Tag: Silicon Valley
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Thousands of contracts highlight quiet ties between Big Tech and U.S. military
Written by April Glaser on NBC News.
“Tech Inquiry’s research comes as technology companies have ramped up efforts to win large military and law enforcement contracts, despite employee activism against the work.”
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“It’s important to recognize that the marketing that happens inside of these companies, assuring workers that what they’re doing is good and that their surveillance program is used for disaster relief and not drone targeting, for instance, is much like the marketing targeted at the public,” [Meredith Whittaker] said.
Tagged with: Big Tech, military, Silicon Valley.
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Technological Elites, the Meritocracy, and Post-Racial Myths in Silicon Valley
Written by Safiya Umoja Noble and Sarah T. Roberts on UCLA Published Works.
“What we learn from consistently studying the discourses of Silicon Valley is that its successes come at the expense of a growing number of communities. The costs to these communities are masked by investments in an imagined post-racial, post-gender, post-class reality that is seemingly sympathetic to inclusion, but resists it in material, quantifiable and cultural terms.”
Tagged with: meritocracy, racism, Silicon Valley.
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Tracking everyone’s whereabouts won’t stop COVID-19
Written by Albert Fox Cahn and Alyssa Domino on Fast Company.
“Rather than simply accepting tracking with open arms, Americans should be wary of geeks bearing gifts. Today’s startups could do more than squander venture capital dollars—their misguided COVID-19 surveillance measures may cost lives and undermine our democracy.
… This points to one of the most fundamental concerns in any new health surveillance tool: Who else gets the data? Even if a tool is shown to be effective, even if it’s deployable at scale, how else might the data be used by government agencies?”
Read ‘Tracking everyone’s whereabouts won’t stop COVID-19’ on the Fast Company site.
Tagged with: coronavirus, mass surveillance, Silicon Valley.