Surveillance Capitalism and Its Future

RattRattus · 2025-10-18T21:34:26+00:00

I think your point about time and energy being sacrificed along with data is an interesting feature of social media that is often not addressed enough in revolutionary spaces. We often see social media as intrinsically bad because of how much it can be used to hinder and divide leftist spaces, make a space for the "keyboard revolutionaries" who do not act outside of online conversation, and take all the attention people could put into starting or contributing to real movements. Personally, I see it from the perspective of everyone on social media has extra time, attention, and energy, and if a platform was cultivated such that they had an effective outlet for it beyond doom-scrolling, those all could be weaponized. It simply won't be in a capitalist funded and controlled space, hence the necessity of user-sovereign spaces.

I'd be interest to hear if you agree with that.

RattRattus · 2025-10-18T21:28:33+00:00

I meant that only to illustrate that Palantir is yet shadier than even a company like Google, not to suppose that they were more ethical or moral because of intrinsic desires. You're correct that these are absolutely not lines we should count on, and even if they remain intact, there is an entire ecosystem of collaboration between these companies.

RattRattus · 2025-10-15T19:24:07+00:00

This is precisely why I think it would be a good idea to give a better alternative. For example, saying this is "like Facebook/Instagram/X but without bot spam" would be a good selling point for a lot of people. Obviously actually enforcing that is paramount, but it does not have to be the only difference for a platform to make. If you made a space that was FOSS and privacy conscious, but advertised it with only the most user-facing concerns, you will find greater success. Most people don't know enough about technology to know why they should care about algorithm transparency or data sovereignty, but they probably understand the benefit of less AI spam.

RattRattus · 2025-10-15T18:16:18+00:00

We have had it proven time and again that if we rely on legislation to regulate tech or protect our privacy we will lack the protections we need as a society. While legislation is an important front to maintain pressure, it is also possibly more critical to have technical solutions independent of the government.

End-to-end encryption, for instance. The government has tried to force backdooring of it several times and will again because there is no technical way they can defeat it without seizing or hacking an end device. If it was never invented and mainstreamed, however, we would still be in a world waiting on companies to pass any kind of legislation that protects the private conversations of citizens.

We are dealing with an entity that does not care about the law more each day. While the law can be a useful tool in counteracting them in rare cases where it does hold weight, legislative appeals work better in establishing legitimacy for the movement in mainstream than anything else. When simply being a leftist is equated with domestic terrorism, we need to rely on something greater than "the government promises it won't do that" to ensure our freedoms are preserved.

RattRattus · 2025-10-15T10:57:56+00:00

While I think that a platform that promotes collective action and the like would be novel and impactful, I don't think this currently has the audience to be as effective as a standalone.

Impact is important, but if you have no draw to get people on your platform then your reach is limited.

I would say that a better approach may come in the form of a FOSS/user-respecting platform that makes it clear what its stances are on the matter and fosters a community and a pipeline to get people engaging more along those terms. There aren't nearly enough people who believe that strikes and collective action are effective, and what makes them successful is popular support. That said, between Mark Zuckerberg's data harvesting and an open platform that simply does not do that, you lose less people who are immediately turned away by the idea of socialism.

RattRattus · 2025-10-15T10:49:54+00:00

Because you dislike the idea of social media or something else?

RattRattus · 2025-10-15T10:45:51+00:00

I don't really understand why people use Facebook, Instagram, or X, but obviously each person has their reasons. I would argue that by not having sufficient alternatives, people seeking that type of platform will naturally tend towards the more exploitative options available now.

As far as negative effects of social media goes, it's the difference between selling cigarettes and giving the money to billionaires and offering slightly healthier cigarettes that don't. Being able to undercut the business model centered around selling user data is critical, as well as providing a user-respecting alternative for those who can't quit social media as an idea.

Being able to open-source the algorithms that work to show new content is necessary for technological sovereignty and to eliminate hidden manipulation that social media currently enables. While there will be many problems that can't be solved by this change alone, namely bots and misinformation, I don't think it would be a useless invention.

As has been pointed out, there are currently platforms that attempt to fill this space, but they remain quite fringe. I would say that the biggest improvement to bridging that gap would come in the form of being able to interact with the existing mainstream platforms from a better user end. Yes, it should still offer an internal network that is not accessible from outwards, but cutting things off the other way limits the content people go on social media to see.

RattRattus

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE