Thread by @bopinion

Does the death of privacy actually level the social playing field? In just the past few years, social media has allowed citizens to expose the secrets of the rich and powerful:

🚨Police brutality
🗒️Government misdeeds
🗞️Famous figures as sexual harassers bloom.bg/2R1dFHk

But those in power aren’t the only ones who have valuable secrets.

However powerful crowds with cameras might be, governments and corporations have more resources, better tech and more invasive planning than the average person bloom.bg/2R1dFHk

The ubiquity of mobile phones and social media has made it possible for companies to observe almost everything people do:

💳Making purchases
🌭Going out to eat
💬Talking to or texting friends

This phenomenon is called “surveillance capitalism.” bloom.bg/2R1dFHk

Companies that know everything about us are able to discriminate in all sorts of ways.

🚘Uber can deactivate rider accounts with low ratings. There’s a chance that drivers will give lower ratings to riders of races, religions or genders they don’t like bloom.bg/2R1dFHk

Another troubling use of surveillance capitalism is price discrimination.

If companies use personal data to predict how much consumers are willing to pay for something, they can charge higher prices to those who are willing or able to pay more bloom.bg/2R1dFHk

Credit ratings are a relatively low-tech form of surveillance. They allow banks to make it very hard for some people to:

💰Borrow money
🌆Rent an apartment
📝Find a job
🚗Get a car
💵Buy insurance
🗣️Start a business bloom.bg/2R1dFHk

Even though credit history is cleared up after 7 years, it’s hard to get back on your feet if you can’t participate in economic life.

It's easy to imagine apps gathering more and more behavioral data which could be used to determine credit ratings bloom.bg/2R1dFHk

Surveillance capitalism threatens to cement class distinctions by taking people who make mistakes -- or who suffer from discrimination -- and limiting their access to all sorts of facets of the economy bloom.bg/2R1dFHk

Constant surveillance could end up creating a social credit system like China's. People are barred from the economy if they:

♻️Fail to recycle
🚗Improperly park
🎵Play loud music

"If that sounds like totalitarianism, it’s because it is," says @Noahpinion bloom.bg/2R1dFHk

When the government regulates every behavior of daily life, citizens are not free.

In principle, smartphones, credit scores and apps with monopoly power mean that a patchwork social-credit system is entirely possible bloom.bg/2R1dFHk