73 lines
3.1 KiB
Markdown
73 lines
3.1 KiB
Markdown
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---
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tags: [ecopolsoc, internet]
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created: Friday, November 22, 2024
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---
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# a771a6d9_defining_internet_enclosure
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## Defining _enclosure_
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The attempt by capital interests to encircle, control and contain networked
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digital communication with the object of extracting financial value from the
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exchanges and the community from which they arise.
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This constitutes the commodification of a human-constituted resource, like
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labour rather than a natural resource, like oil.
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## Main characteristics
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### Strategic denial of alternative communication media
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Where there is a _multiplicity_ of media and within media, a multiplicity of
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channels, capital steers communication toward a _single_ entity.
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In a "democratic free-market society", capital cannot simply ban alternative
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media, it can however work to diminish the influence of alternatives through the
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strategic denial of interoperability and the aquisition and subsumption of
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rivals into its system.
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### Tyrannical control of the rules of communication
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Where the standards of communication are elective and established organically
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and collaboratively between peers (possibly even democratically), capital
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enforces rules derived externally and applied in an authoritarian manner. These
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rules are mutable but changes are enacted unilaterally and arbitrarily by the
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owners of the medium, not its users. Hence, tyranny in its technical political
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sense.
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### Total control of information and content
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Where individuals share information freely in collaborative enterprise with
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diminished concern for ownership (typically favouring citation and iteration as
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models), capital takes full possession of the information generated such that it
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can be removed and destroyed at will without consultation.
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### Surveillance
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Where communication is anonymised (loosly or strictly (i.e. through
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cryptographic means)), capital _surveils_ all exchanges and the behaviour of
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community members.
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Typically this is not _personal_ in the sense of being interested in the
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specific user's identity, rather it is abstracted into a composite of the
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person's preferences which may or may not disclose their legal identity (i.e
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metadata).
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This characteristic is both an _attribute_ of internet enclosure and its
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ultimate reason for existence. It is critical to the mechanism of extraction
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since it provides both data that can be sold to other capital interests and
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content that can be used to sell to community members as consumers.
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### Artificial promotion of commercial content and prolongation of engagement
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Where engagement with media is idiosyncratic and organic, capital circumscribes
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the field. This is done to prolong engagement.
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At one pole this is achieved through the excitation of visceral responses by
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artificially favouring content that titillates, disgusts or angers the user. At
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the other, it is achieved through mollification and the coddling of the user.
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The user encounters only like-minded fellows who affirm and repeat his existing
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beliefs and values, creating community and a sense of safety through the
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othering of contrary viewpoints. Both techniques are demagogic in nature
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familiar from the control mechanisms of cults and extreme political ideologies.
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