Thread by @hash_tigre

1/ "Just 19 years ago only 12% of the U.S. population owned a smartphone. Now an estimated 84% do. The introduction of the smartphone was a boost for tech companies and any employer that grabbed at the chance to use it."

medium.com/@absorain/rece…

2/ "Now people could take the internet anywhere with them at all times uninterrupted...

...This extended people’s workload outside the office, extended people’s access to entertainment..."

3/ And ability to peer into the lives of others.

"Smartphones came at a time when people wanted to know what others were doing at all times, which is why apps like Instagram and Snapchat were set apart from other photo sharing platforms...

4/ " in which you can see where your friends were, who’s pictures they viewed and liked, and how many followers and likes they had on their pictures."

5/ "Surveillance became a way of life, it became an impersonal way to show our affection and competitive nature to others, and to also indulge in the need for uniqueness, self importance, and guidance to social rules."

6/ "To understand the severity of surveillance capitalism is to look beyond the surface level of corporate interests; which is simply to make money no matter the cost of people’s privacy, autonomy, and physical safety."

7/ "One year before his death (Steve Jobs) took no acknowledged responsibility for the widely reported mass suicides of employees at a highly surveilled Apple warehouse factory in Longhua, China which exhibited poor and harsh working conditions against its employees."

8/ "The response to the suicides by security and Foxconn (...) was to threaten jail time for any further attempts or photographs by press of the building, and installation of nets outside of windows to prevent fatality of employees jumping out of windows."