<nettime> Responsibilization & Collective Social Aspirations

[Dmytri Kleiner <dk@telekommunisten.net>]

In her informative and entertaing talks Seda GÃrses {1} often refers to 
the process of "responsibilization." Speaking about privacy, she argues 
that new, privately operated, online platforms are transforming 
responsibility of providing safety and privacy to users of these 
platforms, where users would previously have had the expectations that 
operators and regulators would bear this responsibility. 
Responsibilization is the transfer of responsibility form being 
something that is social and shared, to being held solely by 
individuals.
Just looking at communications media, privacy on the postal system and 
the mail system was legislated, and operators and users where held 
responsible for complying to socially imposed standards.
Yet, on modern online platforms, despite their increasing importance, 
users are for the most part governed by the site operators' user 
agreements, and the responsibility of understanding the sites privacy 
and safety implications, including often complex settings and options, 
is help by the user alone.
This raises a very important question.

Do we have a collective right to social aspirations? Do we have a 
collective right to work towards socially determining social outcomes?
Should people simply get the privacy and safety they deserve as 
determined by their own behaviour? Or do we want a society where people 
can expect that their privacy and safety is something that can be 
socially determined?
What's worse, is that there is a significant moral hazard at work, even 
when legislation, regulation, or simply user outcry, seeks to improve 
the privacy policies of a platform, the site has significant incentive 
to resist, foot-drag or out right ignore such expectations. The business 
models of most operators is based on monetizing user interaction and 
user data, and therefor whatever the regulatory environment or user 
desire, so long as it's up to the operators to implement privacy, we're 
leaving the fox in charge of the hen house, as the saying goes.
Can we realistically expect private platforms to enthusiastically place 
social concerns above there shareholder's profit interest?
And even if strong regulations, vigilant user advocacy groups or some 
other incentives can manage to keep the fox from making diner of the 
hens, is this watchdog state of affairs, with social watchdogs watching 
profit watchdogs and fighting over every decision really the best way to 
manage communications platforms?
Ours is often called the communications age, and the development global 
digital network communications network is often cited as one of the most 
important development in human history, comparable to electricity, or 
even agriculture.
Yet, the commercial Internet was born in a neoliberal era, an era when 
we are no longer allowed to have collective social aspirations, we are 
no longer allowed to want social outcomes, or even work towards them. We 
are allowed only to simply accept outcomes as facts, to believe that 
outcomes are determined by some sort of exogenous logic, be it the 
market or economy or politics or nature itself, and this often comes 
hand in hand with blaming the victims for their misfortune. If they 
where faster, stronger, smarter or even luckier they would have done 
better with the whole privacy and safety thing, or further the whole 
wealth and power thing.
Yet, being white, male and rich are often more significant than being 
fast, strong, smart or talented. By accepting a world where we get what 
we deserve, where outcomes are the result of individual merit, we 
embrace a delusion, a make believe land where power, privilege and 
wealth do not exist.
This delusion is killing the Internet.

Too often, solutions to the social issues of communications are 
presented as being individual or collective. Too often, privacy concerns 
about online platforms are responded to with "Well, just don't use 
Facebook, if you don't like it" or even more unrealistically, "You 
should make something better then. If their was a market demand for 
something better, somebody would have made it, so obviously people don't 
care about your issues."
The fact is that "making something better" requires investment, 
requires wealth, which means in most cases, capital. Yet, capitalists  
must invest in ways capture profit, which brings up the moral hazard 
again. Don't trust this fox with your hens? Find a different fox!
More and more it feels like the biggest challenge of our age is the 
challenge of making people people that we have a right to collectively 
work towards our social aspirations, that we can and must work together 
to achieve social outcomes. Not only for privacy and safety on line, but 
to create the kind of society we want broadly.
A society where wealth and power, and responsibility is more broadly 
shared.

{1} 
http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/unlikeus/2012/03/09/seda-gurses-and-privacy-in-online-social-networks/
--
Dmytri Kleiner
Venture Communist


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