Surveillance Capitalism Zuboff S.H.A.M.E

The interesting thing about Zuboff’s analysis is the focus on capitalism being the driving force of the issues she details, rather than the more common nebulous descriptions that assign agency to search engines or technologies. She also highlights how surveillance capitalism is not a fault of the system but rather has become necessary for its growth. We need to recognize this shift and adapt to it, both by becoming aware of how our data is used, and by questioning the systems that enable it. Its ubiquity does not make it by default harmless, acceptable or impossible to change.

It’s worth asking, just as we ask “do we need to be surveilled like this?”, the follow-up question, “do we need capitalism, if these are the conditions it creates?”