Persuasive design’s founding science is literally named after capturing data.

Evidence

Recall that the whole trajectory of data colonialism started out from the banal fact that to function, computers must capture data about their changes of state. It is a curious irony that B. J. Fogg, a leading developer of unconscious behavioral influence through online choice architectures, named his new science of intervention “captology.” Knowledge by capture, influence by appropriation. When the cutting edge of social knowledge is a tool kit for achieving power at scale (or what Walmart more comfortingly calls “personalization at scale”), then the stakes of the social-knowledge game just got higher and its potential contribution to social justice more tenuous. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 461

Categorization

• SHARE: This could go to anyone working in UX/persuasive design or tech ethics — the irony that Fogg, the man behind choice architectures, literally named his discipline ‘captology.’
• CANDY: The name ‘captology’ — a science of digital persuasion literally named for capture/captivity — is a delightfully dark trivia point.