Amazon: Sticks and Stones and Assertions Can Break Stuff
December 26, 2019
An online publication called LiveMint published “The Ascent to Power of Surveillance Capitalists.” The write up is semi interesting and may foreshadow how technology companies will be characterized in 2020.
Let’s look at how LiveMint described Amazon, which has been the subject of my research in the last few months.
These two passages invoke the mantra of surveillance capitalism, a popularization of lecture notes and deep thinking by a professor. The phrase “surveillance capitalism” has become a way to make clear that private companies are in the information business. What the book does not make clear is that one of the fundamental laws of digital information is that concentration and monopolistic utility structures cannot be avoided. From my point of view, wanting Amazon, Google, or any other digital operation to be significantly difficult is difficult if not impossible to achieve.
Here are the two passages from the write up I noted:
Allegation One
For its part, Amazon has moved aggressively into government contracting, providing a wide range of information services to federal and local agencies. It has offered facial-recognition products to law-enforcement agencies such as Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), though the software suffers from implicit bias against people of color.
Allegation Two
Amazon is also using its Ring line of smart doorbells to broker cooperation agreements with local police departments. When homeowners provide prior approval, law-enforcement officials can access Ring video feeds without a warrant. Civil liberties advocates and experts are understandably concerned that when combined with facial-recognition technology, Ring doorbell networks will allow for new, potentially unconstitutional forms of surveillance. Journalists have also discovered that Amazon’s Ring deals give the company undue leverage over how law-enforcement agencies communicate with the public.
Several observations:
First, the approach is “everybody knows this to be true.” Well, maybe.
Second, the absence of facts is troubling. Asserting and repeating information without attribution or — heaven forbid — a footnote is interesting.
Third, recycling digital tropes does little to address a real or perceived issue.
Will analyses in 2020 follow this write up’s approach? Don’t know. I do, however, care.
Stephen E Arnold, December 26, 2019
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