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The Core

The Core #6: Surveillance capitalism is unethical

Phil Dearson

by Phil Dearson

The Core #6: Surveillance capitalism is unethical
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The Core is a limited series of concise principles, sharing the ideas that sit at the heart of everything I do. My main newsletter may be found here.

Surveillance capitalism, meaning the extraction and monetisation of our personal data at scale, is unethical.

I'm not averse to analytics. Monitoring how things work, so you can provide better service or improve a product, is fine by me. If you harvest the digital self and sell that data to an ad network, to try to sell me more stuff, or worse, control my behaviour or perception of reality, then you just made an enemy.

Google Adwords started the rot, followed by Facebook, then pretty much all forms of social media.

So, while it's not possible to live an online life where you avoid all Bad Actors (believe me, I've tried), I try to minimise my exposure and support organisations like the Open Rights Group and the EFF. LinkedIn is my main data leak, but I use Plausible over Google Analytics for my own systems. I deleted Facebook and Twitter years ago, avoid The Gram, TikTok and the rest. Instead, I use RSS readers, subscribe to newsletters, and use the Fediverse where possible for independent, decentralised chat with real people (mainly about RPGs like a massive geek).

It's nice in the Fediverse. Have a look.

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