the digital realm â damned activists for -practicing âtech exceptionalism.â Around the turn of the +practicing Â«Â tech exceptionalism.Â Â» Around the turn of the millennium, serious people ridiculed any claim that tech policy mattered in -the âreal world.â Claims that tech rules had implications for +the Â«Â real world.Â Â» Claims that tech rules had implications for speech, association, privacy, search and seizure, and fundamental rights and equities were treated as ridiculous, an elevation of the concerns of sad nerds arguing about Star Trek on bulletin board systems above the struggles of the Freedom Riders, Nelson Mandela, or the Warsaw ghetto uprising.
- In the decades since, accusations of âtech exceptionalismâ have + In the decades since, accusations of Â«Â tech exceptionalismÂ Â» have only sharpened as techâs role in everyday life has expanded: Now that tech has infiltrated every corner of our life and our online lives have been monopolized by a handful of giants, defenders of digital freedoms are @@ -230,7 +230,7 @@ usersâ rights (or, just as often, when companies were acting so foolishly that they threatened to bring down new rules that would also make it harder for good actors to help users).
- The âsurveillance capitalismâ critique recasts the digital + The Â«Â surveillance capitalismÂ Â» critique recasts the digital rights movement in a new light again: not as alarmists who overestimate the importance of their shiny toys nor as shills for big tech but as serene deck-chair rearrangers whose long-standing activism is a liability because @@ -239,8 +239,8 @@ fight the last centuryâs tech battles.
But tech exceptionalism is a sin no matter who practices it.
Donât believe the hype
- Youâve probably heard that âif youâre not paying for the product, -youâre the product.â As weâll see below, thatâs true, if incomplete. + Youâve probably heard that Â«Â if youâre not paying for the product, +youâre the product.Â Â» As weâll see below, thatâs true, if incomplete. But what is absolutely true is that ad-driven Big Techâs customers are advertisers, and what companies like Google and Facebook sell is their ability to convince you to buy @@ -277,7 +277,7 @@ supercomputers guarantee them perpetual and total world domination. To understand why you shouldnât worry about mind-control rays â but why you should worry about surveillance and Big Tech â we must start by unpacking what we mean -by âpersuasion.â +by Â«Â persuasion.Â Â»
Google, Facebook, and other surveillance capitalists promise their customers (the advertisers) that if they use machine-learning tools trained on @@ -303,16 +303,18 @@ market for diapers, and being in a maternity ward is highly correlated with having a baby. Hence diaper ads around maternity wards (and even pitchmen for baby products, who haunt maternity wards with baskets full of freebies).
- Surveillance capitalism is segmenting times a billion. Diaper vendors can go -way beyond people in maternity wards (though they can do that, too, with -things like location-based mobile ads). They can target you based on -whether youâre reading articles about child-rearing, diapers, or a host of -other subjects, and data mining can suggest unobvious keywords to advertise -against. They can target you based on the articles youâve recently -read. They can target you based on what youâve recently purchased. They can -target you based on whether you receive emails or private messages about -these subjects â or even if you speak aloud about them (though Facebook and -the like convincingly claim thatâs not happening â yet). + Le capitalisme de surveillance se segmente par milliard. Les vendeurs de +couches peuvent aller bien au-delÃ des personnes dans les maternitÃ©s (bien +quâils puissent le faire aussi, avec des choses comme les annonces mobiles +basÃ©es sur la localisation). Ils peuvent vous cibler selon que vous lisez +des articles sur lâÃ©ducation des enfants, les couches ou une foule dâautres +sujets, et lâexploration de donnÃ©es peut suggÃ©rer des mots-clÃ©s non Ã©vidents +sur lesquels faire de la publicitÃ©. Ils peuvent vous cibler en fonction des +articles que vous avez rÃ©cemment lus. Ils peuvent vous cibler en fonction de +ce que vous avez rÃ©cemment achetÃ©. Ils peuvent vous cibler selon que vous +recevez des courriels ou des messages privÃ©s sur ces sujets â ou mÃªme si +vous en parlez Ã haute voix (bien que Facebook et autres affirment de +maniÃ¨re convaincante que cela ne se produit pas encore).
This is seriously creepy.
@@ -418,7 +420,7 @@ Google makes editorial decisions about its algorithms that determine the sort order of the responses to our queries. If a cabal of fraudsters have set out to trick the world into thinking that the Brooklyn Bridge is 5,800 feet long, and if Google gives a high search rank to this group in response -to queries like âHow long is the Brooklyn Bridge?â then the +to queries like Â«Â How long is the Brooklyn Bridge?Â Â» then the first eight or 10 screensâ worth of Google results could be wrong. And since most people donât go beyond the first couple of results â let alone the first page of results â Googleâs choice means that many @@ -434,7 +436,7 @@ discover a flaw in the ranking system and exploit it to push its point of view to the top of the search results. Thereâs an obvious remedy to a company that is too big to audit: break it up into smaller pieces.
- Zuboff calls surveillance capitalism a ârogue capitalismâ whose + Zuboff calls surveillance capitalism a Â«Â rogue capitalismÂ Â» whose data-hoarding and machine-learning techniques rob us of our free will. But influence campaigns that seek to displace existing, correct beliefs with false ones have an effect that is small and temporary while monopolistic @@ -447,7 +449,7 @@ futures, the impact of dominance far exceeds the impact of manipulation and should be central to our analysis and any remedies we seek.
4. Bypassing our rational faculties
This is the good stuff: using machine learning, -âdark patterns,â engagement hacking, and other techniques to +Â«Â dark patterns,Â Â» engagement hacking, and other techniques to get us to do things that run counter to our better judgment. This is mind control.
@@ -455,14 +457,14 @@ control. short term). The use of countdown timers on a purchase completion page can create a sense of urgency that causes you to ignore the nagging internal voice suggesting that you should shop around or sleep on your decision. The -use of people from your social graph in ads can provide âsocial -proofâ that a purchase is worth making. Even the auction system +use of people from your social graph in ads can provide Â«Â social +proofÂ Â» that a purchase is worth making. Even the auction system pioneered by eBay is calculated to play on our cognitive blind spots, -letting us feel like we âownâ something because we bid on it, +letting us feel like we Â«Â ownÂ Â» something because we bid on it, thus encouraging us to bid again when we are outbid to ensure that -âourâ things stay ours. +Â«Â ourÂ Â» things stay ours.
- Games are extraordinarily good at this. âFree to playâ games + Games are extraordinarily good at this. Â«Â Free to playÂ Â» games manipulate us through many techniques, such as presenting players with a series of smoothly escalating challenges that create a sense of mastery and accomplishment but which sharply transition into a set of challenges that @@ -472,25 +474,25 @@ and before you know it, youâre buying virtual power-ups to get to the next level.
Companies have risen and fallen on these techniques, and the -âfallenâ part is worth paying attention to. In general, living +Â«Â fallenÂ Â» part is worth paying attention to. In general, living things adapt to stimulus: Something that is very compelling or noteworthy when you first encounter it fades with repetition until you stop noticing it altogether. Consider the refrigerator hum that irritates you when it starts up but disappears into the background so thoroughly that you only notice it when it stops again.
- Thatâs why behavioral conditioning uses âintermittent reinforcement -schedules.â Instead of giving you a steady drip of encouragement or + Thatâs why behavioral conditioning uses Â«Â intermittent reinforcement +schedules.Â Â» Instead of giving you a steady drip of encouragement or setbacks, games and gamified services scatter rewards on a randomized schedule â often enough to keep you interested and random enough that you can never quite find the pattern that would make it boring.
Intermittent reinforcement is a powerful behavioral tool, but it also represents a collective action problem for surveillance capitalism. The -âengagement techniquesâ invented by the behaviorists of +Â«Â engagement techniquesÂ Â» invented by the behaviorists of surveillance capitalist companies are quickly copied across the whole sector so that what starts as a mysteriously compelling fillip in the design of a -serviceâlike âpull to refreshâ or alerts when someone likes +serviceâlike Â«Â pull to refreshÂ Â» or alerts when someone likes your posts or side quests that your characters get invited to while in the midst of main questsâquickly becomes dully ubiquitous. The impossible-to-nail-down nonpattern of randomized drips from your phone @@ -550,11 +552,11 @@ parties.
Zuboff observes this phenomenon and concludes that data must be very valuable if surveillance capitalism is so hungry for it. (In her words: -âJust as industrial capitalism was driven to the continuous +Â«Â Just as industrial capitalism was driven to the continuous intensification of the means of production, so surveillance capitalists and their market players are now locked into the continuous intensification of the means of behavioral modification and the gathering might of -instrumentarian power.â) But what if the voracious appetite is +instrumentarian power.Â Â») But what if the voracious appetite is because data has such a short half-life â because people become inured so quickly to new, data-driven persuasion techniques â that the companies are locked in an arms race with our limbic system? What if itâs all a Red @@ -584,9 +586,9 @@ rebate in April.
Also, the more data they have, the better they can craft deceptive messages â if I know that youâre into genealogy, I might not try to feed you -pseudoscience about genetic differences between âraces,â -sticking instead to conspiratorial secret histories of âdemographic -replacementâ and the like. +pseudoscience about genetic differences between Â«Â races,Â Â» +sticking instead to conspiratorial secret histories of Â«Â demographic +replacementÂ Â» and the like.
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 @@ -654,9 +656,9 @@ domination deprives your target of an escape route. If youâre a Nazi who wants to ensure that your prospects primarily see deceptive, confirming information when they search for more, you can improve your odds by seeding the search terms they use through your initial -communications. You donât need to own the top 10 results for âvoter -suppressionâ if you can convince your marks to confine their search -terms to âvoter fraud,â which throws up a very different set of +communications. You donât need to own the top 10 results for Â«Â voter +suppressionÂ Â» if you can convince your marks to confine their search +terms to Â«Â voter fraud,Â Â» which throws up a very different set of search results.
Surveillance capitalists are like stage mentalists who claim that their @@ -666,14 +668,14 @@ cameras, sleight of hand, and brute-force memorization to amaze you.
Or perhaps theyâre more like pick-up artists, the misogynistic cult that promises to help awkward men have sex with women by teaching them -âneurolinguistic programmingâ phrases, body language +Â«Â neurolinguistic programmingÂ Â» phrases, body language techniques, and psychological manipulation tactics like -âneggingâ â offering unsolicited negative feedback to women to +Â«Â neggingÂ Â» â offering unsolicited negative feedback to women to lower their self-esteem and prick their interest.
Some pick-up artists eventually manage to convince women to go home with them, but itâs not because these men have figured out how to bypass womenâs -critical faculties. Rather, pick-up artistsâ âsuccessâ stories +critical faculties. Rather, pick-up artistsâ Â«Â successÂ Â» stories are a mix of women who were incapable of giving consent, women who were coerced, women who were intoxicated, self-destructive women, and a few women who were sober and in command of their faculties but who didnât realize @@ -704,8 +706,8 @@ theyâre much better at selling themselves to men who pay to learn the secrets of pick-up artistry.
Department store pioneer John Wanamaker is said to have lamented, -âHalf the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I -donât know which half.â The fact that Wanamaker thought that only +Â«Â Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I +donât know which half.Â Â» The fact that Wanamaker thought that only half of his advertising spending was wasted is a tribute to the persuasiveness of advertising executives, who are much better at convincing potential clients to buy their services than they are @@ -725,7 +727,7 @@ users and spying on them all the time. world. Though Facebook tries to prevent itself from being visible on the public web, hiding most of what goes on there from people unless theyâre logged into Facebook, the company has nevertheless booby-trapped the entire -web with surveillance tools in the form of Facebook âLikeâ +web with surveillance tools in the form of Facebook Â«Â LikeÂ Â» buttons that web publishers include on their sites to boost their Facebook profiles. Facebook also makes various libraries and other useful code snippets available to web publishers that act as surveillance tendrils on @@ -740,7 +742,7 @@ machines, business review services, apps for keeping abreast of your kidâs schooling â you use will send information about your activities to Facebook even if you donât have a Facebook account and even if you donât download or use Facebook apps. On top of all that, Facebook buys data from third-party -brokers on shopping habits, physical location, use of âloyaltyâ +brokers on shopping habits, physical location, use of Â«Â loyaltyÂ Â» programs, financial transactions, etc., and cross-references that with the dossiers it develops on activity on Facebook and with apps and the public web. @@ -817,8 +819,8 @@ just how effective their ads are. While advertisers are pleased to learn that Facebook ads are more effective than ads on systems with less sophisticated targeting, advertisers can also see that in nearly every case, the people who see their ads ignore them. Or, at best, the ads work on a -subconscious level, creating nebulous unmeasurables like âbrand -recognition.â This means that the price per ad is very low in nearly +subconscious level, creating nebulous unmeasurables like Â«Â brand +recognition.Â Â» This means that the price per ad is very low in nearly every case.
To make things worse, many Facebook groups spark precious little @@ -828,7 +830,7 @@ exchange the odd flurry of messages at critical junctures, but on a daily basis, thereâs not much to say to your old high school chums or other hockey-card collectors.
- With nothing but âorganicâ discussion, Facebook would not + With nothing but Â«Â organicÂ Â» discussion, Facebook would not generate enough traffic to sell enough ads to make the money it needs to continually expand by buying up its competitors while returning handsome sums to its investors. @@ -871,7 +873,7 @@ it eventually shows you at least one ad that you respond to.
Monopoly and the right to the future tense
Zuboff and her cohort are particularly alarmed at the extent to which surveillance allows corporations to influence our decisions, taking away -something she poetically calls âthe right to the future tenseâ +something she poetically calls Â«Â the right to the future tenseÂ Â» â that is, the right to decide for yourself what you will do in the future.
Itâs true that advertising can tip the scales one way or another: When @@ -894,10 +896,10 @@ ourselves what our future will hold, then monopolyâs nonspeculative, concrete, here-and-now harms should be front and center in our debate over tech policy.
- Start with âdigital rights management.â In 1998, Bill Clinton + Start with Â«Â digital rights management.Â Â» In 1998, Bill Clinton signed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) into law. Itâs a complex piece of legislation with many controversial clauses but none more so than -Section 1201, the âanti-circumventionâ rule. +Section 1201, the Â«Â anti-circumventionÂ Â» rule.
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 @@ -935,7 +937,7 @@ that modified players to let you watch out-of-region discs or software programmers who created programs to let you do this.
Thatâs where Section 1201 of the DMCA comes in: By banning tampering with an -âaccess control,â the rule gave manufacturers and rights +Â«Â access control,Â Â» the rule gave manufacturers and rights holders standing to sue competitors who released superior products with lawful features that the market demanded (in this case, region-free players). @@ -944,11 +946,11 @@ players). grew to encompass a rapidly expanding constellation of devices and services as canny manufacturers have realized certain things:
- Any device with software in it contains a âcopyrighted workâ â + Any device with software in it contains a Â«Â copyrighted workÂ Â» â i.e., the software.
A device can be designed so that reconfiguring the software requires -bypassing an âaccess control for copyrighted works,â which is a +bypassing an Â«Â access control for copyrighted works,Â Â» which is a potential felony under Section 1201.
Thus, companies can control their customersâ behavior after they take home @@ -1004,7 +1006,7 @@ countermeasures â with legal backstops â to block customers from installing unauthorized apps, Chinese iPhone owners cannot readily (or legally) acquire VPNs that would protect them from Chinese state snooping.
- Zuboff calls surveillance capitalism a ârogue capitalism.â + Zuboff calls surveillance capitalism a Â«Â rogue capitalism.Â Â» Theoreticians of capitalism claim that its virtue is that it aggregates information in the form of consumersâ decisions, producing efficient markets. Surveillance capitalismâs supposed power to rob its victims of @@ -1027,15 +1029,15 @@ local knowledge is integrated into a self-correcting system that makes efficient allocationsâmore efficient than any computer could calculate. But monopolies are incompatible with that notion. When you only have one app store, the owner of the store â not the consumer â decides on the range of -choices. As Boss Tweed once said, âI donât care who does the electing, -so long as I get to do the nominating.â A monopolized market is an +choices. As Boss Tweed once said, Â«Â I donât care who does the electing, +so long as I get to do the nominating.Â Â» A monopolized market is an election whose candidates are chosen by the monopolist.
This ballot rigging is made more pernicious by the existence of monopolies over search order. Googleâs search market share is about 90%. When Googleâs ranking algorithm puts a result for a popular search term in its top 10, that helps determine the behavior of millions of people. If Googleâs answer -to âAre vaccines dangerous?â is a page that rebuts anti-vax +to Â«Â Are vaccines dangerous?Â Â» is a page that rebuts anti-vax conspiracy theories, then a sizable portion of the public will learn that vaccines are safe. If, on the other hand, Google sends those people to a site affirming the anti-vax conspiracies, a sizable portion of those @@ -1046,8 +1048,8 @@ prominent search result. But in these cases, Google isnât persuading people to change their minds; itâs just presenting something untrue as fact when the user has no cause to doubt it.
- This is true whether the search is for âAre vaccines -dangerous?â or âbest restaurants near me.â Most users + This is true whether the search is for Â«Â Are vaccines +dangerous?Â Â» or Â«Â best restaurants near me.Â Â» Most users will never look past the first page of search results, and when the overwhelming majority of people all use the same search engine, the ranking algorithm deployed by that search engine will determine myriad outcomes @@ -1057,9 +1059,9 @@ outstrips any behavioral outcomes dictated by algorithmic persuasion techniques.
Many of the questions we ask search engines have no empirically correct -answers: âWhere should I eat dinner?â is not an objective -question. Even questions that do have correct answers (âAre vaccines -dangerous?â) donât have one empirically superior source for that +answers: Â«Â Where should I eat dinner?Â Â» is not an objective +question. Even questions that do have correct answers (Â«Â Are vaccines +dangerous?Â Â») donât have one empirically superior source for that answer. Many pages affirm the safety of vaccines, so which one goes first? Under conditions of competition, consumers can choose from many search engines and stick with the one whose algorithmic judgment suits them best, @@ -1210,7 +1212,7 @@ learning. we saw when Apple was conscripted by the Chinese government as a vital collaborator in state surveillance, the only really affordable and tractable way to conduct mass surveillance on the scale practiced by modern states â -both âfreeâ and autocratic states â is to suborn commercial +both Â«Â freeÂ Â» and autocratic states â is to suborn commercial services.
Whether itâs Google being used as a location tracking tool by local law @@ -1304,7 +1306,7 @@ property.
Recall also that these copyright locks are backstopped by legislation (such as Section 1201 of the DMCA or Article 6 of the 2001 EU Copyright Directive) -that ban tampering with (âcircumventingâ) them, and these +that ban tampering with (Â«Â circumventingÂ Â») them, and these statutes have been used to threaten security researchers who make disclosures about vulnerabilities without permission from manufacturers.
@@ -1317,10 +1319,10 @@ powerful, large firms whose lobbying muscle is unstoppable. Copyright locks are a double whammy: They create bad security decisions that canât be freely investigated or discussed. If markets are supposed to be machines for aggregating information (and if surveillance capitalismâs -notional mind-control rays are what make it a ârogue -capitalismâ because it denies consumers the power to make decisions), +notional mind-control rays are what make it a Â«Â rogue +capitalismÂ Â» because it denies consumers the power to make decisions), then a program of legally enforced ignorance of the risks of products makes -monopolism even more of a ârogue capitalismâ than surveillance +monopolism even more of a Â«Â rogue capitalismÂ Â» than surveillance capitalismâs influence campaigns.
And unlike mind-control rays, enforced silence over security is an @@ -1331,7 +1333,7 @@ especially when those devices also can manipulate the physical world by, say, steering your car or flipping a breaker at a power station â is a kind of technology debt.
- In software design, âtechnology debtâ refers to old, baked-in + In software design, Â«Â technology debtÂ Â» refers to old, baked-in decisions that turn out to be bad ones in hindsight. Perhaps a long-ago developer decided to incorporate a networking protocol made by a vendor that has since stopped supporting it. But everything in the product still relies @@ -1344,7 +1346,7 @@ interest mounting on a predatory subprime loan. And like a subprime loan, the interest mounts faster than you can hope to pay it off: The product team has to put so much energy into maintaining this complex, brittle system that they donât have any time left over to refactor the product from the ground -up and âpay off the debtâ once and for all. +up and Â«Â pay off the debtÂ Â» once and for all.
Typically, technology debt results in a technological bankruptcy: The product gets so brittle and unsustainable that it fails @@ -1378,10 +1380,10 @@ once more data is in hand. self-serving belief that harms the rest of the world, and it is not the first industry to profit handsomely from such a delusion. Long before hedge-fund managers were claiming (falsely) that they could beat the -S&P 500, there were plenty of other ârespectableâ +S&P 500, there were plenty of other Â«Â respectableÂ Â» industries that have been revealed as quacks in hindsight. From the makers of radium suppositories (a real thing!) to the cruel sociopaths who claimed -they could âcureâ gay people, history is littered with the +they could Â«Â cureÂ Â» gay people, history is littered with the formerly respectable titans of discredited industries.
This is not to say that thereâs nothing wrong with Big Tech and its @@ -1389,7 +1391,7 @@ ideological addiction to data. While surveillanceâs benefits are mostly overstated, its harms are, if anything, understated.
Thereâs real irony here. The belief in surveillance capitalism as a -ârogue capitalismâ is driven by the belief that markets +Â«Â rogue capitalismÂ Â» is driven by the belief that markets wouldnât tolerate firms that are gripped by false beliefs. An oil company that has false beliefs about where the oil is will eventually go broke digging dry wells after all. @@ -1398,7 +1400,7 @@ digging dry wells after all. the price. Think of how concentration in the finance sector allowed the subprime crisis to fester as bond-rating agencies, regulators, investors, and critics all fell under the sway of a false belief that complex -mathematics could construct âfully hedgedâ debt instruments +mathematics could construct Â«Â fully hedgedÂ Â» debt instruments that could not possibly default. A small bank that engaged in this kind of malfeasance would simply go broke rather than outrunning the inevitable crisis, perhaps growing so big that it averted it altogether. But large @@ -1409,9 +1411,9 @@ out. The worst offenders of the subprime crisis are bigger than they were in
Big Tech is able to practice surveillance not just because it is tech but because it is big. The reason every web publisher -embeds a Facebook âLikeâ button is that Facebook dominates the +embeds a Facebook Â«Â LikeÂ Â» button is that Facebook dominates the internetâs social media referrals â and every one of those -âLikeâ buttons spies on everyone who lands on a page that +Â«Â LikeÂ Â» buttons spies on everyone who lands on a page that contains them (see also: Google Analytics embeds, Twitter buttons, etc.).
The reason the worldâs governments have been slow to create meaningful @@ -1463,7 +1465,7 @@ enact similar reforms that eventually spread around the world. Antitrustâs story began nearly a century before all that with laws like the Sherman Act, which took aim at monopolists on the grounds that monopolies were bad in and of themselves â squeezing out competitors, creating -âdiseconomies of scaleâ (when a company is so big that its +Â«Â diseconomies of scaleÂ Â» (when a company is so big that its constituent parts go awry and it is seemingly helpless to address the problems), and capturing their regulators to such a degree that they can get away with a host of evils. @@ -1474,12 +1476,12 @@ and who had created an alternate legislative history of the Sherman Act and its successors out of whole cloth. Bork insisted that these statutes were never targeted at monopolies (despite a wealth of evidence to the contrary, including the transcribed speeches of the actsâ authors) but, rather, that -they were intended to prevent âconsumer harmâ â in the form of +they were intended to prevent Â«Â consumer harmÂ Â» â in the form of higher prices.
Bork was a crank, but he was a crank with a theory that rich people really liked. Monopolies are a great way to make rich people richer by allowing -them to receive âmonopoly rentsâ (that is, bigger profits) and +them to receive Â«Â monopoly rentsÂ Â» (that is, bigger profits) and capture regulators, leading to a weaker, more favorable regulatory environment with fewer protections for customers, suppliers, the environment, and workers. @@ -1489,7 +1491,7 @@ backed Reagan, and Reaganâs Department of Justice and other agencies began to incorporate Borkâs antitrust doctrine into their enforcement decisions (Reagan even put Bork up for a Supreme Court seat, but Bork flunked the Senate confirmation hearing so badly that, 40 years later, D.C. insiders use -the term âborkedâ to refer to any catastrophically bad +the term Â«Â borkedÂ Â» to refer to any catastrophically bad political performance).
Little by little, Borkâs theories entered the mainstream, and their backers @@ -1511,7 +1513,7 @@ a sign of virtue, and so on â all of these theories meshed to form a coherent ideology that elevated inequality to a virtue.
Today, many fear that machine learning allows surveillance capitalism to -sell âBork-as-a-Service,â at internet speeds, so that you can +sell Â«Â Bork-as-a-Service,Â Â» at internet speeds, so that you can contract a machine-learning company to engineer rapid shifts in public sentiment without needing the capital to sustain a multipronged, multigenerational project working at the local, state, @@ -1521,7 +1523,7 @@ basically what the platforms claim to be selling. Theyâre just lying about it. Big Tech lies all the time, including in their sales literature.
- The idea that tech forms ânatural monopoliesâ (monopolies that + The idea that tech forms Â«Â natural monopoliesÂ Â» (monopolies that are the inevitable result of the realities of an industry, such as the monopolies that accrue the first company to run long-haul phone lines or rail lines) is belied by techâs own history: In the absence of @@ -1540,7 +1542,7 @@ the combined might of everyone who uses the protocol to reach their customers or users or communities outweighs even the most massive products. CompuServe, AOL, MSN, and a host of other proprietary walled gardens learned this lesson the hard way: Each believed it could stay -separate from the web, offering âcurationâ and a guarantee of +separate from the web, offering Â«Â curationÂ Â» and a guarantee of consistency and quality instead of the chaos of an open system. Each was wrong and ended up being absorbed into the public web.
@@ -1573,8 +1575,8 @@ reasonable to suppose that these facts are related. Techâs concentration can be readily explained without recourse to radical theories of network effects â but only if youâre willing to indict unregulated markets as tending toward monopoly. Just as a lifelong smoker can give you a hundred -reasons why their smoking didnât cause their cancer (âIt was the -environmental toxinsâ), true believers in unregulated markets have a +reasons why their smoking didnât cause their cancer (Â«Â It was the +environmental toxinsÂ Â»), true believers in unregulated markets have a whole suite of unconvincing explanations for monopoly in tech that leave capitalism intact.
Steering with the windshield wipers
@@ -1582,7 +1584,7 @@ capitalism intact. liftoff, and that is a generation and a half, which is plenty of time to take a common idea and make it seem outlandish and vice versa. Before the 1940s, affluent Americans dressed their baby boys in pink while baby girls -wore blue (a âdelicate and daintyâ color). While gendered +wore blue (a Â«Â delicate and daintyÂ Â» color). While gendered colors are obviously totally arbitrary, many still greet this news with amazement and find it hard to imagine a time when pink connoted masculinity.
@@ -1602,7 +1604,7 @@ of these other controls can be repurposed to let us choose where weâre heading before we careen off a cliff.
Itâs like a 1960s science-fiction plot come to life: People stuck in a -âgeneration ship,â plying its way across the stars, a ship once +Â«Â generation ship,Â Â» plying its way across the stars, a ship once piloted by their ancestors; and now, after a great cataclysm, the shipâs crew have forgotten that theyâre in a ship at all and no longer remember where the control room is. Adrift, the ship is racing toward its extinction, @@ -1675,7 +1677,7 @@ product that Amazon acquired and did not develop in house â makes a camera-enabled doorbell that streams footage from your front door to your mobile device. The Neighbors app allows you to form a neighborhood-wide surveillance grid with your fellow Ring owners through which you can share -clips of âsuspicious characters.â If youâre thinking that this +clips of Â«Â suspicious characters.Â Â» If youâre thinking that this sounds like a recipe for letting curtain-twitching racists supercharge their suspicions of people with brown skin who walk down their blocks, youâre right. Ring has become a de facto, @@ -1710,7 +1712,7 @@ rely on them. them to stop raiding surveillance capitalismâs reservoirs of behavioral data, surveillance capitalism would still harm us.
- This is an area where Zuboff shines. Her chapter on âsanctuaryâ + This is an area where Zuboff shines. Her chapter on Â«Â sanctuaryÂ Â» â the feeling of being unobserved â is a beautiful hymn to introspection, calmness, mindfulness, and tranquility.
@@ -1746,19 +1748,19 @@ poke them and prod them and beep at them and buzz at them and bombard them on an intermittent schedule that is just random enough that our limbic systems never quite become inured to it.
- Our devices and services are âgeneral purposeâ in that they can + Our devices and services are Â«Â general purposeÂ Â» in that they can connect anything or anyone to anything or anyone else and that they can run any program that can be written. This means that the distraction rectangles in our pockets hold our most precious moments with our most beloved people -and their most urgent or time-sensitive communications (from ârunning -late can you get the kid?â to âdoctor gave me bad news and I -need to talk to you RIGHT NOWâ) as well as ads for refrigerators and +and their most urgent or time-sensitive communications (from Â«Â running +late can you get the kid?Â Â» to Â«Â doctor gave me bad news and I +need to talk to you RIGHT NOWÂ Â») as well as ads for refrigerators and recruiting messages from Nazis.
All day and all night, our pockets buzz, shattering our concentration and tearing apart the fragile webs of connection we spin as we think through difficult ideas. If you locked someone in a cell and agitated them like -this, weâd call it âsleep deprivation torture,â and it would be +this, weâd call it Â«Â sleep deprivation torture,Â Â» and it would be a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.
Afflicting the afflicted
@@ -1771,8 +1773,8 @@ of social consequence. But for many of us, this is not true. Recall that in living memory, many of the ways of being that we think of as socially acceptable today were once cause for dire social sanction or even imprisonment. If you are 65 years -old, you have lived through a time in which people living in âfree -societiesâ could be imprisoned or sanctioned for engaging in +old, you have lived through a time in which people living in Â«Â free +societiesÂ Â» could be imprisoned or sanctioned for engaging in homosexual activity, for falling in love with a person whose skin was a different color than their own, or for smoking weed.
@@ -1862,14 +1864,14 @@ thatâs the least of our troubles.
Critical tech exceptionalism is still tech exceptionalism
Big Tech has long practiced technology exceptionalism: the idea that it should not be subject to the mundane laws and norms of -âmeatspace.â Mottoes like Facebookâs âmove fast and break -thingsâ attracted justifiable scorn of the companiesâ self-serving +Â«Â meatspace.Â Â» Mottoes like Facebookâs Â«Â move fast and break +thingsÂ Â» attracted justifiable scorn of the companiesâ self-serving rhetoric.
Tech exceptionalism got us all into a lot of trouble, so itâs ironic and distressing to see Big Techâs critics committing the same sin.
- Big Tech is not a ârogue capitalismâ that cannot be cured + Big Tech is not a Â«Â rogue capitalismÂ Â» that cannot be cured through the traditional anti-monopoly remedies of trustbusting (forcing companies to divest of competitors they have acquired) and bans on mergers to monopoly and other anti-competitive tactics. Big Tech does not have the @@ -1885,8 +1887,8 @@ the con artists were also conning themselves. For generations, the advertising industry has been steadily improving its ability to sell advertising services to businesses while only making marginal gains in selling those businessesâ products to prospective -customers. John Wanamakerâs lament that â50% of my advertising budget -is wasted, I just donât know which 50%â is a testament to the triumph +customers. John Wanamakerâs lament that Â«Â 50% of my advertising budget +is wasted, I just donât know which 50%Â Â» is a testament to the triumph of ad executives, who successfully convinced Wanamaker that only half of the money he spent went to waste.
@@ -1894,7 +1896,7 @@ that only half of the money he spent went to waste. convincing businesses that theyâre good at advertising while their actual improvements to advertising â as opposed to targeting â have been pretty ho-hum. The vogue for machine learning â and the mystical invocation of -âartificial intelligenceâ as a synonym for straightforward +Â«Â artificial intelligenceÂ Â» as a synonym for straightforward statistical inference techniques â has greatly boosted the efficacy of Big Techâs sales pitch as marketers have exploited potential customersâ lack of technical sophistication to get away with breathtaking acts of overpromising @@ -1914,15 +1916,15 @@ accumulation, not a sign that managed funds are a good buy.
The claims of Big Techâs mind-control system are full of tells that the enterprise is a con. For example, the -reliance on the âBig Fiveâ personality traits as a -primary means of influencing people even though the âBig Fiveâ +reliance on the Â«Â Big FiveÂ Â» personality traits as a +primary means of influencing people even though the Â«Â Big FiveÂ Â» theory is unsupported by any large-scale, peer-reviewed studies and is mostly the realm of marketing hucksters and pop psych.
Big Techâs promotional materials also claim that their algorithms can -accurately perform âsentiment analysisâ or detect peoplesâ -moods based on their âmicroexpressions,â but these +accurately perform Â«Â sentiment analysisÂ Â» or detect peoplesâ +moods based on their Â«Â microexpressions,Â Â» but these are marketing claims, not scientific ones. These methods are largely untested by independent scientific experts, and where they have been tested, theyâve been found sorely wanting. Microexpressions are particularly @@ -1952,7 +1954,7 @@ invitation to exaggeration. to narrow. A typical patent starts out by claiming that its authors have invented a method or system for doing every conceivable thing that anyone might do, ever, with any tool or device. Then it narrows that claim in -successive stages until we get to the actual âinventionâ that +successive stages until we get to the actual Â«Â inventionÂ Â» that is the true subject of the patent. The hope is that the patent examiner â who is almost certainly overworked and underinformed â will miss the fact that some or all of these claims are ridiculous, or at least suspect, and @@ -1963,7 +1965,7 @@ lengthy, expensive process of contesting it.
Whatâs more, software patents are routinely granted even though the filer doesnât have any evidence that they can do the thing claimed by the -patent. That is, you can patent an âinventionâ that you havenât +patent. That is, you can patent an Â«Â inventionÂ Â» that you havenât actually made and that you donât know how to make.
With these considerations in hand, it becomes obvious that the fact that a @@ -1992,9 +1994,9 @@ labeling and validating data do not get cheaper at scale. especially when the businesses and their investors are not motivated by the prospect of becoming profitable but rather by the prospect of being acquired by a Big Tech giant or by having an IPO. For these firms, ticking faddish -boxes like âcollects as much data as possibleâ might realize a -bigger return on investment than âcollects a business-appropriate -quantity of data.â +boxes like Â«Â collects as much data as possibleÂ Â» might realize a +bigger return on investment than Â«Â collects a business-appropriate +quantity of data.Â Â»
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 @@ -2060,7 +2062,7 @@ Facebookâs surveillance lets it destroy any hope of a rival service emerging that competes on privacy features.
A monopoly over your friends
A decentralization movement has tried to erode the dominance of Facebook and -other Big Tech companies by fielding âindiewebâ alternatives â +other Big Tech companies by fielding Â«Â indiewebÂ Â» alternatives â Mastodon as a Twitter alternative, Diaspora as a Facebook alternative, etc. â but these efforts have failed to attain any kind of liftoff.
@@ -2073,7 +2075,7 @@ accounts, and the reason they have Facebook accounts is that we have Facebook accounts.
All of this has conspired to make Facebook â and other dominant platforms â -into âkill zonesâ that investors will not fund new entrants +into Â«Â kill zonesÂ Â» that investors will not fund new entrants for.
And yet, all of todayâs tech giants came into existence despite the @@ -2083,7 +2085,7 @@ adversarial interoperability.
The hard problem of our species is coordination.
- âInteroperabilityâ is the ability of two technologies to work + Â«Â InteroperabilityÂ Â» is the ability of two technologies to work with one another: Anyone can make an LP that will play on any record player, anyone can make a filter you can install in your stoveâs extractor fan, anyone can make gasoline for your car, anyone can make a USB phone charger @@ -2104,8 +2106,8 @@ Illustrated subscription to business phones with speakers, hold functions, and so on and then answering machines and finally modems, paving the way for the internet revolution.
- âInteroperabilityâ is often used interchangeably with -âstandardization,â which is the process when manufacturers and + Â«Â InteroperabilityÂ Â» is often used interchangeably with +Â«Â standardization,Â Â» which is the process when manufacturers and other stakeholders hammer out a set of agreed-upon rules for implementing a technology, such as the electrical plug on your wall, the CAN bus used by your carâs computer systems, or the HTML instructions that your browser @@ -2118,11 +2120,11 @@ get permission from car manufacturers or even the manufacturers of the dashboard lighter subcomponent. The automakers didnât take any countermeasures to prevent the use of these aftermarket accessories by their customers, but they also didnât do anything to make life easier for the -chargersâ manufacturers. This is a kind of âneutral -interoperability.â +chargersâ manufacturers. This is a kind of Â«Â neutral +interoperability.Â Â»
- Beyond neutral interoperability, there is âadversarial -interoperability.â Thatâs when a manufacturer makes a product that + Beyond neutral interoperability, there is Â«Â adversarial +interoperability.Â Â» Thatâs when a manufacturer makes a product that interoperates with another manufacturerâs product despite the second manufacturerâs objections and even if that means bypassing a security system designed to prevent interoperability. @@ -2147,7 +2149,7 @@ should the refillers concern themselves with the economic fortunes of the printer companies?
Adversarial interoperability has played an outsized role in the history of -the tech industry: from the founding of the âalt.*â Usenet +the tech industry: from the founding of the Â«Â alt.*Â Â» Usenet hierarchy (which was started against the wishes of Usenetâs maintainers and which grew to be bigger than all of Usenet combined) to the browser wars (when Netscape and Microsoft devoted massive engineering efforts to making @@ -2236,10 +2238,10 @@ means that our political outcomes are increasingly beholden to the parochial interests of the people and companies with all the money.
That means that whenever a regulator asks a question with an obvious, -empirical answer (âAre humans causing climate change?â or -âShould we let companies conduct commercial mass surveillance?â -or âDoes society benefit from allowing network neutrality -violations?â), the answer that comes out is only correct if that +empirical answer (Â«Â Are humans causing climate change?Â Â» or +Â«Â Should we let companies conduct commercial mass surveillance?Â Â» +or Â«Â Does society benefit from allowing network neutrality +violations?Â Â»), the answer that comes out is only correct if that correctness meets with the approval of rich people and the industries that made them so wealthy.
@@ -2437,7 +2439,7 @@ coordinate the work you do. quality: general-purposeness. The internet is designed to allow any two parties to communicate any data, using any protocol, without permission from anyone else. The only production design we have for computers is the -general-purpose, âTuring completeâ computer that can run every +general-purpose, Â«Â Turing completeÂ Â» computer that can run every program we can express in symbolic logic.
This means that every time someone with a special communications need @@ -2486,7 +2488,7 @@ address books and uses the phone numbers it finds in them to plot out social graphs and fill in missing information about other users.
But the phone numbers Facebook nonconsensually acquires in this transaction -are not the âpropertyâ of the users theyâre taken from nor do +are not the Â«Â propertyÂ Â» of the users theyâre taken from nor do they belong to the people whose phones ring when you dial those numbers. The numbers are mere integers, 10 digits in the U.S. and Canada, and they appear in millions of places, including somewhere deep in pi as well as @@ -2608,12 +2610,12 @@ these conditions. Inequality creates the conditions for both conspiracies and violent racist ideologies, and then surveillance capitalism lets opportunists target the fearful and the conspiracy-minded.
Paying wonât help
- As the old saw goes, âIf youâre not paying for the product, youâre the -product.â + As the old saw goes, Â«Â If youâre not paying for the product, youâre the +product.Â Â»
Itâs a commonplace belief today that the advent of free, ad-supported media was the original sin of surveillance capitalism. The reasoning is that the -companies that charged for access couldnât âcompete with freeâ +companies that charged for access couldnât Â«Â compete with freeÂ Â» and so they were driven out of business. Their ad-supported competitors, meanwhile, declared open season on their usersâ data in a bid to improve their ad targeting and make more money and then resorted to the most @@ -2659,7 +2661,7 @@ your iPhone should have us very worried indeed. We shouldnât just be concerned about payment and control: The idea that paying will improve discourse is also dangerously wrong. The poor success rate of targeted advertising means that the platforms have to incentivize -you to âengageâ with posts at extremely high levels to generate +you to Â«Â engageÂ Â» with posts at extremely high levels to generate enough pageviews to safeguard their profits. As discussed earlier, to increase engagement, platforms like Facebook use machine learning to guess which messages will be most inflammatory and make a point of shoving those @@ -2692,8 +2694,8 @@ for the product is dandy, if you can afford it. what theyâd be like if rich people inhabited free-flowing Athenian marketplaces of ideas where you have to pay for admission while everyone else lives in online spaces that are subsidized by wealthy benefactors who -relish the chance to establish conversational spaces where the âhouse -rulesâ forbid questioning the status quo. That is, imagine if the +relish the chance to establish conversational spaces where the Â«Â house +rulesÂ Â» forbid questioning the status quo. That is, imagine if the rich seceded from Facebook, and then, instead of running ads that made money for shareholders, Facebook became a billionaireâs vanity project that also happened to ensure that nobody talked about whether it was fair that only @@ -2714,18 +2716,18 @@ to deprive them of the choice to take their business elsewhere. Advocates for markets laud their ability to aggregate the diffused knowledge of buyers and sellers across a whole society through demand signals, price signals, and so on. The argument for surveillance capitalism being a -ârogue capitalismâ is that machine-learning-driven persuasion +Â«Â rogue capitalismÂ Â» is that machine-learning-driven persuasion techniques distort decision-making by consumers, leading to incorrect signals â consumers donât buy what they prefer, they buy what theyâre tricked into preferring. It follows that the monopolistic practices of lock-in, which do far more to constrain consumersâ free choices, are even -more of a ârogue capitalism.â +more of a Â«Â rogue capitalism.Â Â»
The profitability of any business is constrained by the possibility that its customers will take their business elsewhere. Both surveillance and lock-in are anti-features that no customer wants. But monopolies can capture their regulators, crush their competitors, insert themselves into their customersâ -lives, and corral people into âchoosingâ their services +lives, and corral people into Â«Â choosingÂ Â» their services regardless of whether they want them â itâs fine to be terrible when there is no alternative.
@@ -2740,7 +2742,7 @@ Chinese markets. Monopolies may be made up of good, ethical people, but as institutions, they are not your friend â they will do whatever they can get away with to maximize their profits, and the more monopolistic they are, the more they can get away with. -
An âecologyâ moment for trustbusting
+
An Â«Â ecologyÂ Â» moment for trustbusting
If weâre going to break Big Techâs death grip on our digital lives, weâre going to have to fight monopolies. That may sound pretty mundane and old-fashioned, something out of the New Deal era, while ending the use of @@ -2751,7 +2753,7 @@ cyberpunk novel. to do. There is a bipartisan, trans-Atlantic consensus that breaking up companies is a foolâs errand at best â liable to mire your federal prosecutors in decades of litigation â and counterproductive at worst, -eroding the âconsumer benefitsâ of large companies with massive +eroding the Â«Â consumer benefitsÂ Â» of large companies with massive efficiencies of scale.
But trustbusters once strode the nation, brandishing law books, terrorizing @@ -2763,13 +2765,13 @@ backs when they went up against the richest, most powerful men in the world. Could we find that political will again?
Copyright scholar James Boyle has described how the term -âecologyâ marked a turning point in environmental +Â«Â ecologyÂ Â» marked a turning point in environmental activism. Prior to the adoption of this term, people who wanted to preserve whale populations didnât necessarily see themselves as fighting the same battle as people who wanted to protect the ozone layer or fight freshwater pollution or beat back smog or acid rain.
- But the term âecologyâ welded these disparate causes together + But the term Â«Â ecologyÂ Â» welded these disparate causes together into a single movement, and the members of this movement found solidarity with one another. The people who cared about smog signed petitions circulated by the people who wanted to end whaling, and the anti-whalers @@ -2778,7 +2780,7 @@ behind a common cause completely changed the dynamics of environmentalism, setting the stage for todayâs climate activism and the sense that preserving the habitability of the planet Earth is a shared duty among all people.
- I believe we are on the verge of a new âecologyâ moment + I believe we are on the verge of a new Â«Â ecologyÂ Â» moment dedicated to combating monopolies. After all, tech isnât the only concentrated industry nor is it even the most concentrated of industries. @@ -2869,7 +2871,7 @@ companies competing directly with the companies that rely on the platforms. These powers are all in the plain language of U.S. antitrust laws, so in theory, a future U.S. president could simply direct their attorney general to enforce the law as it was written. But after decades of judicial -âeducationâ in the benefits of monopolies, after multiple +Â«Â educationÂ Â» in the benefits of monopolies, after multiple administrations that have packed the federal courts with lifetime-appointed monopoly cheerleaders, itâs not clear that mere administrative action would do the trick. @@ -2877,13 +2879,13 @@ do the trick. If the courts frustrate the Justice Department and the president, the next stop would be Congress, which could eliminate any doubt about how antitrust law should be enforced in the U.S. by passing new laws that boil down to -saying, âKnock it off. We all know what the Sherman Act says. Robert +saying, Â«Â Knock it off. We all know what the Sherman Act says. Robert Bork was a deranged fantasist. For avoidance of doubt, fuck that -guy.â In other words, the problem with monopolies is +guy.Â Â» In other words, the problem with monopolies is monopolism â the concentration of power into too few hands, which erodes our right to self-determination. If there is a monopoly, the law wants it gone, period. Sure, get rid of monopolies that create -âconsumer harmâ in the form of higher prices, but also, +Â«Â consumer harmÂ Â» in the form of higher prices, but also, get rid of other monopolies, too.
But this only prevents things from getting worse. To help them get better, @@ -2900,13 +2902,13 @@ trustbusters ride into town and start making lives miserable for monopolists, the debate around every corporate boardroomâs table will shift. People within corporations whoâve always felt uneasy about monopolism will gain a powerful new argument to fend off their evil rivals in the -corporate hierarchy: âIf we do it my way, we make less money; if we do +corporate hierarchy: Â«Â If we do it my way, we make less money; if we do it your way, a judge will fine us billions and expose us to ridicule and public disapprobation. So even though I get that it would be really cool to do that merger, lock out that competitor, or buy that little company and kill it before it can threaten it, we really shouldnât â not if we donât want to get tied to the DOJâs bumper and get dragged up and down Trustbuster -Road for the next 10 years.â +Road for the next 10 years.Â Â»
20 GOTO 10
Fixing Big Tech will require a lot of iteration. As cyber lawyer Lawrence Lessig wrote in his 1999 book, Code and Other Laws of @@ -2983,7 +2985,7 @@ democratic, accountable control.
I am, secretly, despite what I have said earlier, a tech exceptionalist. Not in the sense of thinking that tech should be given a free pass to monopolize -because it has âeconomies of scaleâ or some other nebulous +because it has Â«Â economies of scaleÂ Â» or some other nebulous feature. Iâm a tech exceptionalist because I believe that getting tech right matters and that getting it wrong will be an unmitigated catastrophe â and doing it right can give us the power to work together to save our diff --git a/public/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism.fr.pdf b/public/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism.fr.pdf index 0daa3e9..26cec43 100644 Binary files a/public/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism.fr.pdf and b/public/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism.fr.pdf differ

Wie man den Ãberwachungskapitalismus zerstÃ¶rt

Cory Doctorow

Was ist Ãberzeugung?