The Cyber Show Explains the Concept of "Data Rape"
Andy has just published "Data Rape: Tech Has A Consent Problem", a very long article about a metaphor some might find crude:
So 'Data rape', the phrase coined by Jo to describe her ordeal, might sound a dramatic quip, but who am I to invalidate her account and experience. As she said, she "was shaking" after the experience having been robbed of dignity.One of the insidious effects of sexual violence 3 other than the direct trauma is the chilling effect on normal life. Used as a weapon of war it's aim is to subdue and curtail the lives, not just of immediate victims but, of partners, children, neighbours, friends, employers.
Mass surveillance, coercive data extraction, violence against privacy and dignity, similarly erode the fabric of society. It erodes trust in goods and services so harming the economy. It erodes trust in truth and precipitates an epistemic crisis which undermines politics and education. It corrodes associations with trusted agents; accountants, lawyers, doctors and the health service. Data rape and non-consensual surveillance must be understood as a form of psychological warfare (psyops) against a population to sap and undermine it.
Why are we doing this to ourselves and allowing foreign perpetrators (Google, Microsoft, Meta etc) to do this to our people?
What abusers hope is that we become "acclimatised" to it (they say so in their own research papers). I think a lot of the recent acceleration is a desperate attempt to establish some "new normal". It isn't working. The actual research shows that we don't, or rather human beings can't accept it. George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty Four" got something important wrong - both Huxley and Hitchens remarked on it - that humans are simply psychologically incapable of that level of acquiescence. As Huxley knew, they must be drugged and won over with "shiny good things". They must want to be enslaved.
Why are people tolerating GAFAM at all? Because bosses and schools force them to use that stuff? █