According to Jacob Silverman, The
Facebook scandal isn’t really about social media. It’s about capitalism. He wrote for the Washington Post:
The Times’ reporting offers a necessary window into the
surveillance economy and the emerging economic logic of “surveillance
capitalism.” We are beginning to see how the trade in data — much of it done
behind the scenes — is also an exchange of influence and power. We are becoming
aware of companies’ astonishing information appetites, according to which all
data is potentially useful. Even carmakers like Ford are beginning to tout
consumer data as a major revenue
stream on par with the selling of automobiles. In other words, the Times’
reporting doesn’t just implicate Facebook: It’s an indictment of the whole
economic system in which we participate today.
The “economic system in which we participate
today” cannot be called capitalism. It is a mixed economy--a politically
corrupted economy of government controls (statism) and limited economic freedom
(capitalism), in which the government has almost unlimited power to dish out
economic favors and punishment on behalf of politically privileged special
interests. Often called “crony capitalism,” a more accurate name for today’s
system is crony socialism.
Capitalism features a government that protects
individual rights, but otherwise respects laissez-faire for those who violate
no one’s rights. Information gathering for commercial purposes is not
inherently bad. It’s good in that it enables companies to more effectively meet
consumers’ desires. Abuses can occur, as in all areas of human endeavor. But
abuses of the use of data--data used in ways consumers did not explicitly or
implicitly consent to--is the province of law to deal with. If anything gets
the blame for the social media privacy scandals, besides the companies
themselves, it’s the government for failing to keep the law up with an evolving
economy. No, this is not about capitalism. Blaming capitalism for privacy
breaches is like blaming freedom of the press for copyright infringements.*
This is about modernizing our privacy laws. “Surveillance capitalism” sounds
like another scare tactic to frighten us into even more statism.
* [The analogy I used in my original comment was
“Christianity for the Catholic Church sex scandals.” But on reflection I
thought the freedom of the press analogy worked better.]
Related Reading:
The
Capitalist Manifesto: The Historic, Economic and Philosophic Case for
Laissez-Faire—Andrew Bernstein
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