Tag Archives: US

Political economy and visibility

Political economy entanglements of cryptocurrency

A few interesting news items in the past twenty-four hours illustrate the far-reaching impact of blockchain technology and its growing entanglement with structural political and economic realities. Kosovo has moved to ban cryptocurrency mining within its borders, in the face of a countrywide energy crisis. Meanwhile, The Guardian reports that the ongoing political unrest in Kazakhstan has led to a crisis for global bitcoin mining, as the government shuts down the nation’s internet backbone to attempt to thwart protesters’ communications. Finally, Casey Newton’s Platformer blog is running a piece on Signal’s imminent foray into cryptocurrency integration: Newton’s take is that this disruption is needless provocation of US authorities and may result in finally coalescing sufficient political will to outlaw end-to-end encryption outright, a move for which many voices worldwide have long been advocating.

Whatever the outcome of these specific dossiers, the data points are fast accumulating to support the claim that blockchain has broken through to mainstream status: going forward, it will be seen as a key variable shaping our future, alongside such old twentieth century factors as the right to free expression or the price of oil.

Surveillance and digital archives

The taxman and the 4th Amendment

Interesting article in The Intercept last week about the purchase by the U.S. Treasury Department of app data harvested by private brokers, such as Babel Street, in order to circumvent the necessity of obtaining court warrants for searches of personal data.

Nothing shockingly new, but the article ends with a key quote from Jack Poulson, the founder of Tech Inquiry, a research and advocacy group:

“Babel Street’s support for the IRS increasing its surveillance of small businesses and the self employed — after the IRS has already largely given up on auditing the ultrawealthy — is an example of the U.S. surveillance industry being used to help shift the tax burden to the working class”.

Information and the public sphere

More interesting cybersecurity journalism (finally)

A study (PDF) by a team led by Sean Aday at the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs (commissioned by the Hewlett Foundation) sheds light on the improving quality of the coverage of cybersecurity incidents in mainstream US media. Ever since 2014, cyber stories in the news have been moving steadily away from the sensationalist hack-and-attack template of yore toward a more nuanced description of the context, the constraints of the cyber ecosystem, the various actors’ motivations, and the impactof incidents on the everyday lives of ordinary citizens.

The report shows how an understanding of the mainstream importance of cyber events has progressively percolated into newsrooms across the country over the past half-decade, leading to a broader recognition of the substantive issues at play in this field. An interesting incidental finding is that, over the course of this same period of time, coverage of the cyber beat has focused critical attention not only on the ‘usual suspects’ (Russia, China, shadowy hacker groups) but also, increasingly, on big tech companies themselves: an aspect of this growing sophistication of coverage is a foregrounding of the crucial role platform companies play as gatekeepers of our digital lives.

Trustworthiness

A global take on the mistrust moment

My forthcoming piece on Ethan Zuckerman’s Mistrust: Why Losing Faith in Institutions Provides the Tools to Transform Them for the Italian Political Science Review.

Political economy and visibility

The technology cycle and Walmart

Apparently, Walmart needs its workforce to have cellphones.

An announcement by the company stating that about 750k employees in the US will be given $500 Samsung phones for free by year’s end was reported widely this week. Walmart’s US workforce in 2017 was 1.5m, so if there have not been dramatic changes in this figure, the policy would cover about half of the chain’s employees. Since Walmart is one of the largest employers in the country, this initiative is bound to be one of, if not the largest of its kind. Also, given the significant proportion of low-wage jobs in the company’s workforce, the benefit is a considerable one.

The company indicated it has taken this step in order to transition away from the dedicated handheld devices its associates previously used in their stores. The result is a hybrid arrangement. Employees get the device, case, and protection plan for free (they still presumably are on the hook for their own voice & data plan), but they

will only be able to use work features on the new Me@Walmart while on the clock.

Although it would be fair to assume that the use of cellphones for personal matters is already discouraged (or prohibited altogether) for Walmart employees on the clock, this policy nudges them toward an equilibrium (use of an employer-gifted device as one’s primary cell phone) where such behavior becomes technically impossible.

As for non-work-related use, Walmart

promised that it would not have access to any employee’s personal data and [they] can “use the smartphone as their own personal device if they want, with all the features and privacy they’re used to”

which has a bit of an ominous ring, for those who consider the overall landscape of surveillance capitalism, cellphones’ key role within it, and the importance of habituation for the smooth functioning of the system.

Of course, Walmart’s convergence to an Amazon-style micro-management-by-app of its employees’ physical movement through its warehouses is the big story, driving the program. However, it is interesting to note a few concurrent dynamics. On the one hand, in the span of one generation cellphones have followed the whole arc of the technology/political economy cycle, from luxury fashion items for conspicuous consumption to basic infrastructure indispensable for working-class jobs. In situations of economic crisis, falling purchasing power, and widening wealth differentials, it can prove economically advantageous for employers to provide them outright as a fringe benefit. On the other hand, the intertwining of the private and the public, work-life and down-time in contemporary America has decisively affected how people access the Internet. This fact was made apparent to white-collar employees working remotely during the pandemic, but as always the most extreme and direct consequences will be experienced by those most directly exposed to market forces and least able to bargain over employment conditions.