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the age of surveillance capitalism: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism Shoshana Zuboff, 2019-01-15 The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called surveillance capitalism, and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control our behavior. The heady optimism of the Internet’s early days has turned dark. Surveillance capitalism has deepened inequality, sown societal chaos, and undermined democracy. The fight for a human future has never been more urgent. Shoshana Zuboff argues that we still have the power to decide what kind of world we want to live in: Will we allow surveillance capitalism to wrap us in its iron cage as it enriches the few and subjugates the many? Or will we demand the rights and laws that place this rogue power under the democratic rule of law? Only democracy can ensure that the vast new capabilities of the digital era are harnessed to the advancement of humanity. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is a deeply original, exquisitely reasoned, and spell binding examination of our emerging information civilization and the life and death choices we face. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism Shoshana Zuboff, 2019-01-15 The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called surveillance capitalism, and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control our behavior. In this masterwork of original thinking and research, Shoshana Zuboff provides startling insights into the phenomenon that she has named surveillance capitalism. The stakes could not be higher: a global architecture of behavior modification threatens human nature in the twenty-first century just as industrial capitalism disfigured the natural world in the twentieth. Zuboff vividly brings to life the consequences as surveillance capitalism advances from Silicon Valley into every economic sector. Vast wealth and power are accumulated in ominous new behavioral futures markets, where predictions about our behavior are bought and sold, and the production of goods and services is subordinated to a new means of behavioral modification. The threat has shifted from a totalitarian Big Brother state to a ubiquitous digital architecture: a Big Other operating in the interests of surveillance capital. Here is the crucible of an unprecedented form of power marked by extreme concentrations of knowledge and free from democratic oversight. Zuboff's comprehensive and moving analysis lays bare the threats to twenty-first century society: a controlled hive of total connection that seduces with promises of total certainty for maximum profit -- at the expense of democracy, freedom, and our human future. With little resistance from law or society, surveillance capitalism is on the verge of dominating the social order and shaping the digital future -- if we let it. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: After the Digital Tornado Kevin Werbach, 2020-07-23 Networks powered by algorithms are pervasive. Major contemporary technology trends - Internet of Things, Big Data, Digital Platform Power, Blockchain, and the Algorithmic Society - are manifestations of this phenomenon. The internet, which once seemed an unambiguous benefit to society, is now the basis for invasions of privacy, massive concentrations of power, and wide-scale manipulation. The algorithmic networked world poses deep questions about power, freedom, fairness, and human agency. The influential 1997 Federal Communications Commission whitepaper “Digital Tornado” hailed the “endless spiral of connectivity” that would transform society, and today, little remains untouched by digital connectivity. Yet fundamental questions remain unresolved, and even more serious challenges have emerged. This important collection, which offers a reckoning and a foretelling, features leading technology scholars who explain the legal, business, ethical, technical, and public policy challenges of building pervasive networks and algorithms for the benefit of humanity. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: Between Truth and Power Julie E. Cohen, 2019 This work explores the relationships between legal institutions and political and economic transformation. It argues that as law is enlisted to help produce the profound economic and sociotechnical shifts that have accompanied the emergence of the informational economy, it is changing in fundamental ways. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism Cory Doctorow, 2020-12-29 OneZero, Medium's official technology publication, is thrilled to announce a print-on-demand edition of How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism by Cory Doctorow, with an exclusive new chapter. How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism was first published online in August, where it was an instant hit with readers, scholars, and critics alike. For years now, we've been hearing about the ills of surveillance capitalism - the business of extracting, collecting, and selling vast reams of user data that has exploded with the rise of tech giants like Google, Facebook, and Amazon. But what if everything we've been hearing is wrong? What if surveillance capitalism is not some rogue capitalism or a wrong turn taken by some misguided corporations? What if the system is working exactly as intended - and the only hope of restoring an open web is to take the fight directly to the system itself? In Doctorow's timely and crucial new nonfiction work, the internationally bestselling author of Walkaway, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, and Little Brother, argues that if we're to have any hope of destroying surveillance capitalism, we're going to have to destroy the monopolies that currently comprise the commercial web as we know it. Only by breaking apart the tech giants that totally control our online experiences can we hope to return to a more open and free web - one where predatory data-harvesting is not a founding principle. Doctorow shows how, despite popular misconception, Facebook and Google do not possess any mind-control rays capable of brainwashing users into, say, voting for a presidential candidate or joining an extremist group - they have simply used their monopoly power to profit mightily off of people interested in doing those things and made it easy for them to find each other.Doctorow takes us on a whirlwind tour of the last 30 years of digital rights battles and the history of American monopoly - and where the two intersect. Through a deeply compelling and highly readable narrative, he makes the case for breaking up Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple as a means of ending surveillance capitalism. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: The Internet in Everything Laura DeNardis, 2020-01-07 A compelling argument that the Internet of things threatens human rights and security Sobering and important.--Financial Times, Best Books of 2020: Technology The Internet has leapt from human-facing display screens into the material objects all around us. In this so-called Internet of things--connecting everything from cars to cardiac monitors to home appliances--there is no longer a meaningful distinction between physical and virtual worlds. Everything is connected. The social and economic benefits are tremendous, but there is a downside: an outage in cyberspace can result not only in loss of communication but also potentially in loss of life. Control of this infrastructure has become a proxy for political power, since countries can easily reach across borders to disrupt real-world systems. Laura DeNardis argues that the diffusion of the Internet into the physical world radically escalates governance concerns around privacy, discrimination, human safety, democracy, and national security, and she offers new cyber-policy solutions. In her discussion, she makes visible the sinews of power already embedded in our technology and explores how hidden technical governance arrangements will become the constitution of our future. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: Economics for the Many John McDonnell, 2018-11-06 Our economy is rigged in favour of a wealthy elite. We need a new approach: an economics for the many. Big challenges lie ahead for our society: the rise of automation and the threat of catastrophic climate change. But so, too, do the huge possibilities presented by new technology and better ways of organising our economy in the wake of neoliberalism’s failure. With the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader, and the extraordinary turnaround in Labour’s fortunes in the 2017 election, we have a real opportunity to build an economy in Britain that is radically fairer, radically more democratic, and radically more sustainable. But we need the right ideas and strategies if we’re going to get there. Economics for the Many, edited and with an introduction by Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer John McDonnell, features contributions from the participants in his New Economics conferences, including Barry Gardiner, Ann Pettifor, Prem Sikka, and Guy Standing. It covers topics from housing, public ownership, and fairer international trading systems to industrial policy for the twenty-first century and how to tackle tax avoidance and regional imbalances. Together, the essays in this volume lay out a vision for a new economics, one that works for the many, not the few. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: Postcapitalism Paul Mason, 2016-02-09 “A fascinating set of ideas . . . Politicians of all stripes should take note. And so should the people who vote for them.” —Financial Times We know that our world is undergoing seismic change—but how can we emerge from the crisis as a better society? Over the past two centuries or so, capitalism has undergone profound changes—economic cycles that veer from boom to bust—from which it has always emerged transformed and strengthened. Surveying this turbulent history, Paul Mason’s Postcapitalism argues that we are on the brink of a change so big and so profound that this time capitalism itself, the immensely complex system within which entire societies function, will mutate into something wholly new. At the heart of this change is information technology, a revolution that is driven by capitalism but, with its tendency to push the value of much of what we make toward zero, has the potential to destroy an economy based on markets, wages, and private ownership. Almost unnoticed, in the niches and hollows of the market system, swaths of economic life are beginning to move to a different rhythm. Vast numbers of people are changing how they behave and live, in ways contrary to the current system of state-backed corporate capitalism. And as the terrain changes, new paths open. In this bold and prophetic book, Mason shows how, from the ashes of the crisis, we have the chance to create a more just and sustainable economy. Although the dangers ahead are profound, he argues that there is cause for hope. This is the first time in human history in which, equipped with an understanding of what is happening around us, we can predict and shape the future. “Absorbing and provocative.” —Publishers Weekly “An original, engaging, and bracingly articulated vision of real alternatives. It is sure to spark many vigorous debates, and they are precisely the ones we should be having.” —Naomi Klein, New York Times–bestselling author of Doppelganger |
the age of surveillance capitalism: Capital Is Dead McKenzie Wark, 2021-02-09 It's not capitalism, it's not neoliberalism - what if it's something worse? In this radical and visionary new book, McKenzie Wark argues that information has empowered a new kind of ruling class. Through the ownership and control of information, this emergent class dominates not only labour but capital as traditionally understood as well. And it’s not just tech companies like Amazon and Google. Even Walmart and Nike can now dominate the entire production chain through the ownership of not much more than brands, patents, copyrights, and logistical systems. While techno-utopian apologists still celebrate these innovations as an improvement on capitalism, for workers—and the planet—it’s worse. The new ruling class uses the powers of information to route around any obstacle labor and social movements put up. So how do we find a way out? Capital Is Dead offers not only the theoretical tools to analyze this new world, but ways to change it. Drawing on the writings of a surprising range of classic and contemporary theorists, Wark offers an illuminating overview of the contemporary condition and the emerging class forces that control—and contest—it. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: Becoming an Academic Inger Mewburn, 2019-05-07 Your survival guide for graduate school. Welcome to the university, where the Academic Hunger Games, fueled by precarious employment conditions, is the new reality: a perpetual jostle for short-term contracts and the occasional plum job. But Inger Mewburn is here to tell you that life doesn't have to be so grim. A veteran of the university gig economy, Mewburn—aka The Thesis Whisperer—is perfectly placed to reflect on her experience and offer a wealth of practical strategies to survive and thrive. In Becoming an Academic, Mewburn, who has spent over a decade helping PhD students succeed in graduate school, deftly navigates the world of the working academic. Offering tips and tricks for survival, she touches on everything from thesis and article writing and keeping motivation alive to time management, research strategies, mastering new technologies, applying for promotion, dealing with sexism in the workplace, polishing grant applications, and deciding what to wear to give a keynote address. These essays are funny, irreverent, and spot on; Mewburn peppers her writing with wit and wisdom that speaks to graduate students. Constructive, inclusive, hands-on, and gloves-off, this book is a survival manual for aspiring and practicing academics, as well as for students who are considering whether to stay in academia. A field guide to living in the academic trenches without losing your mind (or your heart), Becoming an Academic confirms that—no matter what your experience is in academia—you are not alone. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: The Culture of Surveillance David Lyon, 2018-05-29 From 9/11 to the Snowden leaks, stories about surveillance increasingly dominate the headlines. But surveillance is not only 'done to us' – it is something we do in everyday life. We submit to surveillance, believing we have nothing to hide. Or we try to protect our privacy or negotiate the terms under which others have access to our data. At the same time, we participate in surveillance in order to supervise children, monitor other road users, and safeguard our property. Social media allow us to keep tabs on others, as well as on ourselves. This is the culture of surveillance. This important book explores the imaginaries and practices of everyday surveillance. Its main focus is not high-tech, organized surveillance operations but our varied, mundane experiences of surveillance that range from the casual and careless to the focused and intentional. It insists that it is time to stop using Orwellian metaphors and find ones suited to twenty-first-century surveillance — from 'The Circle' or 'Black Mirror.' Surveillance culture, David Lyon argues, is not detached from the surveillance state, society and economy. It is informed by them. He reveals how the culture of surveillance may help to domesticate and naturalize surveillance of unwelcome kinds, and considers which kinds of surveillance might be fostered for the common good and human flourishing. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: The Victory Lab Sasha Issenberg, 2013-09-17 UPDATED FOR THE 2016 ELECTION The book Politico calls “Moneyball for politics” shows how cutting-edge social science and analytics are reshaping the modern political campaign. Renegade thinkers are crashing the gates of a venerable American institution, shoving aside its so-called wise men and replacing them with a radical new data-driven order. We’ve seen it in sports, and now in The Victory Lab, journalist Sasha Issenberg tells the hidden story of the analytical revolution upending the way political campaigns are run in the 21st century. The Victory Lab follows the academics and maverick operatives rocking the war room and re-engineering a high-stakes industry previously run on little more than gut instinct and outdated assumptions. Armed with research from behavioural psychology and randomized experiments that treat voters as unwitting guinea pigs, the smartest campaigns now believe they know who you will vote for even before you do. Issenberg tracks these fascinating techniques—which include cutting edge persuasion experiments, innovative ways to mobilize voters, heavily researched electioneering methods—and shows how our most important figures, such as Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, are putting them to use with surprising skill and alacrity. Provocative, clear-eyed and energetically reported, The Victory Lab offers iconoclastic insights into political marketing, human decision-making, and the increasing power of analytics. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: Data Politics Didier Bigo, Engin Isin, Evelyn Ruppert, 2019-03-13 Data has become a social and political issue because of its capacity to reconfigure relationships between states, subjects, and citizens. This book explores how data has acquired such an important capacity and examines how critical interventions in its uses in both theory and practice are possible. Data and politics are now inseparable: data is not only shaping our social relations, preferences and life chances but our very democracies. Expert international contributors consider political questions about data and the ways it provokes subjects to govern themselves by making rights claims. Concerned with the things (infrastructures of servers, devices, and cables) and language (code, programming, and algorithms) that make up cyberspace, this book demonstrates that without understanding these conditions of possibility it is impossible to intervene in or to shape data politics. Aimed at academics and postgraduate students interested in political aspects of data, this volume will also be of interest to experts in the fields of internet studies, international studies, Big Data, digital social sciences and humanities. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: The Battle for Paradise Naomi Klein, 2018-06-05 Fearless necessary reporting . . . Klein exposes the ‘battle of utopias’ that is currently unfolding in storm-ravaged Puerto Rico” (Junot Díaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao) “We are in a fight for our lives. Hurricanes Irma and María unmasked the colonialism we face in Puerto Rico, and the inequality it fosters, creating a fierce humanitarian crisis. Now we must find a path forward to equality and sustainability, a path driven by communities, not investors. And this book explains, with careful and unbiased reporting, only the efforts of our community activists can answer the paramount question: What type of society do we want to become and who is Puerto Rico for?” —Carmen Yulín Cruz, Mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico In the rubble of Hurricane Maria, Puerto Ricans and ultrarich “Puertopians” are locked in a pitched struggle over how to remake the island. In this vital and startling investigation, bestselling author and activist Naomi Klein uncovers how the forces of shock politics and disaster capitalism seek to undermine the nation’s radical, resilient vision for a “just recovery.” All royalties from the sale of this book in English and Spanish go directly to JunteGente, a gathering of Puerto Rican organizations resisting disaster capitalism and advancing a fair and healthy recovery for their island. “Klein chronicles the extraordinary grassroots resistance by the Puerto Rican people against neoliberal privatization and Wall Street greed in the aftermath of the island’s financial meltdown, of hurricane devastation, and of Washington’s imposition of an outside control board over the most important U.S. colony.” —Juan González, cohost of Democracy Now! and author of Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America |
the age of surveillance capitalism: Summary of Shoshana Zuboff's The Age of Surveillance Capitalism Swift Reads, 2020-12-04 Buy now to get the insights from Shoshana Zuboff's The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. Sample Insights: 1) Surveillance capitalism claims human experience as free raw material that can be translated into behavioral data for a commercial purpose. 2) Surveillance capitalism is the business model that Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple use. It is a way to make money by using our data, or selling it to advertisers and other companies. Google invented and perfected surveillance capitalism. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: Silicon Values Jillian C. York, 2021-03-23 “One of the leading scholars on Internet control and censorship” explores how Google, Facebook, and Amazon threaten our digital rights—and our democracy (Boston Globe). Who decides what is permissible on the internet: Politicians? Mark Zuckerberg? Users? Who determines when political debate becomes hate speech? How does this impact our identity or our ability to create communities and to protest? From the online calls to arms in the thick of the Arab Spring to the contemporary front line of misinformation, Silicon Values reports on the war for digital rights and how major corporations—Facebook, Twitter, Google, and TikTok—threaten democracy as they harvest our personal data in the pursuit of profit. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: Terms of Service Jacob Silverman, 2015-03-17 Social networking has grown into a staple of modern society, but its continued evolution is becoming increasingly detrimental to our lives. Shifts in communication and privacy are affecting us more than we realize or understand. Terms of Service crystalizes this current moment in technology and contemplates its implications: the identity-validating pleasures and perils of online visibility; our newly adopted view of daily life through the lens of what is share-worthy; and the surveillance state operated by social media platforms—Facebook, Google, Twitter, and others—to mine our personal data for advertising revenue, an invasion of our lives that is as pervasive as government spying. Jacob Silverman calls for social media users to take back ownership of their digital selves from the Silicon Valley corporations who claim to know what's best for them. Integrating politics, sociology, national security, pop culture, and technology, he reveals the surprising conformity at the heart of Internet culture—explaining how social media companies engineer their products to encourage shallow engagement and discourage dissent. Reflecting on the collapsed barriers between our private and public lives, Silverman brings into focus the inner conflict we feel when deciding what to share and what to like, and explains how we can take the steps we need to free ourselves from its grip. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: The Support Economy Shoshana Zuboff, James Maxmin, 2004-01-27 Today’s “managerial” capitalism has grown hopelessly out of touch with the people it should be serving. The Support Economy explores the chasm between people and corporations and reveals a new society of individuals who seek relationships of advocacy and trust that provide support for their complex lives. Unlocking the wealth of these new markets can unleash the next great wave of wealth creation, but it requires a radically new approach—“distributed” capitalism. The Support Economy is a call to action for every citizen who cares about the future. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: Algorithms and the End of Politics Scott Timcke, 2021-02-15 EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. As the US contends with issues of populism and de-democratization, this timely study considers the impacts of digital technologies on the country’s politics and society. Timcke provides a Marxist analysis of the rise of digital media, social networks and technology giants like Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft. He looks at the impact of these new platforms and technologies on their users who have made them among the most valuable firms in the world. Offering bold new thinking across data politics and digital and economic sociology, this is a powerful demonstration of how algorithms have come to shape everyday life and political legitimacy in the US and beyond. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: The Common Good Robert B. Reich, 2019-01-15 Robert B. Reich makes a powerful case for the expansion of America’s moral imagination. Rooting his argument in common sense and everyday reality, he demonstrates that a common good constitutes the very essence of any society or nation. Societies, he says, undergo virtuous cycles that reinforce the common good as well as vicious cycles that undermine it, one of which America has been experiencing for the past five decades. This process can and must be reversed. But first we need to weigh the moral obligations of citizenship and carefully consider how we relate to honor, shame, patriotism, truth, and the meaning of leadership. Powerful, urgent, and utterly vital, this is a heartfelt missive from one of our foremost political thinkers. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: The Intention Economy Doc Searls, 2012-04-10 Caveat venditor—let the seller beware While marketers look for more ways to get personal with customers, including new tricks with “big data,” customers are about to get personal in their own ways, with their own tools. Soon consumers will be able to: • Control the flow and use of personal data • Build their own loyalty programs • Dictate their own terms of service • Tell whole markets what they want, how they want it, where and when they should be able to get it, and how much it should cost And they will do all of this outside of any one vendor’s silo. This new landscape we’re entering is what Doc Searls calls The Intention Economy—one in which demand will drive supply far more directly, efficiently, and compellingly than ever before. In this book he describes an economy driven by consumer intent, where vendors must respond to the actual intentions of customers instead of vying for the attention of many. New customer tools will provide the engine, with VRM (Vendor Relationship Management) providing the consumer counterpart to vendors’ CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems. For example, imagine being able to change your address once for every company you deal with, or combining services from multiple companies in real time, in your own ways—all while keeping an auditable accounting of every one of your interactions in the marketplace. These tantalizing possibilities and many others are introduced in this book. As customers become more independent and powerful, and the Intention Economy emerges, only vendors and organizations that are ready for the change will survive, and thrive. Where do you stand? |
the age of surveillance capitalism: Your Digital Undertaker Sharon Hartung, 2019-02-22 If you are an adult Canadian who uses e-mail and surfs the internet, this book is for you. In a unique and humorous way, this former military officer and tech executive shares what she’s learned about the estate industry and the taboo topic of preparing for one’s own death. Preparing for death doesn’t need to be scary or foreboding. It can actually be liberating and energizing. Join Your Digital Undertaker in an exploration of death in the digital age in Canada, which lifts the lid on how the deathcare and estate industry works today, and tackles it through the project management and digital lens. This exploration includes simple diagrams, easy to understand scenarios, and user options that require only a couple of mouse clicks. You’ll learn your digital life is not isolated from your physical life, as technology is the new player at the estate planning table. Cracking the code to digital death and its afterlife requires deciphering the code for your regular and physical life. By the end of this book, you should feel armed with questions and a perspective on how to tackle your digital life in the context of your overall estate. You might even walk away inspired to get on with dealing with your will and estate plan with estate planning professionals. If you are a named executor in a will or appointed in a Power of Attorney, this book is for you as well, as it might motivate you to ask a lot more questions about your role before you get handed “digital hell in a hand basket”. For those having the challenging conversations with their parents, family members or clients, let Your Digital Undertaker ask some of the basic questions and open the door for a meaningful discussion. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: The Known Citizen Sarah E. Igo, 2018-05-07 Every day Americans make decisions about their privacy: what to share, how much to expose to whom. Securing the boundary between private affairs and public identity has become a central task of citizenship. Sarah Igo pursues this elusive social value across the twentieth century, as individuals asked how they should be known by their own society. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: How to Fix the Future Andrew Keen, 2018-02-06 From data breaches to disinformation, a look at the digital revolution’s collateral damage with “practical solutions to a wide-range of tech-related woes” (TechCrunch). In this book, a Silicon Valley veteran travels around the world and interviews important decision-makers to paint a picture of how tech has changed our lives—for better and for worse—and what steps we might take, as societies and individuals, to make the future something we can once again look forward to. “A truly important book and the most significant work so far in an emerging body of literature in which technology’s smartest thinkers are raising alarm bells about the state of the Internet, and laying groundwork for how to fix it.”?Fortune “After years of giddiness about the wonders of technology, a new realization is dawning: the future is broken. Andrew Keen was among the first and most insightful to see it. The combination of the digital revolution, global hyperconnectivity, and economic dysfunction has led to a populist backlash and destruction of civil discourse. In this bracing book, Keen offers tools for righting our societies and principles to guide us in the future.”?Walter Isaacson, New York Times-bestselling author of Steve Jobs and Leonardo Da Vinci “Comparing our current situation to the Industrial Revolution, he stresses the importance of keeping humanity at the center of technology.”?Booklist “Valuable insights on preserving our humanity in a digital world.”?Kirkus Reviews (starred review) |
the age of surveillance capitalism: The Internet of Toys Giovanna Mascheroni, Donell Holloway, 2019-02-21 The Internet of Toys (IoToys) is a developing market within our Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. This book examines the rise of internet-connected toys and aims to anticipate the opportunities and risks of IoToys before their widespread diffusion. Contributors to this volume each provide a critical analysis of the design, production, regulation, representation and consumption of internet-connected toys. In order to address the theoretical, methodological and policy questions that arise from the study of these new playthings, and contextualise the diverse opportunities and challenges that IoToys pose to educators, families and children themselves, the chapters engage with notions of mediatization, datafication, robotification, connected and post-digital play. This timely engagement with a key transformation in children’s play will appeal to all readers interested in understanding the social uses and consequences of IoToys, and primarily to researchers and students in children and media, early childhood studies, media and communications, sociology, education, social psychology, law and design. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: The Blockchain and the New Architecture of Trust Kevin Werbach, 2023-08-15 How the blockchain—a system built on foundations of mutual mistrust—can become trustworthy. The blockchain entered the world on January 3, 2009, introducing an innovative new trust architecture: an environment in which users trust a system—for example, a shared ledger of information—without necessarily trusting any of its components. The cryptocurrency Bitcoin is the most famous implementation of the blockchain, but hundreds of other companies have been founded and billions of dollars invested in similar applications since Bitcoin's launch. Some see the blockchain as offering more opportunities for criminal behavior than benefits to society. In this book, Kevin Werbach shows how a technology resting on foundations of mutual mistrust can become trustworthy. The blockchain, built on open software and decentralized foundations that allow anyone to participate, seems like a threat to any form of regulation. In fact, Werbach argues, law and the blockchain need each other. Blockchain systems that ignore law and governance are likely to fail, or to become outlaw technologies irrelevant to the mainstream economy. That, Werbach cautions, would be a tragic waste of potential. If, however, we recognize the blockchain as a kind of legal technology that shapes behavior in new ways, it can be harnessed to create tremendous business and social value. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: Master Or Slave? Shoshana Zuboff, 2017-11-02 |
the age of surveillance capitalism: The Costs of Connection Nick Couldry, Ulises A. Mejias, 2019-08-20 Just about any social need is now met with an opportunity to connect through digital means. But this convenience is not free—it is purchased with vast amounts of personal data transferred through shadowy backchannels to corporations using it to generate profit. The Costs of Connection uncovers this process, this data colonialism, and its designs for controlling our lives—our ways of knowing; our means of production; our political participation. Colonialism might seem like a thing of the past, but this book shows that the historic appropriation of land, bodies, and natural resources is mirrored today in this new era of pervasive datafication. Apps, platforms, and smart objects capture and translate our lives into data, and then extract information that is fed into capitalist enterprises and sold back to us. The authors argue that this development foreshadows the creation of a new social order emerging globally—and it must be challenged. Confronting the alarming degree of surveillance already tolerated, they offer a stirring call to decolonize the internet and emancipate our desire for connection. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: Welcome to the Future Kathryn Hulick, 2021-10-26 Have you ever wondered what the future may look like? In this book, you'll explore 10 ways technology could alter our way of life. The challenge for you is to decide which changes you want for yourself and the world. In the future, will we teleport from place to place, keep dinosaurs as pets or 3D-print our dinner? Will we live on Mars or upload our brains to computers? Could we solve climate change by making all our energy from mini stars we build here on earth? This fascinating and thought provoking book from science writer Kathryn Hulick explores the possible futures humanity will face, and how we will live as the world around us changes beyond our recognition. From genetic engineering and building floating colonies in space to developing telepathic technology and bionic body alterations, this engagingly illustrated book looks into the possible future technologies which will shape how we live and how we adapt to the challenges of the future. In this book, you'll meet the scientists working to bring science fiction to life and learn how soon we might have amazing new technology. You'll also delve deep into questions about right and wrong. Just because we can do something doesn't mean we should. How can we build the best possible future for everyone on Earth? |
the age of surveillance capitalism: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism Shoshana Zuboff, 2018-08-21 The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called surveillance capitalism, and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control our behavior. Shoshana Zuboff's interdisciplinary breadth and depth enable her to come to grips with the social, political, business, and technological meaning of the changes taking place in our time. We are at a critical juncture in the confrontation between the vast power of giant high-tech companies and government, the hidden economic logic of surveillance capitalism, and the propaganda of machine supremacy that threaten to shape and control human life. Will the brazen new methods of social engineering and behavior modification threaten individual autonomy and democratic rights and introduce extreme new forms of social inequality? Or will the promise of the digital age be one of individual empowerment and democratization? The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is neither a hand-wringing narrative of danger and decline nor a digital fairy tale. Rather, it offers a deeply reasoned and evocative examination of the contests over the next chapter of capitalism that will decide the meaning of information civilization in the twenty-first century. The stark issue at hand is whether we will be the masters of information and machines or its slaves. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: The Lost Family Libby Copeland, 2020-03-03 “A fascinating exploration of the mysteries ignited by DNA genealogy testing—from the intensely personal and concrete to the existential and unsolvable.” —Tana French, New York Times–bestselling author You swab your cheek or spit in a vial, then send it away to a lab somewhere. Weeks later you get a report that might tell you where your ancestors came from or if you carry certain genetic risks. Or, the report could reveal a long-buried family secret that upends your entire sense of identity. Soon a lark becomes an obsession, a relentless drive to find answers to questions at the core of your being, like “Who am I?” and “Where did I come from?” Welcome to the age of home genetic testing. In The Lost Family, journalist Libby Copeland investigates what happens when we embark on a vast social experiment with little understanding of the ramifications. She explores the culture of genealogy buffs, the science of DNA, and the business of companies like Ancestry and 23andMe, all while tracing the story of one woman, her unusual results, and a relentless methodical drive for answers that becomes a thoroughly modern genetic detective story. Gripping and masterfully told, The Lost Family is a spectacular book on a big, timely subject. “An urgently necessary, powerful book that addresses one of the most complex social and bioethical issues of our time.” —Dani Shapiro, New York Times–bestselling author “Before you spit in that vial, read this book.” —The New York Times Book Review “Impeccably researched . . . up-to-the-minute science meets the philosophy of identity in a poignant, engaging debut.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) |
the age of surveillance capitalism: Uncertain Archives Nanna Bonde Thylstrup, Daniela Agostinho, Annie Ring, Catherine D'Ignazio, Kristin Veel, 2021-02-02 Scholars from a range of disciplines interrogate terms relevant to critical studies of big data, from abuse and aggregate to visualization and vulnerability. This pathbreaking work offers an interdisciplinary perspective on big data, interrogating key terms. Scholars from a range of disciplines interrogate concepts relevant to critical studies of big data--arranged glossary style, from from abuse and aggregate to visualization and vulnerability--both challenging conventional usage of such often-used terms as prediction and objectivity and introducing such unfamiliar ones as overfitting and copynorm. The contributors include both leading researchers, including N. Katherine Hayles, Johanna Drucker and Lisa Gitelman, and such emerging agenda-setting scholars as Safiya Noble, Sarah T. Roberts and Nicole Starosielski. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: Social Physics Alex Pentland, 2014 A landmark tour of the new science of idea flow outlines revolutionary insights into the mysteries of collective intelligence and social influence, explaining the virtually unlimited data sets of today's digital technologies and the considerable accuracy of information from social networks. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: Weapons of Math Destruction Cathy O'Neil, 2016-09-06 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A former Wall Street quant sounds the alarm on Big Data and the mathematical models that threaten to rip apart our social fabric—with a new afterword “A manual for the twenty-first-century citizen . . . relevant and urgent.”—Financial Times NATIONAL BOOK AWARD LONGLIST • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • The Boston Globe • Wired • Fortune • Kirkus Reviews • The Guardian • Nature • On Point We live in the age of the algorithm. Increasingly, the decisions that affect our lives—where we go to school, whether we can get a job or a loan, how much we pay for health insurance—are being made not by humans, but by machines. In theory, this should lead to greater fairness: Everyone is judged according to the same rules. But as mathematician and data scientist Cathy O’Neil reveals, the mathematical models being used today are unregulated and uncontestable, even when they’re wrong. Most troubling, they reinforce discrimination—propping up the lucky, punishing the downtrodden, and undermining our democracy in the process. Welcome to the dark side of Big Data. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: The Black Box Society Frank Pasquale, 2015-01-05 Every day, corporations are connecting the dots about our personal behavior—silently scrutinizing clues left behind by our work habits and Internet use. But who connects the dots about what firms are doing with all this information? Frank Pasquale exposes how powerful interests abuse secrecy for profit and explains ways to rein them in. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: Freud and the Limits of Bourgeois Individualism León Rozitchner, 2021-11-29 Offering an in-depth interpretation of Sigmund Freud’s 'collective' or 'social' works, León Rozitchner insists that the Left should consider the ways in which capitalism inscribes its power in the subject as the site for the verification of history. Thus, after a brief commentary on Freud’s New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, the present book provides the reader with a chapter-by-chapter analysis of Civilisation and Its Discontents and Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. Freud’s views, according to Rozitchner’s original reading, offer a striking contribution to a materialist theory and history of subjectivity. This book was first published in Spanish as Freud y los límites del individualismo burgués by Siglo XXI Editores, 1972. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: America at War with Itself Henry A. Giroux, 2017 A blistering critique of how America's drift toward authoritarian intolerance is dividing the nation and intensifying social and political conflicts. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: The Routledge Handbook of Linguistic Ethnography Karin Tusting, 2020 This handbook provides an accessible and comprehensive overview of this growing body of research. It is key reading for those studying linguistic ethnography, qualitative research methods, sociolinguistics and educational linguistics within English Language, Applied Linguistics, Education and Anthropology. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: The User Unconscious Patricia Ticineto Clough, 2018 Wide-ranging essays and experimental prose forcefully demonstrate how digital media and computational technologies have redefined what it is to be human Over the past decade, digital media has expanded exponentially, becoming an essential part of daily life. The stimulating essays and experimental compositions in The User Unconscious delve into the ways digital media and computational technologies fundamentally affect our sense of self and the world we live in, from both human and other-than-human perspectives. Critical theorist Patricia Ticineto Clough's provocative essays center around the motif of the user unconscious to advance the challenging thesis that that we are both human and other-than-human: we now live, think, and dream within multiple layers of computational networks that are constantly present, radically transforming subjectivity, sociality, and unconscious processes. Drawing together rising strains of philosophy, critical theory, and media studies, as well as the political, social, and economic transformations that are shaping the twenty-first-century world, The User Unconscious points toward emergent crises and potentialities in both human subjectivity and sociality. Moving from affect to data, Clough forces us to see that digital media and computational technologies are not merely controlling us--they have already altered what it means to be human. |
the age of surveillance capitalism: Revolutionary Legacy, Power Structure, and Grassroots Capitalism under the Red Flag in China Qi Zhang, Mingxing Liu, 2020-11-05 Why do political elites in authoritarian regimes, even within the same country, engage in different levels of predatory behavior, whereby some foster vibrant capitalism and others suffocate the innovative private sector? This book proposes a theory of localized property-rights protection under authoritarianism. By combining in-depth fieldwork with archival research and quantitative data analysis, Qi Zhang and Mingxing Liu discuss the post-1949 conflicts between dominant and marginalized factions in the Chinese province of Zhejiang. These conflicts resulted in systemic vulnerabilities among the marginalized local cadres, thus motivating them to form alliances with their grassroots constituents. They therefore provided their constituents with quasi-public goods, such as property-rights protection, to increase their odds of political survival. Zhang and Liu argue that this framework can apply both to the Mao era and to the current reform era, and it also can be extended beyond China to a wider context. |
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism - Wikipedia
While industrial capitalism exploited and controlled nature with devastating consequences, surveillance capitalism exploits and controls human nature with a totalitarian order as the …
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human …
Jan 15, 2019 · The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is a deeply original, exquisitely reasoned, and spell binding examination of our emerging information civilization and the life and death …
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Hum…
In this masterwork of original thinking and research, Shoshana Zuboff provides startling insights into the phenomenon that she has named surveillance capitalism.
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a - JSTOR
In her new book on Surveillance Capitalism, Harvard Business School emeri- tus professor Shoshana Zuboff introduces us to a new wave of modernity, equally disruptive, but uniquely …
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism - Google Books
Jan 31, 2019 · The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called "surveillance capitalism," and the …
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power. That work turned out to be the opening chapter in what became a lifelong quest to answe. dest questions have come roaring …
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism - Hachette Book Group
Jan 15, 2019 · “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is brilliant and essential. Shoshana Zuboff reveals capitalism’s most dangerous frontier with stunning clarity: The new economic order of …
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human …
Oct 4, 2018 · While industrial capitalism exploited and controlled nature with devastating consequences, surveillance capitalism exploits and controls human nature with a totalitarian …
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human …
May 14, 2019 · In her new book on Surveillance Capitalism, Harvard Business School emeritus professor Shoshana Zuboff introduces us to a new wave of modernity, equally disruptive, but …
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human …
In this masterwork of original thinking and research, Shoshana Zuboff provides startling insights into the phenomenon that she has named surveillance capitalism.
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism - Wikipedia
While industrial capitalism exploited and controlled nature with devastating consequences, surveillance capitalism exploits and controls human nature with a totalitarian order as the …
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human …
Jan 15, 2019 · The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is a deeply original, exquisitely reasoned, and spell binding examination of our emerging information civilization and the life and death …
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Hum…
In this masterwork of original thinking and research, Shoshana Zuboff provides startling insights into the phenomenon that she has named surveillance capitalism.
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a - JSTOR
In her new book on Surveillance Capitalism, Harvard Business School emeri- tus professor Shoshana Zuboff introduces us to a new wave of modernity, equally disruptive, but uniquely …
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism - Google Books
Jan 31, 2019 · The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called "surveillance capitalism," and the quest …
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power. That work turned out to be the opening chapter in what became a lifelong quest to answe. dest questions have come roaring …
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism - Hachette Book Group
Jan 15, 2019 · “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is brilliant and essential. Shoshana Zuboff reveals capitalism’s most dangerous frontier with stunning clarity: The new economic order of …
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human …
Oct 4, 2018 · While industrial capitalism exploited and controlled nature with devastating consequences, surveillance capitalism exploits and controls human nature with a totalitarian …
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human …
May 14, 2019 · In her new book on Surveillance Capitalism, Harvard Business School emeritus professor Shoshana Zuboff introduces us to a new wave of modernity, equally disruptive, but …
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human …
In this masterwork of original thinking and research, Shoshana Zuboff provides startling insights into the phenomenon that she has named surveillance capitalism.