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Platform capitalism is when technology companies provide minimal infrastructure to help connect users to service providers, while extracting as much data as possible from each of those interactions. These platforms aren’t giving us what we want anymore. We've been lured onto platforms with great services, and then our preferences have been made to play second fiddle to businesses, so the company can claw back the revenue all for themselves
It absolutely is unreasonable for each of us to single-handedly claw back all of our attention, autonomy, privacy, time from these platforms.
And yet, these platforms sometimes feel like the primary tools that might be able to, say, spread the good word about these EcoGatherings. Or offer the best shot at helping our small art shop get some traffic. Or they might even just feel like an easy way to distract ourselves from -- or educate ourselves on -- the latest atrocity.
I hope you’ll join us for a conversation about social media and platform capitalism. How we can all draw our individual boundaries to allow for genuinely helpful (though extractive) services while collectively resisting the many dark sides? As with so many of these topics, there are no easy answers, and the forms of resistance we are each able and willing to take will be unique to our circumstances. But one thing remains clear: we will need each other and collective action to process and respond adequately.
Recommended resources for this EcoGathering: