The video opens with a news reporter by the name of Amy Goodman explaining that Facebook and other high tech social media companies planned to spy on android users. She goes on to say that we have entered a new age of capitalism called surveillance capitalism which is the leaching of our information by companies like google and Facebook. This information is then sold to advertisers and used as ways to entice us to buy products. She then invites a Harvard professor by the name of Shoshana Zuboff who explains this concept further. Shoshana explains to the audience that in many ways surveillance capitalism follows the same trends as industrial capitalism and other forms. For example capitalism is the taking of something and bringing it into the market dynamic where it can be sold as a commodity. Industrial capitalism turns trees into land and real estate. This is similar to surveillance capitalism but there is a dark twist. Surveillance capitalism is taking private human information, for free, analyzing it and turning the data into behavioral trends which they can sell to companies. Shoshana goes on to comment on the headline that Facebook are digital gangsters. She tells Amy Goodman that a parliamentary team in England understood what Facebook were doing and managed to get access to leaked files that hadn’t been reviewed by the public. Facebook had in fact been taking people’s personal information for no price and selling it to companies. Shoshana acknowledges the positive outcry from the public against Facebook but urges them not to look at surveillance capital as just a few companies or sights. She wants people to realise that the smart cars, watches and tv’s that you use have all been finely tuned to herd you in to certain behavioral patterns. There has been a global behavioral modification and most people don’t even realise or understand what’s happening to them. Shoshana believes it is an attack on human autonomy and causes a lack of human sovereignty. She concludes by saying all the apps that we use in our every day lives such as health apps and fitness apps, most of that data gets sent to huge companies primarily google and \Facebook to target our preferences when buying products related to that app. She finishes saying that they know so much more about us then we know about them.
Personally after listening to what Shoshana had to say I am not phased or shocked at the information she provided. Recently I watched the social dilemma on Netflix so I understand how much influence social media companies have in what information we see on their platforms. I found it interesting when Shoshana talked about surveillance capitalism as an economic logic that we are a part of. We have begun to accept that this is how digital media is supposed to behave and as people have not questioned it. I also found it interesting when she says that surveillance capital thrived while democracy slept. People in the private sector managed to absorb and sell all this private information without anyone saying no. personally I think many more policies and laws have to be introduced before digital media can be an efficient outlet that doesn’t steal aspects of personal growth and identity.
CM206 