Thread by @doctorow

Bankers at Barclays are furious that their computers have been fitted with employer-provided spyware that monitors every keystroke and nags them if they're not working hard enough.

cityam.com/exclusive-barc…

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This is a great example of the Shitty Technology Adoption Curve: first we subject powerless people to bad technology and use them to normalize it even as we sand the rough edges off using their lives as sandpaper.

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Then we work our way up the privilege gradient, to people with more and more social power. First it's kids, or homeless people, or refugees, or benefits recipients or criminals. Then it's blue collar workers, university students and library patrons.

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Finally it's low-level white-collar workers, then their managers, then, eventually CEOs (as I've often said, CCTVs that watch you while you eat went from supermax prisons to Google Home in a generation).

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"The system tells staff to “avoid breaks” as it monitors their productivity in real-time, and records activities such as toilet visits as 'unaccounted activity'."

"It added: 'Tips: mute the phone, disable email/chat pop-ups, avoid breaks for 20+ minutes, 2–3 times a day.'"

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