socialism

Digital Monopolies and Digital Commons

What a flex of unrestrained power, to threaten to disable functionality for an entire population.

In its first response as the second digital platform named by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in its draft proposal to regulate the relationship between platform and news organisation, Facebook publically threatened to block all Australians from sharing all local and international news content.

If executed, approximately 16 million Australians will no longer be able to view content produced by registered news businesses. Undoubtably a drastic change in the perceived utility of the platform for many, despite the tranquility it may bring for some.

However, to view the debate on this regulation as blatant rentseeking/freeloading from either party is missing the deeper issue at hand, that being of our own complicity and passivity in maintaining our digital commons.

The enclosure of the serf’s commons in 16th century England was a prime material catalyst in the historical development of capitalism. Previously shared space was encloused upon by a private owner, who was incentivised to maximise the productivity of the property. As with the common fields, the enclosure of the digital commons have both yielded vast amounts of wealth, and further shaped the behaviour of those lives of digital pastures to serve those owners.

The explosive success of the American technology giants and the dominant commercialisation model that followed has had a major effect of diminishing the products and culture of the digital commons: open, interoperable standards and applications.

Older technology enthusiasts may remember a time before ubiquity, where personal technology was not yet dominated by commerical interests. A wild west of handcrafted home pages and blogs, open chat protocols, constellations of interest-based communities, and a dark underbelly of content sharing.

It’s without question that Google’s and Facebook’s technology have brought us a level of convenience previously unimaginable.

What we should question is whether we should stand back and continue to allow the powerful forces of unregulated surveillance capitalism dictate the terms of use of our digital spaces, or whether we can imagine and create a new, healthier digital future for ourselves.

At this point in our technological history, every ubiquitous social media service, be it Instagram, YouTube, Facebook or Twitter, has but one commercial model: capture attention to serve advertising. Billions are invested to ensure products are as addictive as possible. The value of each service is dependent on the efficiency and efficacy of its advertising machine.

Plenty has been written on the dynamic between the machines of the digital platforms, society, and the individual; opaque algorithmic recommendation, sophisticated political and commercial targeting, the unregulated spread of misinformation and the consequent cultivation of far-right terror are all at the forefront of the public consciousness.

Is this worth what we get from these services, stitched into the fabric of our lives, all to be held hostage to private interests? The ability to share content, comment on links, upload photos and livestream video were not invented by these companies. Digitised directory services and maps are not novel inventions brought to life by private genius, but machines operated by the labour of thousands and millions.

We need not suffer for them. We can build the future we want.

Google can rally its credulous users into supporting its interests. Facebook can neuter itself to avoid the ire of regulators. But to truly shape the platforms to serve our interests, we must reevaluate the personal value of these services, and we must reframe ourselves as the primary actor in our relationship with digital platforms. Not as a passive spectator experiencing the shockwaves of a titanic corporate struggle.

Fostering a sense and shared value of a digital commons in opposition to the deep capitalist realism of this era requires nothing short of a revolutionary shift in our existing relationship with technology; technical comprehension aside, it requires us to actively upend a deep-rooted consumerist attitude towards the product we build into our daily lives.

In order for our digital lives to serve the interests of the people, we must take ownership over the means of digital reproduction.

There is likely to be an element of sacrifice in acting towards this goal. The very appeal of the digital platforms is their simplicity and convenience. But that must always be balanced by the true cost, the externalised consequences.

The coming decade is set to be defined by struggle – the rising East and the fading West, the ascendant propertied and the suffering renters, those experiencing and those awaiting climate catastrophe. We are already being primed to accept many sacrifices to our living standards, as the supposedly post-industrial society turns to cannibalise itself.

That our digital struggles should take the same form as our material struggles and our political struggles should come as no surprise.

Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism.

The Junius Pamphlet, Rosa Luxemburg

Shame, Pride, Queer Fear

It seems not a day passes that doesn’t take us further back. An eternal violent night of fascism is extending over the world, its shadow cast further and further. Dark days indeed.

I often reflect on how shame, and fear, affect queer lives, or at least mine. It locks us in the closet, hiding nature from the harsh judgement of an artificial construct. It poisons all minds; it enables and reinforces the cruel, self serving bigotries of the selfish and predatory.

Coming out symbolises a conquering of that fear and shame. The imagery could not be more apt – a pure rejection of constraint, expressed outwards into the world. But it’s a common misconception that you only come out once. And just as you constantly come out to the world, the pressure of the world constantly falls back onto you.

The cishetereonormative construct of society damages everyone who exists within it. Those who perform its bizarre rituals are as affected as those who don’t. But to those who exist outside its parameters, the damage inflicted upon them can be horrifying. Murder, suicide, isolation from a complete life. Dehumanisation – transgressors must be terminated.

For me, born into relative peace and privilege at the cusp of history, shame kept me from expressing feminine as a child and teenager. Shame had me denying an attraction to men for over twenty years. A deeply subconscious shame has kept me from Pride. Despite truly living the best three years past.

And I can’t actually explain why I felt such intense shame in a way that satisfies me. Aside from the perpetual message from all of society to conform or perish.

Our society is structured such that every human must perform a precisely designated role, in the service of capital. Our culture is hyper-gendered and fatally cisheteronormative; religious justifications of the essential masculine and feminine have given way to a self-fulfilling cultural construct. And yet, its construction still reinforces the old world.

And I wonder if the only reason why queer shame is beaten so deep into every person because the deconstruction of that system dismantles the supposed legitimacy of extreme power. If queer humans did not stand beneath “straight” humans, but rather we stood together, undivided by artificial boundaries, the force of pure humanity would silence those who exploit prejudice for the rest of time.

The terror of fascism is quickly returning, and no decent person is safe from its march. The only way to win is to purge from your mind the remnants of hopeless tradition, and to see and join a single humanity, united.