McChesney discusses these different ways of thinking about technologies in his book. He points out that often, it is the optimistic people – the utopians – who are the loudest and most publicized voices in our conversations about the future of digital technologies.
These people predict that the Internet will revolutionize the organization of business and society. It will lead us to prosperity, democracy, and a host of cultural benefits. Marginalized people will be empowered through the power of technology. The world will become much better.
For example, Clay Shirky’s TED talk below discusses how cognitive surplus will change the world for the better.
(June 2010 in Cannes, France)
Reflecting on these optimistic predictions, McChesney writes that: “the celebrants reaffirm one of the most important original arguments from the 1990s, that the Internet will be a force for democracy and good worldwide, ending monopolies of information and centralized control over communication” (p.8).
As you can imagine, all of these positive predictions have so far failed to materialize. In fact, new problems have emerged. The benefits for some do not automatically equal benefits for all. Pessimists attack the idea that the Internet is automatically spawning greater levels of knowledge, and point out that it just as easily spreads ignorance and misinformation. Others argue that Internet users are increasingly individualized, isolated, and addicted to life online. People are drawn to technologies that provide the illusion of companionship, but often lack the demands – and benefits – of a ‘face to face’ relationship.
Another line of critics, such as Evgeny Morozov, point to the political dangers of the Internet. In the video below, he questions whether the Internet is empowering or censoring citizens.
(adapted from a talk given in 2009; listen to the full lecture here)
Critics like Morozov argue that the powers that be used to put us under constant surveillance. They see these technologies as a means to control us or take away our civil liberties. As the video “Stop Watching Us” shows, revelations about widespread surveillance undertaken by the U.S. Government of its citizens is but one example of how new technologies are as capable as having negative as beneficial effects.
(Video produced by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and published on Oct 23, 2013. Click for more information on the campaign StopWatching.us)
Surveillance Capitalism
Another critic in the areas of ethics, culture, society and technology is Shoshana Zuboff. Her 2019 international bestseller, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power describes the evolution of the collection of personal data by internet platforms and how they began to leverage what at first was understood to be simply “data exhaust” but became first a tool that could predict human behaviour and then a tool that could predictably influence human behaviour.
In the documentary below Professor Zuboff summarizes the ideas in her book.
In her article Misinformation Has Created a New World Disorder (2019), Dr. Claire Wardle explains how “repetition and familiarity are two of the most effective mechanisms for ingraining misleading narratives”, delving into the sophisticated tactics used by bad actors to influence political outcomes. Her analysis focuses on recent attempts to manipulate populations using a combination of the surplus data and profiling paired with campaigns of disinformation aimed to evoke specific responses. Whereas Zuboff hints at the dark potential danger that the influence and modification of behaviour poses to democratic society, Wardle looks at how they are already being used right now and the roles, both positive and negative, played by technology companies and journalism.
Below watch The coming privacy crisis on the Internet of Things, a TEDx talk by Alasdair Allan, Scientist, author, hacker, maker, and journalist, who explains the privacy issues created by the data collected by the Internet of Things (IOT), the devices we install in our so-called Smart Homes like Alexa, Ring, Nest or the wearables like Apple Watch or FitBit.
While smart technologies have many enthusiastic advocates and adopters, the issues raised by critics like Zuboff, Wardle and Allen seem to be entering the general consciousness with people casually mentioning what ‘the algorithm’ is ‘putting in their feed’ or what data ‘they’, the tech platforms, collect. Whether or not this will translate into a strong enough preference for regulatory control of the platforms among voters that it overcomes the reluctance of big tech to be reigned in, remains to be seen.
In 2016, the European Union introduced a comprehensive set of regulations called the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the first of its kind. It has drawn both praise and criticism but whether it is held up as a model of good governance to be emulated or as an example of the dangers of regulatory overstep by government, any conversation about regulation, data and privacy will have to take the GDPR into account.
In early 2021 eyes are on a conflict between Facebook and the Australian government, which has introduced a law requiring internet platforms that carry news stories to pay news producers some of the advertizing money they earn. Facebook responded by rapidly blocking almost all news content as well as some pages that related to public services including health. So far Facebook has faced an onslaught of critique. Critics like John Naughton on the side of news-gathering and content producing organizations standing to gain from regulations that require sharing of advertizing profits associated with their IP have been particularly strong in condemning the platforms for their attempts to avoid regulation. Perhaps the more important factor for the platforms, however, is the court of public opinion through which the power of network effects can build up or sweep away vast digital empires in the blink of an eye.
Here a somewhat more lighthearted take on our sometimes contradictory attitudes towards online privacy:
