METHODS: Tech in the Times of Coronavirus
As parts of the work and educational worlds have gone online, issues with interfaces and surveillance are intensifying. The gap between gig economy and tech industry laborers, who never had employment protections, and the CEOs of digital tech corporations is deepening precipitously. In one week, the net worth gains for the founders of the digital tech world, shared by Public Citizen, include gains that over the week before April 15 of $6.8 billion for Jeff Bezos; $6.2 billion for Mark Zuckerberg, $4.2 billion for Elon Musk, $4 billion for Larry Ellison, and on and on.
Emily Peterson-Cassin writes in Even During a Pandemic, Digital Privacy Matters “Big Tech companies may have stopped some of the price gouging on their platforms, but nothing is stopping them from “data gouging,” or collecting troves of new personal information on us that can be used to track and manipulate us in unprecedented ways.”
The commonly used interface Zoom forms part of this data gouging. This April 2 article in the Guardian, Zoom is malware, explains some of the reasons “security researchers have called Zoom “a privacy disaster” and “fundamentally corrupt” as allegations of the company mishandling user data snowball.”
Collectives who work on digital technology safety are offering alternatives to the surveillance capitalism framework. HERE ARE STEPS ONE CAN TAKE:
An alternative to Zoom for videoconferencing is jitsi. It is open source and encrypted, you do not need to make an account or install anything, and it’s available at https://meet.jit.si
For texting/chats on your phone or computer, a more secure alternative is the encrypted messaging app Signal.
For browsing, a more secure alternative to Google Chrome is Mozilla Firefox. You can read about it, and download it here.
For much more information to better manage your data, visit the Tactical Tech Collective. You can learn how to better control your security and privacy with their data detox kit, and review their online kit for digital safety,
To wrap up, here is a great song about Donald Trump that Lucinda Williams has gifted the world, Man Without A Soul. These words can in many cases also be applied to CEO/founders in the tech sector…
