surveillance capitalism

This article adopts a psychoanalytic perspective and argues that users are in a perverse relationship with contemporary platforms. Following a review of recent critical scholarship on datafication, which places too much emphasis on platforms and situates users as helpless, the psychoanalytic concept of perversion is introduced. Perversion describes a relationship that is characterised by dominance, exploitation and dehumanization as well as care, love, and idealization. While the pervert (the platform and its owners and developers) is the perpetrator, the other (the user) is also actively participating in the perverse relationship. Contemporary relations are thus marked by foregrounding connectivity, convenience and communication which mask the violence of datafication. Such relations are upheld, because users affirmatively reproduce them by using highly attractive platforms which are customized for each individual. Psychoanalysis can thus offer a complex conceptualisation of the interplay between affirmation, attraction and exploitation that is immanent to platforms and users today.

Digital communication devices such as smartphones enable new ways to gather information about the conduct and habits of populations in certain regions or cities. In addition to the rating systems, such as those through which a customer rates a service, and which aims to expose the quality of the consuming experience of a service or product, the same logic underlies a conduct assessment method on China’s population, the Social Credit System. In this system, people with a high score receive some kind of easiness or bonus while those with low scores may have their activities limited (free movement, acquisition of goods, etc.). In philosophy, Byung Chul-Han defines this scenario as a psychopolitic that influences our decisions. This article aims to think about the use of big data and assessment systems that score human conduct, as forms of control through digital media that endanger people's decision and experience freedom, through a social engineering system that has implications in the complexity of human relations.

Elaborating on the term “Digital Zoning” – this paper discusses the use of urban planning procedures as a form of technology regulation.

Emerging developments within a range of technologies including augmented reality, facial recognition, spatial sensors, and 5g positioning are rapidly expanding the domain and precision of technology in physical space. The use of smartphones and wearable technologies increasingly bring spatial technologies into the experience and governance of everyday life. Recent debate on risks to user privacy and surveillance in urban environments suggest close links between these spatial technologies and the overall political framework of surveillance capitalism (Zuboff, 2018). An interesting development in this matter has been the call for regulation from several high-level tech executives - portraying the rare case of a business sector requesting its own regulation. Additionally, various cities and public venues around the world have begun to experiment with “tech-free zones” such as the city of Hobart, Tasmania, discussing the implementation of tech-free parks, the city of San Francisco banning facial recognition, and London experimenting with a tech-free café. These developments as a whole signal a growing need in developing coherent theories and techniques for technology regulation in physical space.

Challenging Silicon Valley’s claim that “The online world is not truly bound by terrestrial laws (...) it’s the world’s largest ungoverned space.” (Schmidt, Cohen, 2014) the paper proposes that the framework of zoning in urban planning may be useful legal tools of technology regulation. As future 5G networks will allow for highly precise environments for positioning, we will likely witness not only an enabling of a large amount of location-based services and applications but also the capacity to regulate such services based on their position in space. This functions in parallel with a technique called “geofencing”, in which virtual perimeters are created for real-world geographic areas. This technique as a form of zoning may specify ways in which a physical space could have a digital policy. The paper demonstrates how this form of regulation may safeguard user privacy while allowing for a level playing field in which all digital services proposals are applied through the same set of regulations. This allows for a condition in which zoning provides a tool for authorities, public services, or planning councils to enforce an intended digital policy upon a specific district based on local needs or practices. Finally, the paper demonstrates various self-conducted experiments in Oslo, Norway with installations in public space as part of a larger body of research on the “Nordic Digital City.”

Sommario: 1. Parco giochi con pena di morte: la Smart city come elemento di ingegneria sociale.; 2. Le città intelligenti tra governo del territorio, razionalità costituzionale e microfisica del potere ; 3. Smart citizenship: diritto e cittadinanza digitale; 4. Capitalismo di sorveglianza, dati e dimensione urbana ; 5. La tripla convergenza: concorrenza, innovazione e regolazione nel prisma della Smart City ; 6. Verso un principio costituzionale di precauzione per il governo razionale della città intelligente e della società digitale. "La città è il laboratorio dell'umanità, il luogo in cui le persone si radunano per sognare, creare, costruire e ricostruire insieme" Edward Glaeser, Il trionfo della città 1. Parco giochi con pena di morte: la Smart city come elemento di ingegneria sociale Nell'aprile 2019 il New York Times 1 ha dato conto delle risultanze di un esperimento socio-scientifico, dal limitatissimo costo di sessanta dollari, che ha trasformato una telecamera cittadina, posizionata nel lato est del Bryant Park nel Midtown Manhattan, in un sistema di riconoscimento biometrico facciale. Il match tra gli oltre duemila volti dei passanti immortalati nei singoli scatti e le foto da questi caricate online, facilmente rinvenibili su motori di ricerca o social network, e che rispondevano ai medesimi parametri biometrici, portava ad una quasi totalitaria identificazione dei cittadini stessi; professori universitari, broker, studenti, turisti, una vasta umanità in transito che veniva scandagliata, analizzata, capillarmente catalogata 2 e identificata 3. * Scritto sottoposto a referee. 1 S. Chinoy, We built an Unbelievable (but legal) facial recognition machine, New York Times, 16 Aprile 2019. 2 Sui rischi intrinsecamente connaturati in prospettiva dei pubblici poteri alla prassi, per ora solo poliziesca, dello stop and frisk, consistente nell'immortalare su smartphone o iPad il volto di un sospetto o di un semplice fermato per strada e immetterlo in un sistema cloud per verificare la sussistenza di precedenti penali, misure cautelari o comunque restrittive, ampiamente C. O'Neil. Armi di distruzione matematica, Milano, Bompiani, 2017, pp. 148 e ss, la quale riporta i casi che usualmente occorrono nella città californiana di San Diego. Naturalmente il meccanismo, limitato alla sfera dell'anti-terrorismo o della pubblica sicurezza, urbana o nazionale, è già ampiamente sfruttato in ottica commerciale, sia per quanto riguarda la veicolazione commerciale e la polarizzazione consumeristica sia, in termini di sorveglianza mercatoria, per iniziare a generare modalità di comportamento coartato, artificiale, guidato da chi ha intenzione di lanciare sul mercato un certo prodotto. 3 Una questione analoga, con tutte le varie implicazioni connesse, era per altro stata già affrontata e discussa dalla dottrina americana, si veda L. Lessig, Code 2.0, NYC, Basic Books, 2006, p. 218.

The age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff deserves a productive public and academic debate. It should not only be read and discussed by a broad audience; we can only hope that scholars across disciplines engage with her argument, finetune and improve it.

A study on how rhetoric has become a full τέχνη under the influence and the work of Aristotle. The aim of this bachelor's thesis is both to delineate how rhetoric has become so central in ancient Athens' political life, following its progressive philosophical theorization and development in the Sophists, Plato's "Gorgias" and Aristotle's "Rhetoric", and to find in Aristotle's topological methodology and appeal to passions an embryonal structure of what today has become algorithmic driven and mediated mass-media communication and social interaction.

The problem of big data companies claiming rights to the data of individuals is a hot topic in the 21st century. This work will aim to outline the positive and negatvie aspects of the internet of things and how it impacts our social as well as private live. This work analyses why big data and mass surveillance was allowed to thrive so freely for the last decade and it asks the question, why convienience of these technologies is making it hard to fight against them. The history of surveillance is discussed from the perspective of the United States of America and it will try to answer the question: what did the US government do wrong? Furthermore, the thesis looks into the case studies of different elections in the 21st century and how big data and social surveillance effects democratic processes in different countries across the world. The work will also look into the worst kind of example of mass surveillance, namely the Uighur minority in Western China, the social credit system and different methods of spying on minotiry groups will be talked about. Finally, the thesis ends with an analysis of the current state of the legislative action that is being taken against the big data companies as well as governments. Analysis of the EU and US legislation has been conducted as these two regions are by far the most advanced in terms of the opposition to these technologies.

This chapter offers an overview of music theory discourse on social media. The author focuses on the English phrase "music theory" as it appears on platforms such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Reddit, and TikTok. Combining close readings of a wide range of music theory content, conversations with music theory influencers, and research on social media's economic and political impacts, the author explicates some of the ways that social media discourse has been affecting the purview of music theory, both online and off. Examples include the formation of online learning communities around niche music theory subjects, the rise of music theory clickbait, and the propagation of various kinds of music theory memes.

Die digitale Technik steckt voller Widersprüche: Neue smarte Geräte wie die Apple Watch, Fitness- oder Health-Apps werden als emanzipativ gefeiert und mit den Versprechen der Unabhängigkeit, Selbstbestimmung und Freiheit aufgeladen. Doch allzu häufig formen diese Wearables eine Realität, die sich durch Überwachen, Vermessen und Tracken bestimmt. Anna-Verena Nosthoff und Felix Maschewski gehen dieser paradoxen Dynamik nach und zeigen auf, wie die Dialektik von Freiheit und Kontrolle ein neues Welt- und Selbstverständnis prägt. Dabei gerät nicht nur das technisch umgarnte Individuum in den Blick, sondern auch das quantifizierte Kollektiv – eine Gesellschaft, die sich im Namen der Freiheit zu immer mehr Kontrolle verführt. Höchste Zeit, sich in der Kunst zu üben, nicht so profiliert, quantifiziert und datiert – »nicht dermaßen regiert zu werden«.

Anna-Verena Nosthoff ist freie Autorin, Philosophin und politische Theoretikerin. Zuletzt war sie Research Fellow am Weizenbaum-Institut für die vernetzte Gesellschaft. Derzeit lehrt sie am Institut für Politikwissenschaft der Universität Wien und forscht zur Kybernetisierung des Politischen und den politischen Konsequenzen der Digitalisierung.

Felix Maschewski ist freier Autor, Literatur-, Kultur- und Wirtschaftswissenschaftler sowie wissenschaft- licher Mitarbeiter am Institut für Wirtschaftsge- staltung Berlin. Zudem ist er Mitglied des PhD- Netzwerks »Das Wissen der Literatur« der Humboldt Universität Berlin und der Princeton University.

Neben akademischen Publikationen schreiben Nosthoff und Maschewski gemeinsam regelmäßig Essays u. a. für das Feuilleton der Neuen Zürcher Zeitung, FAS, Die Republik, Spex und Hohe Luft über den digitalen Wandel, seine ideologischen Bedingungen und polit-ökonomischen Tendenzen. Im September 2019 wurden sie mit dem Wissenschaftlichen Essay- Preis des Forschungsinstituts für Philosophie Hannover ausgezeichnet.


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Neil Young, así como la cantante Joni Mitchel, otra icono de la música rock para talluditos como los que escriben artículos de esta guisa, han decidido que no pueden avalar la indecencia de Spotify de permitir el acceso al comediante Joe Rogan, que ha difundido en su podcast, el más oído del planeta, teorías no confirmadas o bulos sobre las vacunas contra la COVID-19.

"Este artigo tem por objetivo apresentar uma crítica acerca de análises que
identificam, diante do desenvolvimento de uma economia política baseada em dados, riscos para a autonomia individual e a democracia, de modo geral. Segundo as análises, esse risco decorre do poder que certas empresas adquirem pelo conhecimento preciso da realidade cotidiana, em função da exploração massiva de dados pessoais. O argumento que desenvolvo neste texto é que os riscos que essas análises identificam decorre de um processo de evolução de uma dinâmica de estranhamento no âmbito das relações entre o capital e o trabalho. Segundo o argumento, é no âmbito do conflito entre capital e trabalho que o capitalismo identifica um valor em potencial a ser explorado pelo dado
extraído do trabalho e que, na evolução da própria economia política baseada em dados e da internet, esse estranhamento alimenta uma mistificação sobre o poder das empresas que exploram esses dados."

This article examines the 2015 film Ex Machina as a cultural text that exemplifies the technologization of gender within algorithmic culture. Analysing different textual elementsthe narrative diegesis, the marketing material, and the digital techniques used in the VFX post-production process-I argue that gender is consistently figured as a kind of technology. That is, gender is systematised, codified, and reduced to a programmed set of instructions that can be used by machines to manipulate and deceive. I argue that understanding gender through its figuration with the technological, specifically through code and algorithms, raises pertinent issues concerning surveillance, race, and bias. This is reflected in the film through a problematic representation of racialised figures, particularly techno-Orientalist tropes of labouring Asian bodies.

Der Artikel analysiert den Einzug Big Techs (der Fokus liegt auf Apple und Alphabet) in den Gesundheitsmarkt und beschreibt in Anlehnung an Michel Foucault und Shoshana Zuboff das Konzept einer „überwachungskapitalistischen Biopolitik“. Ziel ist, die Ausweitung des „Datenextraktivismus“ im Gesundheitswesen und der Gesundheitsforschung machtkritisch einzuordnen und damit einen Trend in der digitalen Gesundheitsfürsorge zu problematisieren, der sich in den letzten Jahren und, wie wir zeigen, besonders während der Coronakrise beschleunigt und ausgefächert hat. Anhand wissenschaftlicher und kommerzieller Projekte sowie Kooperationen im Bereich public health wird deutlich, dass zeitgenössische Formen der Biopolitik keineswegs auf staatliche Regime beschränkt sind. Stattdessen sind sie zunehmend über private Technologieunternehmen vermittelt, die dabei nicht nur intime Verhaltens- und Vitaldaten akkumulieren, sondern – qua proprietärer Algorithmen – auch den Zugang zu diesen kontrollieren und schließlich ihren Einfluss in exklusive Services und Produkte überführen. Ein besonderer Akzent des Artikels liegt zudem auf der voranschreitenden Verbreitung sogenannter Wearable-Technologien (Smartwatches etc.), über die sich nicht nur die herausgehobene Marktposition der Konzerne, sondern – in der Entwicklung von einem „quantifizierten Selbst“ zu einem „quantifizierten Kollektiv“ – auch ihre epistemische bzw. „infrastrukturelle Macht“ konkretisiert. Entgegen einer einseitig repressiven Perspektive auf biopolitische Praxen zeigen wir schließlich Ansätze einer Demokratisierung „überwachungskapitalistischer Biopolitik“ auf. Hierbei heben wir vier Topoi hervor, die von zentraler Bedeutung sind: Privatsphäre bzw. individuelle Souveränität (1.), demokratische Deliberation (2.), Pluralismus (3.) und epistemische Gleichheit (4.).


The article introduces the concept of "surveillance-capitalist biopolitics" to problematize the recent expansion of "data extractivism" in health care and health research. As we show, this trend has accelerated during the ongoing Covid pandemic and points to a normalization and institutionalization of self-tracking practices, which, drawing on the "quantified self", points to the emergence of a "quantified collective". Referring to Foucault and Zuboff, and by analyzing key examples of the leading "Big Tech" companies (e.g., Alphabet and Apple), we argue that contemporary forms of digital biopolitics are privatized, opaque, flexible, and not limited to the state. Instead, especially through the integration of wearable technologies, the biopolitical regulation of bodies is increasingly mediated by private tech companies. These companies rely on a questionable narrative of participation, responsibility, and care despite owning, and ultimately controlling, access to intimate health data and the proprietary algorithms mediating this data. The article shows that the proliferation of "surveillance-capitalist biopolitics" ultimately strengthens not only market power but also the epistemic and infrastructural power of the dataowning and gadget-producing firms. Finally, against an exclusively repressive and negative reading of biopolitics, and to effectively counter the forms of power emerging from surveillance-capitalist biopolitics, we propose four dimensions that are central to its democratizationnamely privacy/individual sovereignty, democratic deliberation, pluralism, and epistemic equality.

+ Big Tech + Biopolitik + Überwachungskapitalismus + Pandemie + infrastrukturelle Macht + Gesundheitswesen

In this article, we investigate labour struggles under the condition of digital capitalism. The main research question we address is: How do German unions evaluate and respond to the rapidly accelerating digitalisation of economy and work? Based on a series of interviews with union representatives in Germany, we trace recent developments within an increasingly digitised economy, outlining challenges and opportunities for unions. Our findings show that the large-scale deployment of digital technologies fragments the workforce, reduces social standards, worsens working conditions, and exacerbates power imbalances to the detriment of the employed. These disadvantages are only insufficiently met with new opportunities to raise public awareness and connect with and mobilise workers by means of digital communication technologies. Our study suggests a growing significance of technological expertise for unions, a need to meet global capital with enhanced international and regional cooperation among labour organisations, and the importance of uniting established unions and grassroots workers' movements in shared struggles to improve the situation of workers under technologyenhanced conditions of globalised exploitation and control.

Eine foucaultsche Perspektive hat enormes Potential um aktuelle Erscheinungen des von Zuboffs getauften „Überwachungskapitalismus“ genauer zu durchleuchten. Dazu will die vorliegende Arbeit einen vorläufigen und unvollständigen Beitrag leisten. Während die computergestützte Vermessung und Auswertung menschlichen Lebens ein beispielloses Ausmaß angenommen hat, scheint sich die Gesellschaft zunehmend bewusst zu werden über die neuartige Macht eines Kapitalismus, der Verhaltensdaten erhebt, auswertet und handelt, um schließlich menschliches Verhalten zu kontrollieren. Informationstechnologien unterscheiden sich dabei von anderen Technologien – sie produzieren neues Wissen, auch solches zur Menschenführung. So wie Kämpfe um Arbeitsteilung und Mitbestimmung für die erste und zweite Moderne zentral waren, wird in der dritten Moderne ein Kampf um Wissensteilung und Lernprozesse geführt werden müssen. Drei Fragen drängen sich auf: Wer weiß? Wer entscheidet? Wer entscheidet darüber, wer entscheidet?

he Nolan brothers-Jonathan and Christopher-have a reputation for creating artistic movies and TV  series on original and phenomenal science-fiction ideas.    ‘Westworld’  (2016-2020),  a dystopia produced by HBO in three seasons-The Maze (2016), The Door (2018) and The New World (2020) is yet another of such creations of Jonathan Nolan in collaboration with Lisa Joy. This paper brings to the fore a  discussion on surveillance and an affinity for organised evil technology have equipped human beings with.  In  the  first  two seasons we find high paying guests buying tickets to  slaughter,  molest,  abuse,  mutilate  and  rape  the  android  hosts  in  a semblance  of  the  world  minus  legal  foundations;  hundreds  of  hosts  including  animals, manufactured  with  care  and  precision,  run  the  show  in  an  amusement  park  which  faithfully recreates the ‘wild west’. Elements ranging from landforms, sheriffs and cowboys to batwing bar doors, shot-gun culture, country-folk--all of it comes to life in a looped storyline as scenes from  a  play.  Every  Step  of  the  hosts  is  monitored  and  every  decision  programmed.  Once  the hosts fall, they are extracted and repaired daily. The park fetishizes human’s affinity for evil and sells it as ‘freedom from social constructions’, desirable and a quite expensive commodity: unleash  your  basic  instincts.  Later  on,  one  finds  other  pockets  of  the  amusement  park harbouring  hosts  representing  the  cultures  like  the  Japanese  clans,  Red  Indians,  civil  war soldiers--all  faithfully  brought  to  life.  The  final  season  unveils  an  artificial  intelligence  called
PJAEE, 17 (6) (2020)6806the  Rehoboam  built  to  predict  terrorist  attacks.  A  giant  ball  of  an  AI  that  feeds  on  data  from virtual  reality  and  profiles  real  human  beings:  an  exaggerated  level  of  surveillance.  Human beings  are  profiled  right  from  their  very  birth.  Their  life  moments  are  recorded  in  CCTVs scattered  everywhere.  The  makers  of  Rehoboam  lose  control  over  the  AI  and  it  begins  to  play God;  human  beings  are  conditioned,  re-programmed,  brain-washed  and  killed  to  make  sure Rehoboam’s  predictions  always  hold  true.  The future  that Westworld(2016-2020)  predicts shows  the  investors  fall  prey  to  their  investments.  The  commodity  becomes  aware  of  its  value and  asserts  itself  on  the  producers:  something  the  capitalists  might  not  have  considered.  They have  been  sanctioning  allsorts  of  brutalities  to  make  way  for  an  era-defining  AI  and  build  a self-sustaining  world.  With  AIs  aiding  our  daily  lives,  this  study  attempts  to  understand  the future with the androids; we are about to encounter an extended version of surveillance and evil.

The age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff deserves a productive public and academic debate. It should not only be read and discussed by a broad audience; we can only hope that scholars across disciplines engage with her argument, finetune and improve it.

Provocatively drawing inspiration from an episode of the Netflix series Black Mirror and China’s Social Credit System this article critically examines the politics and practices of datafication, quantification and qualification associated to the Airbnb platform. It first explores some of the ideas and ontological claims that endorse Airbnb’s digital infrastructure. Secondly, it looks at how the company’s use of data management and metrics has become increasingly instrumental in maintaining control over hosts and guests and obtaining desirable and profitable outcomes. It does so by unpicking various applications and technologies used by Airbnb to monitor, record and measure the behaviour of hosts and guests. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Airbnb hosts and their participation in forum discussions the article discusses how people understand – and resist – Airbnb’s ‘ranking logic’ and the ways in which their Selves and their homes should be rated and ranked and put into circulation as ‘value’ by the platform. In particular, the article argues that, through the review and rating system incorporated in the platform, both guests and hosts actively contribute to the production of a set of constantly changing hierarchies that represent the driving force of Airbnb as a biopolitical social regulator.

The article explores Facebook governance—its mechanisms, motivations and sources of power—while identifying wider patterns and logics that apply to other internet corporations. I suggest that (1) When digital capitalism turns mundane human interactions into biopolitical production, corporations gain interest in governing these interactions to maximize profit, and make decisions on core political issues; (2) Facebook can effectively govern and discipline users since it remolds various field-specific forms of capital into a single form, generalized social capital, and since it can threaten to confiscate generalized social capital accumulated by users; (3) Digital platforms do not simply epitomize a shift from discipline toward neo-liberal decentralized governance. Instead, they engage in intensive legislation, administration of justice and punishment; and develop eclectic governing and legitimation apparatuses consisting of algorithms, proletarian judicial labor and quasi-constitutional governing documents.

Workshop and Special Section Focus
Over the past decade, the concept of “Smart City” with an emphasis on economic development, use of ICT and provision of engineering solutions has skyrocketed [1-5]. Amidst the increased competition among cities for businesses and talent, regardless of city-size, state of development, or socio-cultural context, local and national governments worldwide have launched Smart City initiatives. These initiatives often are driven by a focus on smart infrastructure provision through the use of connected devices and sensors for data collection, transmission through the internet, and the use of data mining and artificial intelligence to allow for better decision making and interaction among the devices in domains such as transportation, electricity distribution, health, and community development [6-10].
Scholars have argued that this strong emphasis on connectivity as the main source of growth in smart cities is shifting the focus away from traditional environmental concerns of the predecessor “sustainable city” concept towards more focus on infrastructure and use of information to increase economic efficiency, raising concerns over neglecting social and environmental issues [11-13].
A key consideration should be the understanding of the impact of rapid adoption of various digital technologies under the smart city umbrella on the society as a whole and finding ways to address their risks and unintended consequences, which can cause safety, liability, privacy, security, environmental, discrimination, and social inclusion concerns among others [14-20]. Moreover, with the global crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, smart cities and digitalisation are seen as a means to increase emergency preparedness and emergency responses to the virus, which has resulted in the more rapid adoption of digitalisation and further highlights the importance of the study of the issues at hand [21-23]. Since the onset of this health crisis and its socio-economic consequences have made it clear that its impact will not fade any time soon, it is a serious possibility that COVID-19 and its successors will have a lasting impact on our society and daily operations, and these will be intimately and permanently interwoven with digitisation and smart governance.
What are the long-term effects of the rapid and extensive adoption of digitisation in smart cities? Whereas a previous Special Issue in Technological Forecasting and Social Change published in May 2019 ‘Understanding Smart Cities: Innovation ecosystems, technological advancements, and societal challenges’ appeared before the outbreak of the epidemic and highlighted issues such as the contribution smart technologies could make to sustainable urban development, boosting local innovation climates and accommodating active urbanite citizenship, the air of the times anno 2022 appears to have changed significantly.
Globally both the application of and scepticism (if not outright fear among some) towards smart technologies digesting massive amounts of data to guide, regulate, and move people in directions desired by public authorities and private sector giants have increased. What have the experiences so far been with various relevant technologies deployed? How can and should various relevant technologies be trusted and used responsibly? What policies, regulations, legislation, standards, certificates, and auditing mechanisms can and should be developed to benefit from smart city developments while protecting the citizens and negating legitimate concerns over risks and unintended consequences of artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, internet of things, platforms, virtual reality, augmented reality, blockchains, 3D printing and smart health solutions to name but a few? How has COVID-19 changed plans for the adoption and long-term rolling out of these technologies? How concerned should we be about the ‘dark sides’ of smart cities when it comes to the behavioural opportunities urbanites are left within the face of large organisations armed with high-power technologies? Do they become smart citizens, or are they outsmarted by forces beyond their control? Can we distinguish between different societal groups in the way they are able to participate or excluded from using smart technologies?
In this workshop and limited special section articles, building on the previous TFSC special issue on Smart Cities in 2019, we will examine broader impacts of smart cities post COVID-19. We will explore issues such as risks and unintended consequences, stakeholder impacts, changes to spatial planning because of COVID-19, as well as the dark side of smart cities, which can stem from the increasing power of tech giants and their impact on urban governance, surveillance capitalism, and differentiated participation or exclusion of various societal groups in smart cities and their inclusiveness). In this Special Collection, we invite scholars to contribute articles that examine the long-term impact of digitisation on smart city governance in the aftermath of the COVID-19 outbreak and explore the practical and normative aspects that local and national governments should address when dealing with it, as well as exploring the dark side of the smart cities. Key issues to be covered in the workshop include:
• The broader risks and impacts of rapid adoption of emerging and/or disruptive technologies in smart cities, such as critical examination of the hypes, realities and impacts of the adoption of AI and Big Data on civil liberties and inclusiveness.
• The opportunities and challenges underlying smart city development and the role of the different levels of the government and broader epistemic community in adopting various technologies as part of smart cities (e.g. through knowledge transfer, policy mobility and learning).
• The impact of digitisation and Smart City development on various aspects of inclusive urban development and challenges governments face when ensuring access to digital technologies among vulnerable and uninitiated groups 
• The increased role of tech companies in Smart city development and the consequences of their increased influence over policy and regulatory development
• The existence of various business models for governing smart city development and their relative impact on the inclusiveness of public governance and services in terms of democracy, equity and diversity
• The appropriateness of different regulatory and governance approaches to address the risks of various technologies deployed in smart city initiatives
• The role of emerging tools and initiatives in the governance of smart cities and their impact on aspects of broad societal inclusion (living labs, digital tools, regulatory sandboxes, integrated development plans)
• The role of policy design and handling of capability and capacity challenges in ensuring the quality and sustainability of smart city initiatives
It is these questions that the workshop and a collection of articles in the special section of  Technological Forecasting and Social Change aims to address. Araz Taeihagh (Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, and Centre for Trusted Internet and Community, National University of Singapore) and Martin de Jong (Rotterdam School of Management and Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam) invite their peers worldwide to contribute high-quality articles on these pertinent topics for the workshop and selection of a limited number of articles for the special section of TFSC.
Araz Taeihagh
Martin de Jong
Guest Editors

What are the main features of the new contemporary power regime and the emerging forms of surveillance? I intend to investigate this question following the steps of Michel Foucault, but looking beyond the sovereign, disciplinary and biopolitical or securitarian logics. In this presentation, I would like to return to the course "Security, Territory, Population" (1978), in which Foucault reflects on the organization of cities and the fight against contagious diseases, through the triad of leprosy, plague, and smallpox, or La Métropolitée, Richelieu, and Nantes. I propose a fourth paradigmatic moment: Covid-19 and smart cities and necropolises. I want to emphasize the complexity and variations in the way power and surveillance operate in the contemporary world, with special attention to the ways in which the Global North and the Global South differ. I argue that neoliberal governmentality assumes two important features today, one more focused on the "winners", on the production of entrepreneurial subjects, and another more authoritarian, focused on the "losers" or the "undesirables". In the former, we observe the "principle of racism" and the sacrificial logic operating, as we can notice in the Brazilian way of dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic. I also argue that a complete analysis of the new power regime cannot ignore this twofold dynamic, just as a complete analysis of European modernity is not possible without considering the phenomenon of colonization.

Since 2016 the mistreatment of Uyghurs, a Turkic Muslim minority living in their homeland in northwest China, by the People’s Republic of China has been taken to extreme levels. Uyghurs now are clearly victims of genocidal policies through internment of all types. The total internment of Uyghurs involves physical, psychological and virtual internments. In this article, I discuss the issue in three parts, namely internment camps for Uyghurs, urban internment and virtual internment. While all of them have both physical and psychological aspects, the last two are based on an Orwelian use of surveillance technologies for the purpose of large-scale persecution and suppression of Uyghurs with the intention of achieving a China with one homogenous culture. The total internment which is currently being carried out has two main motives: Islamophobia and the crucial geo-strategical position of the Uyghur homeland.

This essay discusses how two contemporary films, Paranoia 1.0 (Jeff Renfroe and Marteinn Thorsson: 2004) and The Circle (James Ponsoldt: 2017), portray the normalisation of surveillance capitalism. Coined by Shoshana Zuboff, the term surveillance capitalism describes practices of data extraction and digital behaviourism on the part of corporations aiming to predict but also to shape future consumer and social behaviour. Zuboff and other scholars in surveillance studies have raised the alarm of how these developments undermine individual autonomy, weaken democracy, and run the risk of diminishing people’s capacity to construct and imagine alternative futures. The two films discussed here address these anxieties and concerns highlighting how surveillance and dataveillance lead to the accumulation of personal information on the part of firms, which are keen on accruing people’s private data but keep their own profit-making operations in stealth. My analysis of the films emphasises two fundamental political implications of surveillance capitalism: consumer behaviourism and a novel form of labour alienation related to work monitoring, which can make leisure time indistinguishable from work time.

In the age of data-driven economy, of traceability capitalism
and post-panoptic surveillance, through social networks and electronic
platforms, labor law is demanding a doctrinal update. In this study, two
operational concepts are formulated to address the new surveillance
economy, namely: (I) the transition from the society of discipline
(Foucault) to the society of control (Deleuze) and (II) the hyperreality-
-contract of employment.

Na era da economia orientada a dados, do capitalismo de rastreabilidade, da vigilância pós-panóptica, por meio das redes sociais e de plataformas eletrônicas, o Direito do Trabalho está a demandar uma update doutrinária. Neste estudo, formulam-se dois conceitos operacionais para lidar com a nova economia da vigilância, nomeadamente: (i) a transição da sociedade da disciplina (FOUCAULT) para a sociedade do controle (DELEUZE) e (ii) o contrato-hiper-realidade de trabalho.

"Dismantling the delusion of algorithmic subjects in digital society"
["Technology is the puppets, but surveillance capitalism is the puppet master' (the Guardian, 01/20/2019). "We get all the culture; they get all the revenue" (McKenzie Wark on Digital Labor)]

Dengan tetap meletakkan penghormatan setinggi-tingginya pada kiprah anak-anak negeri memperjuangkan peradaban bangsanya melalui Revolusi 4.0, paparan ini hendak mangajukan 'inovasi lain' berupa 'cara pandang berbeda' terhadap praktik-praktik subyek algoritmik yang gampang terperangkap dalam kebebasan, keadilan, dan inklusi sosial masyarakat digital yang sesungguhnya delusional. Berbekal pendekatan pedagogi kritis-emansipatoris, paparan ini berkeyakinan bahwa civitas akademik masih berpeluang memproduksi ruang-ruang sosial bagi terbentuknya subyek-subyek didik yang emansipatoris, berkeadilan dan inklusif di era digital. Paper akan tersajikan dalam tiga sub bahasan berikut: bagian pertama, akan membahas 'governmentality algoritmik' dan formasi 'subyek algoritmik'; bagian kedua, akan memaparkan delusi dan kerentanan subyek algoritmik; dan bagian ketiga, akan menyajikan prospek emanispasi, keadilan, dan inklusi sosial di era digital.

Analysis of online visual search engine problems when the non-standard, non-binary, and 'queer' face is queried. Since this research was conducted (in September 2020) and written up (December 2020), Yandex's algorithms have been greatly improved, and their image searches no longer return the problematic results described herein - I share this paper now for archival purposes, as well as for its coverage of issues which continue to surround surveillance capitalism culture.

Alex Garland’s recent sf mini-series Devs (2020) has been acclaimed by critics and online commentators, with most praises (and criticisms) usually focusing on both its cinematography and its philosophically charged themes. In an attempt to reassess and to nuance that popular excitement, this paper seeks to analyse the series as a deeply ambivalent sf narrative of cognitive estrangement, one whose main thematic object is the so-called “surveillance capitalism” of Silicon Valley corporations. Particularly, Devs narrates the struggles of a lone mathematician, Lily Chan (Sonoya Mizuno), against her employer, the San Franciscan company Amaya, which is led by its eccentrically megalomaniac founder, Forest (Nick Offerman). As one of the company’s R&D sections (called DEVS) is secretly building a predictive quantum computer –one apparently capable of accurately extrapolating in all directions of time-space–, the series dwells upon the extremities and the violence used by the Amaya corporation in trying to prevent any leaks of information related to such project. In paying attention to this narrative as well as to its audio-visual aesthetics, my argument is that the series both mystifies and demystifies surveillance capitalism, simultaneously subverting hegemonic discourses, yet falling into their ideological trappings. This ambivalence seems especially patent in the representation of said quantum computer: this is a technological novum which on the one hand critically illustrates the system’s drive towards total domination, and on the other hand fetishizes itself, since it is visualised as a quasi-divine source of devotion for viewers, evoking the sense of a technological sublime. Thus, this paper will examine the series with special attention to this dialectic of mystification and demystification, whereby Devs may be described –although in a relatively simplifying manner– as both an sf critique of Silicon Valley’s cultish tendencies, and as a cultish re-mystification of Silicon Valley technologies.

A popularização da internet e das tecnologias digitais, e em especial de dispositivos móveis como smartphones, permitiram que sistemas algorítmicos se tornassem cada vez mais presentes no cotidiano. LinkedIn, Pinterest, Flickr, Youtube, Twitter e Facebook são sistemas que fazem uso de algoritmos para organização e distribuição de conteúdos publicados por usuários e anúncios publicitários. Google, Amazon e Apple, dentre outros, desenvolveram sistemas algorítmicos para prestarem serviços diversos aos seus usuários, como busca de conteúdos na internet e recomendação de personalizada de produtos. O crescimento do uso destes sistemas se deu, ao menos em um primeiro momento, em vista de sua evidente utilidade para realizar uma tarefa qualquer na internet. Todavia, estes sistemas algorítmicos também guardam uma dimensão política. Ao organizarem os conteúdos da web, disponibilizando-os ou não a determinados usuários, e direcionarem publicidade de forma personalizada, sistemas algorítmicos inscrevem relações de poder e conduzem as condutas humanas em alguma medida.

Comprender los conceptos de plataforma y de economía de vigilancia en un contexto de digitalización del mercado y del mundo del trabajo es el primer paso para poder analizar posteriormente cómo gravar adecuadamente la riqueza que genera este nuevo proceso que trasciende la organización de las empresas e impregna toda la lógica económica. En el actual proceso de digitalización de la economía las plataformas son un instrumento excepcional para extender la virtualización a las organizaciones y a los mercados. Este proceso genera procesos de concentración oligopólicos que deben ser regulados para asegurar la libre competencia, la equidad y la adecuada tributación. El contexto de la economía de vigilancia y la apropiación masiva de datos personales de los usuarios en forma gratuita y sin ninguna contraprestación plantea la necesidad de una adecuada regulación para mitigar las externalidades negativas de su expansión desmedida.

La collana Ethos/Nomos accoglie contributi riconducibili all'ambito della filosofia pratica. Ethos e nomos indicano rispettivamente i valori eticomorali e le regole e dinamiche giuridico-politiche: dunque, l'ampio spettro di questioni legate alla regolamentazione dell'agire umano. Si tratta di una prospettiva di ricerca a largo raggio che tocca molteplici ambiti disciplinari: dalla filosofia morale alla filosofia e teoria del diritto, dalla filosofia politica agli aspetti teorici del diritto costituzionale e penale. La collana Ethos/ Nomos è pertanto aperta a tutte le riflessioni che -nella varietà dei percorsi d'indagine e delle specificità disciplinari -propongano tematiche rilevanti per il discorso giuridico e filosofico.

The proliferation of mass surveillance in International Relations has been ceaseless and continual since 9/11. Although surveillance techniques have existed since centuries, its prominence rose only post 9/11 where countries have started investing in their domestic security. Initially, the idea of surveillance was to prevent future terrorist attacks but the factors of globalization have caused states to work alongside the private corporations and collect the data and information from the civilian population to analyse their digital footprints and make future behavioural and consumption-based predictions to generate greater profits in the market. Every state is a surveillance state but none greater than the People’s Republic of China. Mass surveillance in China is a level beyond the western understanding and with the introduction of the Social Credit System, China aims to transform into a Super Surveillance State. The western scholars deem the system as ‘Orwellian’ without thoroughly understanding the need for such a system in the Chinese society, therefore, this paper aims to understand the need of mass surveillance in International Relations by taking the Case Study of China’s Social Credit System. The paper identifies the indicators within the individuals which affect their behaviour due to the presence of such an omnipresent system. To understand the socio-behavioural consequences of such an instrument, parallel will be drawn with various fictitious as well as non-fictitious literature and the final objective of the paper is to establish whether such totalitarian instrumentation could be used as a tool for political and social oppression by current or future totalitarian regimes and the need for a system of checks and balances required to contain the mass proliferation of surveillance technology. The Social Credit System will be analysed through various surveillance theories such as Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon followed by prominent behavioural models such as Shoshana Zuboff’s Surveillance Capitalism to predict the change in behaviour caused by mass surveillance.

In this article, we draw on theories of biopolitical marketing to explore claims that personal data markets are contextualised by what Shoshana Zuboff calls “surveillance capitalism” and Jodi Dean calls “communicative capitalism”. Surveillance and communicative capitalism are characterised by a logic of accumulation based on networked captures of life that enable complex and incomprehensive processes of extraction, commodification, and control. Echoing recent theorisations of data (as) derivatives, Zuboff’s key claim about surveillance capitalism is that data representations open up opportunities for the enhanced market control of life through the algorithmic monitoring, prediction and modification of human behaviour. A Marxist critique, focusing largely on the exploitative nature of corporate data capitalism, has already been articulated. In this article, we focus on the increasingly popular market-libertarian critique that proposes individual control, ownership, and ability to com...

Artist Ami Clarke traces some of the complexities, multi-temporalities and scales, that coalesce around some new, and some very old power relations, that come of, and are revealed by, the technologies associated with the interdependent ecologies of social media, finance, and the environment. Her work traces hyper-speculation that came of the semiotic boom, where the loss of the referent in both language and the economy is shared across the trending behaviour of neoliberal/free market dynamics in finance, as well as emerging media ecologies. Here, inconsistencies in claims of 'fake news' amidst rights to 'freedom of expression' converge in the shortcomings of colonial practices of extraction, and new hyper-networked digital colonialisms, as the futures markets meets behavioural futures across the interdependencies of a reputation economy that comes of online news and social media, and the forms of finance driven by this. Preempting many of the conditions brought into sharp focus by the pandemic, she touches upon how the insurance industry reveals the catastrophic flaw of investing in the neoliberal myth of the market, as 'unprecedented' events become increasingly everyday. A state of contingency, that no longer promises an opportunity to 'write the future', but instead, is felt through the mechanisms of disaster capitalism as churning markets across both the financial sector, and the mediasphere, as a means by which to game not only who has the authority to speak, but democracy itself. 1 Media Reform Coalition: New Report, Who Owns the UK Media in 2019. The Media Reform Coalition produced its first comprehensive report on media ownership in the UK back in 2015 when it argued concentrated ownership was a significant problem for any modern democracy. Four years later, it has produced an updated version that suggests that, not only does concentrated ownership persist but that the problem may be getting worse.

Este ensaio tem como objetivo discutir as interfaces entre pós-verdade e cultura digital, refletindo sobre algumas das implicações formativas advindas desse vínculo. Por intermédio desse esforço foi possível vislumbrar a complexidade do fenômeno, que se dilui pelas esferas da política, economia, psicologia, comunicação e epistemologia. Dentre os atores inseridos neste território, destacam-se as fake news, a pós-modernidade, o negacionismo científico, a propaganda, os filtros-bolha, o capitalismo de vigilância e os vieses cognitivos. Por fim, constata-se que os principais desafios educacionais nesse cenário convergem para a reconstituição e o fortalecimento da prática cidadã alinhada aos princípios republicanos e democráticos.

Smartphones and other compact forms of technology have become commonplace in the human experience throughout the world: at the same time, we have come to take for granted the necessity to access such technologies almost exclusively through privately-owned and corporate platforms. In this, the heyday of technology capitalism, which sustains itself with pernicious forms of data annexation and behavior surveillance, the notion of ‘counterculture’ has become a nebulous—and contested—idea, both within the current multiplicities of online discourse and as a reflection of changing attitudes in the twenty-first century to pre-existing notions of ‘mainstream’ and ‘alternative’ culture. Drawing on my experience as a musician in the 2000s and 2010s, and the ‘punk’ inspirations that led me to music in the first place, this thesis is an exploration of the possibilities for countercultural responses to hegemonic technologies, and an attempt to update punk in satirical and rhetorical forms to confront the design assumptions that entrench logics of capitalism and fallacious technological ‘progress’.

Over the last decades, a new form of economic system has emerged: "surveillance capitalism". Based on the extraction, appropriation, and commercialisation of increasingly detailed behavioural data but cloaked under the guise of personalisation, surveillance capitalism limits our privacy and our freedom of choice. This paper contends Big Tech organisations, the primary beneficiaries of the data-driven economy, are curtailing our capacity to self-transform, all the while promoting and generalising a false sense of augmented agency that perpetuates a lopsided and bureaucratic relationship with the world. This paper shows that a technologically informed philosophical reflection can help counter this state of affairs. It contends that a critical stance can help humans put themselves back on the feedback loop of technological mediation by helping us recognise our "becoming" with technologies as a design process.