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After yesterday's news that Amazon has surveilled its Flex drivers for years on their private social media, I saw some people talk about this as yet another example of Zuboff's "surveillance capitalism"—actually I think it further undermines her thesis 1/ https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3azegw/amazon-is-spying-on-its-workers-in-closed-facebook-groups-internal-reports-show
Morozov: Zuboff's theory in 3 parts
1) describe Google & Facebook activities
2) data extraction/behavioral mod. has created New Capitalism
3) "surveillance capitalists engage in surveillance capitalism because this is what the imperatives of surveillance capitalism demand" 2/
1) describe Google & Facebook activities
2) data extraction/behavioral mod. has created New Capitalism
3) "surveillance capitalists engage in surveillance capitalism because this is what the imperatives of surveillance capitalism demand" 2/
Section X of Morozov's review but specifically his analysis of Part 2 are key here and map over to Amazon's workplace surveillance. Is Amazon watching because it wants more data to improve services & modify behavior? Or is it watching because capital is antagonistic to labor? 3/
The original use of surveillance capitalism is a stronger explanation of why Amazon surveils its workers than Zuboff's. Postwar planners preserved post-war growth w new markets that required new forms of surveillance & control. 4/ https://monthlyreview.org/2014/07/01/surveillance-capitalism/
Postwar growth & power were preserved with an advertising revolution, a permanent warfare state, and then financialization once those two waned.
All three needed forms of surveillance and control directed at consumers, dissidents, and financial assets.
That's just capitalism.
All three needed forms of surveillance and control directed at consumers, dissidents, and financial assets.
That's just capitalism.
We talk about it more on @machinekillspod but this is why Zuboff's critique is reactionary. The framework naturalizes capitalism's worst parts & distracts us from explanatory gaps w tautologies—as if Amazon never watched its workers or consumers before Alexa was made!
