How Data Capitalism Is Ending Your Right To Privacy

From Jacobin's original series Weekends, Ana Kasparian discusses how our private information is commodified and sold by corporations, and how any strategy to further personal protections must be anti-capitalist.

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[IshtarNike]

I love to see how much Ana has come along. Not sure when she changed but it's so good.

[PDDYWCK]

I can’t think of any more natural form of personal property than our own thoughts, desires, preferences, and fears. No one should be selling that without the explicit consent of the owners. And maybe people should also get a chunk of the proceeds from the selling of their data.

[catcatcatcatcatcatcatcatcatca]

One should also note how little transparency corporations offer: in this sense the question of privacy is not one of values, but one of power.

Market forces alone are not enough to explain the lack of privacy: there, for any sale, is an equal market force to buy. Yet while companies know their customers, customers don't get to know the companies. Workers also function as sellers, when selling their labour; but in this instance we see the reversal of the dynamic: sellers need to showcase complete openness, and buyers dictate what data they want to give out.

Profit motive, gained benefits, market interactions don't explain the tendency of workers losing their privacy as both customers and as potential employees. The huge difference in power, political and economical, is much more relevant. Workers and consumers sell the equevelant amount of labour and buy equevelant amount of products: they have entirely equal profit motive, or motive to get better trades, yet they lose on both roles.

[jesavius]

Nando's on point! Read How the Other Half Banks by Mersha Baradaran to see the possibilities of the USPS and how can bring equality to Tech world as well as Banking.

[NIHILNOVI]

Would China's approach to social networks be a sort of vanguard for what a nationalized social media would look like?

[blakereid]

Relying on the regulation or moderation game is condemning yourself to a semantic and technical arms race in which you can only defend. It's purpose is to lose while giving people temporary placation necessary to avoid the sort of backlash that would press for democratic control.

[loreto]

Want to stay in touch with your friends? Pick up the damn phone, as in call them. If you can, visit them, go for a walk together.