Category: Big Digital

Notes From the Digital Gulag

Commentary As the author of “Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom,” I guess I should not be surprised to find myself squarely in the digital gulag—banished, perhaps permanently, from Twitter and Facebook. Twitter permanently suspended my account several weeks ago, mere days before Elon Musk took over the helm. Although I cannot…


Who Really Owns Big Digital Tech?

Commentary By now it should be perfectly clear that the most prominent Big Digital companies are not strictly private, for-profit companies. As I argued in “Google Archipelago,” they are also state apparatuses, or governmentalities, undertaking state functions, including censorship, propaganda, and surveillance. Katherine Boyle, “a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz where she invests in companies that…