Privacy and power
Privacy and power
Thinking of privacy as an individual-level phenomenon won’t support the systemic solutions we need.
You can’t understand privacy without understanding power, Alice Marwick argues in a recent essay published in Surveillance & Society. When we think about “privacy,” we often think of an individual’s privacy, her individual right to privacy, and individualized strategies for retaining control over private information. At global privacy conferences, techno-optimism rules the day, and sales booths offer the newest products individuals might use to protect themselves.
But this is an ahistorical way of thinking that ignores that privacy violations follow patterns that we can link to marginality and domination. Communities who are targeted as “dangerous,”—like Muslims after 9/11, or transgender people in many states today—are disproportionately surveilled when the powerful deem their privacy to be violable in the interests of a perceived safety threat. Privacy violations are gendered (most stalkerware is used against women by current or former male partners) and they are raced (as Black and brown communities in the U.S. are all too aware).
Seen in these examples, it’s clear that privacy isn’t an individual problem for which individual solutions will help. Conceptualizing privacy without power is simply inadequate.
Publications and appearances
“Framing technology as the driving force behind disinformation and conspiracy implies that technology is a sufficient, or at least necessary, solution. But emphasizing AI could be a mistake. If we’re primarily worried ‘that someone is going to deep-fake Joe Biden, saying that he is a pedophile, then we’re ignoring the reason why a piece of information like that would be resonant.’” Alice Marwick talked with The Atlantic about how ChatGPT and other generative AI will—and won’t—change our information environment.
Libération reviews The Propagandists’ Playbook, drawing ties to research from Jen Schradie and narratives of “francocide” on the French far right: « Les résultats des recherches sont devenus si fragmentes que l'Internet des conservateurs n'a plus rien en commun avec l'Internet des progressistes », constate Tripodi. En France, où « l'extrême droite a dominé la campagne numérique [de 2022] », comme l'expliquait Jen Schradie a Libé, on retrouve aussi ces appels a « faire ses recherches soi-même ».
Coming soon
March 19, 6:30pm: Tressie McMillan Cottom will moderate part 2 of a virtual series on “Women + Justice” for the Brooklyn Public Library. Registration.
March 21, 7:30pm: Tressie McMillan Cottom will offer a talk on “The Crisis of Faith in Higher Education” at Bridgewater College. Location and livestream details.
March 23, 7pm: Tressie McMillan Cottom will give the Robert Smalls Lecture on “Troubling the Public During Troubling Times” at the University of South Carolina.
March 29, 2pm: The UNC Center for Media Law & Policy presents a conversation on “Public Records & Public Universities” featuring Ryan Thornburg and Erin Siegel McIntyre, moderated by Amanda Reid. Register for the virtual event.
March 29, 6pm: Tressie McMillan Cottom will give a talk at the UMass-Amherst College of Education (in person only). Optional RSVP.
March 30, 4pm: Tressie McMillan Cottom will give the Kim and Judy Davis Lecture at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. Register for in person or online attendance.
March 31, 11am: The CITAP spring speaker series presents Hakeem Jefferson, “From Margin to Center”: Reorienting our Approach to the Study of Race and Inequality in the Social Sciences. Details and registration.
April 10, 9am: CITAP affiliate Bridget Barrett will give a public dissertation defense of her work on political merchandizing by campaigns and unofficial sellers. Details and registration (both in-person and virtual) to follow.
April 20, 3pm: CITAP presents a talk from affiliate Melanie Feinberg about her book Everyday Adventures with Unruly Data.
April 21: The School of Information and Library Science will host its annual Symposium on Information for Social Good, with keynote from Tonia Sutherland. Full agenda and registration to follow.
April 23: Tressie McMillan Cottom will give a keynote at the Faculty Women of Color conference. Program and registration.
May 2-3: Join us at “Social Justice and Technological Futures,” hosted by the University of Tübingen. Registration is free.
May 30: Release date for Alice Marwick’s The Private Is Political: Networked Privacy and Social Media.
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