Sublime

In Internet for the People, leading tech writer Ben Tarnoff offers an answer. The internet is broken, he argues, because it is owned by private firms and run for profit. Google annihilates your privacy and Facebook amplifies right-wing propaganda because it is profitable to do so. But the internet wasn't always like this—it had to be remade for the... See more

So today, Google is truly an all-seeing surveillance machine. When a person uses Google’s search engine, maps, email, YouTube, Android, and Chrome operating systems, or any of the dozens of other services and products it owns, Google stores a complete record of those interactions. Google then aggregates all this personal data to allow marketers to... See more

Identity is one of our most fundamental human rights. Yet, in the age of surveillance, commodification and centralization, it is under threat. Edward Snowden said it best, "The one vulnerability being exploited across all systems is identity."

If the “State is the monopoly on violence,” as Max Weber once defined it, then the surveillance state (or surveillance capital) is the monopoly on identity. In this time of rising surveillance capitalism, entrenched surveillance states and, more recently, the plutocracy of blockchain networks, this monopoly has never been more important to break.... See more