What seven hours in London teaches me about surveillance capitalism
brettscott.substack.com
brettscott.substack.com
There's also a good long form interview with him here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f3PN4UOMA8
Signs to hold on to the handrail, or to report antisocial behaviour are not new in London - and many famous styles of public information poster originate from this area, in particular, the Underground.
The opening paragraphs suggest a level of paranoia, frankly.
In many cases psychiatry itself can and is a tool of the state, except for obvious things like psychosis and other severe disorders, the diagnostic criteria are often arbitrary and many of the behaviors can be explained by individuals having gone through extreme hardship, abuse or poverty instead.
My mention about the author benefitting from therapy was mostly around some of the exaggerated emotional reactions the author expressed; they felt too guttural for what they were reacting to.
On a second read through, I actually don't think they need therapy. I think they were very intentional in their populist tone and exaggerated style to elicit emotional responses in the reader (as any good writer does, I suppose).
I agree with a lot what was said, but also a few of the claims feel only critical for the sake of being cynical (eg some of the underground posters and the contactless commentary mainly). So, it doesn't do the article as a whole any favours.
If we neutralized any "paranoia" over these dystopian cameras/posters/etc., then we would not have any resistance or protest in society, so things would get rapidly worse.
Many decades ago, having millions of CCTV cameras in London, together with posters encouraging people to rat on each other, would be considered absolutely dystopian, and there would be widespread protests and/riots if they were suddenly introduced. However, because it has crept up on the population so slowly, people became accustomed to it, and few now protest. Thus explaining the situation we are in now.
Funnily, left London in 2004, feeling much the same as the author does now. The direction of travel was clear, and the inauthenticity and authoritarianism inherent in corporate ownership of all public space was becoming apparent event back then. 2005 bombings just made it worse, because individuals were also rightly fearful and I think this accelerated acquiescence to surveillance and control of public spaces even further and faster.
What is odd about European cities now is that the energy of youth is completely bound up in the ways the author describes. The only authentic communities are smaller ones, away from the periphery. But unlike in the past these are not dominated by young people and youth cultures, and so lack some of the energy and excitement that London or NY in the 70s seem to have had.
However ubiquitous face and iris recognition around the airport is pretty bad IMO. I doubt this would be permitted in the EU.
Of course since Brexit all privacy brakes have come off and it's now a free for all for big commerce. I think this is the main thing the article refers to.
I do see more anti commerce sentiment here in Barcelona as the author mentions though it's important to realise most of it comes from extremist groups like antifa. Not exactly mainstream.
But yes personally would avoid London nowadays. Not just because the ubiquitous surveillance but because of the Brexit mentality. They don't want us there, I don't want to deal with them. I even refused to go to a Google business conference there. If they want me they can host it in the EU, ideally the Schengen zone so not Dublin either.
The only Brits I still socialise with are expats who are heavily anti Brexit. They're ok. Like myself they have heavily dissociated from their own country. I'm Dutch myself but I'm also competently unaligned with their politics (especially now with the extreme right becoming huge there)
Source: https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/research-reports-and-...
It's 60% vs 40%. That's a difference of 20% of the total population of millions of voters. It's a pretty big difference in anything relating to politics and policy.
GDPR is still a thing. The ICO still exists. CCTV is still regulated.
What “brakes have come off”, in your mind?
Barcelona is historically the socialist capital of Spain. London is historically the commercial capital of the world.
In any case, they can be over the top and really annoying. In some stations they have presence detectors at the bottom and top of each flight of stairs so that as soon as someone passes through they are told to "hold the handrail and take care"... Which means that when walking from entrance to platform you may be told 4 times to "hold the handrail and take care".
At this point I just want to rip out the handrail and destroy the loudspeakers in a rage... But I am conflicted because TfL also keeps telling me that I should be kind [1], patient [2], and considerate to others [3], plus someone might report me [4]
Perhaps there is a reason Black Mirror is British.
[1] https://images.app.goo.gl/kKDe7E2GzKFdefVa8
[2] https://images.app.goo.gl/octoWDN7uYuPSMTz5
I think "MIND THE GAP!" (when a recorded male voice pretty much shouts it[1]) on the platforms with the sharp curves and wide gaps is fine — it's unusual, and especially useful for visually impaired people.
The more common "Mind the gap" with the female voice is worse than useless, as it is used far too often, when there is barely any gap, and detracts from the significance of the other announcement.
"Hold the handrail" is ridiculous; we should expect some personal responsibility from people. I laughed the first time I heard this, 15 years ago in China, and was disappointed some years later when I first heard it in Britain.
It would be interesting to see statistics on accidents before and after these messages were introduced.
Either it's the nanny-state gone mad (with people trying to justify their jobs), or it's the lawyers who advised that "that way they can't sue us". Either is plausible in 21st century London.
Any time there is "helpful" commentary like that, whether in a tube station or in software, it tries to make individual consumers responsible for what is in fact a design flaw.
I'd hesitate to call it a "design flaw" though, bearing in mind the design for these stations was from the 1880s-1910s. There were much different requirements then: far fewer passengers were expected, all of them able-bodied and most of them locals. It's clearly a compromise, as it allowed the station to be where it was wanted rather than on a straighter section of track.
I don't know what alternative there is to escalators — lots and lots of lifts?
I’m British, but coming back to the UK after some time living abroad was a shock: how many cameras there are monitoring every moment of your life and how many signs there are telling you what to do, what not to do, how to behave, keep off the grass, stand to the right, report all wrongdoings, no loitering, no waiting, wait here (1 hour max).
When first encountering it it feels dystopian, oppressive. You get used to it living here, to the point you don’t notice it, but it’s not normal.
Well, if they will imprison you for the act of reading certain texts and/or web sites here in the UK, then what do you expect, that's a de facto police state, and if the public finds it acceptable or necessary, it shows how much the frog has slowly boiled over the decades.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance "It is the single most indicative distinguishing trait of totalitarian regimes."
There was a video clip about russia arresting people for stuff on social media, and how supposedly 400 people got visited by police 'that year' which seems a lot, but in comparison, 3300 got visited by the police in UK.
(this got posted to skeptics stackexchange, where it was established that the year in question was 2016: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/54123/were-over... )
Orwell’s 1984 was a commentary in 1948, not a piece of speculative fiction.
Is it though ? Shocking was when the nazis did it. Now it is _normal_.
In some areas, they get local curtain twitchers to volunteer and watch: https://www.hu17.net/2017/05/11/volunteers-wanted-cctv-syste...
Companies like Ring already use machine learning and related buzzwords to help filter doorbell camera feeds. That might be the big thing that these huge networks of government cameras in public areas need to meet their full potential (good or bad).
I thought this was great writing with some very telling observations.
Then I got to the Subscribe Here part. I suppose it was inevitable and more credible than "Send me a fiver through the post and I'll send you home-printed and photocopied articles every month or so."
Cognitive dissonance, even so.
But is it even possible to have a disintermediated digital economy? Bitcoin was supposed to be that, and look at how quickly that aped[1] corporate ethics.
[1] Ha.
I'm from the edge of the balkans, and have travelled all over europe, and only London gave me the feeling of some future dystopia (exaggerated, but pointing that way), where they tell you to mind the gap, keep to the left, see something, say something, cameras everywhere, and a news story every now and then about someone getting arrested because someone got offended.
Compare that to eg. the Balkans, where noone tells you anything and everything is chaotic in a "manage it yourself" way, similar with eg. spain and france, and the "everyone is adhering to a set of rules, but noone will tell you, unless you figure it out yourself" going from austria to germany and north, with some exceptions here and there (noone will "officially" tell you not to walk on the bike lanes in eg. amsterdam, but many locals may yell at you if you do).
Other cities won't face this to the same degree - but it's exacerbated in London because it's such a popular destination yet with antiquated infrastructure due to such structures being built so ahead of the curve - thus surprising platform gaps and corridors far too narrow to support massive commuter flows of a metropolis that has grown so much.
An aimless tourist could be knocked over if they don't follow conventions or aren't made aware of unusual hazards that more recently built transport systems won't have.
I lived in London for years, earlier than the author, and could be considered to be part of a counter culture. I have friends & family still part of what I'd call counter culture in London and both then and now it was always a game of cat & mouse, with alternative scenes moving and reacting to the rest of the city. The corporations definitely hold most power and alternative cultures exist where their reach fades. To find the counter culture you needed to find the hard to find and personal links to it. They're still there, just purposefully hard to find.
I look around now and I don't see any counter-culture. Maybe the Flat Earthers or the anti-vax crowd. But it's not based around music and fashion like it used to be.
As someone who doesn't live close to London, it perfectly captured my thoughts on how alienated I feel in a world where I'm seen less as a person, but more of a consumer or even product. The world is feeling less legitimate as more of Big Finance creeps in and resells everything around me.
My personal solution is to avoid cities. Live far enough you don't get the cons, not too far so you can experience the benefits every once and then.
Of course, the Western world is obsessed with "anti-terrorist acts" and similar nonsense, but there is plenty of space around that is still free from these obsessions
However, one thing touched on that drives me mad travelling in the UK now is that stupid slogan:
See it. Say it. Sorted*
It feels like we are being treated like children, stop infantilising the population. Safety is important but it’s not important above everything else.
I personally don’t think it’s part of some grand plan of control and brain washing. It’s just part of this “nothing bad must ever happen ever ever ever” culture we’ve got now and it’s awful.
* until today I always thought it it was “See it. Say it. Sort it” as I’ve only ever heard it.
I don't think the author is suggesting that either. It reads to me that he's suggesting that there are more systemic forces occurring that are disposing of meaningful individual interactions over time.
Individual players like Visa or Tesco aren't intentionally acting to destroy a city's culture, but they are thinking about their economic share of transactions, which happens to push society toward a different cultural norm as a side effect.
I’ve never liked that argument as it those same people seem to believe that governments are totally inept whilst also being competent enough to secretly brain wash a population. Feels like Schrodinger’s government.
I'd guess the reason given for why a lot of these systems exist is largely for their speed of processing and other practical/efficiency concerns, but it's interesting to me that those ideas are in no sense neutral as they're often framed.
All it tells me is that whoever started it had a left bias and whoever is using it does not know any better.
On Wikipedia, you can find that:
>Economic pressures of capitalism are driving the intensification of connection and monitoring [...]
Which is partly truism and partly straw-man. Truism because "Economic pressures" are "driving the intensification" of everything, yet we don't use terms [something]-capitalism anywhere else. And straw-man because capitalism is only one of many possible sources of economic pressure.
If all you want to is distinguish the source from state-actor surveillance then "for-profit surveillance" or even "surveillance marketing" are much more fitting terms.
Modern capitalism is tending towards large, powerful corporations and there are important network effects/economies of scale which drive pervasive surveillance. If you want to argue that this isn’t surveillance capitalism because capitalism can take many forms I’m not sure that’s especially enlightening.
Capitalism, in this instance, is exploiting a niche, that is the UK government (and others) want more control over their populations. These firms are more than happy to oblige, given the government contract is lucrative enough.
However, the advertising is no more prevalent or any different to that found in any Western democracy. It’s actually more tightly regulated in the U.K. than it is in many other countries. Determining that working class voices appeal to working class travellers (EasyJet’s core market demographic), is hardly radical. If you think that’s concerning, you should look at the data the Republicans and Democrats pull together every US Presidential election cycle…
As to the cameras, the warnings to look out, and so on, well it’s quite simple: the UK is one of the most terrorised countries in the Western World.
A strong ally of the US, a former colonial power, a country that sits on the UN Security Council and that has opinions, but much easier to reach than other countries, particularly as until recent times we had a welcoming attitude towards European, Commonwealth and other migrants, all adds up to us being a bit of a soft target. Our police officers don’t even carry guns. But then handguns are mostly illegal anyway.
For decades, the Provisional IRA regularly bombed and maimed their way through our cities, using their links to pariah states and money from ill-advised Americans to kill civilians in shopping malls and high streets.
Just yesterday I was visiting my old home city of Manchester and walked through a part of the town that caused me to remember the IRA truck bomb that detonated there in 1996. That site is just yards from the arena in which an Islamic jihadist suicide bomber killed 22 victims - some of them children - and injured over a thousand more, after building his bomb in an apartment directly across the road from where I used to live.
And of course even sleepy seaside towns didn’t escape the bombings, or people of status - Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was in the hotel in Brighton in 1984 when the IRA tried to kill her and her entire cabinet.
These are just two examples, there are dozens more.
IRA Bombings were so prevalent that even today it can be hard to find a place to put your litter in a train station or other public space.
And this is just in England. In Belfast, it was of course so much worse.
In more recent years there has been jihadist extremist attacking the U.K., with multiple deadly attacks in London (my now home city), and divisive right-wing politics leading us to a point where two politicians have been murdered for no other reason than having a mild opinion their attackers didn’t agree with.
An inability to prosecute sexual assaults and rapes at more than a 5% conviction rate has meant an unhealthy uptick in assaults against women who just want to use public transport safely.
A weakened policy against cannabis use meant that mental health units are now full of young men with paranoid schizophrenia, who on release often end up committing an array of anti-social crimes.
A rise in alcohol and drug abuse (particularly cocaine in recent years), means incidents of violent crime and fighting have risen.
Homelessness - driven by a decline in social mobility, and 13 years of reckless and foolish policies hellbent on misproven “trickle down economics” - is rife with other 160,000 people expected to be homeless in London this Christmas. Many of them veterans, all of them bitter, many of them prepared to steal to survive.
Police officers - armed with tasers and batons only, remember - wear body cams to capture the violent assaults committed against them as a routine part of their job.
I love my country. Genuinely, I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. There are many great things about it.
But the picture postcard view of a twee nation that sits somewhere between Mary Poppins and the Paddington films just is not that realistic.
There are multiple factors contributing to a need - that most people don’t recognise when used to living in other less embattled countries - built up over decades of violence, and under funded public services, that mean the only way most people feel safe after dark is knowing that everyone knows that criminal and violent behaviour is detectable, prosecutable and will be dealt with thanks to the systems none of us really want.
The signs telling you to stand on the right, use handrails and mind the gap are mostly there to remind drunk people - and on most weekends, most Brits are off their faces - how to not kill themselves. They have been part of the transport network since its invention. Relax.
We have also seen a rise in the systemisation of personal accident compensation lawyers prosecuting transport bodies, that mean public authorities like TFL who operate the tube network feel they have to do all this to reduce payouts. I think you might find similar signs in other highly litigious countries.
I get that it’s jarring, and I wish it was all completely unnecessary. But it’s a long road to there from here.