Framing technology as autonomous disguises who profits from data extraction

Evidence

Evangelists of technological connection such as Kevin Kelly see things differently. In his recent book The Inevitable, he names tracking as one of the twelve dimensions of technology’s transformation of society. By attributing this transformation to “what technology wants” (the name of his previous book), Kelly seeks to quarantine today’s profound transformations from ethical critique. His goal is to help us “work with [technologies’] nature, rather than struggle against it.” The entire edifice of data colonialism and capitalist data relations is obscured by this rhetorical move. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 511

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the attention/surveillance school’s critique of technological determinism — Kelly’s ‘what technology wants’ is the determinist foil that platform-critique literatures attack. — connects to: Algorithmic-imagination critiques center on exploitation, domination, and digital Taylorism — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 284; Data extraction infrastructures deform the self that autonomy and freedom depend on — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 148; Corporate rationality masks everyday data extraction as routine business rather than appropriation — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 101 (+18 more)
• SEED: An essay contrasting Kelly’s technological-voluntarist framing against data-colonial extraction could tie the rhetorical move to the off-balance-sheet species-level settlement.

Broader Connections

• Corporate rationality masks everyday data extraction as routine business rather than appropriation #corroborates (0.82) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 101
• Extraction imperative forces relentless automated tracking and framing experience as free raw material #corroborates (0.78) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1067
• Smart-city narratives mask extractive data capitalism by rendering the unconnected invisible. #corroborates (0.78) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 460
• Surveillance capitalism subordinates earlier user reciprocities to derivative extraction for others’ aims #corroborates (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 298
• Surveillance capitalism exploits both extraction and our voluntary surrender via interfaces #expands (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 734
• Micro-level data relations are rendered commonsensical by extractive rationalities #corroborates (0.75) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 297
• Surveillance capitalist experiments exploit knowledge asymmetry to engineer user behavior for profit #corroborates (0.74) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 934
• Data extraction infrastructures deform the self that autonomy and freedom depend on #complicates (0.72) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 148
• Self-tracking practices reproduce data capitalism rather than resist it #responds-to (0.72) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 1138
• Google institutionalized secrecy to sustain behavioral surplus extraction #exemplifies (0.72) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 279
• Data appropriation threatens the minimal space of the self #complicates (0.72) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 75
• Datafication may disrupt autonomy at the level of self-boundedness itself #complicates (0.70) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 500