On capitalisms and surveillance orders. Some comments on the work of Shoshana Zuboff

Abstract

The surveillance capitalism category alludes to a techno-economic order based on the commercial exploitation of personal data extracted from Internet users without their express consent or without at least having an adequate notion of the use that is given to that information capable of predicting their behaviors. This results in an alienating dystopia that violates rights and creates risky asymmetries for the effective exercise of democracy and citizenship. The essay addresses some aspects of this problem based on the work The era of surveillance capitalism, by the American sociologist Soshana Zuboff, who reviews the historical context that defines the conditions of possibility of the phenomenon and how it is the result of an election. conscious within the framework of financial, speculative and globalized capitalism and not an inevitable product of the development of information technologies. It concludes with some critical observations on the author's analysis and proposal to deal with this situation.