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> censorship, propaganda, surveillance, and manipulation --- have one common root: monopoly > Not entirely original, though I'm unaware of anyone who's put all

> censorship, propaganda, surveillance, and manipulation --- have one common root: monopoly > Not entirely original, though I'm unaware of anyone who's put all four together. Looks like Cory Doctorow beat you by a mere couple of months : https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59 https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capit... (Well, as I remember it, I don't really have time to re-read this whole book now. And it's great to have a synthetic post about the same issue !) I'm very surprised that nobody seems to have linked that in those discussions, especially you !

dredmorbius 6y ago
I'm reading Doctorow's book now, and he gets mention (and commented) in tthe Mastodon thread: https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/105023745888827646 https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/105023745888827646 Doctorow also mentions the monopoly-surveillance link. We're both beat by Wu by years, and arguably Zuboff by decades, on that one element. Though Doctorow does spend a lot of time talking abbout AdTech (mostly dismissing its significance, incorrectly IMO), and while he's certainly discussed both censsorsship and propaganda in his work generally, he doesn't quite bring the monopoly aspect and combined interreationship into focus. Some cursory searching through the literature also seems to find this connection missing, though I'd be happy to be shown wrong. (The Wu piece was found after my initial postings, and is absolutely a piece of this.)
- BlueTemplar 6y ago
  You might be also interested by Olivier Rey's book Une question de taille (not translated into English yet AFAIK), which shows that this 'huge issue' that is the 'matter of size' goes much farther than just the GAFAMs (though they are probably unprecedented in their growth speed ? Maybe only Alexander comes close ?)
- BlueTemplar 6y ago
  Otherwise in English you have the works of Ivan Illich and The Breakdown of Nations by Leopold Kohr.

dredmorbius 6y ago

I'm reading Doctorow's book now, and he gets mention (and commented) in tthe Mastodon thread: https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/105023745888827646 https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/105023745888827646 Doctorow also mentions the monopoly-surveillance link. We're both beat by Wu by years, and arguably Zuboff by decades, on that one element. Though Doctorow does spend a lot of time talking abbout AdTech (mostly dismissing its significance, incorrectly IMO), and while he's certainly discussed both censsorsship and propaganda in his work generally, he doesn't quite bring the monopoly aspect and combined interreationship into focus. Some cursory searching through the literature also seems to find this connection missing, though I'd be happy to be shown wrong. (The Wu piece was found after my initial postings, and is absolutely a piece of this.)

BlueTemplar 6y ago
You might be also interested by Olivier Rey's book Une question de taille (not translated into English yet AFAIK), which shows that this 'huge issue' that is the 'matter of size' goes much farther than just the GAFAMs (though they are probably unprecedented in their growth speed ? Maybe only Alexander comes close ?)
BlueTemplar 6y ago
Otherwise in English you have the works of Ivan Illich and The Breakdown of Nations by Leopold Kohr.