Only 2010s technologies made surveillance effectively autonomous

Evidence

What are the larger transformations at work here? Consumer activity has rarely been exempt from some form of observation, even in the traditional open-air market. But the decisive shift came in the 2010s with the convergent growth of social media platforms, connected mobile devices, and ever more sophisticated “smart environments” that made possible something close to “autonomous” surveillance. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 513

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes older market observation from the autonomous surveillance made possible only by the concatenation of platforms, mobile, and smart environments.
• XREF: connects to: Computational surveillance is newly ubiquitous though not newly invented — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed:…, 516