(Crossposted from The Itinerant Librarian.)
Cory Doctorow, The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation. London, UK: Verso Books, 2024. ISBN: 9781804292143. (link to publisher)
One thing I've learned in my years online, especially with social media, is that you have to be willing and ready to move on when a site goes to hell. By now, if I have to leave some people behind, so be it, but as much as possible I am ready to pack and go elsewhere when things get bad. In the book, the author reminds us we have the option to move, and he offers some tools to help make the move less painful.
The book is organized in two major parts:
- Part I: Seize the Means of Computation. Here the author explains how the companies get big and how for the most part they stay big due to influence, corruption, and legalized extortion. Add to this governments that are either lazy, clueless, and/or in league with said companies, and it does not leave room for hope. However, where there is a will there is a way, and the author provides some possible solutions.
- Part II: What About. Here the author addresses possible objections including some corporate excuses not to do the right thing.
The main concept to understand from the book is that of interoperability. It's the ability of different services to connect with each other and users in different places to interact on common ground. What the book explains:
- "What interoperability is
- How interoperability works
- How we can get interoperability
- How we can mitigate interoperability's problems" (3).
Mastodon and the Fediverse embody this pretty well. In simpler terms, this is what allows your GMail to communicate with someone else's Yahoo! email and both to communicate with Outlook Email. For the most part, services like Facebook are walled prisons keeping users hostage. Once you understand interoperability, it makes sense. The author takes time to explain it, shows why it is important, and worth fighting for.
The book for the most part is accessible, though there are some passages that may get too technical for some readers. The first part also has some repetitive passages, and it is a bit slow reading at times. The second part is an easy read in contrast to the first part.
The author strives to give solutions, and points out some positive bits of legislation, but in these Hard Times it is difficult to be optimistic our governments would do anything right that would benefit regular people, less so if those things would displease those big tech companies that often keep those politicians in their pockets through political donations as well as dark money. So in the end, this all sounds great, but I would not hold my breath. What I will keep doing is using and learning more about Mastodon and the Fediverse and other open access options. They may be small and not glamorous, but they are not beholden to Big Tech.
In the end, this is a good read even if it is not an easy read. It's not easy in the sense many folks may not want to hear the truth. Staying in Big Tech's prisons is easier for many folks than making a liberatory effort.
Overall, I recommend the book for public and academic libraries. For me, as I am starting some research to craft a social media policy for our library, the book gives me plenty of food for thought. Maybe it will give more folks out there something to think about as well.
4 out of 5 stars.
Additional reading notes:
Why we need to fix tech:
"Fixing tech isn't more important than fixing everything else, but unless we fix tech, we can forget about winning any of those other fights" (18).
What is reverse engineering:
"'Reverse engineering' is a time-honored and important guerrilla tactic in all technological struggles. Its meaning is well captured by its name: reverse engineering takes place when a technologist deeply probes a finished product or service to determine how it works, and also how to change or replicate the way it works" (84).
This book qualifies for the following 2025 Reading Challenge:
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