2021-02-17T12:54:27+01:00

Interesting new article from Shoshana Zuboff at The New York Times. She recaps some of her arguments on surveillance capitalism, but also links it with more recent events related to the US elections and the Covid-19 pandemic.

In an information civilization, societies are defined by questions of knowledge — how it is distributed, the authority that governs its distribution and the power that protects that authority. Who knows? Who decides who knows? Who decides who decides who knows? Surveillance capitalists now hold the answers to each question, though we never elected them to govern. This is the essence of the epistemic coup. They claim the authority to decide who knows by asserting ownership rights over our personal information and defend that authority with the power to control critical information systems and infrastructures.