How does Surveillance Capitalism undermine Democracy?

By: Elizabeth Lean

Surveillance capitalism—the seemingly inexorable force that dominates our social, political, and economic lives. In the age of technology, the ubiquity of “surveillance” is all around us and has the capacity to cripple our freedoms. Surveillance means the large-scale collection of personal data by corporate digital networks then used as capital for firms’ profits. Capitalism refers to the economic system in our society: capital gains accrue to private actors who privately own the means of production in a market economy. In Surveillance Capitalism, corporations harvest personal data about our behaviour, make future predictions of our behaviour based on that data, and sell those predictions for profit to other firms (Zuboff, 2018). Democracy can be defined as collective self-rule, which relies on the political autonomy and free will of its people. In surveillance capitalism, the inherent manipulation of human behaviour by the firms utilising surveillance capitalism undermines democratic principles of majority rule and individual rights, and hence, democracy itself. It is, arguably, the antidemocratic juggernaut.

The Eye of Sauron — symbol for surveillance

Surveillance capitalism—a subject well-saturated with Orwellian connotations—has become omnipresent widespread through the evolution of technology. Below is a brief overview. CCTV technology was invented in 1942, arguably the first instance of surveillant technology. The commercial use of CCTV idealistically purported it as the safeguard for private home security. Eventually, governments began using surveillance CCTV as a method of public security. In 1961, London began to use CCTV in London Underground to surveil crime and bolster public safety—we see a significant alteration in the way the public views surveillance. Nowadays, even more comprehensive surveillance is available through facial recognition—or, more familiarly, Apple’s self-branded “FaceID” in the iPhone X (2017). There are consequences to our increasingly digital future—the advancement of technology threatens people’s privacy and our personal and socio-political freedoms.

Google invented surveillance capitalism through its advertising efforts in 2001, a time when the tragedy of 9/11 coincided with heightened economic neoliberalism to ease its introduction into society. After 9/11, the US government became more concerned with using surveillance to monitor future terrorist threats. A preoccupation with “total information awareness” led to FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance) gaining access to calls, emails and texts of millions. The focus of Western governments did a 180-degree turn from concerns over privacy to extending themselves to nurture surveillance systems. The aftershocks of 9/11 extend themselves. Until today, the question of striking a balance between privacy and national security remains a politically relevant issue. Zuboff calls surveillance capitalism “Google’s brain-child”, as the joint trailblazer (with Facebook) of a “new logic of accumulation” (Zuboff, 2018). Both companies accumulated data points—en masse—regarding their users’ personal information, preferences and consumption patterns. At the heart of this is their profit principle. Thus, the world witnessed the rise of capitalistic tendencies with regard to user data. The digital age, previously dreamt as an emancipatory epoch, is thus disfigured by corporations’ invasive, primitive accumulation of its users’ private experiences.

Hal Varian christens this convoluted process of extraction, commodification and control of user data the “Big Other” (an allusion to Orwell’s “Big Brother”). This, he argues, produces a “largely uncontested new expression of power” (Zuboff, 2019). To give us a better picture of this: Google extracts 20 petabytes of data every day, and in the first few months of 2019, earned over $36 billion in revenue. Moreover, Amazon collects more than 1 exabyte of purchase history data from their consumers. Through collecting behavioural data, the Big Others (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple) have experienced extreme growth and profit. As it is, Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Apple and Facebook are now among the top six of the world’s biggest and most successful companies by market capitalisation.

The danger of surveillance capitalism — The leak of psychological profiles belonging to tens of millions of its American users occurred in December 2015 when companies sold data to political campaigns in exchange for profit.

The leak of psychological profiles belonging to tens of millions of its American users occurred in December 2015 when companies sold data to political campaigns in exchange for profit. Facebook grossly breached its data protection laws as political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica harvested the data of 87 million people. Instead of using this information for behavioural ends, Analytica harvested it for political ends to support the Trump campaign. Using predictive analysis of big datasets, the Trump campaign swayed voters—a clear compromise of the democratic process. According to Chris Wylie, a whistleblower, every aspect of Analytica was mired in typically surveillance capitalist practices, based on a legal loophole. This problem is ingrained in Google, Facebook, etc. Surveillance capitalism in digital corporations has faced 20 unimpeded years without legal regulation (Kavenna, 2019).

But why should we care? Most people seem to be okay with surrendering their information in return for perceived benefits. For example, giving social media such as Instagram access to our contacts allows us quicker access to following friends (Bridle, 2019). People trade their personal information for the notorious TikTok algorithm that recommends TikTok shorts to your taste to your For You page. Clearly, the sanctity-of-rights argument isn’t persuading most. Zuboff reframes it. She claims that when people engage in the systems of surveillance capitalism, they not only forfeit their personal information but in fact, the “entire track of one’s life” (Bridle, 2019).

Under surveillance capitalism, it is as if our entire future determination is under the purview and control of the data market, which autonomously creates perfect models of human behaviour. Models that allow prediction and control of human behaviour. We are, in essence, looking at the substitution of participatory democracy with algorithmic certainty (Bridle, 2019). This is a horrifying future for both capitalists and non-capitalists. The “inevitable failure” of the surveillant vision is startlingly relevant. We are witnessing the disintegration of social bonds, communal distrust and the rise of fundamentalist beliefs and tensions (Zuboff, 2019).

So why aren’t these effects of surveillance capitalism common knowledge? According to Zuboff, not only are these methodologies designed to keep us ignorant, but they involve dependency and the foreclosure of alternatives (Zuboff, 2019). Companies have exploited the cultural belief that it is wrong to prohibit progress, technological or otherwise. Further, people have begun to believe that surveillance capitalism (and future technological advancements) are indeed inevitable, hence accepting their indefinite encroachment into our lives. It is the sheer dependency and convenience of the internet that keeps us marching down the path that ends with surveillance capitalism’s further infringement on our lives.

Bibliography

Bridle, James. "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff Review – We Are the Pawns." The Guardian, 2 Feb. 2019, www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/02/age-of-surveillance-capitalism-shoshana-zuboff-review.

Kavenna, Joanna. "Shoshana Zuboff: ‘Surveillance Capitalism is an Assault on Human Autonomy’." The Guardian, 29 Oct. 2019, www.theguardian.com/books/2019/oct/04/shoshana-zuboff-surveillance-capitalism-assault-human-automomy-digital-privacy.

Laidler, John. Zuboff, Shoshana. "Harvard Professor Says Surveillance Capitalism is Undermining Democracy." Harvard Gazette, 4 Mar. 2019, news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/03/harvard-professor-says-surveillance-capitalism-is-undermining-democracy/.

Zuboff, Shoshana. Big other: Surveillance Capitalism and the Prospects of an Information Civilization. Journal of Information Technology, 2015, 30(1), 75–89. https://doi.org/10.1057/jit.2015.5

Zuboff, Shoshana. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. Public Affairs, 2018.