28 lines
1.4 KiB
Markdown
28 lines
1.4 KiB
Markdown
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tags: [ecopolsoc, internet, surveillance-capitalism]
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created: Monday, January 20, 2025
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---
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# 4dec6fe0_shadow_text
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Surveillance capitalism creates two "electronic texts". The first is the
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public-facing text which consists in the benefits conferred by the surveillance
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capitalists' services, expressed in their self-regarding mission statements. The
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"universe of information and connection [they] bring to our fingertips" (posts,
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blogs, likes, photos, spreadsheets, music, tweets etc).
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The first text is a sort of Trojan Horse, serving as the "supply operation" for
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the second, _shadow_ text. Everything we contribute to the first text becomes a
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target for surplus extraction via the shadow text. This is the ultimate purpose
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of the services and is hidden from view and only for the purview of the
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surveillance capitalists.
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_In this text, our experience is dragooned as raw material to be accumulated and
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analyzed as means to others' market ends. The shadow text is a burgeoning
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accumulation of behavioural surplus and its analyses, and it says more about us
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than we can know about ourselves. Worse still, it becomes increasingly
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difficult, and perhaps impossible, to refrain from contributing to the shadow
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text. It automatically feeds on our experience as we engage in the normal and
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necessary routines of social participation._
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_The Age of Surveillance Capitalism_ (2019): 185
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