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FinnLansinkSecondEssay 5 - 25 Jan 2025 - Main.FinnLansink
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| | | The last way gestural surveillance contributes to the issue is by framing the question of surveillance as if the problem is not inherent to the existing surveillance or the technology, but by our interaction with it. An example of this can be found in studies who commonly suggest to employ treaties or to create other kinds of regulation to regulate the way data is processed. (e.g. GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, PDPA) This shifts the focus completely from trying to create a system where our privacy is inherent to a system where we regulate who can access this surveillance. The issue with this system becomes apparent when we realize how fragile our democracy really is and how easily the democratic system can be dismantled from within. | |
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< | Engineering privacy | >
> | Resistance
As argued, the current forms of resistance are hopeless and ineffective. Moral critiques and scholarly works only reinforce the current state of Surveillance Capitalism. This begs the question, where can effective resistance come from? The first step towards this is the realization that Surveillance Capitalism has become so interwoven into our society that it incorporates everything, even our education systems. (E.g. Canvas / Courseworks)
It has become an ideology, and as Mark Fisher wrote: ‘no ideology can be successful until it is naturalized, and it cannot be naturalized while it is still thought of as a value as opposed to a fact.' This is exactly where Surveillance Capitalism can be fought. The only way to combat the system is to show that (Surveillance) Capitalism is untenable and incompatible with our values and core beliefs. In other words, proof that it is a value that we impose upon ourselves and not a fact of nature. | | | | |
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< | In conclusion spreading awareness – whether its through various means of media or handing out pamphlets – is not the way towards a solution but the opposite. Overvaluing its worth has the danger of entrenching the problem. That is not saying awareness is insignificant (because it is important to a certain degree), but our focus should be on enabling people without any/elemental software knowledge to engineer their own privacy. Only when individuals are empowered to create their own privacy can the problem be solved without creating a weak link of potential corruption.
This last point is the raison d'etre of your theorizing, but it's a little trickier than you let on. Cars can be engineered to be safer, but they cannot be made completely safe, and lives will inevitably be lost if people cannot be convinced to use seat belts. Robert MacNamara's Ford Motor Corp did not see any profit advantage in killing its customers. Hence the belts. But if one runs either a tobacco company or a social network, harming those who trust you is an essential part of the business. If the leading global electronics manufacturer is also the world's most powerful despotism, how can we meaningfully speak about engineered privacy?
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