Welcome to the Age of Surveillance Capitalism
All that information we’ve handed over can be used in insidious ways in the absence of government oversight.
It’s not just a look.
Photographer: Keystone/Hulton ArchiveIn 1998, science fiction author David Brin published a remarkably prescient book of nonfiction, titled “The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us To Choose Between Privacy And Freedom?” The book predicted that information technology would lead to the death of privacy, and explored some of the potential good and bad effects of the change.
One of Brin’s predictions was that citizens would be able to expose the secrets of the powerful -- a concept called “sousveillance.” That prediction seems to have come true. In just the past few years, mobile phone cameras have captured police brutality and other government misdeeds, social media has exposed famous figures as sexual harassers and so on.