surveillance capitalism

For the Spring 2022 semester at CMU, I decided to enroll in a Human Computer Interaction course called Social Web. The course is discussion based and we spend our time thinking about how the design of social networks influence the ways in which people use them and the effects that this has on our society and well-being.

One of the first things we discussed is the idea of a “Hype Machine”. In this framework, we can consider Social Networks as computers that process and move information between nodes. Of course, this means that we ourselves are the nodes. Unlike normal computers, however, we ourselves have our own agencies and act back upon the same social network that is influencing us. Thus there is this cyclical loop between the Social Network and us. The online social networks that we are a part of provide recommendations, and try to influence our behavior. We ourselves then “decide” to act or not act in many different ways, all of which then serve as additional input back into the Social Network to ultimately try to provide even better recommendations.

The author who conceived of the “Hype Machine” says that if we are to understand social networks properly, we need to think about 4 frameworks: Code, Norms, Money and ,Laws. Since social networks are predominately digital, the technology that is used to create and maintain them have a huge impact on what they look like. Similarly, the norms that we live by on how people should act and treat each other bleed over into the digital space and also have strong effects on how we use social networks.

The purpose of this blog post though, is to examine the final two frameworks: Money and Laws, using the lens of the book “Surveillance Capitalism” by Shoshana Zuboff, a current Harvard professor. I will provide an overview of her main points here.

WHAT IS SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM

Zuboff defines Surveillance Capitalism as the following:

Behavioral Surplus in the economic world where data about the behavior, thoughts, and activities of human beings are used as raw material for the production of much more profitable goods. We are not the product, in the way that the conversation is traditionally applied The normalization of Behavioral Modification of an acceptable “goods and service” that can be traded and invested in just like anything else An end to our personal sovereignty

The key point to understand here is that when we use a “free” service like Google, there is still a price being paid. In popular media people will say things along the lines of “our data is the product”, but what Zuboff is trying to convey is that even this is false. Our data is the raw material (she will continue drawing on industrial revolution metaphors) with which companies like Google are able to use to manufacture and sell profitable products.

This is a subtle distinction, but one that is important in Zuboff’s eyes, mainly because we are living in what she considers an unprecedented age. What originally started off as advertisements on our search feeds have turned into full-fledged behavioral modification. The products that large tech companies are able to make from our data are products that influence our actions and lives in the “real-world” in increasingly more powerful ways. As a result, Zuboff points out that our “right to self-determination” and our right to craft the future that we want. Leaving this sort of “instrumentarian” power in the hands of tech CEOs, unchecked, is inherently problematic and what has prompted Zuboff to write this book

ORIGINS OF SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM

Zuboff argues that Surveillance Capitalism is the result of two clashing ideologies. The first was Liberalism. As developments in technology continued to advance and globalization continued, people began to fall into the idea that we are individual agents with the right to choose to be whatever we want.

The second ideology, which at first glance does not necessarily seem to be at direct odds with this idea, is that of the free market. As Liberalism began to take a stronger hold in our collective psyche, marginalized groups began pushing for more participation in society. We see some backlash against the government after Watergate, and protests against the Vietnam war abound. Leading economists then began pushing for an extreme form of a free-market, as a method for confronting the dangers of totalitarian and communist regimes that the West feared. They hoped that it would impose a self-regulating economic order. Unfortunately however, this led to a downfall of a whole series of government oversight and regulation that in theory would lead to more reciprocity between companies and workers, such as in the fields of workers compensation, facility inspection, and public safety. But the conversation shifts to “shareholder maximization” which becomes the ultimate objective function and that state oversight is really just an impediment to that goal.

So what is the result of these two different ideologies? In a world where people greatly value individuality and freedom of self-expression, products like the iPod offer tremendous value. The iPod allows us to customize the color, choose the songs we want, and make unique playlists, all of which are reflections of the needs and wants we have as a result of liberalism. Ironically though, the very data that we provide when we use the iPod allow companies like Apple to extract even more raw material to make products that influence and take away our ability to lead lives of our choosing. Zuboff argues that Google has enough power to completely take away our right to the “future tense”, the image of who we want to be in the future.

Zuboff uses Google as the first company to discover this behavioral surplus. The founders realized that users were generating all this data simply by using their search, and that if they could eep track of that data, they could potentially make search better. Unfortunately, the free-market ideology that had gripped Western society in the 20th century built up a pressure in Silicon Valley to profit quickly, and provide strong returns to investors. At first Google tried linking Ads to key words that people were searching (a common economic paradigm at the time). However, the big shift from Google was to move to targeted advertising where they could show the right ad to the right user at the right time. Advertisers would not even need to think about what key words should be associated with their product – Google would handle everything.

Laws

While a strongly capitalist structure was what motivated Google’s shift towards targeted advertising, they were only able to continue this massive breach of privacy through cementing their power in governmental laws and regulation. For instance, Page and Brin used a special type of voting stock that would continue to give them majority control of the company, even as they began taking in outside investment. Page and Brin also openly mocked governmental agencies, saying that in a technological age, they should be able to run free, without any oversight, simply because companies could make decisions much faster than governments.

Summary and Analysis

I am still slowly working my way through the first part of the book, but it has proven to be a fairly interesting read. We can see liberalism leading to and helping cause this free-market ideology, but that this ends up leading to the creation of predatory companies that seek to destroy our very right to self-determination. It becomes clear through Zuboff’s analysis that we can understand Surveillance Capitalism most directly through the lens of Money and Laws, as what was mentioned in the “Hype Machine”. Much of Zuboff’s analysis is based on Google, but it can be applied to any Social Media company as well. After seeing the success of Google’s targeted Ads, Facebook quickly follows suit.

The dominating economic theory of our time, and the lawlessness in the digital realm are what have allowed for the wicked practices of Big Tech. Unfortunately, any social network, or new digital application that we build in this new age will be directly subjugated to these two forces.

The main takeaway for me at this point is that if the goal is to build a positive social network for society, one will have to be extremely cognizant of ensuring it is not influenced by these economic incentives.