Episode 2240: Ray Brescia on how our private lives have been politicized by social media

Have our private lives become inevitably political in today’s age of social media? Ray Brescia certainly thinks so. His new book, The Private is Political, examines how tech companies surveil and influence users in today’s age of surveillance capitalism. Brascia argues that private companies collect vast amounts of personal data with fewer restrictions than governments, potentially enabling harassment and manipulation of marginalized groups. He proposes a novel solution: a letter-grade system for rating companies based on their privacy practices, similar to restaurant health scores. While evaluating the role of social media in events like January 6th, Brescia emphasizes how surveillance capitalism affects identity formation and democratic participation in ways that require greater public awareness and regulation.

Here are the 5 KEEN ON takeaways from the conversation with Ray Brescia:

* Brescia argues that surveillance capitalism is now essentially unavoidable - even people who try to stay "off the grid" are likely to be tracked through various digital touchpoints in their daily lives, from store visits to smartphone interactions.

* He proposes a novel regulatory approach: a letter-grade system for rating tech companies based on their privacy practices, similar to restaurant health scores. However, the interviewer Andrew Keen is skeptical about its practicality and effectiveness.

* Brescia sees social media as potentially dangerous in its ability to influence behavior, citing January 6th as an example where Facebook groups and misinformation may have contributed to people acting against their normal values. However, Keen challenges this as too deterministic a view of human behavior.

* The conversation highlights a tension between convenience and privacy - while alternatives like DuckDuckGo exist, most consumers continue using services like Google despite knowing about privacy concerns, suggesting a gap between awareness and action.

* Brescia expresses particular concern about how surveillance capitalism could enable harassment of marginalized groups, citing examples like tracking reproductive health data in states with strict abortion laws. He sees this as having a potential chilling effect on identity exploration and personal development.

The Private is Political: Full Transcript

Interview by Andrew Keen

KEEN: About 6 or 7 years ago, I hosted one of my most popular shows featuring Shoshana Zuboff talking about surveillance capitalism. She wrote "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power"—a book I actually blurbed. Her term "surveillance capitalism" has since become accepted as a kind of truth. Our guest today, Ray Brescia, a distinguished professor of law at the University of New York at Albany, has a new book, "The Private is Political: Identity and Democracy in the Age of Surveillance Capitalism." Ray, you take the age of surveillance capitalism for granted. Is that fair? Is surveillance capitalism just a given in February 2025?

RAY BRESCIA: I think that's right. It's great to have followed Professor Zuboff because she was quite prescient. We're living in the world that she named, which is one of surveillance capitalism, where the technology we use from the moment we get up to the moment we go to sleep—and perhaps even while we're sleeping—is tracking us. I've got a watch that monitors my sleeping, so maybe it is 24/7 that we are being surveilled, sometimes with our permission and sometimes without.

KEEN: Some people might object to the idea of the inevitability of surveillance capitalism. They might say, "I