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Is Big Tech Merging With Big Brother? Kinda Looks Like It
Article

Is Big Tech Merging With Big Brother? Kinda Looks Like It

The all-seeing Amazon, Google, and Facebook have every incentive to help the national security state undermine privacy, free speech and democracy. We’ve read this book before.

Wired, 2019


Editorial Rating

10

Qualities

  • Controversial
  • Eye Opening
  • Visionary

Recommendation

Technology has finally caught up with science fiction. Your TV can watch you, as in 1984, and you can talk to your earbuds just like Montag’s wife in Fahrenheit 451. But will the government team up with tech companies to control every aspect of your life the way it did in those novels? If it does, what would that look like? In this Wired article, writer David Samuels explores the recent, potentially dystopian moves of technology companies and governments. He then examines these developments through the lens of philosophy and science fiction. 

Take-Aways

  • Technology companies are cooperating with foreign governments to create digital surveillance systems overseas.
  • Some tech company officers have protested surveillance agency overreach.
  • US government agencies and big tech are laying the groundwork for increased digital surveillance.

About the Author

David Samuels work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Wired and N=1 among others. He has worked as a contributing editor at Harper’s Magazine, and a literary editor at Tablet.


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