Hey there,
Your work sounds really interesting. I'm versed in the thought you've
mentioned, and would be happy to provide some feedback. A little bit
about me: I'm a researcher/activist currently working with a tech group
developing free software called Holochain (a post-blockchain alternative
/ commons transition digital enviro). My background is in
psychoanalysis, so the reactionary and self-defeating tendencies are of
great interest to me :) Perhaps I could begin with your first chapter?
Take care,
Emaline
On 01/16/2018 11:31 PM, Kyra wrote:
Hello all,
I've been working on a multi-part analysis of the online privacy and
free software/culture movements critiquing a lot of the reactionary
and self-defeating tendencies within them, and (hopefully) offering
some possibilities for stronger ways to organize around these ideas.
I'd love feedback from others who are well versed in critical race
theory, postcolonial studies, and dialectical and historical materialism.
It's called Copyleft and Captial, and is made up of three parts for
which I will paste the summaries below. Please let me know if you
would be interested in reading it, or a section of it, and I can send
you a copy!
1. Treachery of the Commons: Media’s Commodity and Ideological
Characteristics
The free culture movement advocates for copyright and intellectual
property reform, or total abolishment thereof. In doing so, its
proponents celebrate democratizing, decentralizing, and utopian
qualities of digital technology and the internet. While they argue for
greater artistic freedom, creativity, and innovation, they ignore the
greater part of the damage inflicted by, or rather through,
intellectual property. The continued legacies of colonialism, racism,
and slavery live on through whatever commodity forms exist within
capitalism, and a holistic critique not only of private IP such as
copyright, trademark, and patents, but also of the commons, public
domain, and free culture is needed for a movement against the former
to have salience for those marginalized peoples who have endured the
brunt of economic and cultural devastation enabled by private
immaterial property.
2. Some Were Already Anonymous: The Liberalism of Privacy Rights and
the Persistence of Surveillance
The rise of user tracking, data mining, and other forms of digital
surveillance has, in some capacity, been met with a growing movement
for online privacy, digital rights, and cyber security. Digital
technology is often offered as an empowering force for the public
while also constituting the vast majority of the broad and ubiquitous
apparatus of mass surveillance. Examining the work and messaging of
prominent technologists and technology-focused organizations in the
arena of free software (also popularly marketed as open source
software) as they tackle issues of privacy, this paper considers the
types of surveillance that are challenged by technology-focused
approaches, their limits, and the extent to which these projects
address the stratified use and impact of different forms of
surveillance across populations.
3. The freer the software, the freer the user:The self-defeating
liberalism of the free software movement
The free software movement, while rarely expressed in these most
critical terms, opposes outright the private ownership of software
and, to a lesser extent, any means by which technology users are
detached or restricted from having full control over their data and
computing. While that may not sound particularly reformist in its own
right at that fundamental standpoint, and with some modification or
alternative approach may even hold some value for radical leftists,
the reactionary liberalism of the free software movement as a whole
becomes evident when pulling into examination its foundational texts,
formative contributors, and contemporary advocacy materials. This
paper interrogates the motivations, rationale, tactics, ideology, and
impact of this particular movement to outline its contradictions,
limitations, and shortcomings. In unpacking the so-called philosophy
of free software (also called libre software), the movement reveals
itself to be detrimentally single-minded, politically innocuous, and
ultimately self-defeating. What possibilities lie in potential
attempts at salvaging or towards recalibration of some driving
concepts behind the constructions of “free software” and “user
freedom,” or what valuable affinities with other struggles might be
forged from an entirely different starting point?
Warmly,
Pang Yue Hung
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