Aral Balkan@alexwinter Sadly, we’ve been sold the lie by Silicon Valley (long before on Elon) that these are public spaces. And they continue to be legitimised by nearly every social authority, even taught to kids in schools by the very people who should be protecting them from their harms. There’s a whole generation of people who have been raised thinking that shopping malls are parks. It’s not all too different to folks thinking smoking was good for your health when they had doctors in the cigarette ads.
@alexwinter It’s especially bad in the tech world. How do you make these people farmers socially unacceptable when nearly all the respected web developers/designers/engineers in the industry proudly work at them? When they are the ones writing the standards, sponsoring and speaking at the conferences, preparing the curricula to teach coding to the next generation. All while being unopposed by academia, policymakers, and other enablers who are simply thankful for their thirty pieces of silver.
@alexwinter Unless we make this whole business of people farming socially unacceptable, we have an uphill battle on our hands. And yes, that means even before a proto-fascist like Elon Musk ends up owning one. Why are we ok with building and profiting from the infrastructure of fascism as long as our (mild mannered neoliberal?) friends own it and only start to worry when the full-cream fascists take over? It’s a bit too late then, no?
More on the tech side of things: https://ar.al/2019/01/11/i-was-wrong-about-google-and-facebook-theres-nothing-wrong-with-them-so-say-we-all/
I was wrong about Google and Facebook: there’s nothing wrong with them (so say we all)
It’s always difficult admitting you’re wrong. But sometimes, it’s exactly what you have to do in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. So, today, I admit that I was wrong about Google, Facebook, and surveillance capitalism in general being toxic for our human rights and democracy. You see, it simply cannot be true given how they are endorsed by some of the most well-respected groups and organisations in the world.
Dušan Adamović@aral @alexwinter
Very good text.