Technologies of Social Control
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, technologies of social control dominated the West.
A friend pointed out that people are being radicalized on YouTube and organized on social media. Creepy, right? What’s going on?
We all have cars, but do we know how they work? We use them daily, yet I couldn’t explain how a combustion engine functions.
We spend about six hours a day on our phones, but do we understand how they work? Who decides what information we see or which people we’re encouraged to empathize with?
Platforms like social media and YouTube—how do their algorithms work? It’s complicated. Social media is free for a reason: you are the product. It’s become a cultural weapon, reversing decades of social progress. It can even drive someone who’s emotionally vulnerable into a kind of weaponized psychosis.
Billionaires like Mark Zuck and Peter Thiel have moved to New Zealand and Hawaii—safe havens in case of global crises.
“Facebook is no longer just a company, I told them. It’s a doorway into the minds of the American people, and Mark Zuckerberg left that door wide open for Cambridge Analytica, the Russians, and who knows how many others. Facebook is a monopoly, but its behavior is more than a regulatory issue—it’s a threat to national security. The concentration of power that Facebook enjoys is a danger to American democracy.”
Another major shift occurred when corporations were granted personhood. With that came free speech rights—rights they now use to influence public opinion and even shape the agendas of non-profits.
We’re now seeing the rise of behavioral futures markets: a new kind of marketplace based on behavioral predictions. The raw material for this market is behavioral surplus—data scraped or extracted from human experience and fed into massive data-processing systems.
Over the past two decades, a completely new economic model has emerged, almost unnoticed. Digital technology and the internet once promised empowerment, autonomy, and meaningful connection. Today, those same tools are being used for behavioral manipulation and exploitation. Even small business data—like client lists or intimate behavior—is now commodified.
Using any digital platform “for free” (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) isn’t truly free. These platforms profit by monetizing your interests, opinions, cultural values, personal identity, and even your feelings about controversial topics like sex work. In this setup, whoever has the most money holds the power to shape public opinion. Algorithms create models of your body, history, culture, and identity—and tailor media specifically for you. There are even algorithmic markers for "gullibility."
Anyone with enough resources can fund advocacy campaigns in their own interest. For example, some right-wing media outlets promote ideas like racial segregation, the denial of labor rights, or the belief that women shouldn’t have agency over their clients. These narratives are pushed to the public across all platforms—often without the individual’s awareness or consent. So, how much of what we believe is genuinely ours, and how much is manufactured?
Residents of Massachusetts should be the ones deciding Massachusetts laws—not foreign billionaires, organized crime, or corporations with no stake in the community. But globalization has made this increasingly complicated.
Predatory capitalists and private monopolies now operate in plain sight, draining economic resources from women and families. When a company, person, or state holds total control over a product or service, individuals are unable to compete—like ants trying to fight elephants. These monopolies emerge when companies drive out competitors or block new ones from entering, all in the name of domination. The goal is to maximize profit by eliminating competition and restricting access. And when they control the market, they can charge whatever they want. Those who can’t afford it—often women, children, working-class families—are simply left out.
References
1. “Instagram Addiction Causing Depression, Anxiety?” ClassAction.org, Issue 322. https://www.classaction.org/newsletter/issue-322.
2. “Myanmar: Facebook’s Systems Promoted Violence Against Rohingya; Meta Owes Reparations,” Amnesty International, September 2022. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-facebooks-systems-promoted-violence-against-rohingya-meta-owes-reparations-new-report/.
3. Zuboff, Shoshana. “Age of Surveillance Capitalism: ‘We Thought We Were Searching Google, But Google Was Searching Us,’” YouTube, uploaded by The Intercept, 2021. https://youtu.be/Vo6K-bPh39M?si=h1UDCbpWjhjffqx5.
4. Zuboff, Shoshana. “What Is Surveillance Capitalism?” YouTube, uploaded by Big Think, 2019. https://youtu.be/fwNYjshqZ10?si=WANe-pIr1rpp9pc8.
5. “The Social Dilemma | Official Trailer,” Netflix, YouTube, 2020. https://youtu.be/uaaC57tcci0?si=aU_fekez_G0aElFh.
6. Palihapitiya, Chamath. “Fmr. Facebook Exec: Social Media Ripping Apart Society, ‘You Are Programmed,’” YouTube, uploaded by CNBC, 2017. https://youtu.be/d6e1riShmak?si=rJHHx2JrfTfZMOrP.
7. Wylie, Christopher. “Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower: ‘We Spent $1M Harvesting Millions of Facebook Profiles,’” YouTube, uploaded by The Guardian, 2018. https://youtu.be/FXdYSQ6nu-M?si=IU5vEn_6Wvk1msFM.
8. “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future (Book Summary 101),” YouTube, uploaded by OnePercentBetter, 2021. https://youtu.be/vJBh1fbuLGw?si=ITeLmcEAR93Qwtug.
9. “‘Corporations Are Not People’: Activists Push Amendment to Revoke Corporate Personhood,” YouTube, uploaded by Democracy Now!, 2011. https://youtu.be/w8GlJC2cyxI?si=tQp6Cw3JYA5b1L6r.