Kick 'Em in the Dongle  ## Metadata - Author: [[Understood: Who Broke the Internet?]] - Full Title: Kick 'Em in the Dongle - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/5868818f-d9a4-4e72-82f8-48dee1c5d18b ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **(114.000 sec) The Rise of Techno-Feudalism** Discover how the internet has evolved into a modern feudal system with digital land owned by tech giants. **(194.000 sec) Canada's Digital Lock Laws and Their Impact** Learn how Canada's digital lock rules, influenced by U.S. pressure, have stifled innovation and affected everyday users. **(214.000 sec) The Opportunity Created by Trump's Trade War** Explore how Trump's trade actions inadvertently provide a chance for Canada to reclaim digital sovereignty and challenge U.S.-dominated internet laws. Transcript: Delaney Poitras Other People's ([Time 0:00:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b75f6987-93b4-4e6f-b897-5ed5d1f1a7e1)) - **Understanding Techno-Feudalism** - Techno-feudalism is a new socioeconomic system where big tech companies act as feudal lords. - Users provide free labor by contributing content, enriching the platforms that control digital land. Transcript: Yanis Varoufakis When we watched the famous inauguration of Donald Trump, we saw many of the faces of these techno-fueled lords basking in the glory of the Donald's coronation. Giannis is an economist. Cory Doctorow He was Greece's minister of finance during the Eurozone crisis, so he knows a thing or two about money and power. They are consumed by their own power, and they become real sad bastards. We started this series with the term I-coin, and shitification, the intentional decay of platforms for profit. Now I want to introduce you to a term Giannis came up with, techno-feudalism. For Giannis, the seed of this idea was planted more than 30 years ago by his father. Yanis Varoufakis It was, if memory serves, 1993. It was around Christmas time. And my father, who was always very keen to be connected to the latest technological innovations, asked me to connect him to the Internet, to the fledgling Internet back then. And after we did it and he managed to read some website or send an email, he turned around and he said, so now that computers talk to one another, is it going to spell the end of capitalism Or is it going to make capitalism absolutely safe from any challenge to its power? What he was asking me is, is there hope? And I'm very much afraid that he wouldn't like the answer. Cory Doctorow And that answer is a system Giannis calls... Technofoodleism. So what is techno-feudalism? Yanis Varoufakis Techno-feudalism is the socioeconomic system that emerged after capital overthrew capitalism. Cory Doctorow You've probably been taught that you live in a capitalist system. It was a question on my U.S. Citizenship exam. What is the economic system of America? Capitalism. Capitalism is a system in which companies compete for profit. If you don't have capital, if you work for a living, then you get wages. The more wages you get, the less profit your boss takes home. Giannis says that the advent of computers that could talk to each other via the internet ushered in an autophagic form of capitalism that was so successful, it ended up devouring itself. Yanis Varoufakis In the same way that the toxic virus becomes so toxic that it kills off its host. Cory Doctorow So that does mean the end of capitalism, just like his father wondered about. But don't start playing ding-dong, the witch is dead. Yanis Varoufakis What has emerged is far worse and more lethal and a clear and present danger to humanity and to nature. Yana says that we are now left with a freakish mutation of capitalism that has merged with something much older called feudalism. Cory Doctorow Feudalism was all the rage in medieval Europe. With feudalism, lords owned the land and peasants worked it, owning nothing, paying rent to survive. Techno-feudalism is feudalism plus computers, with big tech platforms as our feudal lords. They have totally and utterly appropriated the internet, and we are just cloud servers within it. They own the digital land, the app stores, search engines, and social networks. So whether you're a seller or a buyer, a poster or a scroller, an advertiser or a target, you serve the lords. In other words, we're all digital peasants. Yanis Varoufakis Every time you upload a photo on Instagram or a video on TikTok or you tweet on what used to be Twitter, what you're doing is you are creating part of the cloud capital of the owner of that Platform with your free labor. Of course, it is voluntary labor. Nobody has forced you to do it. But nevertheless, it is labor that you are expending in order to build up the machinery of the cloud fiefdom, which allows the owner ([Time 0:01:54](https://share.snipd.com/snip/94254d8b-425d-4d62-9eb5-3a54adf527e9)) - **Facebook as a Lifeline During Wildfires** - Delaney Poitras used Facebook as a critical community bulletin board during wildfires in Northwest Territories. - When Meta blocked news links due to Bill C-18, she resorted to sharing screenshots to keep her community informed. Transcript: Cory Doctorow Delaney Patra is a different kind of internet royalty. Delaney Poitras I'm a social media queen. I always have been. I'm completely obsessed with Facebook. I'm always on it. I'm always sharing stuff. Cory Doctorow Delaney lives in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories. Population, approximately 2,500. The closest major city is Yellowknife, 740 kilometers away. Delaney Poitras We're a very tight-knit community. Everybody takes care of everybody. Even if you don't like somebody, we still take care of each other. It doesn't really matter. But social media is a big part of our community. Cory Doctorow For Delaney, Facebook isn't just a way to keep in touch. It's infrastructure, a town bulletin board run on posts, tags, and shares. Delaney Poitras A lot of people come to my Facebook to share my posts because I keep everybody updated. And at one point, I think I had like 3,000 friends. Cory Doctorow Storms, school closures, emergencies. If something was going on, people knew who to get updates from. And that was true when the unthinkable happened. Delaney Poitras Wildfires in the Northwest Territories are forcing thousands to flee their homes. Eight areas are now under an evacuation order. All I seen was red flame on both sides of the highway. High winds fanned the flames pushing them 75 kilometers in one day. It started getting darker and darker and it looked like Armageddon. Cory Doctorow Throughout the summer of 2023, tens of thousands of people in the Northwest Territories, British Columbia and Alberta, were ordered to evacuate as forest fires ripped through the North. Delaney Poitras It was very smoky here. Working in this hospital here, the air circulation was not very good, so it was very strong. Most days it was very gloomy and kind of like orange. And a lot of the time there was falling ash. Cory Doctorow In Fort Smith, the community hunkered down and obsessively checked for updates from their social media town crier. Delaney Poitras My phone was blowing up the whole time. It was insane. Everybody was kind of like on edge on like, when are we going to evacuate? Because there was fires coming from the north, fires coming from the southeast, and then fires coming from the west. So we were basically like in the center of three big huge fires. Cory Doctorow Delaney helped her mom pack up the camper and sent her family ahead to Hay River, a town three hours away. She stayed behind to prep the hospital for evacuation. Delaney Poitras Then we got the actual evacuation order on the Saturday. Officials say about 70% of the Fort Smith area have left. Anyone who was remaining in their home should get to the community's recreation centre where they will begin to airlift people out as well. Cory Doctorow Delaney joined the convoy out of town. When she got to Hay River, she met up with her family at a campground, along with hundreds of other evacuees. For just a moment, she could catch her breath. Delaney Poitras We got to hang out for basically 24 hours before we were evacuated again. Cory Doctorow Delaney's family rushed to repack, got everyone, kids, dogs, back on the road. Delaney Poitras Then we saw the smoke when we were driving and within the hour of that, we had heard that there was people stuck in here because the fire had rolled all the way over. Like, I think it traveled 50 kilometers within an hour. Cory Doctorow Being ahead on the road, worried about the people behind her, Delaney did what she usually did. She tried to post a news story on Facebook to update everybody about the situation. And that's when something strange happened. Delaney Poitras The notification that came up was like talking about some news ban on Facebook or Meta or something. I was like, what the heck is this? So then I tried posting it again and again and nothing would work. And finally I was like, okay, now I have to go and figure out why this is happening. So I went on Google and I found out that news was all being blocked. I'm like, that's not good. Cory Doctorow Earlier that year, Canada had passed Bill C-18, the Online News Act. It was supposed to make big tech pay news organizations when their content appeared on platforms like Facebook. The idea was, if news helped draw people to the site, publishers should get a cut. But Meta had another idea. Michael Geist Meta says it will soon start blocking Canadians from news content on Facebook and Instagram. It's in response to Bill C-18, which was recently passed. Cory Doctorow Meta blocked all news links in Canada. Newspapers, TV stations, radio. If it came from a journalist, it was banished from your feed. And that included news about the fires. Delaney Poitras We couldn't get, like, the right information. One person would share this, or this person would share this, and it wouldn't be correct. You'd have to physically go and click and click and click and try to find the right information on where we're going to go next. Cory Doctorow Meta hasn't responded to any of our requests for comment. But back when the law passed, they called it unworkable, said the only way to comply was to end news availability for people in Canada. They insisted evacuees could still access content from official government agencies and emergency services. But by then, Facebook had already made itself essential. And there was one group Delaney was particularly worried about. Delaney Poitras We have a lot of elders on social media who also rely on hosts being shared like from the news. I have my grandparents who would probably be on Facebook clicking a link to go to the news story instead of being like, oh, I'm going to go on Google and I'm going to try to find this. Whereas if somebody shared it, it would be more like, oh, yeah, I'm going to go click this and it's easier to get to kind of thing. Yeah. I just found it not, not safe at all. Cory Doctorow So she improvised. Delaney Poitras I would take screenshots of news stories, but I'd have to like crop the picture. So it didn't say anything else that would get the post ban. That's how I did it through the whole evacuation was share, share, share screenshots. And I think I have like probably ([Time 0:09:02](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8c06d2ce-7c8f-4019-aae7-df6a4a822c14)) - **Regulating Big Tech's Power** - Attempts to regulate tech giants by requiring payment for news led platforms to block news content in Canada. - Such laws address symptoms but not the root of big tech's power, which requires dismantling digital lock laws. Transcript: Cory Doctorow Monopolies boomed and technologists everywhere were blocked from fixing stuff or making it better. And as American platforms and shittified, Canada's response has been to try to make them behave. Pay for the news you profit from. Police, harmful content, moderate bad behavior. But for platforms to exercise that power over their users, they must have power over us. We need to take their power away, not beg them to use it wisely. And now, thanks to President Donald Trump, of all people, we finally have a way out. Delaney Poitras Breaking tonight, Donald Trump declares a trade war on Canada as sweeping tariffs take effect. Devastating tariffs upend one of the most productive trading relationships in the world. Cory Doctorow In 2024, Donald Trump called Canadian aluminum a national security threat. He made up some nonsense about Canadian fentanyl and then he whacked us with tariffs again and again. And this, this is an opportunity. Now that Trump has reneged on free trade and torched the global trade system in the process, maybe we should all stop playing by American rules. Michael Geist We need to think hard about the laws themselves, that in many ways, much of digital sovereignty is actually about making sovereign choices, Canadian choices, about what we want our Legislation to look like. Cory Doctorow So here's what I say. Stop wasting time on laws that just treat the symptoms of the Enshitternet. We'll never be able to regulate these companies until we take a crucial first step. Cut off their source of power. And that starts with repealing our digital lock laws. Every time an American tech executive orders a product team to turn the devices and services we rely on into a 10-foot pile of shit, give a Canadian technologist the chance to build a Four-meter ladder that we can use to climb over it. Privacy blockers, scrapers that let you leave Facebook and Twitter but still see the things your friends send you there. Alternative clients and operating system hacks that protect your privacy while you use the web or your phone. If they could break those locks, developers could build new tools that would work with existing apps and sites instead of having to beg permission from American tech companies who Get to say no to anyone who threatens their business model. We can move our playlists, our communities, our data, take them with us to platforms that respect our rights. Makers and tinkerers could build those new platforms and better services on top of the web we already have. It's how we turn the internet from a walled garden into a public space. Yanis Varoufakis Doing all the things that will seriously reduce the power that the owners of Cloud Capital have overnight. Cory Doctorow The internet's not broken because people stopped caring. It's ([Time 0:33:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/3f43af7b-d167-49cb-9aa0-a62711c0751a)) - **Repeal Digital Lock Laws** - Repeal digital lock laws to allow developers to build tools that bypass platform restrictions. - This can enable users to migrate data freely and foster innovation beyond locked platforms. Transcript: Cory Doctorow So here's what I say. Stop wasting time on laws that just treat the symptoms of the Enshitternet. We'll never be able to regulate these companies until we take a crucial first step. Cut off their source of power. And that starts with repealing our digital lock laws. Every time an American tech executive orders a product team to turn the devices and services we rely on into a 10-foot pile of shit, give a Canadian technologist the chance to build a Four-meter ladder that we can use to climb over it. Privacy blockers, scrapers that let you leave Facebook and Twitter but still see the things your friends send you there. Alternative clients and operating system hacks that protect your privacy while you use the web or your phone. If they could break those locks, developers could build new tools that would work with existing apps and sites instead of having to beg permission from American tech companies who Get to say no to anyone who threatens their business model. We can move our playlists, our communities, our data, take them with us to platforms that respect our rights. Makers and tinkerers could build those new platforms and better services on top of the web we already have. It's how we turn the internet from a walled garden into a public space. Yanis Varoufakis Doing all the things that will seriously reduce the power that the owners of Cloud Capital have overnight. ([Time 0:34:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7ce6f54b-15f7-43bd-90c2-2c8c4c5db699)) - **Internet's True Value** - The internet breaks because companies lock it up and governments enforce those locks. - Despite hurtful monopolies, the internet's value lies in connecting people, which is worth fighting for. Transcript: Cory Doctorow The internet's not broken because people stopped caring. It's broken because a few powerful companies locked it up and got our governments to declare those locks off limits. And the politicians who could have stopped them, they were warned. John Sherman warned them. Pam Samuelson warned them. Lena Kahn warned them. Michael Geist warned them. I warned them. But the mythology of Silicon Valley won out. They moved fast. They broke things. They built monopolies. And our governments protected them while they did it. Meanwhile, we were told they were geniuses, not mediocre monopolists that we couldn't afford to get in the way. But that story's done. It's time for a new one. Pam Samuelson, the lawyer who tried to stop the DMCA. It's like, no, actually, it's our device. We should be able to do with it what we want. And therefore, just shut up. Because notwithstanding all those locks and shareholder value and monopolies, the internet is worth saving. Clive Thompson, the internet culture writer, puts it this way. I think connecting with other people is still the great gift that the internet has given us from the very beginning. Like, I think it is exactly what those nerds back in the 60s and 70s imagined it to be. What people cherish in the world is connection to other people. Seeing what they do, hearing what they have to say, being an audience for them and having them be an audience for you. These are incredibly powerful things. Ed Zitron certainly thinks so. When I first logged onto the internet, and I feel this to this day, I was so grateful because I was so, so lonely. I was so lonely, Corey. So the internet allowed me to talk to people that I love. I met you through the internet. It's magical. And I love it for them. Emmanuel Goldstein, the legendary phone freak and hacker. Michael Geist The internet as it is now, it's terrible. What has happened to it doesn't mean we can't make more networks and do it better. It doesn't mean we can't come up with different technology and just not make the same mistakes. It's going to take a conscious effort. It's going to take a lot of learning. It's going to take a lot of pain. But what choice do we have? We have to keep moving forward. What inspires me is the unknown. You know, what hasn't come around yet, what hasn't been invented, what hasn't been thought of. Cory Doctorow We're in a wild moment. Everything is up for grabs. We're all finding ourselves in conversations that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. Conversations about what the world could and should be. I'm asking ([Time 0:36:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e0ed7745-2fae-4af1-9a11-9b74d767fa2f)) - **Demand Smaller, Accountable Platforms** - Insist on smaller, weaker platforms instead of relying on tech giants to behave. - Build public spaces online that reduce the power of dominant cloud capital owners. Transcript: Cory Doctorow Ourselves in conversations that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. Conversations about what the world could and should be. I'm asking you to take this idea into those conversations to insist that we want weaker, smaller platforms, not tech giants who pinky swear that this time they'll behave themselves. If that's how Canadians understand this problem, then when people in power cast about for an idea on how to fix the internet, they won't get suckered into giving the platforms yet another Lock they can use to take us and our data and our relationships and our businesses and our news and our politics and our culture and our jobs and our educations and our whole lives hostage. And ([Time 0:38:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/abe61918-bc0e-445a-806d-55d916020706))