In conversation with Shoshana Zuboff, Charles Edward Wilson Professor Emerita at Harvard Business School, and author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism; and Chris Gilliard, Professor of English at Macomb Community College. Facilitators include Joe Westby, researcher and advisor at Amnesty International; and Nathalie Marechal, Senior Policy Analyst at Ranking Digital Rights.

In 2014, Shoshana Zuboff coined the term “surveillance capitalism” to describe the now-ubiquitous business model centered on the mass collection and monetization of personal information. Since the publication of her book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism last year, public conversations about social media, facial recognition, health privacy, and the health of democracy have danced around Zuboff’s central argument: that this new, extractive logic of wealth accumulation is extraordinarily destructive to human beings and societies. Civil society is increasingly aware that democratic, rights-respecting governance of online platforms will require governments to overhaul how companies govern themselves and their ability to collect and use data, but how do we get there?

This fireside chat will put Zuboff in conversation with researcher/activists whose recent work was directly inspired by Zuboff’s call to action, in order to discuss the reception to Zuboff’s book, its influence on civil society, and the way forward.

Host: Ranking Digital Rights