Comment

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

the Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
Apr 27, 2019SCL_Justin rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
A big part of my job as a digital literacy librarian is teaching people how to use their electronic devices, ideally in a safe manner that protects them from predators. This book showed how futile that effort is. Zuboff looks at the way the modern internet has been built and why it is so terrible for real live humans and great for soulless corporations who are endeavouring to plunder every facet of their users' lives the way fossil fuel companies have laid waste to the planet. What we do in privacy tool classes at the library is the equivalent of getting individuals to bike to work while letting the tar sands grow and profit by killing our future. It's terrible and I suggest reading this book, which is thick but accessible. My biggest quibble is that Zuboff seems to have less of a problem with capitalism that isn't built on surveillance than I do.