The Rise of Techno-authoritarianism - The Atlantic
Silicon Valley, under the sway of its worst technocratic impulses, is following the playbook established in the mass scaling and monopolization of the social web.
I think this article is the closest thing we have to understanding the Threads / Mastodon interpolation initiative. At the very least, it gives us a framework to understand what feels like a heavily coordinated march.
What really drives this home; what transforms it from a simple article into a manifesto, is the ending:
We do not have to live in the world the new technocrats are designing for us. We do not have to acquiesce to their growing project of dehumanization and data mining. Each of us has agency.
No more “build it because we can.” No more algorithmic feedbags. No more infrastructure designed to make the people less powerful and the powerful more controlling. Every day we vote with our attention; it is precious, and desperately wanted by those who will use it against us for their own profit and political goals. Don’t let them.
Don’t let them.
