Algorithmization in the World of Surveillance Capitalism

Abstract

The companies of surveillance capitalism, such as Google or Facebook (and many, many others, less gigantic and less well known) collect immense amounts of information about us. Their algorithms classify us and establish statistical correlations from our data that allow them to predict and manipulate our behaviour. In conjunction with corporations, the public authorities have built a genuine "state-industrial complex" of surveillance. The use of algorithms raises crucial ethical and political issues when they affect fundamental rights, especially those that are capable of learning by themselves and autonomously reprogramming themselves. The intrusion of surveillance capitalism's algorithms into a sphere of life reshapes its structure and its functioning logic. As a result, we are being stripped of our identity and alienated from democratic practices. We have few legal resources to defend ourselves against this colonisation. But this does not mean that we should resign ourselves and accept the present situation. Many people and organisations are developing forms of resistance to the despotism of surveillance capitalism. They are fighting to create a digital citizenship that is still to come.