Digital Ethics

This fifth volume in Christian Fuchs’s Media, Communication and Society series presents foundations and
applications of digital ethics based on critical theory. It applies a critical approach to ethics within the
realm of digital technology.
Based on the notions of alienation, communication (in)justice, media (in)justice, and digital
(in)justice, it analyses ethics in the context of digital labour and the surveillance-industrial complex;
social media research ethics; privacy on Facebook; participation, co-operation, and sustainability in
the information society; the digital commons; the digital public sphere; and digital democracy. The
book consists of three parts. Part I presents some of the philosophical foundations of critical, humanist
digital ethics. Part II applies these foundations to concrete digital ethics case studies. Part III presents
broad conclusions
­­ about how to advance the digital commons, the digital public sphere, and digital
democracy, which is the ultimate goal of digital ethics.
This book is essential reading for both students and researchers in media, culture, communication
studies, and related disciplines.

Christian Fuchs is Chair Professor of Media Systems and Media Organisation at Paderborn University,
Germany. His fields of expertise are critical digital and social media studies, Internet and society, the
political economy of media and communication, information society theory, social theory, and critical
theory. He is the author of numerous publications in these fields.
 Digital Ethics
Media, Communication and Society
Volume Five
Christian Fuchs
Cover image: mammuth, Getty Images
First published 2023
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© 2023 Christian Fuchs
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Fuchs, Christian, 1976- author.
Title: Digital ethics / Christian Fuchs.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2023. |
Series: Media, communication and society; volume five |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022010363 (print) | LCCN 2022010364 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781032246147 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032246161 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003279488 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Internet—Moral and ethical aspects. |
Internet—Social aspects. | Information society.
Classification: LCC TK5105.878 .F83 2023 (print) |
LCC TK5105.878 (ebook) | DDC 395.5—dc23/eng/20220625
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022010363
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022010364
ISBN: 978-1-032-24614-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-24616-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-27948-8 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003279488
Typeset in Univers
by codeMantra
Contents

List of Figures vi
List of Tables vii
Acknowledgements ix

PART I
Foundations 1

1 What Is Digital Ethics? 3

2 Foundations of Communication/Media/Digital (In)Justice 21
3 The Ethics of the Digital Commons 45

PART II
Applications 81

4 Information Ethics in the Age of Digital Labour and the Surveillance-

Industrial Complex 83
5 “Dear Mr. Neo-Nazi, can you please give me your informed consent
so that I can quote your fascist tweet?”: Questions of Social Media
Research Ethics in Online Ideology Critique 105
6 Towards an Alternative Concept of Privacy 119
7 The Ethics and Political Economy of Privacy on Facebook 141
8 Information Technology and Sustainability in the Information Society 165
9 Theoretical Foundations of Defining the Participatory, Co-operative,
Sustainable Information Society (PCSIS) 193

PART III
Conclusion 219

10 The Digital Commons and the Digital Public Sphere: How to Advance
Digital Democracy Today 221

Index 244
Figures

2.1 The matrix of domination in intersectional theories (based on Adams

and Zúñiga 2016, 162) 29
3.1 Tweet by Nigel Farage in the context of the Brexit-referendum 73
7.1 Capital accumulation on Facebook 146
8.1 The vicious cycle of neoliberalism 179
9.1 Society as a dynamic, dialectical system 195
9.2 Share of developed economies in world GDP 198
10.1 Club 2.0, first published as Creative Commons in Fuchs (2018b, 74) 230
Tables

1.1 The application of four ethical approaches to digitalisation 7

2.1 A typology of theories of justice 23
2.2 Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition 25
2.3 Nancy Fraser’s theory of justice 26
2.4 Iris Marion Young’s concept of the five faces of oppression (based on
Young 1990, Chapter 2) 27
2.5 A typology of injustice as alienation in the economy, politics, and culture 33
2.6 Alienation as injustice in capitalist society 35
2.7 The communicative dimension of different forms of injustice 36
2.8 Forms of alienated communication and alienated media/means of
communications 37
2.9 The interaction of class, racism, gender oppression 37
2.10 Types of digital alienation 39
2.11 Dimensions of a humanist society 40
2.12 Forms of humanist and just communication/media 41
2.13 A typology of just, humanist digital communication(s) 42
3.1 Types of goods in the economic theory of goods 46
3.2 Three dimensions of the digital commons 69
5.1 The most active and most mentioned users in the Corbyn dataset 115
6.1 A typology of privacy theories 123
8.1 Approaches on sustainability and information society policies (based
on: Fuchs 2010) 170
8.2 Internet and computer use statistics for the EU (data source: Eurostat) 173
8.3 Regions in the EU, where in 2015 less than 60% of households had
broadband access at home (data source: Eurostat) 174
8.4 Regions in the EU, where in 2015 40% or more have never used a
computer (data source: Eurostat) 174
8.5 Market share of the incumbent in fixed line broadband subscriptions
and minimum level of the Herfindahl–Hirschman-Index, data for
2015, data source: European Commission 2015 176
8.6 Market share of the incumbent in mobile network subscriptions
and minimum level of the Herfindahl–Hirschman-Index, data for
2014, data source: Eurostat (Digital Agenda Key Indicators), UK and
Germany: Ofcom (2015) 177
viii Tables

8.7 The world’s most profitable transnational information corporations in

the year 2015 (data source: Forbes 2000, 2015 list) 183
8.8 A dialectical view of the un/sustainability of ICTs and the
information society 187
9.1 An overview of structures in society 196
9.2 Approaches on the sustainable information society 200
9.3 Dimensions of sustainability 210
10.1 The domination transnational communication and digital
corporations, data sources: Forbes 2000 List (year 2020), https://
www.forbes.com/global2000, accessed on 7 October 2020 222
10.2 Four types and dimensions of the commons 233
10.3 Four types and dimension of the digital commons 234
10.4 Three political economies of digital platforms (further development
based on: Fuchs 2021, Table 8.2) 237
Acknowledgements

Chapter 2 was first published as a journal article using a Creative Commons CC-BY li-
cence that allows reprint: Christian Fuchs. 2021. Foundations of Communication/Media/
Digital (In)Justice. Journal of Media Ethics 36 (4): 186–201. http://doi.org/10.1080/2373
6992.2021.1964968

A shorter version of Chapter 3 was first published as a journal article. The chapter is
an extended version of the original paper. It has been reused and extended based on a
contractual stipulation in the author agreement with Taylor & Francis that allows republi-
cation and modification. Christian Fuchs. 2020. The Ethics of the Digital Commons. Jour-
nal of Media Ethics 35 (2): 112–126. https://doi.org/10.1080/23736992.2020.1736077

Chapter 4 was first published as a book chapter. It has been reprinted based on a stip-
ulation in the author agreement that enables the author to reprint his chapter in a volume
of his own works. Fuchs, Christian. 2016. Information Ethics in the Age of Digital Labour
and the Surveillance-Industrial Complex. In Information Cultures in the Digital Age: A
Festschrift in Honor of Rafael Capurro, ed. Matthew Kelly and Jared Bielby, 173–190.
Wiesbaden: Springer.

Chapter 5 was first published as a book chapter. It has been reprinted based on a
stipulation in the author agreement that enables the author to reprint his chapter in a
volume of his own works. Fuchs, Christian. 2018. “Dear Mr. Neo-Nazi, can you please
give me your informed consent so that I can quote your fascist tweet?”: Questions of
Social Media Research Ethics in Online Ideology Critique. In The Routledge Companion
to Media and Activism, ed. Graham Meikle, 385–394. Abingdon: Routledge.

Chapter 6 was first published as a journal article. It has been reprinted based on Em-
erald’s Author Rights (https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/our-services/authors/
author-policies/author-rights) Fuchs, Christian. 2011. Towards an Alternative Concept of
Privacy. Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society 9 (4): 220–237.
https://doi.org/10.1108/14779961111191039
x Acknowledgements

Chapter 7 was first published as a journal article. It has been reprinted based on
SAGE’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines (https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/
journal-author-archiving-policies-and-re-use): Fuchs, Christian. 2012. The Political
Economy of Privacy on Facebook. Television & New Media 13 (2): 139–159. https://doi.
org/10.1177%2F1527476411415699

Chapter 8 was first published as a journal article. It has been reprinted with per-
mission of International Journal of Communication. Fuchs, Christian. 2017. Informa-
tion Technology and Sustainability in the Information Society. International Journal of
Communication 11: 2431–2461. Published open access: https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/
article/view/6827

Chapter 9 was first published as a journal article. It has been reprinted based on a
contractual stipulation in the author agreement with Taylor & Francis that allows re-
publication. Christian Fuchs. 2010. Theoretical Foundations of Defining the Participatory,
Co-operative, Sustainable Information Society (PCSIS). Information, Communication, and
Society 13 (1): 23–47. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691180902801585

Chapter 10 was first published as a journal article using a Creative Commons CC-BY
licence that allows reprinting it. Christian Fuchs. 2021. The Digital Commons and the
Digital Public Sphere: How to Advance Digital Democracy Today. Westminster Papers in
Communication and Culture 16 (1): 9–26. https://doi.org/10.16997/wpcc.917
Part I

Foundations
Chapter One
What Is Digital Ethics?

1.1 About this Book

1.2 What Is Ethics?
1.3 What Is Digital Ethics?
1.4 The Chapters in this Book

1.1 About this Book

This book asks: what does digital ethics look like when it is based on the critical theory
of Marxist humanism? What are the principles of critical, Marxist-humanist ethics and
how can this approach be applied for explaining digital society’s moral principles and
practices?

The book at hand is the fifth volume of a series of books titled “Media, Communica-
tion and Society”. The overall aim of Media, Communication & Society is to outline the
foundations of a critical theory of communication and digital communication in society.
It is a multi-volume book series situated on the intersection of communication theory,
sociology, and philosophy. The overall questions that “Media, Communication & Society”
deals with are: what is the role of communication in society? What is the role of commu-
nication in capitalism? What is the role of communication in digital capitalism?

Based on critical theory and Marxist humanism, this book presents foundations and ap-
plications of digital ethics. It combines the approaches of Aristotle, Karl Marx, and Alas-
dair MacIntyre and applies this combination to the realm of digital technology. The book
outlines based on Marx’s notion of alienation principles communication (in)justice, media
(in)justice, and digital (in)justice. It analyses the digital commons, ethics in the context
of digital labour and the surveillance-industrial complex, social media research ethics,
socialist privacy, privacy on Facebook, participation, co-operation and sustainability in the
information society, the digital commons, the digital public sphere, and digital democracy.

The book consists of three parts. Part I (Chapters 1–3) presents philosophical founda-
tions of critical, Marxist-humanist digital ethics. Part II applies these foundations to
concrete digital ethics case studies (Chapters 4–9). Part III (Chapter 10) presents broad

DOI: 10.4324/9781003279488-2
4 Foundations

conclusions about how to advance the digital commons, the digital public sphere, and
digital democracy, which is the penultimate goal of digital ethics.

The three key authors whom you will encounter in this book are Aristotle, Karl Marx, and
Alastair MacIntyre.

Aristotle (384-322 BC) was a Greek philosopher. He founded the Aristotelian tradition of
philosophy, of which virtue ethics forms one part. Among Aristotle’s most well-known
books are Metaphysics, Physics, De Anima, Politics, Nicomachean Ethics, and Eudemian
Ethics. Aristotle influenced philosophers such as Averroes, Avicenna, Thomas Aquinas,
Francis Bacon, Nicolaus Copernicus, René Descartes, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel,
Karl Marx, Hannah Arendt, Alasdair MacIntyre, Martha Nussbaum, and Michael Sandel.

Karl Marx (1818–1883) was a philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist, and revolu-
tionary socialist. In 1999, he won a BBC online poll that determined the millennium’s “great-
est thinker” (BBC 1999). His key works include Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, The
Manifesto of the Communist Party (together with Friedrich Engels), Grundrisse, and the
three volumes of Capital. Karl Marx plays a role throughout this book in all chapters.

Alasdair C. MacIntyre (born in 1929) is a philosopher and the most well-known and most
influential contemporary Aristotelian philosophers. His thought was especially influ-
enced by Aristotle, Karl Marx, and Thomas Aquinas. MacIntyre argues that Aristotelian
ethics has been rather forgotten and ignored. His task is to renew Aristotelian moral
philosophy. Among MacIntyre’s books are Marxism: An Interpretation, A Short History of
Ethics, Marxism and Christianity, After Virtue, Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human
Beings Need the Virtues, and Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity: An Essay on Desire,
Practical Reasoning, and Narrative.

Each chapter focuses on illuminating answers to a specific question:

Chapter 1: What is ethics? What is digital ethics?

Chapter 2: What are communication justice, media justice, and digital justice and
how can they be studied based on Marxist humanism?
Chapter 3: Why is it morally good to foster the digital commons and how can we
ethically justify the importance of the digital commons?
Chapter 4: How can Rafael Capurro’s information ethics inform the critical analysis of
digital labour and the surveillance-industrial complex?
Chapter 5: What kind of research ethics do we need in Internet and social media
research?
 Chapter One | What Is Digital Ethics? 5

Chapter 6: What is a critical concept of privacy?

Chapter 7: What ethical aspects are there of Facebook?
Chapter 8: How can we think of sustainability and ICTs in the context of a critical
theory of society? How is the sustainability of ICTs related to capitalism and class?
Chapter 9: What is a participatory, co-operative, sustainable information society?
Chapter 10: What are the democratic potentials of the digital commons and the digital
public sphere?

1.2 What Is Ethics?

If we want to understand what digital ethics is about, we need to understand what eth-
ics is. Ethics studies the principles of morality and moral action. Morality refers to that
which is considered right and wrong. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines
ethics in the following manner:

”The field of ethics (or moral philosophy) involves systematizing, defending,

and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior. Philosophers today
usually divide ethical theories into three general subject areas: metaethics,
normative ethics, and applied ethics. Metaethics investigates where our ethical
principles come from, and what they mean. Are they merely social inventions?
Do they involve more than expressions of our individual emotions? Metaethical
answers to these questions focus on the issues of universal truths, the will of
God, the role of reason in ethical judgments, and the meaning of ethical terms
themselves. Normative ethics takes on a more practical task, which is to arrive
at moral standards that regulate right and wrong conduct. This may involve
What Is Ethics?

articulating the good habits that we should acquire, the duties that we should
follow, or the consequences of our behavior on others. Finally, applied ethics
involves examining specific controversial issues, such as abortion, infanticide,
animal rights, environmental concerns, homosexuality, capital punishment, or
nuclear war”.
(Fieser 2005)

Ethics is moral philosophy focused on the study of the moral foundations of society,
moral principles, and moral practices. Digital ethics is an ethics that studies the foun-
dations of digital society and the principles and practices of morality in the context of
digitalisation. It is concerned with principles and practices of how humans should act in
light of the problems and challenges that digitalisation poses for society. Morality has
6 Foundations

to do with what one “should do in that or relevantly similar situations” (MacIntyre 1957,
331), i.e. what one ought to do. Moral judgements employ “ought” in their language
(MacIntyre 1957, 331)

Applied ethics involve, for example, health care and medical ethics, bioethics, social eth-
ics, and political ethics; medical ethics, bioethics, environmental ethics, and business eth-
ics are examples of applied ethics (Dittmer 2013). Is digital ethics also a version of applied
ethics? On the one hand, the answer is “yes” because digital ethics studies morality in
the context of computing and digital technologies. On the other hand, the answer is “no”
because almost all aspects of society have been digitalised and are shaped by digital
technologies, which is why moral questions of digitalisation are of relevance for society as
a whole and are thereby part of general ethics. Digital ethics is both a form of applied and
general ethics that impacts the ethics of society and requires specialised insights for pro-
fessionals who engineer, produce, and work with digital technologies and digital content.

1.2.1 Four Forms of Ethics: Virtue Ethics, Deontology,

Consequentialism, Critical Ethics
Virtue ethics, deontology, and consequentialism are three major approaches in ethics
(Fieser 2005). One can attempt to justify the moral superiority of digital commons over
digital commodities based on any of these and other approaches (see Table 1.1). In ty-
pologies of ethical approaches, critical ethics that is based on the Marxian approach
is mostly missing. Given that the book Digital Ethics wants to contribute to the ad-
vancement of a Marxist-humanist ethics, we are adding critical ethics understood as
Marxist-humanist ethics to a typology of important ethics approaches (Table 1.1).

1.2.2 Virtue Ethics: Aristotle

Virtue ethics goes back to Aristotle. It deals with how to achieve and design education
that brings about moral beings that act in manners that bring about happiness and a good
society. For Aristotle (2002, §1007a), a virtue is “an active condition that makes one apt
at choosing” between options so that society can achieve “what is best and what is done
well”. Virtues pertain “either to thinking or to character” (§1103 a) and have to do with
“living well and acting well” (§1098b) so that happiness is advanced. Aristotle (2013b,
§§1220b-1221a) identifies 14 virtues: mildness, courage, shame, temperance, righteous
indignation, justice, liberality, truth, friendliness, dignity, endurance, magnanimity, mag-
nificence, and prudence.
 Chapter One | What Is Digital Ethics? 7

TABLE 1.1 The application of four ethical approaches to digitalisation

Approach Description Application to the digital

Virtue ethics This approach says that humans should strive Fostering digital commons and a good
for and practice moral excellence in order digital society is the realisation of the
to create a good individual and community virtue of creating the common good in
life. It therefore argues for moral education the digital sphere and in digital society.
in the development of virtues such as Humans should develop virtues in
wisdom, courage, temperance, justice, respect to digitalisation.
fortitude, generosity, self-respect, good
temper, or sincerity.
Deontology Humans have individual rights and duties that If one expects to be treated well by others
should guide their behaviour. Kant’s Golden in the online world and digital society,
Rule: Treat others like you want to be then one should treat others well online
treated by others. and in the digital society.
Consequentialism An action is morally right or morally If a certain form of digitalisation as a
preferable over another action if its net total produces more advantages
consequences produce more good than than disadvantages, then this form of
harm in comparison to other actions. digitalisation should be implemented
and advanced.
Critical theory as A society is a true society if it advances the There should be struggles against and
Marxist-humanist good life for all and a false society if is a opposition to digitalisation that
ethics class society where some benefit at the advances exploitation and domination
expense of others. Humans should struggle and support for and advancement of
against conditions that are opposed to the digitalisation that fosters the common
good life for all, i.e. class relations and good that benefits all.
domination.

1.2.3 Deontological Ethics: Kant

Deontology has to do with duties. The term “deontology” comes from the Greek word
δέον that means duty. It is a kind of ethics that does not focus on the consequences of
action, but on the question of whether those acting have the right kind of motives. It
What Is Ethics?

wants to identify principles that guide moral action. Immanuel Kant is the most well-
known representative of deontological ethics. He based the development of his moral
philosophy on the German philosopher Samuel Pufendorf. Kant’s ethics is based on an
absolute rule that is termed the Golden Rule. It says: treat others like you want to be
treated by them.

”Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that
it should become a universal law. […] Act as though the maxim of your action
were by your will to become a universal law of nature. […] So act that you use
humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any another, always
at the same time as an end, never merely as a means”.
(Kant 2011, 71, 87)
8 Foundations

The Golden Rule is an absolute ethical principle. It understands itself as a rule of conduct
applicable to any situation. For Kant, the Golden Rule is the embodiment of freedom
and a principle for advancing freedom. Jürgen Habermas (2008, 140) argues that Kant’s
categorical imperative is reflected in the insight that freedoms are only limited by the
freedom of others. Habermas (2011, 14) says that Kant’s principle of autonomy and his
categorical imperative is present in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ §1: “All
human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”.

The Golden Rule fails in situations where people are willing to suffer, tolerate violence
against themselves, or die if they were in the positions of others. Kant’s ethics is tran-
scendental in the sense that it is grounded in the category of freedom as the highest and
absolute principle. For Kant, moral freedom means that humans resist their instincts and
desires and hence restrict absolute freedom of action by giving themselves rules of con-
duct that enable true freedom. The Categorical Imperative is considered as an expression
of freedom, good will would be oriented on freedom. Another absolute rule is the Rule
of Golden Mean by Aristotle which says that happiness can be found by choosing the
middle way between extremes.

1.2.4 Consequentialism: Bentham

Consequentialism is a form of ethics, in which the moral rightness or wrongness of an

action is determined by its consequences. An action is morally right if, on the whole, its
consequences are more positive than negative. Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarian ethics is the
best-known version of consequentialist ethics.

For Bentham (2000), utility has to do with pain and pleasure (14). Action can “augment or
diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question” (14). Bentham consid-
ers an action morally good if it increases the happiness for the largest number of people
in a community.

”The general tendency of an act is more or less pernicious, according to the

sum total of its consequences: that is, according to the difference between the
sum of such as are good, and the sum of such as are evil”.
(61)

He gives a utilitarian definition of ethics: “Ethics at large may be defined, the art of
directing men’s actions to the production of the greatest possible quantity of happiness,
on the part of those whose interest is in view” (225).
 Chapter One | What Is Digital Ethics? 9

”Now private ethics has happiness for its end: and legislation can have no
other. Private ethics concerns every member, that is, the happiness and the ac-
tions of every member, of any community that can be proposed; and legislation
can concern no more”.
(227)

A common criticism of consequentialism is that it violates equality and personal rights

and can advance inhumanity: Consequentialism

”is not egalitarian because it does not care whether happiness is distributed
equally or unequally among people. If the greatest total can be created only
by exploiting the miserable to make the happy even happier, then such conse-
quentialism would seem to say that you should do it. […] Consequentialism
may ask us to meddle too much into other people’s business. […] suppose that
by using your grandmother’s pension to contribute to efficient and thoughtful
charities you can develop permanent clean water supplies for many distant vil-
lages, thus saving hundreds of people from painful early deaths and permitting
economic development to begin. You need only keep her bound and gagged in
the cellar and force her to sign the checks. Consequentialism would seem to
say that you should do this, but moral common sense says that you should not.
[…] Consequentialism seems to tell us to make all our decisions by thinking
about overall consequences. But that way of thinking about life is, one might
think, inhuman and immoral. When someone asks you a question, you should
not stop to calculate the consequences before deciding whether to answer
truthfully. If you decide by looking to the consequences, you are not really an
honest person”.
What Is Ethics?

(Haines 2006)

1.2.5 Critical Theory as Marxist-Humanist Ethics

Marx and Engels see ethics and morality as an expression of a society that “has hith-
erto moved in class antagonisms” (Engels 1878, 87), which is why for them “morality
has always been class morality” (87). But they also speak of a humane morality that
transcends class society: “A really human morality which stands above class antago-
nisms and above any recollection of them becomes possible only at a stage of society
which has not only overcome class antagonisms but has even forgotten them in prac-
tical life” (88).
10 Foundations

Orthodox interpretations of Marx and Engels argue that their approach is science that
studies the laws of capitalism. They often expect that capitalism automatically collapses
and underestimate the importance of collective praxis in social change. Societal condi-
tions shape but do not determine collective human action. If an individual and groups act
in a certain manner in a situation, such as a crisis of society, is not determined but de-
pends on how their social relations shape their worldviews, including their moral judge-
ments. Marx’s own theory is full of moral language and moral judgement that condemn
exploitation and class society. He formulates an ethical imperative, namely, that humans
should overthrow exploitation and domination through class and social struggles: critical
theory’s “categorical imperative” to

”overthrow all relations in which man is a debased, enslaved, forsaken, despic-

able being, relations which cannot be better described than by the exclamation
of a Frenchman when it was planned to introduce a tax on dogs: Poor dogs!
They want to treat you like human beings!”
(Marx 1844, 182)

Critical theory is a critical ethics that analyses class and power relations, ideology, and
social struggles with the goal in mind to inform struggles for a society that enables and
implements the good life for all humans, a humanist and socialist society.

Marxian ethics can in principle be combined with a variety of other ethical approaches.
Aristotelian thought has influenced Marx in a variety of respects (see McCarthy 1992;
Meikle 1985; Pike 2018), including ethics. On the one hand, critical thought and prac-
tices that question and struggle against exploitation and domination and for socialism
constitute virtuous praxis. Critical pedagogy is therefore an Aristotelian-Marxian form
of critical education. On the other hand, Marx shares and builds on Aristotle’s notion of
the common good. Socialism is a society that benefits all, which requires to establish
a classless society. Marx’s theory “involved a reworking of Aristotle’s ethics through
Hegelian lenses” and “this synthesis was made from the standpoint of workers’ strug-
gles against capital” (Blackledge 2012, 15). He developed a “critique of existing social
relations from the point of view of the struggle for human freedom” (Blackledge 2012, 15)

Aristotle analyses the commons in the context of the virtues of friendship and justice:

”To whatever extent that they share something in common, to that extent is
there a friendship, since that too is the extent to which there is something just.
And the proverb ‘the things of friends are common’ is right, since friendship
consists in community”.
(Aristotle 2002, §1159b)
 Chapter One | What Is Digital Ethics? 11

The “common advantage” is called “just” (1160a). Democracies in contrast to tyrannies

advance the common good: “So friendships and justice are of small extent in tyrannies,
but in democracies they are of greater extent, since many things are common to people
who are equal” (§1161b).

Aristotle (2002) discusses the violation of the common good in the context of the virtue
of generosity. It “is not characteristic of someone who does good for other to have a
ready hand for taking benefits from them” (§1120a). Wasteful people are stingy in that
“they are driven to provide for themselves from other sources” (§1121a). They “take
money carelessly and from everywhere” (§1121b). Aristotle (2002) discusses justice and
injustice in book V of the Nicomachean Ethics. He stresses that justice can either be
understood as that which is lawful or that which is equitable, but that the two are dif-
ferent things. The unjust person is “greedy for more” (§1129b). If “one makes a profit, it
is referred to no vice other than injustice” (§1130a). Aristotle distinguishes between dis-
tributive, corrective, reciprocal, and universal justice (that advances the common good)
(McCarthy 1990, Chapter 2). Justice and injustice are for Aristotle matters of proportion-
ality and disproportionality. An “unjust person has more, while the one to whom injus-
tice is done has less of something good” (Aristotle 2002, §1131b). Injustice means that
someone has “an excess for oneself of what is simply beneficial and a deficiency of what
is harmful” (1134a). So, Aristotle argues that injustice means that a certain individual, or
group has a kind of exclusive control of a good over others.

Aristotle (2002) not just opposes injustice to justice, but also to friendship and love,
which are social relations where humans benefit and do good things for others without
instrumental interests. The common arises from friendship and community: in

”every sort of community there seems to be something just, and also friendship.
What Is Ethics?

[…] To whatever extent that they share something in common, to that extent
is there a friendship, since that too is the extent to which there is something
just. And the proverb ‘the tings of friends are common’ is right, since friendship
consist in community. All things are common to brothers and comrades”.
(§1159b)

The political community aims at an advantage “that extends to all of life” (§1160a). Ar-
istotle (2013a, §1279a) terms a community where “the multitude governs with a view to
the common advantage” polity.

Aristotle (1999, §1048a) sees potentiality as being “capable of something” and being
“capable of causing motion”. Potency is also the source of dialectic because whatever is
potential “is itself capable of opposite effects” (Aristotle 1999, §1051a). In a good society,
12 Foundations

the full potentials of human beings and society are actualised. In essence, humans are
co-operative, social, societal beings, who strive for solidarity and a good life. A particular
societal condition enables or hinders the realisation of society’s and human potentials.
The commons are conditions that aim at the realisation of societal and human potentials.

In an Aristotelian view, the commons are goods that all humans require in order to live
a good life. The good life of the individual is only possible in a good society that enables
the good life for all. Achieving a good society that benefits all requires the common good.
Without being able to live a good life, humans are not fully developed humans and they are
denied those common goods that humans and society require to flourish and thereby realise
their potentials. In Marx’s approach, Aristotle’s notion of the common good is reflected in
the concept of the human essence, which describes the basic characteristic of humans as
social and producing beings, the dialectic of essence and existence that implies critique and
the categorical imperatives, and the concept of common property as part of a just society.
For example, Marx (1875) speaks of the need for a society wherein “the means of labour are
common property and the total labour is collectively regulated” (84) and the high level of
productivity combined with common property of the means of production enables practicing
the principle “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs!” (87).

1.3 What Is Digital Ethics?

Justifying why digital and communication ethics is a task for computer ethics. But what
is computer ethics/digital ethics? It is a philosophical field of study where ethics, com-
munication studies, and computer science intersect. Norbert Wiener, Donn Parker, Jo-
seph Weizenbaum, and Walter Maner were some of the early pioneers of computer
ethics (Bynum 2001). For Maner (1980), computer ethics studies how computer technol-
ogy aggravates, transforms, or creates ethical problems.

Rafael Capurro (2005) argues that information and digital ethics deals with ethical ques-
tions in the context of the Internet, computer science, the mass media, library and infor-
mation science, business information, and biological and medical information.

”Information ethics explores and evaluates: the development of moral values

in the information field, the creation of new power structures in the informa-
tion field, information myths, hidden contradictions and intentionalities in in-
formation theories and practices, the development of ethical conflicts in the
information field”.
(Capurro 2005, 7)
 Chapter One | What Is Digital Ethics? 13

James Moor argues that computer ethics deals with the question of

”how computer technology should be used. Computers provide us with new

capabilities and these in turn give us new choices for action. Often, either no
policies for conduct in these situations exist or existing policies seem inade-
quate. A central task of computer ethics is to determine what we should do in
such cases, that is, formulate policies to guide our actions”.
(Moor 1985, 266)

Computer ethics studies computing’s “complex social, ethical, and value concerns” (John-
son 2004, 65). Computer ethics is “the analysis of the nature and social impact of computer
technology and the corresponding formulation and justification of policies for the ethical
use of such technology” (Moor 1985, 266). Internet ethics (sometimes also termed cybere-
thics, a term that today sounds somewhat opaque) is about metanorms that guide “acting
well in this new realm of cyberspace” (Spinello 2003, 2; see also Ess 2009; Tavani 2011).

In Internet and digital media research, digital ethics and Internet ethics are often re-
duced to the elaboration and application of principles of research ethics in the conduct
of digital methods such as questions of informed consent, privacy, anonymity, etc. Such
guidelines are certainly important and an aspect of digital ethics (see Chapter 5 in this
book; Townsend et al. 2016), but digital ethics is broader and also covers philosophical
and axiological questions of the digital society, which requires an engagement with
philosophy from a digital perspective, i.e. the development of a philosophy of the dig-
ital and digital society. In The Handbook of Internet Studies (Consalvo and Ess 2010), What Is Digital Ethics?
co-edited by digital media ethicist Charles Ess (!), there is one chapter covering Internet
research ethics (Chapter 8) but there are no chapters dedicated to philosophical ques-
tions of the Internet in digital society. The Oxford Handbook of Internet Studies (Dutton
2013) does not contain a chapter about philosophical and ethical aspects of the Internet
in society. The terms “philosophy”, “ethics”, “ontology”, and “epistemology” are hardly
mentioned on the almost 600 pages of this handbook. In the International Handbook of
Internet Research (Hunsinger, Klastrup and Allen 2010) and the Second International
Handbook of Internet Research (Hunsinger, Allen and Klastrump 2020), ethical aspects
of the Internet are primarily presented as questions of research ethics. Reduced to
research ethics, digital ethics is a positivistic approach devoid of its potential to con-
tribute to the critical analysis of digital society’s power structures and inequalities.

A different approach to the ethics and philosophy of the digital, the Internet, and digital
society is needed. The Internet and digital technologies are embedded into society’s
14 Foundations

power structures, which brings about moral dilemmas and the question of how we
should best assess certain digital technologies’ impacts on society. We therefore require
a digital ethics that studies the moral aspects of the digital and digital society in the
context of power structures.

Digital ethics is an ethics that studies the foundations of digital society and the princi-
ples and practices of morality in the context of digitalisation. It is concerned with princi-
ples and practices of how humans should act in light of the problems and challenges that
digitalisation poses for society. Digital ethics studies principles of what humans ought
to do in digital society and in the context of digital technologies and moral practices in
digital society and in digital spaces.

Table 1.1 contains a column that shows what the four outlined ethical approaches mean
when applied to digitalisation. There is a variety of approaches to digital ethics. Digital
virtue ethics stresses how education can strengthen human virtues in respect to digitali-
sation and that it is virtuous to advance the digital commons. Digital deontological ethics
argues that one should treat others well online and in the digital society so that one
can expect that others do the same. Digital consequentialist ethics argues that forms of
digitalisation should be advanced that as a net total do more good than they cause harm.
Critical Marxist-humanist ethics says there should be struggles against and opposition
to digitalisation that advances exploitation and domination and support for and advance-
ment of digitalisation that fosters the common good that benefits all. The commonality
between Aristotelian digital ethics and critical Marxist-humanist ethics is the focus on
the advancement of the digital commons and the common good in digital society.

1.4 The Chapters in this Book

I. Foundations

Chapter 1: What Is Digital Ethics?

This chapter introduces the book Digital Ethics. It provides an overview of the
chapters in the book, discusses and defines ethics, and digital ethics. It outlines
what a critical theory and Marxist-humanist approach to digital ethics is.
Chapter 2: Foundations of Communication/Media/Digital (In)Justice
The task of this chapter is to outline the foundations of a Marxist-humanist ap-
proach to communication justice, media justice, and digital justice. A dialectical
approach to justice is outlined that differs from idealist monism, dualism, and
pluralism. It conceives of injustice as alienation and inhumanity and justice as
 Chapter One | What Is Digital Ethics? 15

humanism. This approach is applied to communication, media, and the digital. The
chapter outlines concepts and dimensions of (in)justice in general, communication
(in)justice, media (in)justice, and digital (in)justice.
Following an introduction, Section 2 engages with theories of justice. Section
3 presents an approach of how to think about alienation as injustice. Section 4
focuses on communication/media (in)justice. Section 5 provides a framework for
the analysis of digital (in)justice. Some conclusions are drawn in Section 6.
Chapter 3: The Ethics of the Digital Commons
This chapter asks: why is it morally good to foster the digital commons? How can
we ethically justify the importance of the digital commons? An answer is given
based on Aristotelian ethics.
Given that the common good plays an important role in Aristotelian ethics, Aris-
totle’s approach is suited for the attempt to ground the ethical foundations of the
digital commons. Because Alasdair MacIntyre is the most influential Aristotelian
moral philosopher today, the chapter engages with the foundations of MacIn-
tyre’s works and gives special attention to his concept of the common good and
his analysis of how structures of domination damage the common good.
It is argued that for advancing a philosophy of the (digital) commons, MacIntyre’s
early and later works, in which he has been influenced by Karl Marx, are of par-
ticular importance. The approach taken in this chapter combines Aristotle, Marx,
and MacIntyre.

The Chapters in this Book

II. Applications

Chapter 4: Information Ethics in the Age of Digital Labour and the Surveillance-
Industrial Complex
The rise of computing and the Internet has brought about an ethical field of stud-
ies that some term information ethics, computer ethics, digital media ethics, or
Internet ethics. The aim of this chapter is to discuss information ethics’ founda-
tions in the context of the Internet’s political economy. The chapter first looks
to ground the analysis in a comparison of two information ethics approaches,
namely those outlined by Rafael Capurro and Luciano Floridi. It then develops,
based on these foundations, analyses of the information ethical dimensions of
two important areas of social media: one concerns the framing of social media
by a surveillance-industrial complex in the context of Edward Snowden’s reve-
lations and the other deals with issues of digital labour processes and issues of
class that arises in this context. The chapter asks ethical questions about these
16 Foundations

two phenomena that bring up issues of power, exploitation, and control in the
information age. It asks if, and if so, how, the approaches of Capurro and Floridi
can help us to understand ethico-political aspects of the surveillance-industrial
complex and digital labour.
Chapter 5: “Dear Mr. Neo-Nazi, can you please give me your informed consent so that
I can quote your fascist tweet?”: Questions of Social Media Research Ethics in
Online Ideology Critique
Social media is a kind of mirror of what is happening in society. Studying social
media content is therefore a good way of studying society. This chapter deals
with the question of how to deal with research ethics in qualitative online re-
search. It discusses the limits of established research ethics guidelines. The chap-
ter outlines the foundations of critical-realist Internet research ethics. It provides
some examples of how to use a framework. The International Sociological Asso-
ciation’s 2001 Code of Ethics argues in respect to informed consent: the security,
anonymity, and privacy of research subjects and informants should be respected
rigourously, in both quantitative and qualitative research. Debates on Internet
research ethics face two extremes. On the one side, research ethics fundamental-
ism obstructs qualitative online research. On the other, big data positivism lacks
a critical focus on qualitative dimensions of analysis.
Chapter 6: Towards an Alternative Concept of Privacy
There are a lot of discussions about privacy in relation to contemporary communi-
cation systems (such as Facebook and other “social media” platforms), but discus-
sions about privacy on the Internet in most cases miss a profound understanding
of the notion of privacy and where this notion is coming from. The purpose of this
chapter is to challenge the liberal notion of privacy and explore the foundations of
an alternative privacy conception.
A typology of privacy definitions is elaborated based on Giddens’ theory of struc-
turation. The concept of privacy fetishism that is based on critical political econ-
omy is introduced. Limits of the liberal concept of privacy are discussed. This
discussion is connected to the theories of Marx, Arendt, and Habermas. Some
foundations of an alternative privacy concept are outlined.
The notion of privacy fetishism is introduced for criticising naturalistic accounts of
privacy. Marx and Engels have advanced four elements of the critique of the lib-
eral privacy concept that were partly taken up by Arendt and Habermas: privacy
as atomism that advances; possessive individualism that harms the public good;
legitimises and reproduces the capitalist class structure; and capitalist patriarchy.
 Chapter One | What Is Digital Ethics? 17

Given the criticisms advanced in this chapter, the need for an alternative, social-
ist privacy concept is ascertained and it is argued that privacy rights should be
differentiated according to the position individuals occupy in the power structure,
so that surveillance makes transparent wealth and income gaps and company’s
profits and privacy protects workers and consumers from capitalist domination.
The chapter contributes to the establishment of a concept of privacy that is
grounded in critical political economy. Owing to the liberal bias of the privacy
concept, the theorisation of privacy has thus far been largely ignored in critical
political economy. The chapter contributes to illuminating this blind spot.
Chapter 7: The Ethics and Political Economy of Privacy on Facebook
This chapter provides an analysis of the political economy of privacy and sur-
veillance on Facebook. The ideological premises of the liberal privacy concept
are criticised and a differentiated concept of consumer privacy is advanced that
is applied to the realm of the contemporary Internet, which requires speaking
about Internet prosumer privacy. An analysis of the privacy policies of Facebook
and other corporate social media platforms shows that targeted advertising is a
mechanism that is at the heart of capital accumulation on corporate social media.
It is guaranteed by complex legal policies that are based on self-regulatory policy
frameworks formulated by Internet companies. Capital accumulation on Facebook
is based on the commodification of users and their data. One can in this context
speak based on Dallas Smythe of the exploitation of the Internet prosumer com-
modity. The convergence of the two realms of play and labour has resulted in the
emergence of playbour activities that are exploited by Internet companies in order The Chapters in this Book
to maximise profits. Discussions about privacy and surveillance on Facebook and
social media in general are situated within the context of the Internet prosumer
commodity and online playbour.
Chapter 8: Information Technology and Sustainability in the Information Society
The sustainability concept has developed in a policy context. Its main relevance
has been in policy forums such as the United Nations Conference on Environ-
ment & Development and the United Nations Conference on Sustainable De-
velopment. In the realm of information and communication technologies (ICTs),
sustainability has played a policy role in the context of the World Summit on the
Information Society (WSIS). This chapter asks: how can we think of sustainability
and ICTs in the context of a critical theory of society? How is the sustainability
of ICTs related to capitalism and class? It provides a critique of the dominant
reductionist and dualistic understandings of information technology sustainability
18 Foundations

in an information society context. The question that arises in this context is if

from a critical theory perspective, the sustainability concept should therefore be
discarded or not. The view advanced in this chapter is that a critical social theory
should provide an ideology critique of information technology sustainability, but at
the same time not discard, but transform the sustainability concept into a critical
notion of (un)sustainable information technology sustainability in the context of
the information society.
Chapter 9: Theoretical Foundations of Defining the Participatory, Co-operative, Sus-
tainable Information Society (PCSIS)
The task of this chapter is to provide a comparative and theoretically grounded
discussion of the notions of sustainability, inclusion, and participation in the infor-
mation society discourse. A theoretical model of society as dialectical system is
introduced, in which the economic base and the political–cultural superstructure
are mutually shaping each other. Based on a distinction between reductionistic,
holistic, dualistic, and dialectical worldviews, four different theoretical approaches
on defining the sustainable information society are distinguished, which are based
on how the relationship between base and superstructure is conceived. Reduc-
tionistic approaches see ecological, technological, or economic changes as the
sole driving forces of a sustainable information society. Projectionistic approaches
see superstructures (polity and/or culture) as the determining forces of a sustain-
able information society. They are the least frequently found approaches in the
literature. Dualistic approaches define multiple goals and dimensions of a sustain-
able information society, but do not consider if these goals are compatible and if
and how they are causally linked. Dualistic models are the ones that can be found
most frequently in the literature. As an alternative to these three models, the di-
alectical notion of the participatory, co-operative, sustainable information society
(PCSIS) is introduced. Co-operation is based on an inclusive logic that establishes
social systems, in which all involved actors benefit. The logic of co-operation is
the binding force of a progressive society that connects its various dimensions.

III. Conclusion

Chapter 10: The Digital Commons and the Digital Public Sphere: How to Advance
Digital Democracy Today
This chapter asks: what are the democratic potentials of the digital commons and
the digital public sphere? First, the chapter identifies ten problems of digital cap-
italism. Second, it engages with the notion of the digital public sphere. Third, it
 Chapter One | What Is Digital Ethics? 19

outlines the concept of the digital commons. Fourth, some conclusions are drawn
and ten suggestions for advancing digital democracy are presented.

This chapter contributes to theorising and the analysis of digital capitalism, Internet plat-
forms, the digital public sphere, the digital commons, digital democracy, public service
Internet platforms, civil society/community Internet platforms, platform co-operatives,
open access, corporate/capitalist open access, and diamond open access.

This work also outlines ten problems of digital capitalism as well as ten principles of
digital progressivism, a politics that advances the public sphere and the commons and
thereby (digital) democracy in society.

There are natural, economic, political, and cultural dimensions of the commons and the
digital commons. Capitalism, public service, and civil society media/community media/
co-operatives are three forms of organisation and governing the Internet and digital me-
dia/technologies. Capitalism colonises and commodifies the (digital) commons and the
(digital) public sphere. Alternative models are located outside of capitalism in the realms
of the public sphere and civil society as well as their interactions.

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Chapter Two
Foundations of Communication/Media/Digital
(In)Justice

2.1 Introduction
2.2 Theories of Justice
2.3 Alienation as Injustice
2.4 Communication/Media Injustice
2.5 Digital Injustice
2.6 Conclusion

2.1 Introduction
On 3 February 2019, Donald Trump tweeted:

“With Caravans marching through Mexico and toward our Country, Republicans
must be prepared to do whatever is necessary for STRONG Border Security.
Dems do nothing. If there is no Wall, there is no Security. Human Trafficking,
Drugs and Criminals of all dimensions – KEEP OUT!”1

This tweet characterises immigrants from the South as traffickers, drug dealers, and
criminals. It makes the sweeping generalisation that immigrants are criminals. Many
observers will agree that such a tweet is the communication of ideology and of a particu-
lar form of injustice, namely, the reduction of fleeing humans to criminality. The tweet
denies immigrants their humanity.

There is a connection between inhumanity and injustice. And in an information society,

this connection is frequently communicated in public via the media and the Internet. But
what is media/communication (in)justice? And how can we theorise media/communi-
cation (in)justice? The chapter at hand is a contribution to the analysis of the media/
communication and (in)justice.

Engaging with philosophical approaches to communication, John Durham Peters (1999,

269) concludes that communication is “a political and ethical problem” and that “just
communication is an index of the good society”. The analysis of communication and so-
ciety brings up the question of what just communication is and how it should be defined.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003279488-3
22 Foundations

This chapter is a contribution to the theoretical debate on media and justice (see also,
among others, Christians et al. 2009; Couldry 2012; Habermas 1990; Jansen, Pooley and
Taub-Pervizpour 2011; Jensen 2021; Padovani and Calabrese 2014; Rao and Wasserman
2015; Silverstone 2007; Taylor 2017).

Frey et al. (1996, 113) document that until 1996, the journal Social Justice Research
contained “not a single article written by communication scholars or about communi-
cation behavior”. The Philosophical Review, founded in 1892, published between 1970
and 2020 only seven articles containing the keyword “communication” in the title. The
Journal of Political Philosophy during the same period just published one article contain-
ing “communication” in its title. There is little interest in communication in the field of
philosophy. Vice versa, there is also little interest in justice in media and communication
studies: between 1970 and 2020, Journal of Communication only published nine articles
containing the title keyword “justice”. In Communication Theory, the amount was two
articles. There has thus far been a little explicit intersection between ethics/philosophy
and communication studies when it comes to the issue of what justice means. This
chapter contributes to the intersection of philosophy and media/communication studies
for the analysis of (in)justice. It is based on a Marxist-humanist ethics.

In many discussions of ethics, Marxism is either dismissed or not mentioned at all. Marx-
ist theory has something important to add. Unfortunately, it is often not acknowledged
as a viable approach to ethics. For example, widely read and cited introductions to eth-
ics and moral philosophy such as McNaughton’s (1988) Moral Vision: An Introduction
to Ethics do not at all mention Marx and Marx-inspired approaches (such as e.g. the
ones by Theodor W. Adorno, Paul Blackledge, Gerald A. Cohen, Erich Fromm, Norman
Geras, Peter Hudis, Eugene Kamenka, Steven Lukes, [the early, Marxist-humanist works
of] Alasdair MacIntyre, George E. McCarthy, Richard W. Miller, Sean Sayers, Michael J.
Thompson). The presentation of approaches to ethics is often limited to the discussion of
virtue ethics, deontology, and consequentialism (e.g. Fieser 2005).

Also in media ethics and digital ethics, introductions often tend to ignore Marx and the
tradition built on his works (e.g. Christians et al. 2017; Floridi 2010, 2013; Patterson,
Wilkins and Painter 2019; Ward and Wasserman 2010). My own approach to ethics and
critical theory combines, among others, Aristotle’s virtue ethics and Marx’s critical eth-
ics (Fuchs 2020a). Whereas many Marxists often engage with a variety of non-Marxian
approaches, the same cannot be said of many non-Marxian approaches. My point is that
Marxian ethics is a legitimate approach that should be more acknowledged in ethics in
general as well as in media ethics.
 Chapter Two | Foundations of Communication/Media/Digital (In)Justice 23

Section 2.2 engages with theories of justice. Section 2.3 outlines foundations of the
conceptualising alienation as injustice. Section 2.4 focuses on communication/media
(in)justice. Section 2.5 provides a framework for the analysis of digital (in)justice. Some
conclusions are drawn in Section 2.6.

2.2 Theories of Justice

Morality is about principles of how to attain the good life and what the difference is
between the good and the bad. Ethics is moral philosophy, the systematic theoretical
study of morality and morals in society. Justice is one of the key categories in morality
and ethics. It has been “a central concern of philosophy from the time of Plato […] until
today” (Rainbolt 2013, 1)

We can distinguish four types of theories of justice (see Table 2.1): idealist monism; dual-
ism; pluralism; and dialectics. The typology is based on logical principles of how to relate
two categories: the one and the other. Monism identifies one overarching foundational
principle from which others are derived. Dualism identifies two equally foundational and
independent substances. Pluralism combines many dualisms so that there are multiple,
diverse, independent categories, or principles. It is a special form of dualism. Dialectics
is a dialectic of identity and non-identity of the one and the many. There is a unifying
principle identical to all aspects and there are interacting, encroaching, intersecting, and
diverse moments that have common as well as different aspects.

Idealist justice monism reduces justice to the level of political or cultural justice as key
principle. Justice dualism identifies two equally important, independent principles of
Theories of Justice

justice. Justice pluralism is a more complex form of dualism, a combination of several

dualisms. It identifies multiple, independent principles of justice. Justice dialectics is
based on a unified principle of justice that grounds diverse principles of justice. It is a
unity in the diversity of justice that identifies a general principle and grounding of justice

TABLE 2.1 A typology of theories of justice

Logical principle Theory of justice

Idealist monism Idealist justice monism

Dualism Justice dualism
Pluralism Justice pluralism
Dialectics Justice dialectics
24 Foundations

and diverse forms of justice that interact and are based on the unifying principle. It is at
the same time monist and pluralist.

2.2.1 Idealist-Monist Theories of Justice

John Rawls’s (1999) book A Theory of Justice that was first published in 1971 is one
of the most cited philosophy books published in the 20th century. In the year 2020, this
work had around 90,000 citations,2 advances a political monist theory of justice. It is
idealist because its ultimate principle of justice focuses on the realm of politics and
political liberties and downplays the importance of the economy. It takes on the form of
the greatest equality principle that says that all humans have “an equal right to the most
extensive total system of equal basic liberties” (Rawls 1999, 266). Rawls gives priority to
political justice over socio-economic justice. He argues that the liberal rights that for him
make up the constitutional essentials are “more urgent to settle” (Rawls 2001, 49) than
social problems. Rawls (1999, 266–267; 2001, 42–43) considers social and economic
inequalities as justified as long as the greatest possible benefit is achieved for the least
advantaged (difference principle) and offices and positions deciding over questions of
distribution are open to all (equal opportunity principle).

Rawls’s theory has been criticised for legitimating class inequality (Cohen 2008; Miller
1975). He characterises liberal rights also as “background justice” (Rawls 2001, 50),
which implies a priority of political over socio-economic rights. Although the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights defines the right to social security (§22), Rawls basically
says that freedom of speech is more important than the right to eat, the right to housing,
the right to health, the right to social security, and the right to lead a good life. According
to Marxist criticism, Rawls’s concept of justice sees it as legitimate that citizens starve
as long as they have freedom of speech. Many capitalists will not commit to the dif-
ference principle when it implies they have to reduce their profits. They will argue that
social policy measures such as higher corporation taxes or the reduction of the working
day with full wage compensation destroy their companies and result in unemployment
(Miller 1975, 210). The capitalist ruling class has political and ideological institutions at
hand that “work exclusively or almost exclusively in its interests” (Miller 1975, 227). It
does not voluntarily accept the creation of social equality (Cohen 2008, 290).

Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition is a cultural monist theory of justice (see Table 2.2).
Honneth (2007, 2008) reinterprets Lukács’ concept of reification as disrespect. He says
that reification is society’s disrespect for certain groups and individuals. Disrespect is a
 Chapter Two | Foundations of Communication/Media/Digital (In)Justice 25

TABLE 2.2 Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition

Form of justice Type of recognition Institutions

Justice of needs Love Family, friendships

Deliberative equality Equality Civil society, legal system
Justice of achievement Achievement, esteem Solidarity communities of value

lack of recognition for certain human beings in society. Honneth identifies love, equality,
and achievement as three forms of respect. For Hegel, these are the recognition of the
need for love provided in the family, the recognition of human autonomy in civil society
and the legal system, and the recognition of individual particularity by the State and in
ethical life and processes of solidarity (Honneth 1996, 25). The absence of such forms or
recognition would be the foundation of struggles for recognition. For Honneth, a recon-
structive theory of justice needs three normative principles: justice of needs, deliberative
equality, and justice of achievement (Honneth 2014, 49).

Honneth does not properly take into account the roles of work, the economy, and use-
values in society. The economy seems to simply be another solidarity community pro-
viding a particular form of esteem and achievement. The ideal-type economy is about
a specific aspect of free human self-realisation through work. In what Marx terms the
realm of freedom, work is a source of pleasure, need satisfaction, communication, and
care for others. Work is more than a source of achievement. Whereas in The Struggle
for Recognition, Honneth (1996) tends to ignore the economy, he in The I in We (Honneth
2014) subsumes it into the third realm. This means, however, that he reduces the econ-
omy and work to recognition. The satisfaction of human needs through social production
Theories of Justice

is primarily a matter of survival and pleasure that cannot be reduced to culture and
recognition. Honneth’s approach is a “‘moral’ monism” (Fraser and Honneth 2003, 254),
where recognition is the unifying principle of morality and society.

2.2.2 Dualist Theories of Justice

Dualist approaches to justice consider one overarching principle of justice as insufficient

and therefore postulate two principles operating in two relatively independent realms of
society. Nancy Fraser (1995, 1997) advances a dualist theory of justice (see Young 1997),
where the starting point is that “justice today requires both redistribution and recogni-
tion” (Fraser 1995, 69). She considers redistribution and recognition, political economy,
and culture/identity, as two relatively distinct and equally important realms of society.
26 Foundations

TABLE 2.3 Nancy Fraser’s theory of justice

Realm of society Form of justice Form of injustice

Economy Distributive justice Maldistribution

Culture Recognition Malrecognition
Politics Political justice, participatory democracy Misrepresentation

She discerns between economic and cultural injustices. But in reality, all culture is eco-
nomic in that it is a realm of the production of meaning (that in contemporary capitalism
is often mediated by capital and commodities as the existence of cultural commodities
shows) and all economy is cultural because workers have particular working cultures,
companies have philosophies, there are corporate ideologies such as neoliberalism, etc.
For Fraser, exploitation, economic marginalisation, and deprivation are types of economic
injustice, whereas cultural domination, nonrecognition, and disrespect are forms of cul-
tural injustice. Although Fraser acknowledges articulation and interaction, the economy
and culture, economic and cultural injustice, and redistribution and recognition are con-
ceptually separate.

In her approach formulated in the 1990s, Fraser held such a two-dimensional concept of
justice focused on the economy (distribution) and culture (recognition). Later, she added
the concept of political justice (Fraser 2009) and developed her approach into a pluralistic
theory of justice (see Table 2.3)

Fraser sees the economy, culture, and politics as three equally important and relatively
independent domains of society. She argues for a perspectival dualism where the two
realms are impinging on each other (Fraser and Honneth 2003, 64). We can characterise
Fraser’s theory as interactive dualism. For her, the two levels are autonomous and in-
teract in certain cases. Fraser rejects the assumption of a universal normative principle
of justice. Recognition, distributive justice, and representation/participation are for her
“multiple points of entry into social reality” (Fraser and Honneth 2003, 205). The problem
with such an approach is that it establishes a plurality without unity.

2.2.3 Pluralist Theories of Justice

The capabilities approach of Amartya Sen (2009) and Martha Nussbaum (2011) is one of
the most influential pluralistic theories of justice. Capabilities are about human function-
ing, being, and doing. In the capabilities approach, justice has to do with the distribution
 Chapter Two | Foundations of Communication/Media/Digital (In)Justice 27

TABLE 2.4 Iris Marion Young’s concept of the five faces of oppression (based on Young 1990, Chapter 2)

Type of oppression

Exploitation
Marginalisation
Powerlessness
Cultural imperialism
Violence

of opportunities for realising capabilities and can be advanced through institutional

changes. Nussbaum (2011, 33–34) identifies ten central capabilities: life, bodily health,
bodily integrity, senses/imagination/thought, emotions, practical reason, affiliation, con-
cern for other species, play, control over one’s political and material environment. The
capabilities approach identifies a plurality of human needs, but it remains unclear what
unifies and connects human needs.

Iris Marion Young (1990) is another representative of a pluralistic theory of justice. Her
theory of (in)justice’s key category is oppression. She distinguishes between five forms
of oppression that she terms the five faces of oppression (see Table 2.4).

Young rejects the assumption of a human nature and essence:

”Although social processes of affinity and differentiation produce groups, they

do not give groups a substantive essence. There is no common nature that
members of a group share. As aspects of a process, moreover, groups are fluid;
they come into being and may fade away”.
Theories of Justice

(Young 1990, 47)

The assumption that there are no common features of humans results in incoherent
social theory. Humans share capacities such as social production, social and societal
relations, self-consciousness, moral reasoning and action, anticipatory thinking, creative
action, communication, and co-operation.

A consistent typology has to be complete and its categories have to be non-overlapping.

Young’s concepts of marginalisation and powerlessness are closely related. For her, pow-
erlessness seems to be marginalisation in the context of decision-making. But such an
assumption results in quite narrow concepts of power, empowerment, disempowerment,
powerfulness, and powerlessness that are limited to the political dimension of soci-
ety. Power is the capacity of humans to influence and control their lives and its various
28 Foundations

dimensions. There is economic, political, and cultural power. Powerlessness is not lim-
ited to decision-making but can also take on the form of poverty, voicelessness, invisibil-
ity, etc. In disempowerment, humans are robbed of the control of the conditions of their
lives. Alienation is the state that results from such disempowerment. Empowerment is
the tendency to overcome alienation.

Exclusion and marginalisation are aspects of domination. Domination is defined as the

process where one group in society arrives at benefits at the expense of others. The
dominating group has advantages and excludes others from such advantages. And it has
means at its disposal to defend its privileged position and to keep others disadvantaged.
Exclusion is a process through which domination operates. Marginalisation is the result
of domination: one group has disadvantages, while another one benefits. Domination
operates through a variety of processes and structures, including exclusion, the state,
the law, surveillance, violence, warfare, and rules.

Cultural imperialism is one form of disrespect in society. Making other humans, their
voices and bodies, invisible through asymmetric power of attention and visibility is one
form of disrespect. Scapegoating certain groups is another one. Scapegoating is part of
ideology. Ideology is a means and process through which one group portrays society or
certain aspects of it (such as certain groups or individuals) in a false or distorted manner
in order to legitimate and upholds its power and interests. Cultural imperialism is the
privileging of the reputation, visibility, and way of life of one group at the expense of oth-
ers. It is a unity without diversity that disrespects certain identities and ways of life. But
there is also another form of disrespect, namely, diversity without unity, where humans
ignore each other and see each other as having nothing in common. Diversity without
unity is the imperialism of difference and partiality that ignores commonality and univer-
sality. Unity without diversity and diversity without unity are two cultural processes that
constitute disrespect. Disrespect is practiced through ideology, by denying other human
beings’ relevance, or by denying the cultural commons, i.e. common aspects of human
life. Young disrespects the complexity of disrespect, especially the oppression caused by
difference without unity.

Violence is the intentionally caused physical harm of a human being (Walby 2022). Vi-
olence turns the human being “into a thing in the most literal sense: it makes a corpse
out of him” (Weil 2005, 183). Violence is not the same as power. It is a dimension of
coercive societies and a social relation, where humans try to intentionally cause physical
harms to other humans who don’t agree to the cause of that harm (see Walby 2022 for a
detailed discussion). The harm caused is usually “a physical injury” (Walby et al. 2017,
 Chapter Two | Foundations of Communication/Media/Digital (In)Justice 29

33), but can also in addition involve mental or psychological harm. Physically injuring
others can take on a variety of forms such as assault, torture, rape, killing, murder, war,
genocide, enslavement, etc. Violence is a means towards an end such as gaining control
of resources (e.g. land, humans), exterminating certain humans, i.e. the absolute exclu-
sion from society through death, gaining pleasure or reputation, etc. Violence is a means
for creating alienation, but it is not in itself an alienated system or condition as Young’s
typology implies.

Intersectional theories are pluralistic theories of justice. Patricia Hill Collins (2000, 299)
defines intersectionality as the matrix of domination, whereby she understands

”the overall organization of hierarchical power relations for any society. Any
specific matrix of domination has (1) a particular arrangement of intersecting
systems of oppression, e.g., race, social class, gender, sexuality, citizenship
status, ethnicity and age; and (2) a particular organization of its domains of
power, e.g., structural, disciplinary, hegemonic, and interpersonal”.

Figure 2.1 visualises the matrix of domination. It identifies nine plural levels of human
identity that are sources of domination. These realms are articulated, but independent.

The problem of pluralistic theories of justice is that they consider society as consisting of
independent spheres. Forms of (in)justice are articulated but it remains unclear why there is
a particular number of realms and forms of (in)justice. Such categories are often not distinct

Race
Theories of Justice
ty

Ability
ici
hn
Et

Sex

Age

n Gender
igio
Rel
Se ntity
sta mic
eco cio-

Ide
xu
tus
no
So

al

FIGURE 2.1 The matrix of domination in intersectional theories (based on Adams and Zúñiga 2016, 162).
30 Foundations

but overlapping, which makes the resulting typologies inconsistent. Eve Mitchell (2013) ar-
gues that intersectional theories only stress the difference of identities and lack a focus on
the common features of humans and a focus on humanity as the common aspect. According
to Mitchell, intersectionality theories often advance relativist theories of (in)justice.

The present author is interested in helping to advance dialectical approaches to studying

(in)justice as an alternative to idealist monism, dualism, and pluralism. What follows is
the present author’s own conception of injustice.

2.3 Alienation as Injustice

The approach taken in this chapter starts from a Marxist-Humanist concept of society
(Fuchs 2020a) that stresses human beings’ common characteristics and needs in society.
Based on Karl Marx, Georg Lukács (1984, 1986) argues that work and social produc-
tion form the models of human activity in society. He speaks in this context of teleo-
logical positing, which is a reference to Aristotle’s concept of the teleological cause.
Aristotle (2002, §1139b) defines the teleological cause the following way: “one who
makes something always makes it for the sake of something”. In teleological positing,
humans produce active and consciously in order to try to attain defined goals. The di-
alectic of production and communication is another core common feature of humans:
social production is organised through communication and communication is a particular
production process, namely, the process of the production of sociality, social relations,
social structures, social systems, institutions, and society.

A truly materialist analysis of society does not assume that there is an economic base
and a political and cultural superstructure that can be reduced to the base. The materialist
analysis of society rather stresses that social production is an economic process that op-
erates in all social relations and social systems, including politics and culture, and takes
on emergent qualities in particular systems. There are humans as social producers in the
economy, politics, and culture, as well as in all social systems organised in these three
realms of society. In the economic system, humans produce use-values that satisfy human
needs. In the political systems, they produce collective decisions and rules that govern
society’s organisation. In culture, they produce meanings and definitions of the world.

A dialectical concept of justice can be based on such a framework of society. It conceives

of injustice as alienation and justice as humanism. Alienation is the unifying principle of
injustice. Humanism the unifying principle of justice. Alienation and humanism take on
different forms in society’s various spheres. Marx’s notion of alienation is based on the
 Chapter Two | Foundations of Communication/Media/Digital (In)Justice 31

concept of economic alienation but also has a more general meaning. Economic alienation
is the class relation, where workers do not own the means of production and the products
they are compelled to produce. David Harvey (2018) argues that alienation has a universal
character in class societies. The universalisation of alienation is the extension of aliena-
tion beyond economic production, the economy, and bounded spaces into realms such as
circulation, consumption, culture, politics, globalisation, the relation of nature/society, etc.

Marx sees alienation besides economic exploitation also as the universal form of in-
justice, in which humans are not in control of the structures that affect their everyday
lives (Fuchs 2020b, Chapter 7). Under alienated conditions, humans (re)produce social
relations in everyday life and are not in control of the conditions of these social produc-
tion processes. Alienation is the “production of the object as loss of the object to an
alien power, to an alien person” (Marx 1844b, 281). Marx characterises alienation in the
following words:

”Under alienated conditions, the human being’s “own creation […] [is] an alien
power, his wealth […] poverty, the essential bond linking him with other men
[…] an unessential bond, and separation from his fellow men, on the other
hand, as his true mode of existence, his life as a sacrifice of his life, the reali-
sation of his nature as making his life unreal, his production as the production
of his nullity, his power over an object as the power of the object over him, and
he himself, the lord of his creation, as the servant of this creation””.
(Marx 1844a, 217)

Alienation is inhumanity. Alienation implies that humans are robbed of humane living
Alienation as Injustice

conditions. They are denied parts of their humanity. Given that humans are social beings
who depend on each other and produce and communicate in social relations, they all de-
serve to lead a good life. The need, wish, and desire for a good life are common features
of humanity. Alienation is the creation of inhumanity and inhuman conditions. Marx and
Engels argue that the “conditions of life of the proletariat sum up all the conditions of life
of society today in their most inhuman form” (Marx and Engels 1845, 36–37). The prole-
tariat “cannot abolish the conditions of its own life without abolishing all the inhuman
conditions of life of society today which are summed up in its own situation” (Marx and
Engels 1845, 37). In a class society, there is an “‘inhuman’ way in which the oppressed
class satisfies its needs” (Marx and Engels 1845/1846, 432).

The argument that the ethical foundations of a just society that advances the good life
for all as the common good are grounded in human nature as social beings can also be
32 Foundations

found in the communitarian philosophy of Charles Taylor and the Aristotelian philosophy
of Alasdair MacIntyre. Taylor stresses that humans are social beings and that advancing
justice as the common good follows from this social character: Because

”of a common good which in fact is sustained by the common life of our society,
we ought to accept certain principles of distribution which take account of the
real balance of mutual indebtedness relative to this good. For instance, that we
owe each other much more equal distribution than we might otherwise agree
to on economic criteria, because in face we are involved in a society of mutual
respect, or common deliberation, and this is the condition for all of us realizing
together an important human potential”.
(Taylor 1985, 298)

MacIntyre (1999) argues that humans are dependent, rational, and communicative ani-
mals who depend on each other to survive. “As a practical reasoner, I have to engage in
conversation with others, conversation about what it would be best for me or them or us
to do here and now, or next week, or next year” (110–111). For achieving the common
good, it does not suffice that humans communicate, they also need to co-operate (114).
For MacIntyre, the interest to advance the common good for all follows from the social
character of humans that makes them depend on each other.

Alienation is a gap between the actuality and the potential of humans and society. They
are hindered to be what they could be, to develop to the full extent enabled by society.
There are certain parallels between Marx’s notion of alienation and the notion of capa-
bility development by Sen and Nussbaum. Class societies such as capitalism undermine
their own universal promises, there is a

”discrepancy between the rhetoric of universal interests and the reality of par-
ticular class interests within the limits circumscribed by particular systems of
production and the boundaries of the concomitant social and political insti-
tutions and cultural ways of life. The problem can be solved only when the
rhetoric/reality discrepancy is overcome, that is, when a particular system of
production is established which permits the coincidence of the universal inter-
ests of society with the particular interests of a class, and when the concomitant
social and political institutions and cultural lifestyles promote and encourage
this coincidence. This coincidence results for Marx in the self-realization and
self-development of all individuals within a society: this outcome has truly be-
come the common good”.
(West 1991, 92)
 Chapter Two | Foundations of Communication/Media/Digital (In)Justice 33

In a humanist society, all humans and society can realise their potentials and lead a life
that is adequate to humans, a humane life. Power differentials in the economy, politics,
and culture that privilege the few at the expense of the many have to be overcome for
creating a just society. Table 2.5 presents a typology of injustice as alienation.

TABLE 2.5 A typology of injustice as alienation in the economy, politics, and culture

Realm of Injustice as Definition The alienated The alienators

society alienation

Economy Exploitation Exploitation is a process where Exploited class Exploiters, exploiting

one economic group is capable class
of and controls means for
forcing another economic group
to produce goods that are
transferred to the dominant class
so that it owns and controls
these resources.
Politics Domination One group in society benefits at The excluded, Dictator, dictatorial
the expense of others, who are marginalised, group
excluded and marginalised. subalterns
The dominative group has
means at its disposal to defend
its privileged position and to
keep others disadvantaged.
Domination operates through
a variety of processes and
structures, including exclusion,
the state, the law, surveillance,
violence, warfare, and rules.
Culture Disrespect, When they are disrespected, The disrespected Ideologues,
ideology humans are denied humanity, demagogues,
visibility, attention, recognition influencers
Alienation as Injustice

through ideology, unity

without diversity (imperialism
of cultural homogenisation),
diversity without unity (cultural
relativism, imperialism of cultural
difference), cultural asymmetries
of voice/visibility/recognition,
etc. Ideology is a means and
process through which one
group portrays society or certain
aspects of it (such as certain
groups or individuals) in a false
or distorted manner in order to
legitimate and uphold its power
and interests. Disrespect is
practiced through ideology, by
denying other human beings’
relevance, or by denying the
cultural commons, i.e. common
aspects of human life.
34 Foundations

Alienation is the unifying principle of injustice that takes on specific forms in the econ-
omy, the political system, and culture: exploitation in the economy, domination in the
political system, and disrespect and ideology in culture.

For Marx, alienation is a feature of capitalism and at the same time older than capital-
ism. Particular forms of alienation such as war, violence, classes, ideology, or patriar-
chy are older than capitalism, but have in capitalist society been sublated (aufgehoben)
in a Hegelian sense: they have been preserved but at the same time transformed into
phenomena such as imperialism, the capitalist class, commodity fetishism, reproductive
labour that reproduces wage labour, etc. Alienation is not limited to the economy, but
connects inequalities across society’s different realms. David Harvey (2018) therefore
speaks of universal alienation. Alienation is both a condition and a process, a structure
and a practice, a state and a relation. In a dialectical process, alienation interconnects
the levels of objects and human subjects in societies that are shaped by domination.

The capitalist economy is a system, in which workers produce commodities with the help
of means of production that are the private property of companies. These commodities
are sold on commodity markets so that profit is achieved and capital can be accumu-
lated. In a capitalist society, the logic of accumulation also extends into the political and
cultural system where we find the accumulation of decision-power and influence in the
political system and the accumulation of reputation, attention, and respect in the cultural
system. Table 2.6 gives an overview of injustices in capitalist society. The accumulation
of capital, influence, and reputation results in the asymmetrical distribution of economic,
political and cultural power and creates the injustices of exploitation of labour in the cap-
italist economy, domination of citizens in the political system, and disrespect of human
individuals and groups in the cultural system.

Based on the concept of injustice as alienation, we will next discuss the relation of
communication and injustice.

2.4 Communication/Media Injustice

Aristotle stresses that justice has to do with the common good, the common benefit
for all. “And the proverb ‘the things of friends are common’ is right, since friendship
consist in community. All things are common to brothers and comrades” (Aristotle 2002,
§1159b). In a just society, all humans are friends and are enabled to treat each other as
friends. There are joint etymological roots of the words “communication”, “community”,
and the “commons”. To “communicate” meant originally to make something “common
 Chapter Two | Foundations of Communication/Media/Digital (In)Justice 35

TABLE 2.6 Alienation as injustice in capitalist society

Sphere General Structure Process Antagonism Injustice

features

Economy Production of Class relation Capital Capital vs. labour Capitalist exploitation:
use-values between accumulation capital’s private
capital and ownership of the means
labour of production, capital,
and created products
implies the working
class’ non-ownership and
exploitation
Politics Production of Nation-state Accumulation of Bureaucracy vs. Domination: citizens’ lack
collective decision- Citizens of influence on political
decisions power and decisions as consequence
influence of the asymmetric
distribution of power
Culture Production of Ideologies Accumulation Ideologues and Invisibility, disrespect:
meanings of reputation, celebrities vs. lack of recognition as
attention and everyday people consequence of an
respect asymmetric attention
economy

to many” (Williams 1983, 72). A true communication society is a society of the commons
where everyone benefits (Fuchs 2020a). But communication has just like society taken
on alienated forms.

Communication/Media Injustice
For both Nancy Fraser and Iris Marion Young, communication is a cultural phenomenon
(see Fraser 1997, 13–14; Young 1990, 23, 38). They leave open the relationship of com-
munication and work. One can clearly see the influence of Habermas on Fraser’s and
Young’s approaches. Habermas separates work and interaction, which resulted in his
dualism of system and lifeworld (Fuchs 2020a). The basic problem of this dualism is that
communication is not limited to a specific realm of society but is together with produc-
tion constitutive of all social relations. Production is communicative just like communi-
cation is a specific production process. The dialectic of communication and production
shapes all realms of society. Communication is therefore not limited to culture.

As a particular type of production and teleological positing that (re)produces sociality and
social relations, communication is an inherent feature of the social relations of humans in
society. Alienation therefore always has a communicative dimension. Table 2.7 provides
an overview of communication’s roles in alienation. In class relations, humans are com-
pelled to act and communicate in order to produce goods that are owned by the ruling
class. In alienated politics, humans are excluded from influential political communication
36 Foundations

TABLE 2.7 The communicative dimension of different forms of injustice

Type of injustice Communicative dimension

Economic alienation: exploitation Class communication: communication in class relations that

organise exploitation
Political alienation: domination Exclusion from political communication
Cultural alienation: disrespect, ideology Invisibility of voice:

what certain individuals and groups say and do is presented in

distorted manners or is marginalised

that makes a political difference (exclusion), or their voices are marginalised (marginal-
isation), or their communication and information are monitored (surveillance), or their
minds and bodies, including their communication, are absolutely silenced through geno-
cide, murder, war, etc. (violence). In alienated culture, there are asymmetries of reputa-
tion, which means that culturally marginalised individuals and groups might be able to
speak, but they are not heard, or they are hardly or seldomly heard, or what they say and
do is through ideologies presented in distorted ways in the public so that their reputation
is harmed and what they think, say, and do is perceived in false ways.

Communication is the process where two or more humans interact symbolically in order
to make meaning of each other and the world. Media are means of communication,
means that mediate, i.e. enable and support, communication. Media include, for exam-
ple, sound and light in the case of face-to-face communication and media technologies
such as the book (print media), radio and television (audio–visual media), the telephone
and the Internet (interactive media). Communication is a human practice. Media are me-
diating structures. There are media wherever there is the interaction of moments. For
example, the blood system and the brain are mediating systems of the body. In society,
media are means of communication. Wherever humans communicate, there is some
form of mediation. Wherever there are media in society, there are human information
and communication processes. There is a dialectic of communication and the media. In
alienated societies, media and communication tend to take on alienated forms. Just like
communication is an aspect of alienation, alienation is also an aspect of communication.
In alienated societies, there is a dialectic of alienation and communication. There is
communicative alienation and alienated communication. Table 2.8 provides an overview
of the dimensions of alienated communication and alienated media.

In the communication and media economy, alienation is the exploitation of communica-

tion workers and private control of means of communication so that others are excluded
 Chapter Two | Foundations of Communication/Media/Digital (In)Justice 37

TABLE 2.8 Forms of alienated communication and alienated media/means of communications

Dimension of injustice Alienated communication Alienated media/means of

communication

Economic injustice Exploitation of communication workers; Private ownership of the means of

humans are economically disabled from communication
or limited in producing, disseminating,
or consuming information
Political injustice Exclusion of humans and their voices from Dictatorial governance of the means
political communication that influences of communication
political decisions
Cultural injustice The production and dissemination of Ideological means of communication
ideology and the (re)production of that advance malrecognition
asymmetries of attention and visibility
of communication

TABLE 2.9 The interaction of class, racism, gender oppression

Class Racism Gender-related oppression,

patriarchy

Class Exploitation Racist exploitation Gender-structured exploitation

Racism Racist exploitation Racism Discrimination of racialised individuals
or groups of a particular gender
Gender-related Gender-structured Discrimination of racialised Gender-based discrimination
oppression, exploitation individuals or groups of a
patriarchy particular gender

Communication/Media Injustice
from owning and using these means of production. In communication and media politics,
alienation is the exclusion of certain groups’ and individuals’ voices from influential polit-
ical communication and the existence of dictatorial decision-making processes in media
organisations. In communication and media culture, alienation is the production and dis-
semination of ideology via means of communication and the production and reproduction
of asymmetries of attention and visibility. There is an asymmetric attention economy.

Capitalism, racism, and patriarchy are three modes of power relations that each combine
economic alienation, political alienation, and cultural alienation. Capitalism, racism, and
patriarchy involve specific forms of exploitation, domination, and ideology. The three
forms of alienation are interacting in particular forms of power relations. Capitalism, rac-
ism, and patriarchy/gender-related oppression are inherently connected and interacting.
The economy plays a particular role in this interaction because these power relations are
relations of production and accumulation of power. Table 2.9 provides an overview of the
interactions of capitalism, racism, and patriarchy.
38 Foundations

The capitalist economy creates forms of highly exploited, insecure, precarious labour,
including racialised labour, unpaid labour, reproductive labour, and gender-defined la-
bour, in order to maximise profits. Racism and patriarchy have economic, political, and
ideological dimensions. In capitalism, these dimensions are united by the logic of accu-
mulation. Class, racism, and gender oppression/patriarchy are the three main forms of
power relations that advance alienation, deny humans their humanity, and create dam-
aged lives.

The interaction of class, racism, and gender oppression matters in the context of com-
munication and media injustices. Any intersection of these power systems has commu-
nicative features and shapes communication(s) in societies structured by exploitation
and domination. For example, the intersection of capitalism and racism in the context of
communication and the media takes on the form of the super-exploitation of communi-
cation workers (e.g. call centre agents) of colour and immigrant communication workers,
who are forced to work for lower wages than others and are the first to be fired.

In the next section, we will focus on a particular type of communication/media injustice,

namely, digital injustice.

2.5 Digital Injustice

Digital communication and digital media are particular forms of communication and the
media. A central feature of digital technologies is that the computer and digitalisation
enable the convergence of information-, communication- and production-technologies.
The computer is not just a digital communication medium, but also a digital machine,
i.e. an instrument of work and a technology of co-operation. The networked computer
enables the prosumption of information, where consumers and users are enabled to
produce user-generated content.

Table 2.10 gives an overview of three forms of alienation in digital society, i.e. of forms
of digital injustice.

Digital exploitation and digital destructive forces constitute economic forms of digital
alienation. Digital capital’s exploitation of digital labour plays an important role in eco-
nomic digital alienation. But digital production can also have negative and destructive
effects on nature and the health of human beings. In such cases, the digital productive
forces become digital destructive forces. In the realm of digital politics, alienation takes
on the form of digital domination: digital technologies are used as means of dictatorship,
 Chapter Two | Foundations of Communication/Media/Digital (In)Justice 39

TABLE 2.10 Types of digital alienation

Dimension of Form of digital Antagonism Example

society alienation

Digital economy Digital Digital capital/digital labour Exploitation of digital workers such as Foxconn
exploitation, assemblers or Uber’s platform workers;
digital the monopoly power of Google, Facebook,
destructive Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, etc.; the
forces destructive effects of digital technologies
on nature and humans (e.g. the poisoning of
soil, water and humans by e-waste)
Digital politics Digital Digital dictators/digital Donald Trump‘s use of Twitter and other
domination citizens social media; dictatorial regime’s digital
surveillance of citizens; digital warfare
Digital culture Digital ideology, Digital ideologues Popular culture on social media: the cultural
digital and influencers/ power of online-influencers such as
disrespect digital human beings: PewDiePie (>100 million followers on
asymmetrical attention YouTube); the communication of racist and
economy, ideology on nationalist ideology on the Internet
and about the Internet

surveillance, exclusion, control, war, and violence. In digital culture, alienation is digital
ideology and digital disrespect: ideologies such as online nationalism or online racism
are spread via digital networks; humans are disrespected in Internet communication, for
example by asymmetries of online voice, attention, and visibility; there are ideologies
about the Internet (such as digital techno-determinism, digital techno-optimism, and dig-
ital techno-pessimism).

2.6 Conclusion
In theorising justice, dialectical theories of justice are alternatives to idealist monism, dual-
Conclusion

ism, and pluralism. The approach outlined in the chapter at hand is a contribution to dialec-
tical concepts of justice, communication justice, media justice, and digital justice. It utilises
the theoretical approach of Marxist Humanism. Marxist Humanism argues that there is an
essence of human beings, i.e. common features such as social production and the dialectic
of communication and production. Alienation is a key concept of Marxist Humanism. Us-
ing this approach, injustice can be characterised as alienation. Alienation is the common
aspect of injustice. Alienation destroys the realisation of the potentials of humans and so-
ciety. It creates power asymmetries and a gap between potentiality and actuality in society.

Injustice as alienation takes on economic, political, and cultural forms in society in unjust,
alienated societies in general and in communication processes, media organisations/
40 Foundations

systems, and in the context of digital technologies that are part of alienated societies.
Alienation creates inhumanity. It denies human beings their humanity by limiting their
human capacities and the realisation of society’s potentials.

In order to overcome alienation, social struggles for a just society and just societal condi-
tions are needed. Progressive social movements are the practical dimension and expres-
sion of struggles for justice and protests against injustices. Protest movements utilise
means of communication for protest organisation and public mobilisation. And there are
also movements for communicative justice that make political demands to change the
conditions of communication in society in order for trying to advance democratic, human-
ist communication and democratic, humanist means of communication. Humanism is
the negation of the negation of alienation. Humanist communication and means of com-
munication are the negation of the negation of alienated communication(s). Table≈2.11
provides an overview of the humanist organisation of society’s various realms.

Table 2.12 provides an overview of forms of communication and media justice.

Humanist, just communication is socialist media/communication in the economy, dem-

ocratic media/communication in politics, and respectful communication and media that
are a source of the recognition of everyone. Humanist, just communication stands in
an antagonism to class-based, exploitative media/communication, dictatorial media/
communication, and ideological media/communication that advance malrecognition and
asymmetries of voice.

TABLE 2.11 Dimensions of a humanist society

Realm of society Forms of justice Meaning of justice

Economy: economic justice Socialism Self-managed economic organisations

where the means of production are
collectively owned and controlled,
wealth for and self-realisation of all
humans
Politics: political justice Participatory democracy All humans are enabled to participate in
the decision-making processes that
concern their lives
Culture: cultural justice Respect, recognition Human beings and groups are welcomed
and their interests, identities,
worldviews, and lifestyles are
recognised; there is unity in diversity of
identities, worldviews, interests, and
lifestyles
 Chapter Two | Foundations of Communication/Media/Digital (In)Justice 41

TABLE 2.12 Forms of humanist and just communication/media

Dimension of justice Humanist, just communication Humanist, just media/means of

communication

Economic justice Socialist communication: worker self- Socialist media: collective ownership
management of communication of the means of communication
companies; enablement of humans (public service media, citizen
to produce, disseminate, and media); information and information
consume information; technologies as common and public
goods
Political justice Democratic Democratic media: democratic
communication:participation of governance of the means of
humans in political communication communication
so that their voices are heard and
make a collective difference
Cultural justice Respectful communication: the Media of recognition: friendly and
production and dissemination inclusive means of communication
of respect and an inclusive that make humans’ interests and
culture that enables everyone to voices heard and respected by others
be visible in the public sphere;
unity in diversity of voices;
education in how to argue in
complex and intelligent ways and
make one’s critical voice heard;
respectful, complex, controversial,
critical debate and constructive
disagreement

Table 2.13 provides an overview of just digital communication(s).

Contemporary societies are capitalist societies. Capitalism signifies the negativity of ac-
cumulation: the existence of injustices. Communicative and digital capitalism are unjust
societies with large power asymmetries. The alternative is a just, humanist communicative
Conclusion

and digital society of the commons, where communication’s original meaning as making
something common is realised so that all humans benefit. Attaining a true communication
society requires first and foremost praxis, i.e. social struggles against the injustices of
alienation, namely, exploitation, domination, ideology/disrespect/malrecognition.

For Marxist Humanism, justice, communication justice, media justice, and digital justice
are not abstract ideas. Ethics and justice are only material and humanist if they are not
limited to the realm of concepts and interpretation, but take on the form of praxis in
social movements. Communication justice has to be part of broader struggles for a dem-
ocratic society of the commons, a participatory democracy.
42 Foundations

TABLE 2.13 A typology of just, humanist digital communication(s)

Realm of Type of humanist, Meaning of humanist, digital justice

society digital justice

Economy Digital socialism Network access for everyone, community is in control of technology,
digital resources as common goods, green computing/ICTs
Politics Digital democracy: Digital technologies support participatory and deliberative
participation and democracy and inclusive political communication in the public
democracy in sphere
decision-making
Culture Digital recognition Digital media/communication support making the voices of all heard,
recognition of all; the unity of diversity of identities, lifestyles
and worldviews; education in obtaining digital skills that help
practicing unity in diversity socialism, and democracy

Notes
1 https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1092181733825490945.
2 Data source: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=5140131155315206711&as_sdt=2005
&sciodt=0,5&hl=en, accessed on 1 September 2020.

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Chapter Three
The Ethics of the Digital Commons

3.1 Introduction
3.2 Alasdair MacIntyre and the Digital Commons
3.3 Human Essence
3.4 The Common Good
3.5 The Digital Commons and Morality
3.6 Examples of the Application of Aristotelian–Hegelian–Marxian Ethics to Digital
Media
3.7 Conclusion

3.1 Introduction
The rise of the computing and the Internet in society has come along with new forms of
commodities and commons. There is a range of digital commodities: Apple sells hard-
ware such as iPhones, iPads, or Macintosh desktop computers. Internet service providers
sell access to digital networks for mobile phones, laptops, and desktop computers. Mi-
crosoft sells licenses for the use of operating system software and application software.
Google and Facebook sell targeted online advertisements. Spotify, Netflix, and Amazon
Prime sell subscriptions to collections of digital content.

There is also a range of digital commons: community centres, public libraries, and other
public institutions often provide gratis access to computers and the Internet. Community
networks such as Freifunk provide gratis access to computer networks that are operated
and owned as a common resource in local communities. Free software (such as Linux,
GNU, or Mozilla) is software that can be run, studied, distributed, and improved with-
out restrictions. Wikipedia is a freely accessible, co-operatively edited, non-profit online
encyclopaedia that volunteers edited co-operatively. It is distributed based on a Crea-
tive Commons licence that allows re-use and re-mixing of Wikipedia’s content. Creative
Commons is a licence that allows access to and the re-use of digital contents (such as
images, texts, videos, and music) without payment. Non-profit open access journals and
books make texts available in digital online formats (and in the case of books often as
affordable paperbacks) without charging users and authors and without making mone-
tary profits.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003279488-4
46 Foundations

Digitisation fosters both new forms of commodification and co-operative production,

distribution and ownership, which poses the ethical question of how we should best
assess these diverging principles that operate in the online economy. This chapter asks:
Why is it morally good to foster the digital commons? It studies ethical foundations of
the commons and applies them to the realm of the digital commons. This task falls into
the realm of computer ethics, which is a subdomain of ethics. The focus of this chapter
is on a particular version of ethics, namely Aristotelian ethics in general and Alasdair
MacIntyre’s version of Aristotelian ethics in particular. The chapter explores how this
approach can be interpreted for justifying the moral need for digital commons. It outlines
foundations of an Aristotelian-Hegelian-Marxian digital ethics.

The rise of the Internet has advanced new forms of commodities and commons. Dig-
ital commodities Hess and Ostrom (2003) define a common good as a resource that
features high subtractability and the difficulty of excluding others from access and
use. High subtractability is also known as rivalrous consumption. So Hess and Ostrom
base their understanding of the commons on a theory of economic goods (see Hess
and Ostrom 2007, 9 and Table 3.1). Hess and Ostrom (2003, 120) decouple the con-
cept of the commons from the question of ownership. They argue that common-pool
resources can be owned by a government, a community, corporations, or private
individuals.

Yochai Benkler in contrast to Ostrom defines the commons in opposition to markets:

The commons are “radically decentralized, collaborative, and nonproprietary; based on

sharing resources and outputs among widely distributed, loosely connected individuals
who cooperate with each other without relying on either market signals or managerial
commands. This is what I call ‘commons-based peer production’” (Benkler 2006, 60).

TABLE 3.1 Types of goods in the economic theory of goods

Subtractability

Low High

Exclusion Difficult Public goods Common-pool resources

Useful knowledge, Sunsets Libraries, Irrigation systems
Easy Toll or club goods Private goods
Journal subscriptions, Day-care Personal computers, Doughnuts
centres
 Chapter Three | The Ethics of the Digital Commons 47

“Commons are an alternative form of institutional space, where human agents

can act free of the particular constraints required for markets, and where they
have some degree of confidence that the resources they need for their plans
will be available to them. Both freedom of action and security of resource
availability are achieved in very different patterns than they are in property-
based markets”.
(Benkler 2006, 144)

Benkler (2006, 61–62) discerns four types of commons, for which he uses two criteria: (1)
first, the question is whether there is open access to the commons or access only for a
particular community. (2) Second, the question is whether or not there is legal regulation
of the use and access to the commons.

Ostrom and Benkler are probably the two most widely read 21st-century scholars who
have published on the commons. Their major books Governing the Commons (Ostrom
1990) and The Wealth of Networks (Benkler 2006) are political theories of the commons
that ask: how can the commons be governed? The task of Ostrom’s (1990, 27) book is to
“develop a series of reasoned conjectures about how it is possible that some individuals
organize themselves to govern and manage CPRs [common-pool resources] and others
do not”. Benkler’s book (2006) asks how the digital commons – commons at the level of
digital infrastructures, software technologies and digital culture/content – should be
governed. He asks: “To what extent will resources necessary for information production
and exchange be governed as a commons, free for all to use and biased in their availa-
bility in favor of none?” (Benkler 2006, 23).

In neither of the two books can one find a philosophical engagement with the question:
why do humans and society need the commons? Both approaches leave out ethical ques-
Introduction

tions. This chapter in contrast explores ethical foundations of how to justify the need for
digital commons.

Section 3.2 analyses how Alasdair MacIntyre’s version of Aristotelian ethics relates
to the digital commons. Section 3.3 focuses on the notion of human essence. Section
3.4 gives attention to the concept of the common good. Section 3.5 brings together the
preceding discussions by using the notions of human essence and the common good as
the foundation for morally justifying the digital commons. Section 3.6 discusses some
concrete examples that apply Aristotelian–Hegelian–Marxian digital ethics. Section 3.7
draws some conclusions.
48 Foundations

3.2 Alasdair MacIntyre and the Digital

Commons
Although Yochai Benkler does not in general give much attention to ethics and philoso-
phy in his books on the commons, a paper he wrote together with Helen Nissenbaum dis-
cusses “Commons-Based Peer Production and Virtue” (Benkler and Nissenbaum 2006).

Benkler and Nissenbaum (2006, 414) argue that “commons-based peer production is an
instance of an activity that not only enables the expression of virtuous character but
serves as a training ground for virtue” and “holds the potential to add to the stock of op-
portunities for pro-social engagement”. They use virtue ethics for discerning four clusters
of virtues that motivate commons-based peer production. The first two clusters focus on
the development of the commoners’ self (self-regarding virtues), the third and the fourth
on the development of others (social virtues) (Benkler and Nissenbaum 2006, 405–408):

• Virtue cluster 1: Autonomy

• Virtue cluster 2: Creative production
• Virtue cluster 3: Benevolence, charity, generosity, altruism
• Virtue cluster 4: Sociability, camaraderie, friendship, co-operation, civic virtue
• Virtue cluster 1: Autonomy “[P]articipation in peer production constitutes an arena
of autonomy, an arena where they [the commoners] are free to act according to
self-articulated goals and principles” (Benkler and Nissenbaum 2006, 405)
• Virtue cluster 2: Creative production “[P]eer production opens up new avenues for
creative, productive practices. […] peer production offers a medium for contributing
our thoughts, our knowledge, our know-how […] to a meaningful product” (406).
• Virtue cluster 3: Benevolence, charity, generosity, altruism Peer production is of-
ten motivated by “the pleasure or satisfaction of giving – generosity, kindness,
benevolence” (408).
• Virtue cluster 4: Sociability, camaraderie, friendship, co-operation, civic virtue
Peer production means the virtue of giving “to a commons, a community, a public,
a mission, or a fellowship of which the giver is a part”, “to be part of a collective
effort”, and “to give or produce something of value to all” (408).

In the discussion of virtue cluster 2, Benkler and Nissenbaum (2006, 406) refer to Alas-
dair MacIntyre’s version of virtue ethics: “Peer production offers the possibility of en-
gagement in what MacIntyre terms a ‘practice’”. They then cite MacIntyre’s (2007, 187)
definition of practice as
 Chapter Three | The Ethics of the Digital Commons 49

”any coherent and complex form of socially established human activity through
which goods internal to that form of activity are realized in the course of trying
to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to, and par-
tially derivative of, that form of activity, with the result that human powers to
achieve excellence, and human conceptions of the ends and goods involved,
are systematically extended”.

However, Benkler and Nissenbaum do not further discuss the implications of this
definition.

A good is “what benefits human beings as such and […] what benefits human be-
ings in particular roles within particular contexts of practice” (MacIntyre 1999, 65).
There are therefore individual and social goods. MacIntyre (2007, 291) mentions pres-
tige, status, and money as examples of external goods. Internal goods arise directly
from the experience of a practice itself (292). MacIntyre relates the virtue concept to
practices’ internal goods: “A virtue is an acquired human quality the possession and
exercise of which tends to enable us to achieve those goods which are internal to
practices and the lack of which effectively prevents us from achieving any such goods”
(222). For Aristotle (2002, book II), a virtue is an active condition that constitutes a

Alasdair MacIntyre and the Digital Commons

mean between two extremes – “a mean condition between two vices, one resulting
from excess and the other from deficiency” (2002, §1107a). So, a virtue is a means of
moderation and mediation. Theodor W. Adorno (2001) criticises that Aristotle’s ethics
is conservative (see also Whyman 2017). For Aristotle, mediation is “only something
existing between the extremes” (Adorno 2001, 47). This concept of mediation lacks
the dialectic, in which mediation is “accomplished through the extremes themselves”
(47) and the extremes are sublated. So, for example, class struggle aims at sublating
the conflict between capital and labour that is constituted by two opposite interests.
A “mediation” of this conflict is achieved by mechanisms such as wage negotiations,
strikes, lay-offs, rationalisation, outsourcing, etc. Within capitalism, such mediation
only settles the conflict temporarily closer to the interest of capital or labour and can-
not overcome the extreme polar opposite of interests that is constitutive for capitalism
itself. Sublation (Aufhebung) works through the extremes by constituting a new total-
ity that is an emergence difference that contains the new and transformed parts of the
old, eliminates parts of the old, and makes a qualitative difference. The conservative
character of Aristotle’s ethics can only be overcome by a focus on ethico-political of
social struggle that aims at sublating the social contradictions that constitute exploita-
tion and domination.
50 Foundations

The problem of defining virtues as individual practices is that one can obtain internal excel-
lence of a practice in order to perfect ways of achieving external goals that harm society.
An example is someone who acquires outstanding free/open-source software program-
ming skills, uses them for building bots that tyrannise specific groups of Internet users, and
encourages others to re-use and further develop the evil code in order to create an army of
nasty bots. Virtues therefore need to be situated in the context of the political and critical
dimension of the quest and struggle for a good life (εὐδαιμονία, eudaimonia) for all.

Creative production is not, as Benkler and Nissenbaum claim, a virtue in itself. It should
not be seen independent from its content and societal context. MacIntyre (2007) takes
this point into account by arguing that virtues do not simply focus on the establishment
of the good life for an individual, but a community. Neo-Aristotelians ask: “What is that
we presuppose? […] the NeoAristotelian’s history is a history both of her and of those
groups with whom she shares common goods and within which she pursues her indi-
vidual good” (MacIntyre 2016, 61). But such a version of the communitarian approach is
itself limited: The Nazis in Nazi-Germany had the virtue of perfecting their methods of
annihilating their constructed enemies (such as Jews), which was perceived as creating
excellence in militarism and a good life for the community of Nazis. The only community
at which virtues can be oriented in order not to be repressive is the undivided community
of humans. Practices can only be virtuous if they aim at creating a good life for all and to
reduce and minimise suffering. Callinicos (2011, 77) remarks that MacIntyre has a “prin-
cipled preference for the local and particular” that has to do with the circumstance that
“MacIntyre has lost interest in the search for a global alternative (literally and metaphor-
ically) to capitalism”. MacIntyre (2011) answers to Callinicos that revolutions need to
start from organisations such as “grass-roots organisations, trade unions, cooperatives”,
schools, transport systems, etc. that help remaking everyday life and “serve the common
good” (320). “For those who engage in such making and remaking will encounter that re-
sistance to any breach of those [dominant political] norms” is what “makes revolutionar-
ies”, a resistance for which local organisations need “to find allies elsewhere, nationally
and internationally, and often need to deal with agencies of the state or international
agencies, sometimes as obstacles, sometimes as providing resources” (320).

Floridi (2013, 164) argues that virtue ethics “is intrinsically egopoietic” and can there-
fore turn into “ethical individualism” (167). It faces the problem of scaling up from the
individual and local communities to “global values” (168) and the “globalized world in
general and […] the information society in particular” (167). The problem of Floridi’s
approach, however, is that it scales up beyond human values and society and advances a
 Chapter Three | The Ethics of the Digital Commons 51

moral relativism that equalises humans and non-humans (Fuchs 2016). Ess and Fossheim
(2013) warn in contrast to Floridi in a discussion of MacIntyre and Confucianism that the
idealisation of communities in virtue ethics can advance authoritarian submission un-
der hierarchies and “non-democratic social structures and practices” (46). Critical virtue
ethics therefore needs to be based on a dialectic of the individual and society, agency
and structures, subject and object in order to avoid individualism, provincialism, relativ-
ism, and authoritarianism. In the discussion of virtue cluster 4, Benkler and Nissenbaum
(2006, 408) argue that MacIntyre “seems interested in the social contributions of virtues”
because he gives attention to the virtue of creating a good life, but “does not develop in
detail the relation between political and other communities and specific virtues”.

Benkler and Nissenbaum argue based on MacIntyre (2007, 213) that humans face struc-
tural constraints, which in the context of commons-based peer production means that
“incumbent firms” (Benkler and Nissenbaum 2006, 418) such as Microsoft tend to resist
and oppose commons-based peer production. This argumentation implies that large cor-
porations oppose the four clusters of virtues. But there is a dialectical complexity of the
subsumption of aspects of society under capital: capital tries to subsume ever newer
social systems in order to create new spheres of capital accumulation and to circumvent
crisis tendencies and forestall resistance.

Alasdair MacIntyre and the Digital Commons

All of the virtuous practices discussed by Benkler and Nissenbaum are not automatically
resisting the subsumption of the digital commons under capital. Someone involved in a
peer production project can practice the virtues of autonomy, creative production, benev-
olence, charity, generosity, altruism, sociability, camaraderie, friendship, and co-operation
by co-producing common resources, but can be subject to the exploitation of his or her
labour for capital accumulation or can be the subject of such capital accumulation pro-
cesses. Creativity, participation, sharing, openness, and co-operation have become new
ideologies of digital capitalism: digital corporations such as Facebook, Google, for-profit
open-access publishers, etc. practice the communism of capital: they advance the produc-
tion of particularistic types of commons that are subsumed under the logic of capital. Face-
book and Google accumulate capital through the free labour of users, who create, share,
and participate in the production of data and content on platforms that are open for anyone
to use as a gift. An ever-larger number of companies crowdsources product development,
improvement and marketing to the free labour of the online crowd of brand consumers.
Corporate open-access publishers accumulate capital by making content available as digi-
tal commons that are only released if the producers pay large sums of money as processing
charges that not just finance end-production, but are also the source of corporate profits.
52 Foundations

Benkler and Nissenbaum’s four clusters of virtues of the commons are focused on individ-
ual and social virtues. They lack a third dimension: the dimension of collective political
action (political virtues) that aims at creating a society of the commons and advancing
struggles against the processes of commodification and bureaucratisation that subsume
the commons under the logics of capital and domination. In order to advance a critical
virtue ethics of the commons one needs to add the social struggle for a society of the
commons as a fourth dimension of virtues. This means to politicise digital virtue ethics
by adding the dimension of political virtues.

Such a critical dimension of virtues can however only be developed based on the con-
cepts of essence and human nature. The most well-known version of MacIntyre’s ethics
is the phase, where he wrote After Virtue, in which he did not engage with the concept of
human nature. However, in earlier and later phases of his philosophical development, he
was more open to Karl Marx’s critical theory that operates with the distinction between
human essence and society’s existence.

3.3 Human Essence

Burns (2011) distinguishes three subsequent stages in MacIntyre’s works that he terms
“Marx without Aristotle”, “Aristotle without Marx”, and “Aristotle and Marx”. When
MacIntyre published his first book Marxism: An Interpretation in 1953, he was “both a
Christian and a Marxist” (MacIntyre 2009, 419). In 1968, when the book’s second edi-
tion was released, he was neither a Christian nor a Marxist (ibid.). “During the years
1977 through 1984 MacIntyre transitioned to an Aristotelian worldview, returned to the
Christian faith and turned from Aristotle to Thomas Aquinas” (Lutz 2015). In his major
work After Virtue, MacIntyre wrote in 1981 that Marxism was “exhausted as a political
tradition” and was politically too optimistic (MacIntyre 2007, 304). As part of his turn
away from Marxism, MacIntyre gave up the concept of human nature (see MacIntyre
2002, 259, 261; 2007, 190). He later changed his position on that question and “became
a Thomist after writing After Virtue” because “I became convinced that Aquinas was in
some respects a better Aristotelian than Aristotle” (MacIntyre 2007, xi). In his late works,
MacIntyre has returned to Marx and advances a “Thomistic Aristotelianism” that is “in-
formed by Marx’s insights” in order to construct “a contemporary politics and ethics”
(MacIntyre 2016, xi).

Aristotle (1999, 1933) spoke of τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι (to ti ên einai) and τὸ τί ἐστι (to ti esti),
which literally means “what it is in order to be” and “what it is”. These phrases have
 Chapter Three | The Ethics of the Digital Commons 53

either been translated as “essence” (e.g. in Aristotle 1933) or as “what it is for some-
thing to be” (Aristotle 1999). The essence of an entity consists of “those characteristics
that make it the kind of thing it is (or the very thing it is) and without which it could not
exist or be what it is” (Meikle 1985, 177). Aristotle (1999, §1029b) defines essence as
“what is said of” a thing “in its own right” (Aristotle 1999, §1029b [translated as “that
which it is said to be per se” in Aristotle 1933, 1029b]). Essence means that something
is a “primary thing” that is “not articulated by attributing one thing to another” (Aristotle
1999, §1030a; [translated as “do not involve the predication of one thing of another” in
Aristotle 1933, §1029b]). The essence of a thing is “the substance which is peculiar to
it and belongs to nothing else”, whereas “the universal is common; for by universal we
mean that which by nature appertains to several things” (Aristotle 1933, §1038b; [trans-
lation in Aristotle 1999, §1030a:

”For in the first place, the thinghood of each thing is what each is on its own,
which does not belong to it by virtue of anything else, while the universal is a
common property, since what is meant universally is what is of such a nature
as to belong to more than one thing])”.

Meikle (1985) distinguishes Aristotelian essentialism from the worldview of atomism.

Ernst Bloch (1963, 1972) characterises Aristotle’s concept of matter as a dynamic form
of being-in-possibility dynámei ón, δυνɑμει
́ ŏν) and objective possibility. He opposes
this concept of matter to mechanical materialism and traces it in the works of Avicenna,
Averroes, Giordano Bruno, Spinoza, Schelling, Hegel, and Marx.

Justifying that the good life means a commons-based society requires reasonable as-
sumptions about the nature of humans and society. MacIntyre argues in his early Marxist
Human Essence

writings – especially the 1958/1959 essay Notes from the Moral Wilderness (MacIn-
tyre 2009, 45–68) that for Marxists the “concept of human nature […] has to be at the
centre of any discussion of moral theory” (MacIntyre 2009, 63). For MacIntyre, morality
has to do with human desires. Capitalism and class societies would distort desires so
that there is a “rift between morality and desire” (61). MacIntyre here applies the He-
gelian dialectical logic of essence and existence. Modern society would have created
conditions where “human possibility can be realized in a quite new way” (56). But these
potentials are artificially suppressed so that they do not benefit humanity in common,
but rather predominantly the ruling class. “Each age reveals a development of human
potentiality which is specific to that form of social life and which is specifically limited
by the class structure of that society” (64). Each “new form of exploitation […] brings
54 Foundations

new frustrations of human possibility” (125). “The paradox of bourgeois society is that it
at one at the same time contains both the promise of greatly enlarged freedom and the
denial of that freedom” (126). Human nature “is violated by exploitation and its accom-
panying evils” (66). Only class struggle is able to realise “a common shared humanity”
(64) and “the deeper desire to share what is common in humanity” and “to rediscover
common desire” (65). MacIntyre argues that class society means alienation from com-
mon human desires for solidarity. For him, human essence has to do with the collective
human desire for a good life for all.

As part of his return to Marx during his late period, MacIntyre (2016, Chapter 2) argues
in his book Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity that Marx employs key Aristotelian con-
cepts: “essence, potentiality, goal-directedness” (MacIntyre 2016, 94).

”For Marx, as for Aristotle, human agents can be understood only as goal-
directed, and we can distinguish between those goals the pursuit of which
will develop their human potentiality and those goals the pursuit of which will
frustrate their development”.
(94)

What is the role of language and communication in human nature? MacIntyre (2007,
chapter 15) argues in After Virtue that the unity of human life can only be obtained
through conversations that create social relations. The human being is a “story-telling
animal” (250; see also the discussion in Williams 2009). Conversations construct dra-
matic narratives that make human life unpredictable. At the same time, human life is
guided by a telos – “a variety of ends or goals” (250). Because of human life’s commu-
nicative character, virtue is for MacIntyre not purely internal to practices, but supports
the “quest for the good” and “increasing knowledge of the good” (254). MacIntyre sees
the good as the search “for the good life for man” (254). This definition is unsatisfactory
because the goal of what someone or a group understands as a good life can for example
include the enslavement of others or genocide. Virtue ethics should not abstract from
society as totality and not simply focus on particular communities. MacIntyre argues that
the good life varies historically and from group to group (255). Therefore, virtues oriented
on the social are for MacIntyre limited to particular local communities.

”[W]e all approach our own circumstances as bearers of a particular social

identity. […] I belong to this clan, that tribe, this nation. Hence what is good for
me hast to be the good for one who inhabits these roles”.
(255)
 Chapter Three | The Ethics of the Digital Commons 55

The stress of “moral particularity” disregards what humans have in common and faces
the danger of turning into moral relativism and moral particularism. Avoiding moral rela-
tivism requires the concept of human nature/essence.

MacIntyre (2007, 265) in After Virtue speaks of the “narrative understanding of the unity
of human life”. This is just another formulation for saying that humans are communica-
tive, social beings. MacIntyre does not draw the conclusion that communication and
community are part of the human essence because in After Virtue he rejects the concept
of human nature. His account thereby is incompletely Aristotelian.

MacIntyre’s approach can be turned into a full Aristotelianism by adding the notion of
human essence: humans are in essence producing, communicative, social beings. Aris-
totle describes humans as ζῷον λόγοϛ ἔχων (zōon logon echon). Hannah Arendt (1958,
27) writes that it is inadequate to translate this category as a rational animal. In Greek,
λόγος (logos) means both rationality/reason and speech/utterance. This double meaning
precisely describes human essence: the human is a rational/teleological, communicative
being. Language and work as forms of production are means for reaching goals. In Poli-
tics, Aristotle writes: λόγον δὲ μόνον ἄνθρωπος ἔχει τῶν ζῴων – “man alone among
the animals has speech” (Aristotle 2013, §1253a).

MacIntyre (2016, 26) argues that “the power of language use” distinguishes humans
from animals. Language would have four crucial features: it enables reflection and justi-
fications, enhances the communication of intentions and responses, makes envisioning
alternative futures possible, and allows narrating stories (26–27). Language enables hu-
mans to pose ethical questions about what is good (225).

Language has syntactic (form, rules), semantic (meaning, content), and pragmatic (effect,
Human Essence

purposeful use in social contexts) aspects. MacIntyre (1999, 50–51) in his book Depend-
ent Rational Animals discusses the example of bottlenose dolphins. These dolphins are
highly developed animals that perform perceptive learning and communicate intention-
ally with each other. They form social bonds via a range of whistling sounds. MacIntyre
uses the example of the dolphin to show that there are common biological features of
highly developed animals and humans. Certain animals (dolphins, dogs, gorillas, chim-
panzees, elephants, etc.) make use of prelinguistic means for achieving goals. Humans in
contrast to animals are able to use language in complex manners in order to “express the
judgement about which the agent is reflecting” (54), which allows them to reflect on and
realise alternative actions (96). MacIntyre calls this capacity practical rationality (54).
Humans are able to put language to reflective use (58). Through communicative social
56 Foundations

relations, they learn to evaluate, modify, and reject their judgements (83) and to reflec-
tively organise desires and the quest for wants and needs in order to achieve a variety
of goods (96). Humans are therefore also moral beings that live through communication:
“As a practical reasoner, I have to engage in conversation with others, conversation
about what it would be best for me or them or us to do here and now, or next week, or
next year” (110–111). For achieving the common good, humans have to not just commu-
nicate, but also need to co-operate (114).

So, humans strive to achieve individual and common goods by reflective and anticipatory
judgement, learning through communicating judgements, practically enacting and mod-
ifying their judgements in everyday life, and working together with others. MacIntyre
outlines common features of humans, but avoids speaking of “human essence”. Mac-
Intyre outlines a logic of essence but does not call it by this name. There are parallels
of MacIntyre to Hegel, Marx, and Marcuse’s concepts of essence (Wesen in German),
which is why we should have a closer look at these thinker’s works.

The German word Wesen has two meanings: it means (a) a creature or being; and (b) in a
philosophical sense the particular features of a phenomenon that make it different from
other phenomena and constitute the grounding and inner characteristics of something
without which it could not exist (Duden 2019). Therefore, the two key English transla-
tions of Wesen are (a) create/being and (b) essence (Langenscheidt 2019). Especially,
Hegel advanced the philosophical notion of Wesen by creating a dialectical logic of es-
sence. For Hegel (1830/1991, §§115–130), the essence is the ground of existence. He
speaks of a dialectic of essence (Wesen) and appearance (Erscheinung), which means
that the essence of something that exists is not always immediately apparent. “The
immediate being of things is […] a sort of rind or curtain behind which the essence is
concealed” (Hegel 1830/1991, Addition to §112). Actuality (Wirklichkeit) is for Hegel the
dialectical sublation and unity of the contradiction between essence and appearance.
“Actuality is the unity, become immediate, of essence and existence” (Hegel 1830/1991,
§142). Actuality is a reasonable being, being not as it is immediately, but the way it can
and should be so that it accords to the potentials inherent in its essence.

Herbert Marcuse (1936/2009) argues that Marx was heavily influenced by Hegel’s dia-
lectical logic of essence. Marx

”works with two different sets of concepts, […] One set describes the eco-
nomic process in its immediate appearance. […] the second group of concepts,
which has been derived from the totality of the social dynamic, is intended to
 Chapter Three | The Ethics of the Digital Commons 57

grasp the essence and the true content of the manifestations which the first
group describes as they appear. The dialectical concepts transcend given social
reality in the direction of another historical structure which is present as a
tendency in the given reality”.
(Marcuse 1936/2009, 62–63)

Marx dialectically relates the two meanings of Wesen in his critical analysis of society
and capitalism. On the one hand, Marx speaks of humans as species-being (Gattung-
swesen), by which Marx means that humans are producing, co-operative, social, and
societal beings. “[P]roduction is his active species-being” (Marx 1844d, 277). The hu-
man species-being’s “species-powers” lie in “the co-operative action of all [hu]mankind”
(Marx 1844d, 333). The human being is “a societal animal” (“gesellschaftliches Tier”,
translation from German, Marx 1857/1858, 84).

For Marx, societality is the essence of human beings. He argues that in capitalism and
class society, human societality is crippled and incomplete. He expresses this circum-
stance with the notion of alienation/estrangement (Entfremdung). Marx argues that
human beings’ “social activity” has the potential to create “the true community” of hu-
manity, […] but as long as man does not recognise himself as man, and therefore has
not organised the world in a human way, this community appears in the form of es-
trangement, because its subject, man, is a being estranged from himself” (Marx 1844b,
217). In Marx’s original German manuscript, the phrase “true community” is “das wahre
Gemeinwesen der Menschen” (Marx 1844a, 451). The passage can best be translated
as “the true commonwealth of humanity”. But Gemeinwesen also has the word Wesen
in it. The etymology of the word goes back to the combination of the two German words
gemein (common) and Wesen (essence).1 For Marx, the use of the term Gemeinwesen
Human Essence

refers to the common as the communist existence of humans and the commons as the
essence of humanity and society. So what Marx hints at in this and other passages is
that class society alienates humans from the potential of the common control of society,
a commons-based society.

In a passage in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, Marx directly refers to com-
munism as the actuality of society that realises the essence of the human being and
society. Marx (1844d, 296) writes that communism is “the positive transcendence of
private property as human self-estrangement” and therefore “the real appropriation of
the human essence [‘wirkliche Aneignung des menschlichen Wesens’ in the German
original – Marx 1844e, 536] by and for man”; communism therefore is “the complete
return of man to himself as a social (i.e., human) being”, “equals humanism” and is “the
58 Foundations

true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and
self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the spe-
cies”. In this passage, Marx dialectically links the notion of Wesen as being and essence.
Marx sees the commons as human essence, from which human beings are alienated
in class societies. Communism sublates this antagonism between human essence and
existence.

MacIntyre (2016) does not ask what the common aspects of the four dimensions of lin-
guistic capacities that he identifies are, although he hints at the fact that language and
communication “make possible kinds of cooperation and forms of association that are
distinctively human” (26) and “enable us to associate cooperatively with others in ways
not open to nonhuman animals” (29): humans produce social relations and produce in
social relations. And they do so purposefully, namely, in order to try to advance human
flourishing. Class relations and dominations however influence the perception of which
human individuals and groups should flourish and which ones should be harmed as well
as corresponding practices.

For Aristotle, human life in society has a telos, it is goal-oriented. Influenced by Aristotle
and Marx, Georg Lukács (1978, 5) argues that the human being is a teleological being
because the human as “conscious creator” produces with a purpose, orientation, and
goal. Lukács sees teleological positing as the essence of the human being and society.
Human beings are in essence teleological: they work and communicate in order to reach
defined goals. Aristotle (2002, §1139b) argues that “one who makes something always
makes it for the sake of something”. Lukács combination of Aristotle and Marx shows
that without production and communication there can be no human existence. Commu-
nication is the production of social relations and sociality. Work and communication are
two aspects of production: humans produce meanings and sociality through communi-
cation. They produce use-values that satisfy human wants, needs, and desires through
work. Work has a communicative character and communication work character. Work
and communication are two dialectically encroaching dimensions of the practical, antic-
ipatory, and reflective rationality of human beings.

Production in society is social and therefore communicative. Communication is produc-

tive: it creates shared understandings and sociality. Communication and work are com-
mon features of all humans and all societies. In order to attain desires and satisfy needs,
we need to engage in production and communication so that immediate desires are
suppressed and rationally transformed into work processes that allow attaining iden-
tified ends having to do with ways of how we can achieve wants, needs, and desires.
 Chapter Three | The Ethics of the Digital Commons 59

Production and communication require “intellect fused with desire” and “desire fused
with thinking” (Aristotle 2002, §1139b). Humans can “stand back from our desires and
other motives” (MacIntyre 2016, 44) in order to reflect and rationally act so that we
achieve larger goals or what MacIntyre (2016, 53) characterises as the “final end” and
the “ultimate human end”, the human flourishing and good life that Aristotle character-
ises as eudaimonia. This means that humans have an essential quest for human flour-
ishing and being able to lead a good life. If humans in essence desire the good life and
are rational, communicating, producing, social, and societal animals who cannot achieve
goals alone but only together with others, then the question arises of how humans can
advance the common good in society.

3.4 The Common Good

In ethics, the concept of the common good is the one that stands closest to the notion
of the commons. Therefore, if we want to ethically justify commons and communication
commons, then the notion of the common good is the right philosophical starting point.

John Rawls defines the common good as “certain general conditions that are in an ap-
propriate sense equally to everyone’s advantage” (Rawls 1999, 217). Why should one
care about the common good?

”Many philosophers believe that there is something morally defective about a

private society. […] [The] members of a political community have a relational
obligation to care about their common affairs, so the fact that they are exclu-
sively concerned with their private lives is itself a moral defect in the commu-
The Common Good

nity. […]. A conception of the common good provides us with an account of

what is missing from the practical reasoning of citizens in a private society, and
it connects this with a wider view about the relational obligations that require
citizens to reason in these ways. […] Members of a political community stand
in a social relationship, and this relationship also requires them to think and
act in ways that embody a certain form of mutual concern. The common good
defines this form of concern”.
(Hussain 2018)

The “common good has played an important role in Western political thought since its be-
ginnings in ancient Greece” (5). Philosophers who wrote about the common good include
Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, J.J. Rousseau, Adam Smith, G.W.F. Hegel,
John Rawls, and Michael Walzer (Hussain 2018, Jade 2017). Aristotle is “a foundational
60 Foundations

thinker” of the common good (Jade 2017, 2). Given this foundational character and the
importance of Aristotle for thinking about the common good, it makes sense to take a
closer look at the Aristotelian concept of the common good.

Hussain (2018) distinguishes between joint activity- and private individuality conceptions
of the common good. The first argues that members of a community have common inter-
ests that arise from their membership of and joint activities in the community. Represent-
atives include Plato, Aristotle, Charles Taylor, or Michael Sandel. Private individuality
theorists of the common good argue that members of a political community have an
interest to guarantee certain common goods (such as liberal freedoms, democracy, the
rule of law, internal, and external defence) in order to lead lives as private individuals.
Representatives are for example Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, Georg W.F. He-
gel, John Rawls, and Michael Walzer.

The first approach is more social, communal, and collectivist, the second is liberal-
individualist. MacIntyre (1997) further differentiates these two approaches to the
common good into communitarianism, liberalism, and Aristotelianism. He sees Aristote-
lianism not as a form of communitarianism, but a particular form of ethics that is opposed
to both communitarianism and liberalism.

MacIntyre (1997) argues that the common good can be defined either as the end of
community members’ “shared activities” (239), or as the sum of individual goods in an
association (239–240), or as activities in a polis, where individual and common goods are
inseparable (241). For MacIntyre, both the first (communitarian) and the second (liberal)
concept fail because in the modern state, liberal individualist and minimalist concepts
and elements of the common good come into conflict with the social good that is based
on a communitarian concept of the common good. MacIntyre recommends “small-scale
local community politics” (248) that enables “a community of enquiry and learning” (251).
MacIntyre does not take into account that the common good understood as a “commu-
nity in which each individual’s achievement of her or his own good is inseparable both
from achieving the shared goods of practices from contributing to the common good of
the community as a whole” (240–241) relates not just to local community practices, but
also to practices that concern humanity as a whole, i.e. practices that either affect all
humans or that are common to all humans. The common good certainly needs to take into
account politics (the polis as a political community) and culture (common learning). An-
other important dimension is the common in the economy (common production, common
ownership, and common access).
 Chapter Three | The Ethics of the Digital Commons 61

MacIntyre (2016) gives a range of examples for work towards the common good at the lo-
cal level. “The common good of those at work together are achieved in producing goods
and services that contribute to the life of the community and in becoming excellent at
producing them” (MacIntyre 2016, 170). Family members

”pursue their goods as family members by enabling the other through their
affection and understanding to achieve her or his goods. Parents pursue their
goods as family members by fostering the development of the powers and vir-
tues of their children, so that those children may emerge from adolescence as
independent rational agents”.
(169)

In schools, teachers

”achieve their own good qua teachers and contribute to that common good by
making the good of their students their overriding good, while their students
contribute to the shared education of their class by their class participation, so
achieving their own good”.

Humans are rational, ethical, communicating, producing, social, and societal beings
who behave purposefully in order to try to achieve a good life. Aristotle saw that there
is an inherent connection of the commons, communication, and community. Communi-
cation creates common meanings and definitions within a community. In modern class
societies, the common good is subordinated under the logics of capital and bureaucracy.
As a result, particularistic interests rule so that inequalities and asymmetric distribu-
tions of power are a reality. The good life is not an actual common feature of all humans
The Common Good

living in capitalism and class societies, where it is only a feature that some enjoy at the
expense of others: some are forced by economic, political, or ideological structures to
lead damaged, alienated lives. The commons are part of the human essence because
the common features of all humans constitute the human essence. The desire for a good
life is a common feature of all humans. But given that humans are social beings living
in society, the good life cannot be achieved individually, but only collectively, socially,
and politically. I can only lead a good life if all are enabled to lead good lives. A good
society is a society that corresponds to human essence, i.e. a society of the commons,
in which humans control the economic, the political and the cultural system, goods, and
structures that together form the society in common so that everyone is empowered
to lead a good life. A good society is a society of the commons. Alienation in contrast
62 Foundations

means that humans are not in control of economic, political, and cultural structures that
shape life in society.

Aristotle distinguishes between distributive, corrective, reciprocal, and universal justice

(that advances the common good) (McCarthy 1990, Chapter 2). Justice and injustice are
for Aristotle matters of proportionality and disproportionality. An “unjust person has
more, while the one to whom injustice is done has less of something good” (Aristotle
2002, §1131b). Injustice means that someone has “an excess for oneself of what is sim-
ply beneficial and a deficiency of what is harmful” (§1134a). So Aristotle argues that
injustice means that a certain individual, group or class has a kind of surplus control of a
good over others. He anticipates Marx concept of surplus-value, but defines the excess
he speaks of as a more general form of injustice that arises from the asymmetric distri-
bution of power that benefits the few at the expense of the many. Marx (1867, 73–74)
stresses that Aristotle was the first thinker who analysed the commodity’s value-form.
According to Marx (1867, 74), Aristotle was a genius because he saw that the value of
commodities is a relation of equality. But given that Aristotle did not live in a capitalist
society, he was not able to see that this equality is the effect of the objectification of
specific quanta of labour in the commodity.

Aristotle (2002) not just opposes injustice to justice, but also to friendship and love,
which are social relations where humans benefit and do good things for others without
instrumental interests. The common arises from friendship and community: in

”every sort of community there seems to be something just, and also friendship.
[…] To whatever extent that they share something in common, to that extent
is there a friendship, since that too is the extent to which there is something
just. And the proverb ‘the tings of friends are common’ is right, since friendship
consist in community. All things are common to brothers and comrades”.
(§1159b)

The political community aims at an advantage “that extends to all of life” (§1160a). Ar-
istotle (2013, §1279a) terms a community where “the multitude governs with a view to
the common advantage” polity.

Marx is an Aristotelian in respect to the good life as the realisation of human potentiality.
Aristotle (1999, §1048a) sees potentiality as being “capable of something” and being
“capable of causing motion”. Potency is also the source of dialectic because whatever is
potential “is itself capable of opposite effects” (Aristotle 1999, §1051a). In communism,
 Chapter Three | The Ethics of the Digital Commons 63

the full potentials of human beings and society are actualised. Marx defines communism
as a just society based on the commons, friendships, and love in Aristotle’s understand-
ing. One of Marx’s achievements was that he uncovered how class societies in general
and capitalism in particular structurally institutionalise the exploitation of labour and
the injustices Aristotle spoke of. In essence, humans are co-operative, social, societal
beings, who strive for solidarity and a good life. A particular societal condition enables
or hinders the realisation of society’s and human potentials. Such potentials develop
historically. If class structures and domination make society’s essence and existence
diverge, then humans ought to organise collectively and struggle against alienation in or-
der to realise a good society. Marx calls the good society “communism”. His approach is
teleological because humans have the potential to struggle for a good society. If they do
so, then their social action becomes teleological – it becomes praxis, political action for
the good society. Marx’s Aristotelianism for example becomes evident when he argues
that “our species-being […] is not actualised as energeia in the context of private prop-
erty” (Groff 2015, 316). In his political-economic works, Marx analyses the alienation
of the human being from the essence of its species-being as abstract labour’s creation
of surplus-value, i.e. the exploitation of labour in class relations. The “proposition that
man’s species-nature is estranged from him means that one man is estranged from the
other, as each of them is from man’s essential nature” (Marx 1844d, 277). The German
term for species-being is Gattungswesen (Marx 1844e, 518), a combination of species
(Gattung) and the dual meaning of Wesen as essence/being. So, by species-being, Marx
means human essence or what all human beings have in common. Capitalism and class
constitute the alienation of the human from their social essence.

The commons are goods that all humans require in order to live a good life. The good
The Common Good

life of the individual is only possible in a good society that enables the good life for all.
Achieving a good society that benefits all requires collective organisation of the com-
mon good. It requires inclusive, co-operative communication. If structures of domination
damage certain groups so that they are compelled to live alienated lives, then the com-
mon good is not realised. The good society is then only a good society for some – it is
a class society. Establishing a good life therefore requires struggles and practices that
are guided by “the categorical imperative to overthrow all relations in which man is a
debased, enslaved, forsaken, despicable being” (Marx 1844c, 182). Without being able
to live a good life in a society of the commons, humans are not fully developed humans –
their existence does not correspond to their essence because they are denied those
common goods that humans and society require to flourish and thereby realise their
potentials.
64 Foundations

MacIntyre argues in his later works that capitalism damages human life in multiple
respects. Financial and educational inequalities would result in political inequalities
(MacIntyre 2016, 127). Capitalism alienates human life in manifold respects. As a con-
sequence, the institutions of the market, the state, and Morality shape human wants
so that what individuals “want is what the dominant social institutions have influenced
them to want” (MacIntyre 2016, 167).

MacIntyre (1999, 156) argues that we can only achieve the common good if our “social
relationships of giving and receiving” are governed by “social and political forms” that
advance the common good. He argues that three conditions must be fulfilled: (1) Institu-
tionalised forms of deliberation are needed so that “shared rational deliberation” allows
taking common decisions; (2) justice needs to be enabled so that each is working and
giving “according to her or his ability” and each receives “so far as is possible, according
to her or his needs” (130), which would have to especially take into account “those who
are most dependent and in most need of receiving – children, the old, the disabled”
(130); (3) everyone should “have a voice” in the community (130). Taken together, such a
society of the commons advances the political commons (participatory democracy), the
economic commons (wealth and self-fulfilment for all), and the cultural commons (voice
and recognition of all). It requires to overcome political alienation (domination), economic
alienation (exploitation), and cultural alienation (ideology).

MacIntyre (2016) argues that achieving the common good in communities such as fam-
ilies, workplaces, schools, or a political system depends on the availability of resources
such as money, power, wealth, education/skills, and public goods provided by the gov-
ernment (the education system, law, order, health care, transport, communications, etc.).
Capitalism is not just an economic system, but a type of society, in which the accumula-
tion of money, power, and reputation results in structures that benefit certain groups at
the expense of others:

”The exploitative structures of both free market and state capitalism make it often
difficult and sometimes impossible to achieve the goods of the workplace through
excellent work. The political structures of modern states that exclude most citizens
from participation in extended and informed deliberation on issues of crucial im-
portance to their lives make it often difficult and sometimes impossible to achieve
the goods of local community. The influence of Morality in normative and evalu-
ative thinking makes it often difficult and sometimes impossible for the claims of
the virtues to be understood, let alone acknowledge in our common lives”.
(237–238)
 Chapter Three | The Ethics of the Digital Commons 65

Given that humans are story-telling animals, they can learn “to live against the cultural
grain” and “to act as economic, political, and moral antagonists of the dominant order” from

”the stories of those who in various very different modern social contexts have
discovered what hat to be done, if essential human goods were to be achieved,
and what the virtues therefore required of them, so making themselves into
critics and antagonists of the established order”.
(MacIntyre 2016, 238)

Resistance and social struggle require the communication of stories about how domina-
tion damages human life and how resistance is possible.

3.5 The Digital Commons and Morality

The outcome of the discussion in this chapter is that only a society that fosters the com-
mon good for all is a society appropriate to human beings, a morally and politically just
society. Praxis is the ethico-political quest and struggles for a society of the commons.
If ethics is consciousness and action oriented on the social struggle for a free society,
then ethics aims at the point at which the “struggle for liberation changes dialectically
into freedom” (Lukács 1971, 42). In such struggles, individuals overcome the isolation,
separation, alienation, and partiality of their existence imposed by domination. They or-
ganise as political collectives that strive for freedom. “Praxis becomes the form of action

The Digital Commons and Morality

appropriate to the isolated individual, it becomes his ethics” (Lukács 1971, 19).

Computers and computer networks enable new ways of organising information, com-
munication, and co-operation. Given that computing has become a central resource in
modern society, the use of computers for organising cognition, communication, and
co-operation has become part of human needs. Humans have certain cognitive needs
(such as being loved and recognised), communicative needs (such as friendships and
community), and co-operative needs (such as working together with others in order to
achieve common goals) in all types of society. In a digital and information society, com-
puters are vital means for realising such needs. But given that computers are always
used in societal contexts, computer use as such does not necessarily foster the good life,
but can also contribute to damaging human lives. When it was shown in the Cambridge
Analytica scandal that Facebook and other social media have been used for targeting
users with fake news in order to try to manipulate elections, it became evident how a
specific organisation of online platforms – namely the combination of digital capital-
ism, authoritarian politics, and neoliberalism – threatens the common political good of
66 Foundations

democracy. Advancing the good life for all with the help of computers requires a particu-
lar organisation and design of computing resources and society.

Combining insights from Aristotle, Karl Marx, and Alasdair MacIntyre helps us to argue
why advancing the digital commons is morally important. Humans are in essence moral,
rationally producing, communicating, social, and societal beings, who can only achieve
their goals in relation to other humans. We can only achieve individual goals together
with others. If achieving individual goals damages the life of others by exploiting or
dominating them, then the common good is damaged because society will entail groups
of humans who are compelled to lead damaged lives. A good society enables the good
life for all. It is a commons-based society.

In what contexts do computers help to advance the good life or damaged lives? This
question can be answered in respect to the use of computers at the level of society, i.e.
applications of computing resources that affect all members of society. The important
criterion for assessing computing ethically is the question if, how, and to which degree
computers are used for advancing a good economic, political, and cultural life for all or
are used for damaging economic, political, and cultural lives.

The economy has to do with questions of production and ownership. As economic be-
ings, humans strive for a life that guarantees the satisfaction of their needs and allows
self-fulfilling work. If computer resources that are vital for the life of all are commodities,
then the lives of humans are negatively impeded in two ways: (1) Many commodities are
produced by human labour that is exploited in class relations so that ownership is trans-
ferred from the immediate producers to private property holders, who obtain benefits at
the expense of workers; (2) Goods and services that are exchanged as commodities will
inevitably exclude those who cannot afford them from access. Given that exchange is
always an unequal exchange, commodity-producing societies advance distributive in-
justice. Wikipedia as digital commons is preferable to a for-profit online encyclopaedia
that sells access to articles in two respects: (1) A for-profit encyclopaedia will tend to
rely on the exploitation of the human labour of digital workers who write or contribute
to encyclopaedia articles in order to create profits; (2) Charging access to encyclopaedic
resources will exclude humans from access. The exploitation of digital labour and denial
of access to key digital resources damage the lives of humans economically. The digital
commons are in contrast to digital capital inclusive and not class based.

An increasing number of for-profit companies rely on pseudo-commons in order to pro-

duce digital capital. They provide gratis access to certain digital resources, crowdsource
 Chapter Three | The Ethics of the Digital Commons 67

human labour so that it is performed online and unpaid, and accumulate capital in so-
phisticated manners that make humans not always experience their exploitation in an
immediate manner. The digital commons thereby become subsumed under digital capi-
talism. Advancing the digital commons therefore not just needs to entail advancing and
supporting projects that foster the digital commons, but also to struggle against digital
capital and digital capital that disguises itself as digital commons. Advancing the digital
commons in a capitalist society as transcendent projects that prefigure an alternative
mode of society faces the problem that humans in capitalism depend on wages in order
to survive. The digital commons challenge digital capital and along with it to a certain
degree also forms of wage-labour subsumed under digital capital. Advancing the digital
commons as a class struggle project therefore requires mechanisms that guarantee that
humans obtain income in order to survive and at the same time are empowered to act as
digital communards. Mechanisms that tackle this problem include for example public/
commons-partnerships, collective funding mechanisms, participatory budgeting, the tax-
ation of corporations in order to fund alternative media projects, or basic income.

Politics is a system that organises the process of taking collective decisions that are
binding for all members of society. As political beings (citizens), humans strive to in-
fluence political decisions based on their interests. For doing so, legal systems that or-
ganise rights, responsibilities, and freedom are necessary. Political life is damaged if
(a) particular individuals or groups centralise the decision-making process so that other

The Digital Commons and Morality

citizens or groups of citizens cannot participate in it or have less influence; or (b) rights
that enable effective political voice in the public sphere or participation in collective
decision-making are limited.

In the digital realm, authoritarian regimes use state power in order to censor the ex-
pression of political voices online. They censor the publication of political information
online, or monitor citizens and political opponents, or sanction those who express al-
ternative opinions and dissent with the help of fines, prison sentences, or terror. As a
consequence, political decision-making and political expression are centralised and the
common political rights and interest of citizens to participate in decision-making are un-
dermined. Economic power can undermine the common political good: if rich individuals,
groups, or companies can use money in order to purchase political voice in the online
public sphere (for example via online advertising or the ownership of popular news plat-
forms) or to influence policies that govern the way digital resources are organised, then
corporate power undermines the capacity of humans to voice their political opinions and
to influence political decisions. Capitalist power threatens the common political good.
68 Foundations

Using computing resources for fostering the political good requires the support of pro-
jects that aim at using digital resources for advancing participatory democracy. Participa-
tory democracy aims at forms of empowerment that include all to a meaningful degree in
political decision-making and fosters a public sphere, where inclusive, sustained political
debate is possible and is not limited by hierarchies that are based on the unequal control
of wealth, power, skills, and reputation.

Culture is the system in society that enables humans to make meaning of society and to de-
fine their identities, which requires voice, visibility, mutual understanding, and recognition.
As cultural beings, humans strive for recognition. In the realm of online culture, Twitter is
an example of a platform that humans use in order to make meaning of contemporary soci-
eties. But voice, visibility, reputation, and recognition are unequally distributed on Twitter:
Whereas the average Twitter user has 707 followers,2 the singers Katy Perry and Justin
Bieber were in July 2018 with 110 million followers the two users with the largest amount
of followers. Celebrities and corporations have a much higher online visibility, attention,
voice, reputation, and recognition and therefore also more definition power on the Internet
than everyday users. The asymmetric distribution of voice and visibility damages human
lives because it denies humans the capacities for recognition and influencing collective
meaning-making processes in society. The result is cultural hierarchies, in which influenc-
ers have much more power to be heard and shape worldviews than everyday people.

Today, also online bots generate reputation by posting and re-posting stories, liking so-
cial media postings, etc. Automated programmes thereby generate fake attention and
operate fake social media profiles. Machines do not have morals and therefore the prob-
lem of fake online attention generated by bots is that they try to make humans believe
that a machine response and behaviour is a form of human recognition. Imagine there is
an intelligent bot that through sustained communication with individuals creates feel-
ings of love online. When the user finds out that the online interlocutor is an artificial
intelligence-based machine who “cheats” on him/her with hundreds of other users, s/he
will be disappointed and feel tricked because machines can only simulate, but not expe-
rience emotionality and morality. S/he will feel cheated because s/he invested time into
building an emotional relationship and has to find out that this work of love was not re-
ciprocated by a human being, who spent time on affective expressions, but by a machine.
The movie Her is exactly about the issue of “love” between humans and an artificially in-
telligent operating system named Samantha (to whom Scarlett Johannson gives a voice
in the movie). In the age of bots and fake attention, it becomes difficult to discern what is
communicated by humans and what by machines. Algorithms can manipulate perception.
 Chapter Three | The Ethics of the Digital Commons 69

Digital media that help fostering the cultural good help all humans to make their voices
heard, to achieve common understandings, and to achieve recognition. Humans all strive
for recognition, but have different worldviews, identities, and lifestyles. A common cul-
ture is not a unitary culture, but one that constructs the unity in the diversity of world-
views, ways of life, and identities that are needed for respect and understanding. A
common culture avoids both the extremes of cultural imperialism (unity without diversity)
and cultural relativism (diversity without unity).

Table 3.2 provides a summary overview of the dimensions of the digital commons.

The typology presented in Table 3.2 is structured along with the three realms of soci-
ety (economy, politics, and culture), which allows distinguishing between three types
of commons and three types of digital commons. The commons are the Aristotelian-
Marxian vision of a good society. They form the essence of society, which means that the
digital commons are part of digital society’s essence. We discussed earlier in this chap-
ter, that for Hegel and Marx the essence is often hidden behind false appearances and
that actuality means the correspondence of essence and appearance. An Aristotelian–
Hegelian–Marxian perspective on the digital commons therefore needs to distinguish
between the essence of digital society and the false appearance and existence of digital
society as digital class society and digital capitalism. Class society is the false condition
of society in general. Digital class society is the false condition of digital society. An

The Digital Commons and Morality

TABLE 3.2 Three dimensions of the digital commons

Commons in society Digital commons Lack of common Lack of common

control in society control of digital
(alienation) society (digital
alienation)

Economy Economic commons: Economic digital commons: Private property Digital

wealth and self- network access for commodities,
fulfillment for all everyone, community is digital resources
in control of technology, as private
digital resources as property
common goods
Politics Political commons: Political digital commons: Dictatorship Dictatorial
participation and common decision governance and
democracy in making/governance control of ICTs
decision-making of ICTs
Culture Cultural commons: voice Cultural digital commons: Ideology Digital ideology:
and recognition of all use of ICTs for fostering Ideologies of
learning, recognition and and on the
community activities Internet
70 Foundations

Aristotelian–Hegelian–Marxian ethics of the commons needs to not just have a vision

of a good digital society, but is also a critique of digital capitalism and digital alienation.
Table 3.2 therefore also features two columns that outline dimensions of alienation-in-
general and digital alienation.

Aristotelian ethics differs from both deontology and consequentialism/utilitarianism. De-

ontology is an individualistic ethics focused on individual behaviour. Consequentialism
focuses on the consequences of the action. In contrast, Aristotelian ethics is interested
in ethical practices and learning processes. Marxian ethics that builds on Aristotle is
interested in ethical practice as critical praxis. In digital capitalism, critical ethical praxis
takes on three forms:

1) Critical digital theory: In the realm of academia, research, and intellectual life,
Aristotelian–Hegelian–Marxian ethics challenges theories and approaches that
fetishise and justify digital exploitation and digital domination and that fetishise in-
strumental reason, quantification, calculation as is for example the case in big data
analytics (Fuchs 2017a). It generates systematic knowledge that wants to inform
and empower class struggles against digital alienation and for a commons-based
digital society, where all humans benefit from digital technologies.
2) Critical digital education: In the realm of education, Aristotelian–Hegelian–
Marxian ethics challenges the pure focus on teaching quantitative skills (STEM:
science, technology, engineering, mathematics) that aim at turning education into
an instrument of digital capital’s innovation and capital accumulation strategies
and envisions all young learners as future entrepreneurs. It also challenges the
metrification of education itself. In contrast, such an ethics fosters critical educa-
tion that empowers humans’ critical reason so that they are able to reflect on the
complexities and causes of digital society’s problems and understand the roots of
digital capitalism’s contradictions.
3) Digital class struggles: In the realm of politics, Aristotelian–Hegelian–Marxian
ethics empowers humans to challenge digital alienation and to support and en-
gage in class struggles that aim at establishing a fair, just and good digital society
of the commons, where all benefit. Class struggles are struggles for the control of
economic resources, working conditions, and economic decisions. In digital cap-
italism, class struggles have two digital aspects: (a) workers in the digital indus-
try face precarity and exploitation and organise collectively in order to struggle
against exploitation; (b) class struggles in general-use digital means of communi-
cation for their organisation and for public communication.
 Chapter Three | The Ethics of the Digital Commons 71

The next section will discuss three examples of how Aristotelian–Hegelian–Marxian

ethics can be applied to questions of digital society.

3.6 Examples of the Application of Aristotelian–

Hegelian–Marxian Ethics to Digital Media
In order to outline how Aristotelian–Hegelian–Marxian ethics operates, we will
in this section focus on three examples, one each from the realms the digital econ-

Examples of the Application of Aristotelian–Hegelian–Marxian Ethics to Digital Media

omy, digital politics, and digital culture: digital labour, digital surveillance, and digital
authoritarianism.

The first example focuses on labour in digital capitalism, specifically the digital labour
that creates the profits of Google and Facebook. In 2018, Alphabet/Google accumulated
profits of US$30.7 billion, which meant an annual increase by 142.7%. In 2018, Face-
book’s profits amounted to US$22.1 billion, an increase by 38.8% in comparison to 2017.
In 2018, Alphabet/Google was the world’s 23rd largest transnational corporation and
Facebook the 77th largest.3 With more than a billion monthly active users of Google
search and YouTube4 and 2.4 billion monthly active Facebook users,5 the two companies
are the world’s largest advertising agencies.

According to Marx, capitalist corporations yield profit by selling commodities that contain
unpaid surplus value that workers produce. What is the commodity that Facebook and
Google sell? Access to the platforms is gratis, which means that the software that drives
Google and Facebook are not commodities. The two companies sell targeted ads with
the help of algorithmic auctions. Users’ online activities of clicking and viewing are the
value-generating labour that yields the profits of companies such as ad-financed digital
corporations such as Google, YouTube, and Facebook. Users create data, meta-data, com-
ments, searches, views, likes, information and communication flows, and social relations.
The use of Google and Facebook is a form of digital labour that creates a data commodity
and surplus value (Fuchs 2017b). What does digital alienation mean in the context of
Google and Facebook? It means that the two companies exploit their users. All exploited
labour has an unpaid part. In the case of wage labour, there is a paid and an unpaid part. In
the case of Facebook and Google user labour, all of the labour time is unpaid labour time.

As a consequence, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg is the world’s eight richest person,
and Google’s founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are the tenth and fourteenth richest
individuals.6 Google and Facebook defy the logic of the digital commons because the
two platforms are built on a class relationship between their owners on the one side and
72 Foundations

the users, who are digital workers, on the other hand. In digital capitalism, the borders
between labour time and leisure time, labour and play, production and consumption, the
private and the public sphere, the factory and society are blurred. How do digital plat-
forms that benefit all look like? The digital commons in the realm of the digital economy
means common ownership and control of digital platforms. Such platforms operate as
not-for-profit businesses. Examples that could be established but do not yet exist are
an alternative non-profit YouTube operated by a network of public service media and
an alternative Facebook that is collectively owned by its users. Public service Internet
platforms and platform co-operatives are two alternative models of the Internet (Fuchs
2018b; Scholz and Schneider 2017).

The Cambridge Analytica scandal forms the second example. It is a case from the realm
of digital politics. According to reports by the Guardian, Cambridge Analytica paid money
to the company Global Science Research (GSR) in order to carry out online personality
tests on Facebook. As a consequence, personal data of around 90 million users7 were
collected, which included friendship data and likes (Cadwalladr 2018; Cadwalladr and
Graham-Harrison 2018; Kang and Frenkel 2018; Rosenberg, Confessore and Cadwalladr
2018). The New York Times wrote that the Cambridge Analytica data breach “allowed
the company to exploit the private social media activity of a huge swath of the American
electorate, developing techniques that underpinned its work on President Trump’s cam-
paign in 2016” (Rosenberg, Confessore and Cadwalladr 2018). According to such news
articles, the collected data was utilised in order to target political ads in various election
campaigns, including Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign to become the US president and
campaigns propagating Britain’s exit from the EU in the 2016 Brexit-referendum.

The Cambridge Analytica scandal is a story of how digital surveillance threatens de-
mocracy. Capitalist social media gather as much data as possible about users in or-
der to sell targeted ads. They operate based on the principle “data means profit” and
therefore have erected the world’s largest surveillance machines that operate on the
Internet. Right-wing authoritarian groups and movements see digital surveillance as a
means for the political control of citizens and voters. Digital alienation means in this
context that not users, but digital corporations govern what user data is collected, how
long it is stored, and for what purposes it is used. In addition, political digital alienation
also means that right-wing authoritarian movements try to win elections and referenda
by making use of digital surveillance, targeted ads, and false information (“fake news”).
From an ethical and legal perspective, data that stands in the context of politics, such
as political and philosophical worldviews, are sensitive. Users, who sign up to a digital
 Chapter Three | The Ethics of the Digital Commons 73

platform, do not expect that their online behaviour is subject to digital surveillance that is
used for targeting them with right-wing propaganda and false information. How could an
alternative look like? In the realm of digital governance, the digital commons mean that
personal data collection and use is privacy-friendly and minimal and that users partici-
pate and have a say in the terms of use and privacy policies that govern data collection.
Furthermore, such a critical perspective requires to overcome the dominance of corpo-
rate self-regulation of data collection practices and data protection laws that protect the
interests of users, citizens, workers, consumers, and prosumers (Fuchs 2011).

Examples of the Application of Aristotelian–Hegelian–Marxian Ethics to Digital Media

Our third example stems from the realm of digital culture. It focuses on the spreading of
nationalist and xenophobic ideology via social media. Let us have a look at the following
tweet by Nigel Farage, who was the leader of the far-right UK Independence Party (UKIP)
from 2006 to 2009 and from 2010 to 2016 and has since March 2019 led the Brexit Party.

FIGURE 3.1 Tweet by Nigel Farage in the context of the Brexit-referendum.

74 Foundations

Farage made this post seven days before the Brexit-referendum on his Twitter account
that at the time when the posting was made had 321,000 followers.8 It shows a BBC
video interview, where Farage talks about a UKIP poster campaign that shows a mass
of refugees and the slogans “BREAKING POINT The EU has failed us all. We must break
free of the EU and take back control of our borders. Leave EU”.

Digital alienation means in this context that Farage tries to present immigrants and refu-
gees as the cause of social problems, which diverts attention from the class antagonism
between capital and labour. The Tories and New Labour have since Thatcher’s resigna-
tion as British Prime Minister in 1990 continued neoliberal, Thatcherite politics that has
resulted in large inequalities. Farage claims that Britain’s inequalities are caused not by
the internal antagonisms of capitalism, but by external factors, namely, immigrants, ref-
ugees, and the EU. He constructs scapegoats in order to divert attention from the power
structures that underlie social inequalities.

The UKIP poster depicts migrants and refugees as a mass and flood that reminds the
audience of “a water-course/current/flood that has to be ‘dammed’” (Reisigl and Wodak
2001, 59). To speak of migration and refugees as resulting in a “breaking point” combines
two ideological strategies, the topos of danger, the topos of large numbers, and the to-
pos of burdening (Reisigl and Wodak 2001, 77–79). The first topos claims that a certain
political action (such as membership of the EU) results have “specific dangerous, threat-
ening consequences” (Reisigl and Wodak 2001, 77), in this case, the break-up of British
society and its social system. The second topos constructs a danger by communicating
that a mass of migrants and refugees threatens Britain. The third topos communicates
that mass immigration burdens Britain.

Right-wing authoritarian ideology is not built on facts, but on negative emotions, fears,
unsubstantiated claims, and the stoking of prejudices and hatred. The falseness of UKIP’s
xenophobic ideology can relatively easily be deconstructed by looking at some facts:
26% of British doctors are foreign nationals; 9.7% of British doctors are EU citizens; 16%
of the nurses and health visitors working for the NHS are non-British citizens; 6.8% of
nurses and health visitors are EU nationals (Kentish 2018; UK Parliament 2008). Without
migrant workers, the British health system would reach a “breaking point”. In 2020, 28%
of British citizens will have reached or will be older than the state pension age; in 2040
the share will have increased to 37% (Pensions Policy Institute 2019). In 2016, 83% of
the first-time asylum seekers in the EU 28 countries were less than 35 years old and 51%
were aged between 18 and 34 (data source: Eurostat). Ageing societies need migrants
in order to prevent that their pension systems will reach “breaking points”. Many more
 Chapter Three | The Ethics of the Digital Commons 75

examples that show the vital importance of migrants for contemporary societies could
be added.

Right-wing demagogues make use of social media in order to spread authoritarian ide-
ology (Fuchs 2018a). In May 2019, Donald Trump had 60 million Twitter followers, 25
million Facebook followers, and almost 13 million Instagram followers; Marine Le Pen
had 2.24 million Twitter followers, 1.5 million Facebook followers, and 110k Instagram
followers; Nigel Farage had 1.3 million Twitter followers, 850k Facebook followers, and
almost 70k Instagram followers. Farage’s tweet shown in Figure 3.1 achieved more
than 1,000 likes, 790 re-tweets, and 217 comments. The far-right uses social media for
spreading authoritarian propaganda in the public sphere. The alternative to right-wing
authoritarian ideology online is humanism online, i.e. the use of social media for chal-
lenging and unmasking ideology and advancing understanding and the recognition of
humans and their importance for society.

The three examples show how digital alienation works. Critical digital praxis challenges
digital alienation. Section 3.5 identified critical digital theory, critical digital education,
and digital struggles as forms of critical digital praxis. Establishing alternatives to dom-
ination and exploitation in the age of digital capitalism requires a theory that unmasks
ideology and opens up visions for a society of the digital commons, educational efforts
that empower humans to critically understand and challenge digital alienation, and so-
cial struggles that establish alternative digital media and whose aim is a society that
benefits all. These three levels of praxis are intertwined.

3.7 Conclusion
A contemporary Aristotelian–Hegelian–Marxist digital media ethics is based on the in-
Conclusion

sight that fostering the digital commons is a way for advancing the common good and
a good life for all humans. Virtuous commoners challenge, criticise, struggle against,
and aim to abolish digital resources that advance exploitation (economic alienation),
authoritarianism (political alienation), and ideology (cultural alienation). Their goal is to
advance digital commons in a society of the commons so that economic, political, and
cultural power are distributed in ways that benefit all. Communication requires commu-
nity and the commons. A fully communicative society – a communication society that
corresponds to human essence – is a community of commoners, a commons-based soci-
ety, where the common good helps advancing individual goods and humans in pursuing
individual goods help advancing the common good. The ethics of digital commons are not
76 Foundations

independent of the ethics of the commons. In order to advance the digital commons, we
need to advance towards a society of the commons in general that forms the context for
the digital commons. Struggles for advancing the digital commons have to be struggles
for a commons-based society.

Brey’s (2010) approach of disclosive computer ethics aims at disclosing how “morally
opaque practices” (51) are present and hidden in and designed into computer technolo-
gies. It is based on the insight that technologies embed moral values and therefore have
politics. Value-sensitive design (VSD) is a complementary approach that aims at designing
computer technologies based on moral values such as privacy, freedom from bias, auton-
omy, human welfare, etc. (Friedman, Kahn and Borning 2008). VSD must take into account
that technologies operate in a societal context and that their ethical redesign therefore
needs to come along with political changes, i.e. the redesign of society. Otherwise, VSD
turns into a techno-centric moralism that disregards society’s contradictions. The point
of commons-based design is to create commons-based technologies in commons-based
social systems that are guided by the struggle for a commons-based society.

James H. Moor (1998/2000) asks what Aristotle would do if he were alive today and a
computing professional. Aristotle would not just be an active contributor and supporter
of Wikipedia and other digital commons projects, he would programme free software
and create digital commons that are used in collective political struggles against digital
capitalism and digital domination because he would view such structures as forms of
oppression that limit human potentials, damage the good life and human flourishing. If
Aristotle were alive today, he would be a digital commonist.

Notes
1 See Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm. http://woerterbuchnetz.de
(accessed on 9 September 2019): entry for “Gemeinwesen”.
2 https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/44-twitter-stats/ (accessed on 1 July 2018).
3 Data source: Forbes Global 2000 list for the year 2018. https://www.forbes.com/global2000/
list (accessed on 8 May 2019).
4 https://abc.xyz/investor/static/pdf/20180204_alphabet_10K.pdf?cache=11336e3 (accessed
on 8 May 2019).
5 https://newsroom.fb.com/company-info/ (accessed on 8 May 2019).
6 Forbes’ list of the world’s billionaires 2018. https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/ (ac-
cessed on 8 May 2019).
 Chapter Three | The Ethics of the Digital Commons 77

7 Journalists first estimated that the data breach affected around 50 million Facebook users.
A bit later, Facebook indicated that almost 90 million users’ personal data may have been
accessed and collected (Kang and Frenkel 2018).
8 Data source: https://web.archive.org/web/20160616163225/http://twitter.com/nigel_farage
(accessed on 8 May 2019).

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Part II

Applications
Chapter Four
Information Ethics in the Age of Digital Labour and
the Surveillance-Industrial Complex

4.1 Information Ethics: Capurro and Floridi

4.2 Information Ethics in the Age of Digital Labour and Edward Snowden
4.3 Conclusion

4.1 Information Ethics: Capurro and Floridi

For Rafael Capurro (2003, 22), information ethics poses questions about the Enlighten-
ment in the information age. It asks, “How can we ensure that the benefits of information
technology are not only distributed equitably, but that they can also be used by the peo-
ple to shape their own lives?” (41).

”Information ethics as a descriptive theory explores the power structures in-

fluencing attitude towards information and traditions in different cultures and
epochs. Information ethics as an emancipatory theory develops criticisms of
moral attitudes and traditions in the information field at an individual and col-
lective level”.
(198)

It explores and evaluates “the development of moral values in the information field, the
creation of new power structures in the information field, information myths, hidden con-
tradictions and intentionalities in information theories and practices, the development of
ethical conflicts in the information field” (198).

Solving these tasks would require that information ethics both thinks about institutional
design and cares about the self’s needs, such as friendship, respect, social relations,
silence, laughter, etc. (43). Capurro’s approach stresses the need for information ethics
to pay attention to information technology’s ambiguities in society (39–41), such as the
information gap, technological colonisation, cultural alienation, or oligarchic information
control (42). It also inquires into the tensions between freedom of communication/pri-
vacy, free online culture/copyright, the information rich and the information poor, infor-
mation markets/digital democracy, the global and the local online community, oneness

DOI: 10.4324/9781003279488-6
84 Applications

and unity/diversity and plurality online (144). It questions “structures of power and op-
pression” (ibid.).

Although he will not agree with my analysis because, based on his view of Heideg-
ger’s position, he tends to see Hegel and Marx as representatives of a deterministic
and totalitarian metaphysics that conceives of history as necessary progress (24–28),
Capurro advances a concept of information ethics that in its stress on ambiguities of
the information age is not unrelated to a Hegelian and Marxian dialectical logic that
stresses the analysis of antagonisms. Capurro’s work is based on a thorough knowledge
of, and engagement with, classical, modern and contemporary philosophy. Kant’s phi-
losophy has in this context been of particular relevance. Kant trusted that world peace
could be achieved with the help of liberal democracy, world trade, and the political public
(Capurro 2003, 78). Kant had the writing public in mind as the foundation for ethics and
the Enlightenment. For Habermas, the communicating public is the foundation of ethics
and politics.

Capurro stresses that the Internet, because of its own characteristics, cannot be a purely
rational and enlightened space, but is one confronted by “semi-darkness” (Capurro 2003,
83). The questions about freedom of the press and freedom of speech would in the In-
ternet age translate into the question about freedom of access (Capurro 2003, 79, 164,
198; 2006, 176). Capurro sees the United Nations as the best forum for discourses about
Internet ethics (Capurro 2003, 80). He thereby argues for an institutional discursive form
of Internet ethics. The moral values enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights are of central importance for information and Internet ethics (84, 199), specifi-
cally: human dignity, confidentiality, privacy, equality of opportunity, freedom of opinion
and expression, participation in cultural life, and the protection of moral and material in-
terests resulting from scientific, cultural, literary, and artistic production. Capurro stands
with the foregrounding of human rights in Internet ethics in a Kantian tradition. This is
expressed in his demand for a human right to freedom of communication on the Inter-
net (137). One certainly must see how such freedoms remain in asymmetric societies
class-structured. Economic and political power limits freedom so that universal ethical
and legal claims are practically undermined and remain unrealised.

Capurro (1981) first used the term information ethics in 1981 and also grounded it in his
habilitation thesis Hermeneutik der Fachinformation in 1986. This was ten years before
Luciano Floridi, who has also used the term information ethics (Floridi 2013), published
his first book, a book whose focus was not on ethics, but rather on epistemology. Sim-
ilar to the tension between Manuel Castells and Jan van Dijk, the latter who invented
 Chapter Four | Information Ethics 85

the (nonsensical) term the network society, there remains a tension between Capurro
and Floridi concerning the grounding of information ethics. Floridi (2013, 23) says that
it “seems that information ethics began to merge with computer ethics only in the
nineties”. Capurro’s (1986) treatment of information ethics in his habilitation definitely
merges aspects of information and computer ethics earlier on. Floridi does not seem ter-
ribly willing to engage with approaches alternative to his own definitions for the field in
any significant detail.1 At the same time, one must say that Capurro’s habilitation is also
not generally accessible because it was only published in German, which limits inter-
national academic discourse. Floridi (2013, 19) finds it “unfortunate” that there are dif-
ferent versions of computer, information, and Internet ethics and says that his approach
is “a unified approach”. Floridi’s unifying approach is not universalist enough because
it requires a quite particularistic approach that is implicitly grounded in actor-network
theory and post-humanist philosophy. It is, therefore, quite likely to attract criticism from
other philosophers such as Capurro, who had already used the term information ethics
before Floridi started doing so.

Floridi (2010) argues that information and communication technologies (ICTs) have
brought about a revolution that resulted in an “informational turn” (11) that has been so
profound that it has re-ontologised the world. The result would have been the emergence
of a digitised infosphere, in which IT entities blur all boundaries and digitise all existence

Information Ethics: Capurro and Floridi

so that “connected informational organisms (inforgs)” come into existence (12). A new
form of ethical constructionism would be needed that fights a “struggle against entropy”
(17) and negotiates “a fruitful, symbiotic relationship between technology and nature”
(18). Inforgs are, for Floridi, not just human. Therefore information ethics is for him

”an environmental approach, one which does not privilege the natural or un-
touched, but treats as authentic and genuine all forms of existence and behav-
iour, even those based on artificial, synthetic, hybrid, and engineered artefacts.
The task is to formulate an ethical framework that can treat the infosphere as
a new environment worth the moral attention and care of the human inforgs”.
(Floridi 2013, 18)

Humans would be confronted with information resources that they use for creating in-
formation products that are immersed into and affect an information environment as a
target (20). Information ethics therefore would have to reflect on moral issues concerning
information resources, products, and targets. Floridi adds that his initial model (Floridi
2013, 20–21) is too limited at a micro-level and needs to be complemented by macro-
ethics (25–28).
86 Applications

Floridi’s information ethics is non-, post-, and trans-humanist; it wants to be an ethics

that considers all beings as actors in an informational environment:

”From an IE perspective, the ethical discourse now comes to concern infor-

mation as such; that is, not just all persons, their cultivation, well-being, and
social interactions, and not just animals, plants, and their proper natural life
either, but also anything that may or will exist, like future generations; and
anything that was, but is no more, like our ancestors. Unlike other non-standard
ethics, IE is more impartial and universal – or one may say less ethically biased
– because it brings to ultimate completion the process of enlarging the concept
of what may count as a centre of moral claims, which now includes every in-
stance of information, no matter whether physically implemented or not”.
(Floridi 2013, 65)

Floridi’s approach is pan-informational: he sees information everywhere, as a substance

of the world. This becomes evident when he characterises the infosphere as “[m]aximally
[…] a concept that, given an informational ontology, can also be used as synonymous
with reality, or Being” (Floridi 2013, 6) or as “informational metaphysics” (307). Entropy is
a crucial concept in Floridi’s information ethics. Given that this concept tends to be used
in thermodynamics as a measure of disorder and chaos and in Shannon’s mathematical
theory of communication as a measure of the uncertainty of information, Floridi (2013,
65) admits that the use of this notion in ethics can easily be misleading. He defines met-
aphysical entropy as “Non-Being”, “absence or negation of any information” (65), “the
decrease or decay of information leading to the absence of form, pattern, differentiation,
or content in the infosphere” (67). Floridi formulates four information-ethical principles
that apply to all actants and the totality of the infosphere:

• “entropy ought not to be caused in the infosphere (null law)”,

• “entropy ought to be prevented in the infosphere”,
• “entropy ought to be removed from the infosphere”.
• “the flourishing of informational entities as well as the whole infosphere ought
to be promoted by preserving, cultivating, and enriching their well-being” (Floridi
2013, 71).

Capurro argues that given the existing information overload, ever more information is
not necessarily desirable because humans cannot handle it and it fragments their com-
munication. Floridi’s information-ethical entropy-reduction and -destruction programme
would therefore be mistaken. “But do we not have enough information in the information
 Chapter Four | Information Ethics 87

society? It seems that this imperative would make the situation even worse than it is!”
(Capurro 2003, 167). Capurro adds that Floridi’s norms contradict “deleting viruses, SPAM
and all kind of ‘non useful’ information” (Capurro 2008, 170). Floridi’s information ethics
is also problematic from a political perspective: assume we live in Nazi Germany in the
years 1933–1945, a society dominated by anti-Semitic, racist, fascist, and imperialist
ideology. This ideology has not ceased to exist after 1945. The principle of reducing
metaphysical entropy implies that the presence of any ideology is good and that the more
of it that is spread, the better. The real ethical imperative can however only be that Nazi
ideology should be destroyed, i.e. informational entropy be increased because it is the
worst imaginable system of domination and exploitation. Floridi understands the infos-
phere and information ethics as expansive so that all entities are subject to moral judg-
ments. In these terms, one could define the Nazi regime as entropic because it sets out
to annihilate Jews and political opponents – physically and thereby also their ideas. But
what is the right answer to the Nazis? The only morally justified answer can be Adorno’s
“new categorical imperative” that humans “arrange their thoughts and actions so that
Auschwitz will not repeat itself, so that nothing similar will happen” (Adorno 1973, 365).

In the situation of being inside Nazi Germany this then actually means that the ethi-
cal imperative must be to decrease homogeneity by increasing political entropy, i.e. by
conducting anti-fascist attacks that aim to kill Hitler and other Nazi leaders and taking

Information Ethics: Capurro and Floridi

measures that aim to annihilate Nazi ideology. Destroying Nazism with violent and po-
litical means increases political entropy in order to enable a society that is not based
on a project of extermination. Anti-fascist resistance is therefore in Floridi’s terms the
increase of political entropy. It aims at a society that does not systematically reduce
entropy. Floridi’s ethics cannot grasp these complexities. His ontology fails to provide
an ethical imperative that can challenge Nazism and fascism. If any information is good,
then also the ideologies of Nazism and fascism are good. Floridi argues that

”because we have no reason against the intrinsic value of Being in all its mani-
festations, we should expand an environmental approach to all entities, includ-
ing non-sentient beings. The injunction is to treat something as intrinsically
valuable and hence worthy of moral respect by default, until ‘proven guilty’”.
(Floridi 2013, 318)

The assumption that humans are or can be on one ontological level with non-human
entities was proven wrong by Auschwitz. A biologistic and anti-Semitic ideology that de-
scribes groups of people as subhumans and parasites enabled Auschwitz. There are sub-
stantive historical reasons why we should refuse philosophies such as post-humanism,
88 Applications

actor network theory, and Floridi’s philosophy that argue that humans and non-humans
are ontological equivalents.

For Floridi, companies, machines, or parties (Floridi 2013, 159) are also moral agents, which
in his view is an assumption that holds the advantage of being “non-anthropocentric”
(Floridi 2013, 58). Floridi positively acknowledges the non-anthropocentrism, or what
some call “anti-speciesism” of deep ecology (133), and argues that his information eth-
ics takes “this inclusive approach […] further” (133). Floridi does not mention that critics
of deep ecology have characterised versions of it as an eco-fascist movement (Bookchin
1987; Ditfurth 1996). Putting non-human beings onto the same moral level with humans,
as both deep ecology and Floridi do, decentres human morality and affords an undiffer-
entiated moral obligation to all living beings irrespective of origin. It is important to see
how such approaches to decentring human morality are linked to strategies of exploita-
tion in capitalism that reify human life: both treat human bodies and minds like things.
Nazi ideology is an extreme form of reification. Strategies of exploitation in capitalism
reify human beings: they treat their bodies and minds like things. The Nazis ideologically
justified killing Jews by comparing them to parasites, which put humans on the same
ethical level with animals. Anti-humanism is one of the first logical steps to fascism.
Practical and ethical anti-fascism argues for the specificity and difference of the human
being in relation to non-humans. This does not imply that humans should treat nature
recklessly, but that the ethics of nature and the ethics of society have different qualities
and principles.

Capurro (2008) argues, against Floridi’s position, for a human-centred information ethics
by stressing the difference between humans and things. Things-as-such would be mor-
ally worthless and humans “per se invaluable” (168). The value of things, such as their
exchange value measured in money or their moral value associated with emotional at-
tachment, arises out “of our relationship to others” (168). Only humans have the capacity
to conduct economic evaluation (evaluating things) and moral evaluation (“evaluating
ourselves”) (169) and to relate both to each other. “As far as we know, we are the only
living beings capable of mirroring the world as the common invaluable horizon that al-
lows us to evaluate things” (169). Capurro (2008, 171) concludes his critique of Floridi
by asking: “We have some 6 billion moral agents on earth. Why should we create mil-
lions (?) of artificial ones [to whom we assign ‘moral responsibility’]?”. Capurro’s human-
centred ethics is not anthropocentric or individualistic, but social-relational. It asks us to
“relativise our ‘egocentric’ ambitions” and poses the ethical question: “What is good for
our bodily being-in-the world with others in particular?” (Capurro 2006, 182).
 Chapter Four | Information Ethics 89

Floridi (2013, Chapter 14) conceives a business as an information process, in which the
business provides, as an actor, goods or services to customers. He stresses that “profit
is clearly not part of the essence of a business” (288) and that maximising profit is not
a company’s ethical imperative. Defining an economic organisation by orientation on
exchange, profit, or money is indeed a crude form of fetishism that naturalises capital
accumulation. A general definition of the economy is that it is a system, in which humans
produce use-values that satisfy human needs. An economic organisation is an entity
specialising in the production of specific use-values in order to satisfy human needs.
Raymond Williams (1983, 79) points out in his Keywords that since the 15th century the
English word “customer” has described “a buyer or purchaser”. It is inevitably bound up
with the modern forms of the market and capitalism. It is therefore inappropriate that
Floridi uses the term customer when defining an economic organisation as “the provider
of goods or services to customers” (Floridi 2013, 280). This formulation implies that mar-
kets, money, exchange value, and trade are inherent in all economies. The language
often used in higher education systems that have been strongly commodified reveals the
nature of this notion: students are often termed “customers” because they pay for (or
rather go into debt, except if they have rich parents) access to education. The existence
of online and offline gift economies, where people voluntarily give goods or services to
others without the expectation of reciprocity or obtaining something in return, shows
that trade is not an essential feature of the economy. A society of customers is a market

Information Ethics: Capurro and Floridi

and exchange society.

The three primary questions for information business ethics are for Floridi (2013, 284):
“(1) What is provided? (2) How is it provided? (3) What impact does it have?”. It is hard
to see how the first two questions relate to ethics, whereas the third one can be related
to ethics if one asks how the economy and economic organisations can have positive
impacts that benefit all. The imperative for Floridi’s information business ethics is fos-
tering “human flourishing and avoiding wastefulness”. He understands wastefulness as
“destruction, corruption, pollution, and depletion of (parts of) reality” (290). Ecological
problems are related to the mode of economic production, but are not the economy’s only
ethical dimension. It is difficult to frame exploitation – the main ethical social problem of
all class societies – in terms of waste and entropy. It is worth highlighting that Floridi’s
analysis does not problematise exploitation. His information ethics does not give impor-
tance to the phenomena of class and exploitation and is, therefore, particularly unsuited
for a critique of exploitation in the information age. For Marx (1867), exploitation means
that one class whose labour produces use-values is deprived and excluded from them
by another class that takes private ownership of these use-values, for the purposes of
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facilitating exchange and accumulation. The producing class is deprived of wealth and
the owning class increases its wealth. Exploitation is a question of distributive justice
and ownership justice, not one of waste, order, and disorder. The ethical social impera-
tive for a critical theory of the economy and society is therefore that one needs to “over-
throw all relations in which man is a debased, enslaved, forsaken, despicable being”
(Marx 1844, 182).

Humans cannot exist without, and only exist in and through, social relations. Society is
social-relational; it is based on human co-operation (Fuchs 2008). There can be no society
without relations, communication, and co-operation. But a society without competition,
war, markets, egoism, and exchange is perfectly possible (Fuchs 2008). Exploitation and
domination limit our capacities to fully organise society by giving particularistic advan-
tages to one group or individual over others. The ethical imperative is therefore to ques-
tion and undo exploitation and domination and to create conditions that benefit all, i.e. a
classless society without exploitation and domination.

Marxist political economy of information and communication is based on an inherently

ethical imperative: it “goes beyond technical issues of efficiency to engage with basic
moral questions of justice, equity and the public good” that concern information and
communication (Murdock and Golding 2005, 61). The “moral dimension remains strong
in Marxian political economy because it provides a powerful defence of democracy,
equality, and the public sphere in the face of dominant private interests” (Mosco 2009,
34). Critical political economy of information and communication therefore analyses “the
power relations, that mutually constitute the production, distribution, and consumption
of resources, including communication resources” (Mosco 2009, 2).

4.2 Information Ethics in the Age of Digital

Labour and Edward Snowden
I do not see myself as a representative of computer, information, digital media, or Inter-
net ethics, but am rather interested in a critical theory and critique of the political econ-
omy of information, communication, technology, the media, and the Internet. Such an
approach aims to theorise these phenomena’s political economy and their power struc-
tures, to empirically analyse human realities within such structures, to conduct ideology
critique of reifications of information, and to inform social struggles for alternatives.
Ethics is one of the dimensions of this approach, but not its exclusive one. It also re-
quires social theory and empirical social research. In this section, I want to discuss two
information-ethical problems: digital labour and Internet surveillance.
 Chapter Four | Information Ethics 91

4.2.1 Digital Labour

The production of information and information technology is embedded into an inter-

national division of information labour (Fuchs 2014, 2015). There are new technologies,
but capitalism, imperialism, class, and exploitation continue to form the heart of society
and international relations and shape the modes of information production, distribution,
and consumption that have become so important in the 21st century. Critical scholars
introduced the notion of the new international division of labour (NIDL) in the 1980s in
order to stress that developing countries had become cheap sources of manufacturing la-
bour and to highlight the rise of transnational corporations (TNCs) (Fröbel, Heinrichs and
Kreye 1981). “Digital labour” is not a term that only describes the production of digital
content. It is a category that rather encompasses the whole mode of digital production
that contains a network of agricultural, industrial, and informational forms of work that

Information Ethics in the Age of Digital Labour and Edward Snowden

enables the existence and usage of digital media. The international division of digital
labour (IDDL) is the NIDL in the context of the production and productive use of digital
media. The IDDL is a complex network that involves global interconnected processes
of exploitation, such as the exploitation of Congolese slave-miners who extract miner-
als that are used as the physical foundation for ICT components that are manufactured
by millions of highly exploited Fordist wage-workers in factories such as Foxconn, low-
paid software engineers in India, highly paid and highly stressed software engineers at
Google and other Western software and Internet corporations, or precarious freelancers
in the world’s global cities who are using digital technologies to create and disseminate
culture, poisoned eWaste workers who disassemble ICTs and thereby come in touch
with toxic materials, etc. (Fuchs 2014, 2015). Let us have a look at two forms of labour
involved in the IDDL: mining of ICT-related minerals in the Congo and hardware assem-
blage in China.

Capitalism as the dominant mode of economic activity has not brought older modes of
production to an end, but has rather subsumed them. Slavery and patriarchy continue to
exist and to be modes of organisation for the super-exploitation of labour. In 2014, 35.8
million people lived in modern forms of slavery (Global Slavery Index 2014). Modern
slavery includes slavery, debt bondage, forced marriage, sale and exploitation of chil-
dren, forced labour, and human trafficking (ibid.). Slaves in the Democratic Republic of
Congo mine a specific portion of the minerals (such as cobalt, coltan, and tin) needed
for creating electronics and computing equipment (Fuchs 2014, Chapter 6). In 2014, the
DRC was ranked 186 out of 187 countries in human development; 87.8% lived in extreme
poverty on less than US$1.25 per day, and 38.8% of the population aged 15 or older was
illiterate.2 A combination of civil war and neo-imperialist exploitation of labour and the
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country’s resources (that do not benefit local people, but primarily Western companies)
has created the paradox – typical for capitalism – that one of world’s richest countries in
natural resources is socially the world’s poorest country. In 2014, the political situation in
the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) saw continued hostilities involving government
forces, rebels, and fighters from Uganda and Rwanda. The country’s inhabitants experi-
enced war crimes, crimes against humanity, forced recruitment of children as soldiers,
mass rapes, and the killing, mutilation, and torture of civilians.3 According to estima-
tions, more than 760,000 people in the DRC were slaves in 2014.4 Following Nigeria, it is
the country with the second-largest absolute number of slaves.

Apple was, according to the Forbes 2000 list of the largest transnational companies,
the world’s 15th largest company in 2014.5 Its profits were US$37 billion in 2013 and
39.5 billion in 2014.6 In 2014, iPhones accounted for 56% of Apple’s net sales, iPads for
17%, Macs for 13%; iTunes, software, and services for 10%.7 According to calculations
published by Chan, Pun, and Selden (2013, 107), the Chinese labour involved in manufac-
turing an iPhone makes up only 1.8% of the iPhone’s price, while Apple’s profit margins
are 58.5% and Apple’s suppliers, such as the Taiwanese company Hon Hai Precision
that is also known as Foxconn, account for 14.3% of revenues. Applying this information
shows that the iPhone 6 Plus does not cost US$299 because of labour costs, but rather
because Apple on average earns US$175 profits, Foxconn US$43 profits, and the workers
assembling the phone in a Foxconn factory in total US$5. The high costs are a conse-
quence of a high-profit rate and a high rate of exploitation that are achieved by organis-
ing digital labour within an international division. According to the CNN Global 500 2012
list,8 Foxconn is the fifth largest corporate employer in the world. In 2011, Foxconn had
enlarged its Chinese workforce to a million, a majority being young migrant workers com-
ing from the countryside (SACOM 2011). Foxconn assembles the iPad, iMac, iPhone, the
Amazon Kindle, and various consoles (by Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft). When 17 Foxconn
workers attempted to commit suicide between January and August 2010 (most of them
succeeded), the topic of bad working conditions in the Chinese ICT assemblage industry
became widely known. This circumstance was followed up with a number of academic
works that showed that workers’ everyday reality at Foxconn includes low wages, work-
ing long hours, frequent work shift changes, regular working time of over ten hours per
day, a lack of breaks, monotonous work, physical harm caused by chemicals such as
benzene or solder paste, lack of protective gear and equipment, forced use of students
from vocational schools as interns (in agreement with the school boards) that conduct
regular assembly work that does not help their studies, prison-like accommodations with
6–22 workers per room, yellow unions that are managed by company officials and whom
 Chapter Four | Information Ethics 93

the workers do not trust, harsh management methods, a lack of breaks, prohibitions that
workers move, talk or stretch their bodies, the requirements that workers stand during
production, punishments, beatings and harassments by security guards and disgusting
food (Chan 2013; Chan, Pun and Selden 2013; Fuchs 2014, Chapter 7; Pun and Chan 2012;
Qiu 2012; Sandoval 2013).

Apple claims in its Supplier Responsibility 2014 Progress Report that it drove its “sup-
pliers to achieve an average of 95 percent compliance with our maximum 60-hour work
week”.9 The International Labour Organization’s Convention C030 – Hours of Work rec-
ommends that the working week should not last longer than 48 hours. That Apple defines
itself a standard of 60 hours for labour in its supply chain and prides itself for this fact
shows that imperialism’s international division of labour is not just exploitative, but also
racist in character: Apple assumes that for people in China, 60 hours is an appropriate

Information Ethics in the Age of Digital Labour and Edward Snowden

standard of working time. Apple’s argument is based on the Western assumption that
Asians have a strong work ethic and are therefore suited to work long hours for compar-
atively low wages. It undermines the universal assumptions enshrined in the ILO Con-
vention that there is a maximum of hours that human labour should not exceed because
otherwise life is reduced to labour time.

Apple says that for its 2014 report it audited the working conditions of more than 1
million workers. It is however a fact that these audits are not conducted independently
and that the results are also not reported independently. Apple doesn’t rely on inde-
pendent corporate watchdog organisations such as Students & Scholars against Cor-
porate Misbehaviour (SACOM), but rather conducts studies that one can only consider
to be biased. Workers who are studied by their own employers will certainly not report
what they think is wrong because they are afraid to lose their job. Apple’s report is
written in a style and language that conveys the impression that suppliers and local
agencies that behave immorally are the problem: “Our suppliers are required to uphold
the rigorous standards of Apple’s Supplier Code of Conduct, and every year we raise
the bar on what we expect. […] We audit all final assembly suppliers every year”. That
such behaviour is however driven by TNCs’ demand to produce cheaply and quickly
is never mentioned. Apple uses the ideological strategy that it emphasises positive
things about itself and negative things about suppliers in order to distort attention from
its own responsibility for the exploitation of Chinese workers. In 2014, SACOM pub-
lished a new report on working conditions at Apple’s supplier Pegatron in Jiangsu,10
where tens of millions of the iPhone 6 have been manufactured. Undercover scholars
conducted the research.
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”Workers told SACOM researchers that they sometimes have to work very long
hours till early morning, often 12 to 15 hours a day, and sometimes even up to
17 to 18 hours a day. In other words, the total amount of overtime hours can
be up to 170 to 200 hours a month, which, in turn, means that workers have to
work more than 360 hours a month”.
(SACOM 2014, 2)

Further issues at Pegatron included an unsafe and unhealthy working environment, il-
legal charges for health checks, insufficient health information, precarious dispatch la-
bour, exclusion from social insurance, difficulties to resign from the job, scolding, fines,
repressive management, and lack of trade unions. The report concludes:

”Pegatron and its buyer Apple have continuously engaged in poor labour prac-
tices and abuses of workers’ rights. Even though the Apple Inc. has established
its code of conducts since 2005, the working conditions in Apple’s supply chain
are still far from satisfactory. This report, along with the earlier investigative
reports released by SACOM throughout the years, have continuously demon-
strated that Apple and its suppliers in the Chinese mainland have never treated
their workers with dignity”.
(SACOM 2014, 21)

A 2014 BBC undercover report unveiled that workers assembling iPhones 6 in Pegatron
factories are so overworked that they fall asleep during work and in their breaks.11

An ideology is a claim that does not correspond to and tries to distort the representa-
tion of reality. SACOM’s studies show that reality in the factories of Apple’s Chinese
suppliers is different than reported in the company’s own reports. Apple tries to distort
presentations of labour in its supply chain by ideology in order to forestall critique of
capitalism. Why is the exploitation of digital labour, for which the Congo and the Fox-
conn cases are good examples, ethically problematic? Capitalistically produced digital
media are not accessible for all people in the world and not to the same extent and with
the same benefits. The benefits of the one, especially digital media companies that
derive large monetary benefits from selling hardware, software, content, access, audi-
ences, and users, stem from the misery of the labour of others. There is not just a power
asymmetry immanent in the IDDL, but a fundamental injustice that creates conditions
that deprive digital workers of their humanity, make them work under conditions not
adequate for any human being, and result in distributive injustice so that the benefits
from digital media are asymmetrically distributed so that the class of digital capitalists
 Chapter Four | Information Ethics 95

enriches itself by depriving others. Let us go back to two fundamental questions that
Capurro’s information ethics ask: “How can we ensure that the benefits of information
technology are not only distributed equitably, but that they can also be used by the
people to shape their own lives?” (Capurro 2003, 41) and “What is good for our bodily
being-in-the world with others in particular?” (Capurro 2006, 182). The problem of the
capitalist mode of organising digital media, i.e. the IDDL, is that it creates distributive
injustice. It only enables some people to use these media to shape their own lives. It
results in conditions of slavery and exploitation, in which humans cannot determine
their own lives and cannot own the products their life activities create. It constitutes a
being-in-the-world with others, where one class appropriates the labour and products
of digital workers. It thereby creates inverse interdependent welfare (Wright 1997) for
itself coupled with the deprivation of opportunities for others and their exclusion from
this appropriated welfare.

Information Ethics in the Age of Digital Labour and Edward Snowden

4.2.2 Internet Surveillance in the Age of Edward
Snowden
In June 2013, Edward Snowden revealed with the help of the Guardian the existence of
large-scale Internet and communications surveillance systems such as Prism, XKeyscore,
and Tempora. According to the documents he leaked, the National Security Agency (NSA),
through the Prism programme, obtained direct access to user data from seven online/
ICT companies: AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Paltalk, Skype, and Yahoo!12
The Powerpoint slides that Edward Snowden leaked refer to data collection “directly
from the servers of these U.S. Service Providers”13 (ibid.). Snowden also revealed the
existence of a surveillance system called XKeyScore that the NSA can use for reading
e-mails, tracking web browsing and users’ browsing histories, monitoring social media
activity, online searches, online chat, phone calls, and online contact networks, and fol-
low the screens of individual computers. According to the leaked documents, XKeyScore
can search both meta-data and content data.14

The documents that Snowden leaked also showed that the Government Communications
Headquarter (GCHQ), a British intelligence agency, monitored and collected communi-
cation phone and Internet data from fibre optic cables and shared such data with the
NSA.15 According to the leak, the GCHQ, for example, stores phone calls, e-mails, Face-
book postings, and the history of users’ website access for up to 30 days and analyses
these data.16 Further documents indicated that in co-ordination with the GCHQ, intelli-
gence services in Germany (Bundesnachrichtendienst BND), France (Direction Générale
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de la Sécurité Extérieure DGSE), Spain (Centro Nacional de Inteligencia, CNI), and Swe-
den (Försvarets radioanstalt FRA) developed similar capacities.17

Edward Snowden’s revelations about the existence of surveillance systems such as

Prism, XKeyScore, and Tempora have shed new light on the extension and intensity of
state institutions’ Internet and social media surveillance. The concept of the military-
industrial complex stresses the existence of collaborations between private corporations
and the state’s institutions of internal and external defence in the security realm. C.
Wright Mills argued in 1956 that there is a power elite that connects economic, political,
and military power:

”There is no longer, on the one hand, an economy, and, on the other hand, a
political order containing a military establishment unimportant to politics and
to money-making. There is a political economy linked, in a thousand ways, with
military institutions and decisions. […] there is an ever-increasing interlocking
of economic, military, and political structures”.
(Mills 1956, 7–8)

Edward Snowden has confirmed that the military-industrial complex contains a

surveillance-industrial complex (Hayes 2012), into which social media are entangled:
Facebook and Google each have more than 1 billion users and have likely amassed the
largest collection of personal data in the world. They and other private social media com-
panies are first and foremost advertising companies that appropriate and commodify data
on users’ interests, communications, locations, online behaviour, and social networks.
They make a profit out of data that users’ online activities generate. They continuously
monitor usage behaviour for this economic purpose. Since 9/11 there has been a massive
intensification and extension of surveillance that is based on the naïve technological-
deterministic surveillance ideology that monitoring technologies, big data analysis, and
predictive algorithms can prevent terrorism. The reality of the murder of a soldier that
took place in the South-East London district of Woolwich in May 2013 and the Charlie
Hebdo attacks in Paris in January 2015 shows that terrorists can use low-tech tools such
as machetes and conventional guns for targeted killings. High-tech surveillance will never
be able to stop terrorism because most terrorists are smart enough not to announce their
intentions on the Internet. It is precisely this surveillance ideology that has created intel-
ligence agencies’ interest in the big data held by social media corporations. Evidence has
shown that social media surveillance not just targets terrorists, but has also been directed
at protestors and civil society activists.18 State institutions and private corporations have
 Chapter Four | Information Ethics 97

long collaborated in intelligence, but the access to social media has taken the
surveillance-industrial complex to a new dimension: it is now possible to obtain detailed
access to a multitude of citizens’ activities in converging social roles conducted in con-
verging social spaces.

The profits made by social media corporations are not the only economic dimension
of the contemporary surveillance-industrial complex: the NSA has subcontracted and
outsourced surveillance tasks to approximately 2000 private security companies19 that
make profits by spying on citizens. Booz Allen Hamilton, the private security company
that Edward Snowden worked for, is just one of these firms that follow the strategy of
accumulation-by-surveillance. According to financial data,20 it had 24,500 employees in
2012 and its profits increased from US$25 million in 2010 to 84 million in 2011, 239 million
in 2012, 219 million in 2013, and 232 million in 2014. Surveillance is big business, both

Information Ethics in the Age of Digital Labour and Edward Snowden

for online companies and those conducting the online spying for intelligence agencies.

Users create data on the Internet that is either private, semi-public, or public. In the social
media surveillance-industrial complex, companies commodify and privatise user data as
private property, and secret services such as the NSA driven by a techno-determinist
ideology obtain access to the same data for trying to catch terrorists that may never use
these technologies for planning attacks. For organising surveillance, the state makes use
of private security companies that derive profits from organising the monitoring process.

User data is in the surveillance-industrial complex first externalised and made pub-
lic or semi-public on the Internet in order to enable users’ communication processes,
then privatised as private property by Internet platforms in order to accumulate capital,
and finally particularised by secret services that bring massive amounts of data under
their control, data that is made accessible and analysed worldwide with the help of
profit-making security companies. Why is the surveillance-industrial complex problem-
atic from an ethical point of view? Let us again have a look at the foundational questions
of Capurro’s information ethics. “How can we ensure that the benefits of information
technology are not only distributed equitably, but that they can also be used by the peo-
ple to shape their own lives?” (Capurro 2003, 41). “What is good for our bodily being-
in-the world with others in particular?” (Capurro 2006, 182). The surveillance-industrial
complex contains fundamental power asymmetries: the involved nation states argue that
they have to monitor the communication of all citizens worldwide beyond nation states,
but at the same time they want to hinder citizens monitoring state power, as the repres-
sion against WikiLeaks, Chelsea Manning, and Edward Snowden shows.
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The surveillance-industrial complex is also asymmetrical in terms of knowledge because

it wants to deceive the world by not making transparent the existence of global surveil-
lance systems. This is a strategy frequently found in surveillance that is hard to criticise
because it operates invisibly and covertly. Unknown powers can hardly be questioned.
The world should be grateful to Edward Snowden and award him and Julian Assange
the Nobel Peace Prize for having made many unknowns known so that global society
has become better enabled to criticise the existing power elites that operated behind
their backs. Surveillance, as the collection of information about people in order to enforce
power structures within a society, is not automatically a bad thing. If a government or civic
watchdog for example monitors financial flows and corporate power in order to uncover
and overcome corporate crime and corporate tax evasion in order to increase the public
tax revenues, then the use of the surveillance power strengthens the public good. At a
macro-level, this form of surveillance therefore benefits society at large. Within a society
that is based on asymmetric power structures, not all forms of surveillance are morally
problematic. The surveillance-industrial complex that Snowden exposed is morally prob-
lematic because it is based on the economic exploitation of digital labour, the deception
of the public, a power asymmetry that tries to repressively block watchdogs’ monitoring
of state and corporate power, and surveillance ideologies that create the false impression
that more surveillance results in more security and solves political and social problems.

The information technologies of the surveillance-industrial-complex disempower cit-

izens who cannot shape their own conditions of information and it creates multiple
power asymmetries that question the freedoms of information, thought, opinion, and
communication that liberal societies claim as their fundamental moral values. The sur-
veillance-industrial complex shows that a negative dialectic of the Enlightenment is at
play in contemporary society: it constantly undermines the very liberal values of the
Enlightenment, such as the freedoms of thought, speech, press, and assembly as well as
the security of the person and of their personal property. Prism shows how in supposedly
liberal democracies dangerous forms of political-economic power negate Enlightenment
values (Fuchs 2015, Chapter 8).

Surveillance ideologies – such as “if you got nothing to hide, then you got nothing to
fear”, “for security we need to compromise some privacy”, “surveillance will stop crime
and terrorism” – are mistaken for many reasons:

• Terrorists are not so silly as to communicate online what they are doing or intend
to do.
• There is no technological fix to political and socio-economic problems.
 Chapter Four | Information Ethics 99

• Law and order politics fosters fascist potentials in society.

• Categorical suspicion turns the presumption of innocence (“innocent until proven
guilty”) into a presumption of guilt (“terrorist until proven innocent”).
• People who join fundamentalist groups often experience precarity, unemployment,
lack of good educational opportunities, and racism. Welfare state politics, not
politics of control, are the best means for countering fundamentalism.

Times of crisis are times of ideological scapegoating in order to distract attention from
the causes of social problems. In 2008, a major crisis of capitalism started. It also trans-
lated into a crisis of many states and societies. The emergence of heavy ideological
scapegoating is therefore no surprise. Contemporary scapegoats in the UK context in-
clude Romanian and Bulgarian workers, the European Union, benefits recipients, the
unemployed, the poor, black youth, international students, immigrants, Muslims, Jews,
South Europeans, etc. Ideology deflects attention from social problems, inequality, pre-
carious labour, and unemployment. It deflects attention from the problems of capitalism.

Moral panics that call for more surveillance and scapegoat certain groups can amplify
and result in more terrorism and crime: if groups or individuals feel unfairly discriminated
(e.g. by racism, classism, sexism, scapegoating, etc.), they may react to this circumstance
with an intensification of hatred against those whom they perceive hate and discrimi-
nate against them. If certain groups or individuals are labelled as terrorists or criminals
or denied certain possibilities (such as entering a certain country, area, or building), there
is the risk that an intensification or creation of hate can set in, which can result in the
creation or intensification of the very phenomenon (crime, terror, etc.) that the algorithm,
surveillance technology, ideology, law and order policy, etc. wanted to prevent in the first
instance. The European protests and rejections of austerity, neoliberalism, and capital-
ism are, in my view, the only reasonable voices in the crisis discourse. Slavoj Žižek (2015)
Conclusion

pinpoints this circumstance by saying that a “renewed Left” is “the only way to defeat
fundamentalism, to sweep the ground under its feet”. Syriza’s electoral victory in Greece
is an important beacon of hope for the Left in Europe, a hope for a world beyond ideology,
right-wing populism, and neoliberalism.

4.3 Conclusion
A critical theory and critical political economy of information, communication, technol-
ogy, the media, and the Internet need to be a theoretical, empirical, ethical, and political
inquiry into the information society’s power structures It must also uncover, question, and
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help to overcome the inequality, power asymmetries, exploitation, ideologies, and forms
of domination that emerge in the context of information and information technologies.
The question therefore arises of how information ethics should best be conceived. I have
analysed in this contribution the relationship between two versions of information ethics,
the ones formulated by Rafael Capurro and Luciano Floridi. Floridi’s approach is highly
problematic because it decentres the human and thereby risks relativising the very foun-
dations of ethics. He does not engage with the critiques of deep ecology, post-humanism,
and actor-network theory that face the same problems as his version of information eth-
ics. Floridi (2013, 308) argues about a specific claim that once was made against him is:

”I still recall one conference in the nineties when a famous computer ethicist
compared me to a sort of Nazi, who wished to reduce humans to numbers,
pointing out that the Nazis used to tattoo six-digit identity tags onto the left
arms of the prisoners in their Lager. This is rhetorical nonsense”.

Although this is certainly an overdrawn claim, Floridi simply dismisses it and does not
ask himself if there may be certain problematic assumptions at the heart of his philos-
ophy that make some people feel politically uncomfortable and make them think that it
trivialises the horrors of Nazism.

Floridi overlooks that biologism, as an ideology that equates humans and non-humans by
arguing that certain humans are like parasites or other biological organisms, or by project-
ing biological mechanisms into society, is one of the important logical foundations of Na-
zism. It makes it logically possible to treat humans like things and to ideologically argue
that they do not deserve to exist. Floridi certainly can reject this line of argument because
he argues that all existence is informational and is valuable and should not be destroyed.
This however also implies that not just computer viruses, but also SARS-CoV-2, the hu-
man immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and other viral illnesses that can threaten human lives
should be preserved, which means the death of humans. Such assumptions in some ver-
sions of deep ecology threaten human lives and have resulted in a form of eco-fascism.
Floridi does not engage with such approaches and their problems. The point is that an
ontological equalisation of humans and non-humans has historically been the foundation
of repression and that ontological equalisations as right-wing ideology continues to exist
for example in the ideology of some animal rights activists and the deep ecology move-
ment. The social-ecological philosopher Murray Bookchin (1987) warned in this context

”Deep ecology contains no history of the emergence of society out of nature […]
‘Biocentric democracy,’ I assume, should call for nothing less than a hands-off
 Chapter Four | Information Ethics 101

policy on the AIDS virus and perhaps equally lethal pathogens that appear in
the human species. […] Deep ecology, with its Malthusian thrust, its various
centricities, its mystifying Eco-la-la, and its disorienting eclecticism degrades
this enterprise into a crude biologism that deflects us from the social problems
that underpin the ecological ones and the project of social reconstruction that
alone can spare the biosphere from virtual destruction”.

Floridi’s information ethics faces the danger of reproducing some of the problems of deep
ecology.

Rafael Capurro has, in contrast to Floridi, grounded a form of information ethics that
foregrounds human social relations as constitutive for the ethical understanding of infor-
mation technologies and society. One can well disagree with Capurro on how to assess
Heidegger, Kant, Vattimo, Marx, Hegel, etc., but in terms of the bottom line it is clear
that his ethics cares about the deconstruction of asymmetric power structures and ideol-
ogies, which is a good foundation for constructive agreement and disagreement with po-
litical economy approaches. Floridi’s pan-informational ethics foregrounds the reduction
of entropy and the centrality of human and non-human actors that are conceived as hav-
ing in common the simple quality that they are merely informational. It also stresses the
struggle against all beings’ entropy. It is hard to find this approach fruitful if one wants
to develop a critical theory and critical political economy of information, the information
society, and information technology.

Information ethics is an important philosophical undertaking that we require for a better

understanding of the 21st century. We require, however, not just a general understand-
ing, but specifically a critical understanding of the information society. Rafael Capurro’s
works are an important and indispensable contribution towards this philosophical task.
Notes

Notes
1 There is for example only one brief clause mentioning Capurro in Floridi’s (2013, 308) book The
Ethics of Information, whereas Capurro (2006, 2008) has published two major articles dedi-
cated entirely to the discussion of Floridi’s work.
2 Data source: Human Development Indicators, http://hdr.undp.org/ (accessed on 26 October
2014).
3 Source: Human Rights Watch 2014 Report: Democratic Republic of Congo: http://www.hrw.
org/world-report/2014/country-chapters/democratic-republic-congo (accessed on 22 Decem-
ber 2014).
102 Applications

4 Ibid.
5 http://www.forbes.com/global2000/list (accessed on 22 December 2014).
6 Apple SEC filings, form 10-K, 2014.
7 Ibid.
8 http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2012/full_list/ (accessed on 29 October
2013).
9 https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/pdf/Apple_SR_2014_Progress_Report.pdf
(accessed on 22 December 2014).
10 See also the 2013 investigation by China Labor Watch: http://www.chinalaborwatch.org/re-
port/68. A comparable case is the iPhone 6 assemblage at Jabi in Wuxi: http://www.chinal-
aborwatch.org/report/103
11 Apple ‘failing to protect Chinese factory workers’. http://www.bbc.com/news/business-
30532463 BBC Online, December 18, 2014.
12 NSA Prism program taps in to user data of Apple, Google and others. The Guardian Online.
June 7, 2013. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data
13 Ibid.
14 XKeyscore: NSA tool collects “nearly everything a user does on the internet’. The Guardian
Online. July 31, 2013. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-
program-online-data
15 GCHQ taps fibre-optic cables for secret access to world’s communications. The Guardian
Online. June 21, 2013. http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-secret-
world-communications-nsa?guni=Article:in%20body%20link
16 Ibid.
17 GCHQ and European spy agencies worked together on mass surveillance. The Guardian
Online. November 1, 2013. http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/01/gchq-europe-
spy-agencies-mass-surveillance-snowden
18 Spying on Occupy activists. The Progressive Online. June 2013. http://progressive.org/
spying-on-ccupy-activists
19 A hidden world, growing beyond control. Washington Post Online. http://projects.washington-
post.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/
20 SEC Filings, http://investors.boozallen.com/sec.cfm).

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really-full-passionate-intensity
Chapter Five
“Dear Mr. Neo-Nazi, can you please give me your
informed consent so that I can quote your fascist
tweet?”: Questions of Social Media Research Ethics
in Online Ideology Critique

5.1 Introduction
5.2 Established Research Ethics Guidelines
5.3 Towards Critical-Realist Internet Research Ethics
5.4 Example Cases of Critical-Realist Internet Research Ethics
5.5 Conclusion

5.1 Introduction
Consider the following tweets posted on 9 November 2016, one day after Donald Trump
won the US presidential election:

“President Trump wants to know if you have any last words Mr Soros?” #Re-
vengeWillBeSweet #WhiteGenocide #RapeJIhad #RWDS #Trump #Trump16 [+
image of a Nazi shooting a Jewish person]”

“#Trump 卐 The end of #WhiteGenocide in America. #Nazi #SiegHeil”

”We won! This is a BIG win for the white race as a whole. And we won’t stop.
We will take back what is ours! #MAGA #WhitePride #14words”

”Anti-Whites are shitting themselves right now. They do not like whites taking
back their country!! #WhitePride #Trump2016”

”Gonna go kill some niggers, mexicans, and muslims tommorow trump will
just pardon me lol cant wait wooo #MAGA”

The examples indicate the prevalence of fascist, racist, and nationalist ideology in public
discussions of Trump’s victory. Given that the world economic crisis of 2008 has turned
into a political crisis that has brought about the intensification of nationalism, xeno-
phobia, racism, and fascism, it is an important task for critical research to study how
and why these phenomena exist. Social media is a kind of mirror of what is happening

DOI: 10.4324/9781003279488-7
106 Applications

in society. Studying social media content is therefore a good way of studying society.
But whenever we conduct social research, ethical issues regarding anonymity, informed
consent, and privacy may arise.

Research ethics is a key aspect of social science. Not only is there a general etiquette of
publishing, but also ethical questions that arise in the collection of data. The emergence
of what some call “social media” and “big data” has complicated research ethics. In
this contribution, I reflect on research ethics in respect to the study of online ideologies,
especially in the context of “negative” social movements and forms of online expression
that are fascist, racist, nationalist, anti-socialist, and anti-Semitic in character.

Doing online research complicates research ethics. So when for example conducting
a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of white supremacist content, the question arises
whether you have to obtain informed consent for including and analysing a fascist tweet.
Writing an e-mail asking, “Dear Mr. Neo-Nazi, can you please give me your informed
consent so that I can quote your fascist tweet?”, may not just result in rejection, it could
also draw the attention of fascists towards you as a critical researcher and put you in
danger.

This chapter deals with the question of how to deal with research ethics in qualitative
online research. First, the chapter discusses the limits of established research ethics
guidelines (Section 5.2). Second, it outlines the foundations of critical-realist Internet
research ethics (Section 5.3). Third, it provides some examples of how to use such a
framework (Section 5.4). Finally, some conclusions are drawn (Section 5.5).

5.2 Established Research Ethics Guidelines

An obvious approach of how to deal with questions of research ethics in qualitative
online research is to look at established research ethics guidelines provided by academic
associations.

The Association of Internet Researchers’ ethical recommendations (2012) contain a list

of questions that one can ask when conducting online research and points out ethical
problems that may arise:

”People may operate in public spaces but maintain strong perceptions or expec-
tations of privacy. Or, they may acknowledge that the substance of their com-
munication is public, but that the specific context in which it appears implies
 Chapter Five | Social Media Research Ethics in Online Ideology Critique 107

restrictions on how that information is – or ought to be – used by other parties.

Data aggregators or search tools make information accessible to a wider pub-
lic than what might have been originally intended. […] Social, academic, or
regulatory delineations of public and private as a clearly recognizable binary
no longer holds in everyday practice. […] Yet there is considerable evidence
that even ‘anonymised’ datasets that contain enough personal information can
result in individuals being identifiable. Scholars and technologists continue to
wrestle with how to adequately protect individuals when analysing such data-
sets […] These are important considerations because they link to the funda-
mental ethical principle of minimizing harm”.
(Association of Internet Researchers 2012, 6–7)

We can find two important points here:

a) In the online world, the boundary between the private and the public realm is
messy. The question therefore arises if all Twitter content can be considered pub-
lic content, as in a newspaper, or if there may also be content that is more private
and intended for a limited audience.
b) Anonymisation becomes difficult online because data is stored on servers and
is searchable. In the case of Twitter, search engines such as backtweets (http://

Established Research Ethics Guidelines

backtweets.com/) allow us to search for archived tweets. The anonymity of cited
content therefore becomes difficult to ascertain.

But does this mean that any qualitative analysis and quoting from Twitter violates re-
search ethics? Or does one have to attain informed consent for each tweet one uses
from others? The AoIR-document points out the complexity of online research ethics, but
it does not provide any guidelines on how to actually deal with such questions.

The British Sociological Association (BSA 2002) recommends in its Statement of Ethical
Practice that researchers studying the Internet should keep themselves updated on rel-
evant issues:

”Members should take special care when carrying out research via the Internet.
Ethical standards for internet research are not well developed as yet. Eliciting
informed consent, negotiating access agreements, assessing the boundaries
between the public and the private, and ensuring the security of data transmis-
sions are all problematic in Internet research. Members who carry out research
online should ensure that they are familiar with ongoing debates on the ethics
108 Applications

of Internet research, and might wish to consider erring on the side of caution in
making judgements affecting the well-being of online research participants”.
(BSA 2002, §41)

This short paragraph certainly does not help an Internet researcher in any particular
situation in which s/he deals with ethical issues. The International Sociological Associ-
ation’s 2001 Code of Ethics argues in respect to informed consent:

”The security, anonymity and privacy of research subjects and informants

should be respected rigourously, in both quantitative and qualitative research.
The sources of personal information obtained by researchers should be kept
confidential, unless the informants have asked or agreed to be cited. Should
informants be easily identifiable, researchers should remind them explicitly of
the consequences that may follow from the publication of the research data
and outcomes. […] The consent of research subjects and informants should be
obtained in advance”.

The ISA code does not mention the specificities of online research. Anonymity often does
not exist online. Obtaining informed content when working with a large online dataset is
for the most part practically impossible due to time restrictions. In the online world, the
private and the public spheres do not uphold clear boundaries.

The American Sociological Association’s (ASA’s) 1999 Code of Ethics says the following
about anonymity and informed consent:

11.06 Anonymity of Sources

a) Sociologists do not disclose in their writings, lectures, or other public media

confidential, personally identifiable information concerning their research
participants, students, individual or organisational clients, or other recip-
ients of their service which is obtained during the course of their work,
unless consent from individuals or their legal representatives has been
obtained.
b) When confidential information is used in scientific and professional presenta-
tions, sociologists disguise the identity of research participants, students, indi-
vidual or organisational clients, or other recipients of their service.

[…]
 Chapter Five | Social Media Research Ethics in Online Ideology Critique 109

12.01 Scope of Informed Consent

”(a) Sociologists conducting research obtain consent from research partici-

pants or their legally authorized representatives (1) when data are collected
from research participants through any form of communication, interaction, or
intervention; or (2) when behavior of research participants occurs in a private
context where an individual can reasonably expect that no observation or re-
porting is taking place. […] (c) Sociologists may conduct research in public
places or use publicly-available information about individuals (e.g., naturalistic
observations in public places, analysis of public records, or archival research)
without obtaining consent”.
(ASA 1999)

The ASA code does not specifically mention online research. It does not recognise that
in online research it is not straightforward to keep cited content anonymous. However,
it does make a good point in remarking that there is a difference in obtaining informed
consent in respect to the question of whether communication, interaction, and behaviour
take place in a private context or in a public place. In relation to social media, this means

Towards Critical-Realist Internet Research Ethics

that one needs to ask which communications are private and which ones are public.

Overall, the discussion shows that established ethics guidelines do not direct much at-
tention to the particularities of online research ethics.

5.3 Towards Critical-Realist Internet

Research Ethics
There are two extremes in Internet research ethics. The one extreme argues that one
must obtain informed consent for every piece of data one gathers online. The other ar-
gues that what is online is out there and can and should be analysed without regard to
ethical considerations.

Michael Zimmer (2010) discusses the question of whether or not it is ethical to harvest
Twitter data without informed consent:

”Yes, setting one’s Twitter stream to public does mean that anyone can search
for you, follow you, and view your activity. However, there is a reasonable
expectation that one’s tweet stream will be “practically obscure” within the
110 Applications

thousands (if not millions) of tweets similarly publicly viewable. Yes, the sub-
ject has consented to making her tweets visible to those who take the time and
energy to seek her out, those who have a genuine interest to connect and view
her activity through this social network”.

”But she did not automatically consent, I argue, to having her tweet stream
systematically followed, harvested, archived, and mined by researchers (no
matter the positive intent of such research). That is not what is expected when
making a Twitter account public, and it is my opinion that researchers should
seek consent prior to capturing and using this data”.

Some of the people commenting on this blog post heavily disagreed with Zimmer’s
perspective:

”It’s like a blog. (Originally, Twitter was called ‘the microblogging service’.) You
can quote and attribute from blogs, but you can’t pretend it’s your work […] As
for someone deciding to analyse me from my tweets and publish the results –
well, not much i can do about the analysis”

”The web is not an environment that supports a reasonable expectation of pri-

vacy in public. Unmistakeably not. Nor does twitter as a subculture gesture
toward such an expectation”.

”Once tweeted, a birdsong is gone forever. No deleting or taking back what’s

been broadcast to the world. If someone seeks privacy, they should seek an-
other method of communication”.

”TWITTER IS PUBLIC – NO QUESTION ABOUT IT. Tweets (from the public

stream) are like to be treated like blogs (microblogs) and webpages – PUBLIC.
No consent required for analyzing them, unless of course they are DMs (which
are like emails – confidential) or sent to your “followers only”. […] You tweet
because you want to get your message out, and not only to our friends (ever
heard of retweets?)”.

”This is VERY different from discussion boards, chat rooms, or even Facebook.
[…] I simply dispute that ANYBODY who tweets (regardless of whether he
has read the privacy policy or not) does so under the expectation of privacy or
having a “limited” audience (if they want to do that, there is a privacy setting
for that). Anybody who tweets sees on a daily basis that others are retweeting
 Chapter Five | Social Media Research Ethics in Online Ideology Critique 111

their tweets or quoting from their tweets also appear in search engines and on
the twitter homepage itself”.

The discussion shows that there is a conflict between research ethics fundamentalists
and big data positivist. Research ethics fundamentalists tend to say:

”You have to attain informed consent for every piece of social media data you
gather because we cannot assume automatic consent. Users tend not to read
a platform’s privacy policies – they may assume that some of their data is pri-
vate, and they may not agree to their data being used in research. Even if you
anonymise the users you quote, many might still be identified in the networked
online environment”.

There are limits of informed consent. Informed consent can censor critical research and
cause harm for a researcher conducting critical online research if s/he contacts a user,
asking: “Dear Mr. Misogynist/Nazi/Right-Wing Extremist etc.! I am a social researcher
gathering data from Twitter. Can you please give me your informed consent for quoting
your violent threat against X?”. The researcher may be next in line for being harassed or

Towards Critical-Realist Internet Research Ethics

threatened.

A solution would be to only use aggregated data. But such an approach is biased towards
quantitative methods and computational social science. Critical discourse analysis and
critical interpretative research thereby become impossible.

Big data positivists tend to say: “Most social media data is public data. It is like data in a
newspaper. I can therefore gather big data without limits. Those talking about privacy want
to limit the progress of social science”. This position disregards any engagement with eth-
ics and is biased towards quantification (meaning big data positivism, digital positivism).
Zimmer and Proferes (2014) conducted a meta-study of 382 works focusing on Twitter
research. Only 4% of the works discussed any ethical aspects. While privacy fetishism is
one extreme, another its opposite pole is the complete ignorance of research ethics.

Privacy fetishism holds the danger of censoring and disabling critical research. It can en-
danger the critical researcher and result in violence directed against him/her by fascists,
racists, nationalists, etc. Downright ignoring research ethics is often associated with a
positivist approach to online research that focuses on the digital Lasswell formula: Who
says what online, who do they say it to, how many likes, followers, re-tweets, comments,
and friends do they have? The problem of this formula is that it leaves out questions such
as the following: how are meanings expressed? What power structures condition the
112 Applications

communication? What are the communicator’s motivations, interests, and experiences?

What contradictions does the communication involve?

We need critical-realist digital media research guidelines that go beyond research ethics
fundamentalism and big data positivism. The approach needs to be realist in the sense
that it avoids the two extremes of fundamentalism and positivism. The approach has to
both engage with research ethics and enable the conduction of actual online research.
The approach is critical in that it takes care to formulate guidelines in such a way as
to enable and foster critical online research. By critical online research, we can under-
stand any study that investigates digital media in the context of power structures (Fuchs
2017b).

In February 2016, I was part of a group of 16 scholars that met for a workshop funded
by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) at the University of Aberdeen. The
task was that we create social media research ethics guidelines. The group consisted
of a diverse range of scholars taking different perspectives on research ethics. Overall,
the group managed to formulate some guidelines for a critical-realist research ethics
framework (Townsend et al. 2016).

As one of the starting points for a realist perspective, we found a recommendation in

the British Psychological Society’s 2009 Code of Ethics and Conduct helpful: “Unless
informed consent has been obtained, restrict research based upon observations of public
behaviour to those situations in which persons being studied would reasonably expect to
be observed by strangers” (BPS 2009, 13). The British Psychological Society’s 2013 Ethics
Guidelines for Internet-Mediated Research applies this principle to online research:

”Where it is reasonable to argue that there is likely no perception and/or ex-

pectation of privacy (or where scientific/social value and/or research validity
considerations are deemed to justify undisclosed observation), use of research
data without gaining valid consent may be justifiable”.
(BPS 2013, 7)

Based on this insight, we formulated the following general guideline in the framework
Social Media Research: A Guide to Ethics:

”The question as to whether to consider social media data as private or pub-

lic comes down, to some extent, to whether or not the social media user can
reasonably expect to be observed by strangers (British Psychological Society,
2013; Fuchs, forthcoming). Things to consider here are: is the data you wish to
 Chapter Five | Social Media Research Ethics in Online Ideology Critique 113

access on an open forum or platform (such as on Twitter), or is it located within

a closed or private group (e.g. within Facebook) or a closed discussion forum?
Is the group or forum password protected? Would platform users expect other
visitors to have similar interests or issues to themselves? Does the group have
a gatekeeper (or admin) that you could turn to for approval and advice? How
have users set up their security settings? Data accessed from open and public
online locations such as Twitter present less ethical issues than data which
are found in closed or private online spaces. Similarly, data posted by public
figures such as politicians, musicians and sportspeople on their public social
media pages is less likely to be problematic because this data is intended to
reach as wide an audience as possible. If the data you wish to access is held
within a group for which you would need to gain membership approval, or if
the group is password protected, there are more ethical issues to take into
consideration”.
(Townsend et al. 2016, 10)

Practically speaking, this means that analysing private messages and conversations in a

Towards Critical-Realist Internet Research Ethics

closed group of recipients on Twitter requires informed consent. Most tweets, especially
those using hashtags, aim at public visibility and therefore do not require informed con-
sent in online research. How should one deal with Twitter users’ identifiability? As good
practice, one should not mention usernames, except for well-known public persons and
institutions. One can instead use a pseudonym. It may still be possible to identify who
posted a particular text that the researcher uses, but as this requires additional effort on
the part of the person who wants to find out, the researcher does not directly identify
the user.

Here is a specific example of how to apply these guidelines:

”Context: A researcher conducts a critical discourse analysis of a dataset of

tweets using the hashtags #DonaldTrump; #TrumpTrain; #VoteTrump2016; #Al-
waysTrump; #MakeAmericaGreatAgain or #Trum2016. These are analysed in
order to find out how Trump supporters argue for their candidate on Twitter.
Concerns: Can we consider this data public? Are there any issues of sensitivity
or risk of harm? Do we need to seek informed consent before quoting these
tweets directly?”

”Solution: Trump supporters use these hashtags in order to reach a broad pub-
lic and convince other people to vote for Trump. It is therefore reasonable to
114 Applications

assume that such tweets have public character: the authors expect and want
to be observed by strangers in order to make a political point that they want
others to read. The researcher can therefore directly quote such tweets without
having to obtain informed consent. It is, however, good practice to delete the
user IDs of everyday users, who are not themselves public figures”.
(Townsend et al. 2016, 15)

5.4 Example Cases of Critical-Realist Internet

Research Ethics
I want to outline an example of how I have dealt with research ethics in qualitative online
studies that used critical discourse analysis. I will here deliberately abstract from the
actual research results and merely focus on the ethical questions.

The study Fascism 2.0: Twitter Users’ Social Media Memories of Hitler on his 127th
Birthday (Fuchs 2017a) analysed how Twitter users communicated about Hitler on his
127th birthday. It utilised empirical ideology critique as its method. I used the tool Tex-
ifter to obtain all tweets from 20 April 2016 that mentioned any of the following hash-
tags: #hitler OR #adolfhitler OR #hitlerday OR #1488 OR #AdolfHitlerDay OR #HeilHitler
OR #SiegHeil OR #HappyBirthdayAdolf OR #HitlerNation OR #HappyBirthdayHitler OR
#HitlersBirthday OR #MakeGermanyGreatAgain OR #WeMissYouHitler. The search re-
sulted in 4,193 tweets that were automatically imported into Discovertext, from where
I exported them along with meta-data into a csv file. Using such hashtags on Hitler’s
birthday clearly aims at creating public attention. We can therefore say that the use of
these hashtags in the context of Hitler’s birthday constitutes a public space. Informed
consent for analysing such postings is therefore not needed.

The study Red Scare 2.0: User-Generated Ideology in the Age of Jeremy Corbyn and
Social Media (Fuchs 2016b) asked: how has Jeremy Corbyn during the Labour Leadership
Election been framed in an ideological manner in discourses on Twitter and how have
such ideological discourses been challenged? The study stands in the context of the neg-
ative framing of Corbyn during and following his run for the Labour Party leadership. With
the help of Discovertext, I gathered 32,298 tweets based on the following search query:
Corbyn AND anti-Semite OR anti-Semitic OR chaos OR clown OR commy OR communism
OR communist OR loony OR Marx OR Marxist OR pinko OR red OR reds OR socialism OR
socialist OR Stalin OR Stalinist OR terrorist OR violent OR violence. The data gathering
was active for 23 days, from 22 August 2015 (23:25 BST) to 13 September 2015 (12:35
 Chapter Five | Social Media Research Ethics in Online Ideology Critique 115

TABLE 5.1 The most active and most mentioned users in the Corbyn dataset

Users with largest no. of Frequency Most mentioned users Frequency

tweets

Redscarebot 322 anonymous2 (UKIP supporter) 723

Mywoodthorpe 241 ggreenwald 689
Ncolewilliams 237 independent 552
Houseoftwits 51 davidschneider 324
houseoftwitscon 43 rupertmurdoch 323
Gcinews 38 jeremycorbyn 311
anotao_news, anotao_nouvelle 37 telegraph 284
sunnyherring1 34 RT_com 221
anonymous1 (Corbyn-supporter) 32 edsbrown 215
Friedrichhayek 32 uklabour 212

BST). Corbyn was announced as the winner on 12 September 2015 (11:45 BST). It is

Example Cases of Critical-Realist Internet Research Ethics

reasonable to assume that users who tweet about Jeremy Corbyn during times when he
is subject to increased public attention are directing their communication at the public.
Also in this case, informed consent is therefore not required.

The study entailed a focus on the ten most active and most mentioned pro- and anti-
Corbyn users (see Table 5.1). In the analysis, I anonymised individual users who are not
well-known public figures and did not anonymise public figures (such as Glenn Green-
wald, Rupert Murdoch, and David Schneider) and institutions (such as the Daily Tele-
graph, Russia Today, and The Independent).

The most active users were Twitter bots (redscarebot, mywoodthorpe). A bot based on
an algorithm conducts certain online behaviour. Given that technologies do not maintain
ethics, they likewise do not have expectations about privacy. They therefore do not need
to be anonymised.

The study Racism, Nationalism and Right-Wing Extremism Online: The Austrian Presi-
dential Election 2016 on Facebook (Fuchs 2016a) stands in the context of the Austrian
presidential election 2016 that saw a run-off between the Green party candidate Alexan-
der Van der Bellen and the Freedom Party of Austria’s (FPÖ) far-right candidate Norbert
Hofer. The paper asks: how did voters of Hofer express their support on Facebook? The
FPÖ is the prototype of a European far-right party that bases its ideology on nationalism
and xenophobia. Under the leadership of Jörg Haider (1986–2000), it was expanding and
growing in popularity. Its current leader is Heinz Christian Strache.
116 Applications

I used Netvizz in order to collect comments on postings related to Hofer’s presidential

candidacy. I accessed Norbert Hofer and Heinz Christian Strache’s Facebook pages on 30
May 2016, and used Netvizz for extracting comments to postings made between 25 and
30 May. Given that the collected comments were posted in the days after the presiden-
tial election’s second round, it is likely that the dataset contains data that refers to the
political differences between Hofer and Van der Bellen. I selected postings by Hofer and
Strache that were particularly polarising. This selection resulted in a total of 15 postings:
10 by Strache, 5 by Hofer. There were a total of 6,755 comments posted as responses to
these 15 Facebook postings. So the analysed dataset consisted of 6,755 items.

The Facebook pages of Norbert Hofer and Heinz Christian Strache are public pages. All post-
ings and comments on these pages are visible to everyone visiting them, not just to those
who “like” them. One does not have to have a Facebook profile to access the two pages,
as they can also be viewed without logging into Facebook. All postings and comments are
thus visible in public. Furthermore, politicians are public figures. Citizens expect them to be
present in the public. This includes that they post in public on social media and offer pos-
sibilities for public communication on their profiles. Given the public character of Strache
and Hofer’s Facebook pages, it is reasonable to assume that someone posting a comment
on such a page can expect to be observed by strangers. In such a case, a researcher does
not have to obtain informed consent for analysing and quoting comments. Given that the
users are not public figures themselves, but only make public comments when posting on
a politician’s public Facebook page, I do not mention the usernames in the analysis. Netvizz
does not save the usernames and so the collected dataset does not contain any identifiers.

5.5 Conclusion
Objectively speaking, the far right is fairly effective when it comes to utilising social media
for political communication. Yet if one looks at the body of works published in social move-
ment media studies, one gets the impression that political communication in the Internet
age is by far dominated by politically progressive, left-wing, and social movements. There
are comparatively few studies that focus on the Internet and far-right politics (Caiani and
Kröll 2015). The far-right’s use of the Internet has hardly been studied and is a blind spot
in social movement media studies. W. Lance Bennett and Alexandra Segerberg’s book
The Logic of Connective Action (2013) mentions Occupy 70 times, but the Golden Dawn,
Jobbik, the National Front, UKIP, Svoboda, Farage, or Le Pen not a single time. The Ency-
clopedia of Social Movement Media (Downing 2011) presents 600 pages analyses of “al-
ternative media, citizens’ media, community media, counterinformation media, grassroots
 Chapter Five | Social Media Research Ethics in Online Ideology Critique 117

media, independent media, nano-media, participatory media, social movement media, and
underground media” (Downing 2011, xxv). The focus here is on all sorts of progressive and
left-wing media, from the likes of the Adbusters Media Foundation to Zapatista media.
The editor John Downing (2011, xxvi) admits that “much less examination of media of ex-
treme right movements occurs in this volume than there might be”, but he does not explain
why this is the case, why it is problematic, and how it could be changed.

Most social movement researchers like to do feel-good research. They study progressive
left-wing movements that they like and are sympathetic towards, consider such studies
as a form of solidarity, and tend to simply celebrate how these groups organise and
communicate. Such studies make the researchers feel good and politically engaged. But
celebratory studies of these movements hardly help us to understand the difficult con-
tradictions that left-wing activism faces in the capitalist world. They neglect analysing
right-wing movements and groups that pose a threat to democracy. And thus this is the
blind spot of social movement media studies.

One might now be tempted to argue that far-right groups are not part of social movement
studies because they tend to be hierarchic, have a populist leader, and aim at a society
that is governed from the top in an authoritarian or even fascist manner. However, such a
definitional exclusion overlooks that also left-wing progressive movements often develop
certain hierarchies and forms of leadership. Left-wing movements too attempt to define
the social as a progressive political concept by arguing that the far right has anti-social po-
litical goals. The “social” in social movements means nothing more than the circumstance
that social movements are groups that act collectively in order to change society and move
it in a certain direction. It tells us nothing about these groups’ political content. The point
is that in a contradictory world, social movements are contradictory. They contest how
society is developing. Two options that are today possible are the democratic socialist
Conclusion

option of participatory democracy and the authoritarian option of fascist barbarism. Social
movement studies should focus on studying the diverse range of political movements.

Studying online politics poses ethical challenges in respect to privacy/the public, anonym-
ity, and informed consent. Conventional research ethics guidelines often ignore qualitative
online research or have little to say on the topic. Conducting studies of online nationalism,
racism, xenophobia, and fascism poses additional challenges because these phenomena
are inherently violent. Debates on Internet research ethics face two extremes. On the one
side, research ethics fundamentalism obståructs qualitative online research. On the other,
big data positivism lacks a critical focus on qualitative dimensions of analysis. The alterna-
tive is a critical-realist online research ethics that informs critical studies of digital media.
118 Applications

References
American Sociological Association. 1999. Code of Ethics and Policies and Procedures of the ASA
Committee on Professional Ethics. http://www.asanet.org/sites/default/files/code_of_ethics.pdf
Association of Internet Researchers. 2012. Ethical Decision-Making and Internet Research. http://
aoir.org/reports/ethics2.pdf
Bennett, W. Lance and Alexandra Segerberg. 2013. The Logic of Connective action. Digital Media
and the Personalization of Contentious Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
British Psychological Society. 2013. Ethics Guidelines for Internet-Mediated Research. http://www.
bps.org.uk/system/files/Public%20files/inf206-guidelines-for-internet-mediated-research.pdf
British Psychological Society. 2009. Code of Ethics and Conduct. http://www.bps.org.uk/system/
files/documents/code_of_ethics_and_conduct.pdf
British Sociological Association. 2002. Statement of Ethical Practice. https://www.britsoc.co.uk/
equality-diversity/statement-of-ethical-practice
Caiani, Manuela and Patricia Kröll. 2015. The Transnationalization of the Extreme Right and the
Use of the Internet. International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice 39 (4):
331–351.
Downing, John D. H., ed. 2011. Encyclopedia of Social Movement Media. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Fuchs, Christian. 2017a. Fascism 2.0: Twitter Jsers’ Social Media Memories of Hitler on his 127th
Birthday. Fascism: Journal of Comparative Facist Studies 6 (2): 228–263.
Fuchs, Christian. 2017b. Social Media: A Critical Introduction. London: Sage. Second edition.
Fuchs, Christian. 2016a. Racism, Nationalism and Right-Wing Extremism Online: The Austrian
Presidential Election 2016 on Facebook. Momentum Quarterly – Zeitschrift für sozialen
Fortschritt (Journal for Societal Progress) 5 (3): 172–196.
Fuchs, Christian. 2016b. Red Scare 2.0: User-generated Ideology in the Age of Jeremy Corbyn and
Social Media. Journal of Language and Politics 15 (4): 369–398.
International Sociological Association. 2001. Code of Ethics. http://isa-sociology.org/en/
about-isa/code-of-ethics/
Townsend, Leanne et al. 2016. Social Media Research: A Guide to Ethics. http://www.gla.ac.uk/
media/media_487729_en.pdf
Zimmer, Michael. 2010. Is It Ethical to Harvest Public Twitter Accounts without Consent?
http://www.michaelzimmer.org/2010/02/12/is-it-ethical-to-harvest-public-twitter-accounts-
without-consent/
Zimmer, Michael and Nicholas John Proferes. 2014. A Topology of Twitter Research: Disciplines,
Methods, and eThics. Aslib Journal of Information Management 66 (3): 250–261.
Chapter Six
Towards an Alternative Concept of Privacy

6.1 Introduction
6.2 The Privacy Concept
6.3 Privacy Fetishism
6.4 The Limits of Privacy in Capitalism
6.5 Conclusion: An Alternative Privacy Concept?

6.1 Introduction

“How Privacy Vanishes Online”

(New York Times; March 16, 2010)

”Critics Say Google Invades Privacy with New Service”

(New York Times; February 12, 2010)

”Privacy No Longer A Social Norm, Says Facebook Founder”

(The Guardian; January 11, 2010)

”Google’s Eric Schmidt: Privacy is Paramount”

(The Guardian; March 19, 2010)

”Google Street View: Politicians Insist on Privacy”

(Süddeutsche Zeitung; August 12, 2010)

These example news clippings show that privacy is a much-talked-about issue in the
contemporary information society. The problem of discussions about privacy in the media
and the public is frequent that a clear understanding of privacy is missing. Privacy tends
to be conceived as a universal and always positive value. The downsides of privacy tend
to be neglected. The task of this chapter is to show some limits of the privacy concept by
giving a critical political economy analysis of this notion. Such an approach is especially
interested in uncovering the role of surplus value, exploitation, and class in the studied
phenomena (Dussel 2008, 77; Negri 1991, 74).

DOI: 10.4324/9781003279488-8
120 Applications

One task of this chapter is to provide some meta-theoretical reflections about how a
privacy typology can best be grounded (Section 6.2). The Marxian notion of fetishism
is employed for challenging naturalisations of privacy (Section 6.3). A more systematic
critique of the modern privacy concept is elaborated (Section 6.4). The Critical Political
Economy approach reminds us that it is important not to see only the positive aspects of
privacy, but also its downsides. But such an analysis brings up the question if one should
drop the privacy concept or if it is possible to establish an alternative privacy concept
that avoids the current limits. This question is outlined in the concluding section of this
work (Section 6.5). The major novelty of this chapter is that it uses Critical Political Econ-
omy for working out the theoretical foundations of a socialist privacy concept.

6.2 The Privacy Concept

Jürgen Habermas (1987, 318–321) has provided a model of modern society that allows
conceptualising the relation of the private and the public. The lifeworld is made up of the
private sphere (family, private households, intimacy) and the public sphere (communicative
networks that enable private persons to take part in culture and the formation of public
opinion; Habermas 1987, 319). The lifeworld is coupled in various ways to the economic
system and the administrative system that are steered by money and power. In modern
society, the economy has become disembedded from the private sphere and has formed
a separate subsystem of society (Habermas 1989). The private sphere is for Habermas
the sphere, where the individual is most in control of his activities and communications.
Discussions about privacy typically relate to the question if and to which extents humans
are able to control data that is generated about them. It shares the value of private self-
determination characteristic for the private sphere. The distinction between the private
and the public spheres is relevant for the privacy concept because it entails “the distinction
between things that should be shown and things that should be hidden” (Arendt 1958, 72).

Ferdinand Schoeman (1984b, 2f) distinguishes between definitions of privacy as (1)

claim, entitlement, right, (2) the measure of control of an individual over personal infor-
mation, intimacy, and visibility, (3) state or condition of limited access to an individual.
Ken Gormley (1992, 1337f) discerns four types of privacy definitions: (1) privacy as an
expression of one’s personhood and personality, (2) privacy as autonomy, (3) privacy as
citizens’ ability to regulate information about themselves, (4) multidimensional notions
of privacy. Daniel Solove (2008) says that there are six different privacy definitions: pri-
vacy as (1) the right to be left alone, (2) limited access to the self, (3) secrecy, (4) control
over personal information, (5) personhood, and (6) intimacy. Solove (2004) distinguishes
 Chapter Six | Towards an Alternative Concept of Privacy 121

between the following conceptions: (1) privacy as protection from Big Brother, (2) privacy
as secrecy, (3) privacy as non-invasion, (4) privacy as control over information use. The
problem with these privacy typologies is that they are arbitrary: there is no theoretical
criterion used for distinguishing the differences between the categories. The different
definitions are postulated, but not theoretically grounded. A theoretical criterion is miss-
ing that is used for distinguishing different ways of defining privacy. Providing such an
analysis is a meta-theoretical task.

Anthony Giddens sees the “division between objectivism and subjectivism” (Giddens
1984, xx) as one of the central issues of social theory. Subjective approaches are ori-
ented on human agents and their practices as a primary object of analysis, objective
approaches on social structures. Structures in this respect are institutionalised relation-
ships that are stabilised across time and space (Giddens 1984, xxxi).

Herman Tavani (2008) distinguishes between restricted access theories, control theories,
and restricted access/limited control theories of privacy. The restricted access theory
of privacy sees privacy given if one is able to limit and restrict others from access to
personal information and personal affairs (Tavani 2008, 142ff). The classical form of this
definition is Warren’s and Brandeis’ notion of privacy: “Now the right to life has come to
mean the right to enjoy life, – the right to be let alone” (Warren and Brandeis 1890, 193).
They discussed this right especially in relation to newspapers and spoke of the “evil of
invasion of privacy by the newspapers”. Although some scholars argue that Warren’s and
Brandeis’ (1890) paper is the source of the restricted access theory (for example, Bloust-
ein 1964/1984; Rule 2007, 22; Schoeman 1984b; Solove 2008, 15f), the same concept
was already formulated by John Stuart Mills 42 years before Warren and Brandeis in his
The Privacy Concept

1848 book Principles of political economy (Mill 1965, 938):

”That there is, or ought to be, some space in human existence thus entrenched
‘around’, and sacred from authoritative intrusion, no one who professes the
smallest regard to human dignity will call in question: the point to be deter-
mined is, where the limit should be placed; how large a province of human life
this reserved territory should include”.
(Mill 1965, 938)

This circumstance shows the inherent connection between the modern privacy concept
and liberal thought. Restricted access definitions of privacy can for example be found in
the works of Allen (1988, 3), Bok (1983, 10), Gavison (1980, 428f), Nock (1993, 1), and
Schoeman (1992, 15, 106, 107f).
122 Applications

Restricted access theories conceive privacy as transsubjective, it is seen as an objec-

tive normative right or moral value that exists also if politics or human practices choose
to implement mechanisms that reveal private facts in public or allow the public access
to the private sphere of individuals. Privacy is considered as a moral structure that is
aimed at protecting all humans. Therefore Mill conceives privacy as a circle around
individuals:

”There is a circle around every individual human being, which no government,

be it that of one, of a few, or of the many, ought to be permitted to overstep:
there is a part of the life of every person who has come to years of discretion,
within which the individuality of that person ought to reign uncontrolled either
by any other individual or by the public collectively”.
(Mill 1965, 938)

The restricted access theory of privacy is an objective theory in Giddens’ terminology

because it conceives privacy as a transindividual moral structure that exists as a right
and ethical imperative relatively independently of single human actions.

The control theory of privacy sees privacy as control and self-determination over infor-
mation about oneself and over the access to one’s personal affairs (Tavani 2008, 142ff).
The most well-known privacy theory of this kind was formulated by Alan Westin, who
defined privacy as the “claim of individuals, groups or institutions to determine for them-
selves when, how, and to what extent information about them is communicated to oth-
ers” (Westin 1967, 7). Other examples are the definitions given by Fried (1968/1984,
209), Froomkin (2000, 1464), Miller (1971, 25), Quinn (2006, 214), Schultz (2006, 108),
Rule (2007, 3), Shils (1966, 281f), Solove (2004, 51), and Spinello (2006, 143). Control
theories are focused on individual self-determination over privacy. Privacy is depend-
ent on human action, individuals may choose to withhold or reveal a lot of information
about themselves. Privacy in these theories is therefore variable, dynamic, and flexible,
depending on the behaviour of individuals. Control theories of privacy are subjective the-
ories in Giddens’ terminology because they stress the dependence of privacy on human
subjectivity and individual action and choosing.

The restricted access/limited control theory (RALC) of privacy tries to combine both con-
cepts. It distinguishes “between the concept of privacy, which it defines in terms of
restricted access, and the management of privacy, which is achieved via a system of
limited controls for individuals” (Tavani 2008, 144). James H. Moor, on the one hand,
 Chapter Six | Towards an Alternative Concept of Privacy 123

uses privacy to “designate a situation in which people are protected from intrusion or
observation”, and, on the other hand, speaks of “different zones of privacy”, in which
“one can decide how much personal information to keep private and how much to make
public. […] Different people may be given different levels of access for different kinds
of information at different times” (Moor 2000, 207f; see also: Introna 2000, 190; Shade
2003, 278).

Giddens (1984) has tried to overcome the separation of subject and object in his
theory of structuration by formulating the theorem of the duality of structure that
connects subjects and objects of society dialectically by arguing that social struc-
tures are medium and outcome of social actions, at the same time they enable and
constrain practices (Fuchs 2003a, 2003b). Applying this theorem to privacy gives a
good description of the RALC: control refers to the human agency level of privacy that
enables the existence of a protective sphere, which enables humans to act in society
with a degree of protection into their private affairs. Limited access refers to a moral
structural sphere that protects individuals from privacy intrusion and enables them
to act in society. The RALC sees restricted access and individual control as mutually
constitutive. Individuals and society may choose to regulate privacy in certain ways,
which is an aspect of subjectivity and action. Based on this action, a sphere of pri-
vacy of individuals that is protected from access to others may be set up that enables
individuals to act in society, their private sphere, and the public based on privacy and
data protection. Privacy control as human action may under certain circumstances or
in given contexts (Nissenbaum 2010; Solove 20081) then change the degree of access
(Table 6.1). The Privacy Concept

TABLE 6.1 A typology of privacy theories

Theoretical criterion Approach Description

Subjectivism Control Privacy as individual control and self-

determination of the access of others to
one’s private sphere.
Objectivism Restricted access Privacy as the right or norm of restricting
others’ access to one’s personal affairs.
Subject/object-dialectic Restricted access/control Privacy as process, in which action regulates
and manages the conditions of the
private sphere and can thereby enable the
existence of a protective sphere that allows
individuals to act in society.
124 Applications

For a critical analysis, it does not suffice to understand, which ways there are of defining
privacy. It is also necessary to discuss the limits and problems of the privacy approach.
For doing so, I will introduce the notion of privacy fetishism in the next section.

6.3 Privacy Fetishism

Etzioni (1999) stresses that it is a typical American liberal belief that strengthening privacy
can cause no harm. He stresses that privacy can undermine common goods (public safety,
public health). That privacy is not automatically a positive value has also been reflected
in criticism of privacy. Critics of the privacy concept argue that it promotes an individual
agenda and possessive individualism that can harm the public/common good (Bennett
2008, 9f; Bennett and Raab 2006, 14; Etzioni 1999; Gilliom 2001, 8, 121; Hongladarom
2007, 115; Lyon 1994, 296; 2007, 7, 174; Stalder 2002; Tavani 2008, 157f), that it can be
used for legitimatising domestic violence in families (Bennett and Raab 2006, 15; Lyon
1994, 16; 2001, 20; Quinn 2006, 214; Schoeman 1992, 13f; Tavani 2008, 157f; Wacks 2010,
36), that it can be used for planning and carrying out illegal or antisocial activities (Quinn
2006, 214; Schoeman 1984b, 8), that it can conceal information in order to mislead and mis-
represent the character of individuals and is therefore deceptive (Bennett and Raab 2006,
14; Schoeman 1984a, 403; Posner 1978/1984; Wasserstrom 1978/1984), that a separation
of public and private life is problematic (Bennett and Raab 2006, 15; Lyon 2001, 20; Sewell
and Barker 2007, 354f), and that it advances a liberal notion of democracy that can be op-
posed by a participatory notion of democracy (Bennett and Raab 2006, 15). Privacy has also
been criticised as a Western-centric concept that does not exist in an individualistic form
in non-Western societies (Burk 2007; Hongladarom 2007; Zureik and Harling Stalker 2010,
12). There have also been discussions of the concept of privacy based on ideology critique
(Stahl 2007) and intercultural philosophy (see for example, Capurro 2005; Ess 2005).

These critiques show that the question is therefore not how privacy can be best pro-
tected, but in which cases whose privacy should be protected and in which cases it
should not be protected. Many constitutional privacy regulations acknowledge the limits
of privacy and private property and that unlimited property can harm the public good.
So the fifth amendment of the US constitution says that no person shall “be deprived
of life, liberty, or property”, but adds: “without due process of law”. It says that private
property shall not “be taken for public use, without just compensation”. Article 14 (1)
of the German Grundgesetz says that the “property and the right of inheritance shall
be guaranteed” and adds: “(2) Property entails obligations. Its use shall also serve the
public good. (3) Expropriation shall only be permissible for the public good”. Similarly, the
 Chapter Six | Towards an Alternative Concept of Privacy 125

Swedish Constitution (The Instrument of Government, Chapter 2) guarantees “the prop-

erty of every citizen”, but adds that this is not the case when expropriation is “necessary
to satisfy pressing public interests” (§18).

Liberal privacy theories typically talk about the positive qualities that privacy entails for
humans or speak of it as an anthropological constant in all societies, without discussing
the particular role of privacy in modern, capitalist society. Alan Westin (1967) on the one
hand gives examples from anthropological literature of societies without privacy, but on
the other hand in contradiction to his own examples claims that privacy is a universal
phenomenon that can be found in sexual relations, households, personal encounter, reli-
gion, puberty, and that is related to gossip and curiosity.

Bloustein (1964/1984) argues that privacy is needed for protecting individual dignity,
integrity, independence, freedom, and self-determination. For Westin (1967), privacy
provides individual autonomy, emotional release, self-evaluation, and intimacy. Fried
(1968/1984) sees privacy as a context that enables human respect, love, friendship, and
trust. Benn (1971/1984) says that privacy is a general principle needed for respect, free-
dom, and autonomy. For Rachel (1975/1984), privacy is needed for protecting individuals
from competition and embarrassment. Gerstein (1978/1984) argues that intimacy cannot
exist without privacy. For Gavison (1980), privacy protects freedom from physical access,
liberty of action, freedom from censure and ridicule, and promotes mental health, auton-
omy, human relations, dignity, pluralism, tolerance, and democracy. Ferdinand Schoe-
man (1984a) argues that privacy enables social relationships, intimacy, personality, and
personally validated objectives that are autonomously defined. Margulis (2003a, 2003b)
says that privacy enables autonomy, emotional release, self-evaluation, and protected
communication. Solove (2008, 98) argues that privacy is a pluralistic value and provides a
Privacy Fetishism

list of the values privacy has been associated with: autonomy, counterculture, creativity,
democracy, eccentricity, dignity, freedom, freedom of thought, friendship, human rela-
tionships, imagination, independence, individuality, intimacy, psychological well-being,
reputation, self-development. Given the preceding discussion, the following values can
be added to this list: emotional release, Individual integrity, love, personality, pluralism,
self-determination, respect, tolerance, self-evaluation, and trust.

Such analyses do not engage with actual and possible negative effects of the privacy
and the relationship of modern privacy to private property, capital accumulation, and
social inequality. They give unhistorical accounts of privacy by arguing that privacy is
a universal human principle that brings about positive qualities for individuals and so-
ciety. They abstract from issues relating to the political economy of capitalism, such as
126 Applications

exploitation and income/wealth inequality. But if there are negative aspects of modern
privacy, such as the shielding of income gaps and of corporate crimes, then universalis-
tic liberal privacy accounts are problematic because they neglect negative aspects and
present modern values as characteristic for all societies. Karl Marx characterised the
appearance of the “definite social relation between men themselves” as “the fantastic
form of a relation between things” (Marx 1867, 167) as fetishistic thinking. Fetishism
mistakes phenomena that are created by humans and have social and historical charac-
ter as being natural and existing always and forever in all societies. Phenomena such as
the commodity are declared to be “everlasting truths” (Marx 1867, 175, fn34). Theories
of privacy that do not consider privacy as historical, that do not take into account the
relation of privacy and capitalism or only stress its positive role, can, based on Marx, be
characterised as privacy fetishism. In contrast to privacy fetishism, Moore (1984) argues
based on anthropological and historical analyses of privacy that it is not an anthropolog-
ical need “like the need for air, sleep, or nourishment” (Moore 1984, 71), but “a socially
created need” that varies historically (Moore 1984, 73). The desire for privacy, according
to Moore, develops only in societies that have a public sphere that is characterised by
complex social relationships that are seen as “disagreeable or threatening obligation”
(Moore 1984, 72). Moore argues that this situation is the result of stratified societies, in
which there are winners and losers. The alternative would be the “direct participation in
decisions affecting daily lives” (Moore 1984, 79).

This discussion reminds us that it is important to contextualise privacy. If it is indeed true

that we live in a capitalist society, as the recent world economic crisis has again made
clear, then it is important to analyse privacy in the context of the political economy of
capitalism. The next section will cover this topic.

6.4 The Limits of Privacy in Capitalism

Privacy has been characterised as a value that is typical for liberal worldviews (Bennett
and Raab 2006, 4, 17; Etzioni 1999; Moore 1984, 75f). It is therefore no surprise that John
Stuart Mill has in his political economy introduced the notion of privacy in relation to
private property. When discussing the conditions under which land should be allowed to
be transformed into private property, he speaks of the necessity of “the owner’s privacy
against invasion” (Mill 1965, 232).

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels worked out an early critique of liberal privacy concepts.
This critique contains four central elements. The critique of privacy by Marx and Engels
 Chapter Six | Towards an Alternative Concept of Privacy 127

has not been covered in the literature in any detail. Therefore the outline of this critique
is deliberately strongly quotation based in order to make their critique available in the
form of a comprehensive overview.

1) There is no pure individual existence. All human existence is socially conditioned.

By conceiving privacy as an individual right, liberal privacy conceptions fail to
grasp the social existence of humans.
Marx described the position of the relation of the private and the general in the
theories of bourgeois political economists:

”The economists express this as follows: Each pursues his private interest and
only his private interest; and thereby serves the private interests of all, the gen-
eral interest, without willing or knowing it. […] The point is rather that private
interest is itself already a socially determined interest, which can be achieved
only within the conditions laid down by society and with the means provided
by Marx 1857/58, 156”.

Marx argues that the notion of the private in classical political economy is in-
dividualistic and neglects that all individual actions take place within and are
conditioned by society.
2) The individualism advanced by liberal privacy theories results in egoism that
harms the public good.

The Limits of Privacy in Capitalism

Marx furthermore stresses that modern society is not only based on individual-
ism, but also on egoism (Marx 1843b, 235–237, 240). Liberty in bourgeois society
is “is the liberty of man viewed as an isolated monad, withdrawn into himself.
[…] The practical application of the right of liberty is the right of private property”
(Marx 1843b, 235). Modern society’s constitution would be the “constitution of
private property” (Marx 1843a, 166). The right of private property in the means
of production and to accumulate as much capital as one pleases would harm the
community and the social welfare of others who are by this process deprived of
wealth: “The right of property is thus the right to enjoy and dispose one’s posses-
sions as one wills, without regard for other men and independently of society. It is
the right of self-interest” (Marx 1843b, 236). “Thus none of the so-called rights of
men goes beyond the egoistic man, the man withdrawn into himself, his private
interest and his private choice, and separated from the community as a member
of civil society” (Marx 1843b, 236f). Marx further criticises that the private accu-
mulation of capital results in the concentration of capital and thereby of wealth:
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“Accumulation, where private property prevails, is the concentration of capital in

the hands of a few” (Marx 1844, 41).
David Lyon notes that the liberal

”conception of privacy connects neatly with private property. Mill’s sovereign

individual were characterized by freedom to pursue their own interests without
interference […]. This presupposes a highly competitive environment, in which
one person’s freedom would impinge on another’s, hence the need to balance
values like ‘privacy’ with others”.
(Lyon 1994, 186)

Crawford Macpherson (1962) has termed this Marxian critique of liberalism the
critique of possessive individualism. Possessive individualism is the “concep-
tion of the individual as essentially the proprietor of his own person or capac-
ities, owing nothing to society for them” (Macpherson 1962, 3). According to
Macpherson, it is the underlying worldview of liberal-democratic theory since
John Locke and John Stuart Mill. The problem of the liberal notion of privacy and
the private sphere is that relatively unhindered private accumulation of wealth,
as the neoliberal regime of accumulation has shown since the 1970s, comes
into conflict with social justice and is likely to result in strong socio-economic
inequality. The ultimate result of Mill’s understanding of privacy is an extremely
unequal distribution of wealth. So his privacy concept privileges the rich owning
class at the expense of the non-owners of private property in the means of
production.
3) The concepts of privacy and the private sphere are ideological foundations of the
modern class structure.
Marx says that capitalism’s “principle of individualism” and a constitution of
state and society that guarantees the existence of classes is the attempt “to
plunge man back into the limitations of his private sphere” (Marx 1843a, 147) and
to thereby make him a “private human being” (Marx 1843a, 148). If the private
sphere in modern society is connected to the notion of private property, then it is
an inherent foundation of the class antagonism between capital and work: “But
labor, the subjective essence of private property as exclusion of property, and
capital, objective labor as exclusion of labor, constitute private property as its
developed state of contradiction-hence a dynamic relationship moving inexorably
to its resolution” (Marx 1844, 99). The capitalist mode of production is on the one
hand based on the “socialization of labour” and “socially exploited and there-
fore communal means of production” (Marx 1867, 928). This social dimension of
 Chapter Six | Towards an Alternative Concept of Privacy 129

capitalism is circumvented by private ownership of the means of production: “Pri-

vate property, as the antithesis to social, collective property, exists only where
the means of labour and the external conditions of labour belong to private indi-
viduals” (Marx 1867, 927). “But modern bourgeois private property is the final and
most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products,
that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few”
(Marx and Engels 1846, 484).
4) There is an inherent connection of privacy, private property, and the patriarchal
family.
Engels (1891, 474, 480) has stressed the inherent connection of the private sphere
with private property and the patriarchal family.
The Marxian analysis of the political economy of privacy was partly reflected in
the works of Jürgen Habermas and Hannah Arendt.

Marx stresses that capitalism is based on a separation of the state and bourgeois soci-
ety. The latter would be based on private property. Man

”leads a double life. […] In the political community he regards himself as com-
munal being; but in civil society he is active as a private individual, treats other
men as means, reduces himself to a means, and becomes the plaything of alien
powers”.

The Limits of Privacy in Capitalism

(Marx 1843b, 225; see also: Marx 1843a, 90)

This Marxian moment of analysis is a crucial element in Habermas’ theory of the public
sphere. During the course of the development of capitalism since the 19th century, the
world of work and organisation became a distinct sphere. With the rise of wage labour,
industrialism, and the factory, the economy became to a certain degree disembedded
from the private household (Habermas 1989, 152, 154; see also: Arendt 1958, 47, 68).
Consumption became a central role of the private sphere:

”On the other hand, the family now evolved even more into a consumer of
income and leisure time, into the recipient of publicly guaranteed compensa-
tions and support services. Private autonomy was maintained not so much in
functions of control as in functions of consumption”.
(Habermas 1989, 156)

Therefore, privacy is for Habermas an illusionary ideology – “pseudo-privacy” (Haber-

mas 1989, 157) – that in reality functions as a community of consumers: “there arose
the illusion of an intensified privacy in an interior domain whose scope had shrunk to
130 Applications

compromise the conjugal family only insofar as it constituted a community of consum-

ers” (Habermas 1989, 156). A central role of the private sphere in capitalism is also that
it is a sphere of leisure: “Leisure behavior supplies the key to the floodlit privacy of the
new sphere, to the externalisation of what is declared to be the inner life” (Habermas
1989, 159). Expressed in other words, one can say that the role of the private sphere in
capitalism as the sphere of leisure and consumption that Habermas identifies is that it
guarantees the reproduction of labour power so that it remains vital, productive, and
exploitable. Habermas (1989, 124–129) stresses that for Marx the inherent principle of
universal accessibility of the public sphere is undermined by the fact that in capitalism
private property of the means of production is controlled by capitalists and workers are
excluded from this ownership. The separation of the private from the public realm ob-
structs “what the idea of the bourgeois public sphere promised” (Habermas 1989, 125).

Hannah Arendt (1958) reflects in her work the Marxian notion that the liberal privacy
concept is atomistic and alienates humans from their social essence. She stresses that
sociality is a fundamental human condition. Privacy is for her in modern society “a sphere
of intimacy” (Arendt 1958, 38). For Arendt, the public realm is a sphere, where everything
can be seen and heard by everybody (Arendt 1958, 50). It is “the common world” that
“gathers us together and yet prevents our falling over each other” (Arendt 1958, 52).
Privacy would be a sphere of deprivation, where humans are deprived of social relations
and “the possibility of achieving something more permanent than life itself” (Arendt
1958, 58). “The privation of privacy lies in the absence of others” (Arendt 1958, 58).
Arendt says that the relation between private and public is “manifest in its most elemen-
tary level in the question of private property” (Arendt 1958, 61). In modern society, as a
result of private property, the public would have become a function of the private and the
private the only common concern left, a flight from the outer world into intimacy (Arendt
1958, 69). Labour and economic production, formerly part of private households, would
have become public by being integrated into capitalist production.

The theories of Marx, Arendt, and Habermas have in common that they stress the im-
portance of addressing the notions of privacy and the public by analyzing their inherent
connection to the political economy of capitalism.

The connection between privacy and private property becomes apparent in countries
like Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, or Austria that have a tradition of the relative
anonymity of bank accounts and transactions. Money as private property is seen as an
aspect of privacy, about which no or only restricted information should be known to the
 Chapter Six | Towards an Alternative Concept of Privacy 131

public. In Switzerland, the bank secret is defined in the Federal Banking Act (§47). The
Swiss Bankers Association sees bank anonymity as a form of “financial privacy” (http://
www.swissbanking.org/en/home/qa-090313.htm) that needs to be protected and of
“privacy in relation to financial income and assets” (http://www.swissbanking.org/en/
home/dossier-bankkundengeheimnis/dossier-bankkundengeheimnis-themen-geheimnis.
htm). In most countries, information about income and the profits of companies (except
for public companies) is treated as a secret, a form of financial privacy. The problems of
secret bank accounts and transactions and the intransparency of richness and company
are not only that secrecy can in the economy support tax evasion, black money, and
money laundering, but that it masks wealth gaps. Financial privacy reflects the classical
liberal account of privacy. So for example John Stuart Mill formulated a right of the prop-
ertied class to economic privacy as “the owner’s privacy against invasion” (Mill 1965,
232). Economic privacy in capitalism (the right to keep information about income, prof-
its, bank transactions secret) protects the rich, companies, and wealthy. The anonymity
of wealth, high incomes, and profits makes income and wealth gaps between the rich
and the poor invisible and thereby ideologically helps legitimatising and upholding these
gaps. It can therefore be considered an ideological mechanism that helps reproducing
and deepening inequality.

Privacy is in modern societies an ideal rooted in the Enlightenment. The rise of capi-
talism resulted in the idea that the private sphere should be separated from the public

The Limits of Privacy in Capitalism

sphere and not accessible for the public and that therefore autonomy and anonymity of
the individual is needed in the private sphere. The rise of the idea of privacy in modern
society is connected to the rise of the central ideal of the freedom of private ownership.
Private ownership is the idea that humans have the right to own as much wealth as
they want, as long as it is inherited or acquired through individual achievements. There
is an antagonism between private ownership and social equity in modern society. How
much and what exactly a person owns is treated as an aspect of privacy in contempo-
rary society. To keep ownership structures secret is a measure of precaution against
the public questioning or the political and individual attack against private ownership.
Capitalism requires anonymity and privacy in order to function. But full privacy is also
not possible in modern society because strangers enter social relations that require trust
or enable exchange. Building trust requires knowing certain data about other persons.
It is therefore checked with the help of surveillance procedures if a stranger can be
trusted. Corporations have the aim of accumulating ever more capital. That is why they
have an interest in knowing as much as possible about their workers (in order to control
132 Applications

them) and the interests, tastes, and behaviours of their customers. This results in the
surveillance of workers and consumers. Because markets are competitive, companies
are also interested in monitoring competitors, which has given rise to the phenomenon
of industrial espionage. The ideals of modernity (such as the freedom of ownership)
also produce phenomena such as income and wealth inequality, poverty, unemployment,
precarious living, and working conditions. The establishment of trust, socio-economic
differences, and corporate interests are three qualities of modernity that necessitate
surveillance. Therefore, modernity, on the one hand, advances the ideal of a right to
privacy, but, on the other hand, it must continuously advance surveillance that threatens
to undermine privacy rights. An antagonism between privacy ideals and surveillance is
therefore constitutive for capitalism.

Workplace surveillance harms employees because the slightest misbehaviour and resist-
ance can be recorded and used for trying to lay them off. Consumer surveillance harms
consumers because it enables companies to calculate assumptions about consumers
that are error prone, can be used for discriminating between different consumers (based
on e.g. income or race) (Gandy 2011), and exploits transaction data and consumer behav-
iour data that is created by activities of consumers (such as shopping, credit card use,
Internet use, etc.) for economic purposes (Fuchs 2011). Economic surveillance is deeply
embedded into the antagonisms of capitalism. But also state surveillance is deeply char-
acteristic for modern society. On the one hand, its prevalence can harm citizens by creat-
ing a culture of suspicion and fear, in which everybody is seen as an actual or potential
criminal or terrorist and the likelihood to be mistaken for engaging in illegal activities is
high, on the other hand, state surveillance of companies and the rich could also be used
for making power more transparent.

Liberal privacy discourse is highly individualistic, it is always focused on the individ-

ual and his/her freedoms. It separates public and private spheres. Privacy in capitalism
can best be characterised as an antagonistic value that is one the one side upheld as
a universal value for protecting private property, but is at the same time permanently
undermined by corporate surveillance into the lives of workers and consumers for profit
purposes. Capitalism protects privacy for the rich and companies, but at the same time
legitimates privacy violations of consumers and citizens. It thereby undermines its own
positing of privacy as universal value.

Given a critical analysis of the privacy concept, the question arises if the concept should
best be abolished or if there is another way of coping with its limits. This question will
be outlined in the concluding section.
 Chapter Six | Towards an Alternative Concept of Privacy 133

6.5 Conclusion: An Alternative Privacy

Concept?
The discussion has shown that the major points of criticism of the modern privacy con-
cept advanced by Marxian analysis are that privacy is frequently fetishised in liberal
thought, thereby takes on an ideological character, and tries to mask the negative conse-
quences of capitalism. Marx and Engels have advanced four elements of the critique of
the liberal privacy concept that were partly taken up by Arendt and Habermas: (1) privacy
as atomism that advances, (2) possessive individualism that harms the public good, (3)
legitimises and reproduces the capitalist class structure, and (4) capitalist patriarchy.

Privacy in capitalism protects the rich, companies, and the wealthy. The anonymity of
wealth, high incomes, and profits makes income and wealth gaps between the rich and
the poor secrets and thereby ideologically helps legitimatising and upholding these gaps.
It can therefore be considered an ideological mechanism that helps reproducing and
deepening inequality. It would nonetheless be a mistake to fully cancel off privacy rights
and to dismiss them as bourgeois values.

I argue for going beyond a bourgeois notion of privacy and to advance a socialist notion

Conclusion: An Alternative Privacy Concept?

of privacy that tries to strengthen the protection of consumers and citizens from corpo-
rate surveillance. Economic privacy is therefore posited as undesirable in those cases,
where it protects the rich and capital from public accountability, but as desirable, where
it tries to protect citizens from corporate surveillance. Public surveillance of the income
of the rich and of companies and public mechanisms that make their wealth transparent
are desirable for making wealth and income gaps in capitalism visible, whereas privacy
protection for workers and consumers from corporate surveillance is also important. In
a socialist privacy concept, existing liberal privacy values have therefore to be reversed.
Whereas today we mainly find surveillance of the poor and of citizens who are not cap-
ital owners, a socialist privacy concept focuses on surveillance of capital and the rich in
order to increase transparency and privacy protection of consumers and workers. A so-
cialist privacy concept conceives privacy as a collective right of dominated and exploited
groups that need to be protected from corporate domination that aims at gathering infor-
mation about workers and consumers for accumulating capital, disciplining workers and
consumers, and for increasing the productivity of capitalist production and advertising.
The liberal conception and reality of privacy as an individual right within capitalism pro-
tects the rich and the accumulation of ever more wealth from public knowledge. A social-
ist privacy concept as a collective right of workers and consumers can protect humans
from the misuse of their data by companies. The question therefore is: privacy for whom?
134 Applications

Privacy for dominant groups in regard to secrecy of wealth and power can be problem-
atic, whereas privacy at the bottom of the power pyramid for consumers and normal
citizens can be a protection from dominant interests. Privacy rights should therefore be
differentiated according to the position people and groups occupy in the power structure.
The socialist privacy concept is a form of the RALC because it provides different zones of
privacy for different kinds of actors. The differentiation of privacy rights is based on the
assumption that the powerless need to be protected from the powerful. Example meas-
ures for socialist privacy protection in the area of Internet policies are legal requirements
that online advertising must always be based on opt-in options, the implementation and
public support of corporate watchdog platforms, the advancement and public support of
alternative non-commercial Internet platforms (Fuchs 2012).

Helen Nissenbaum (2010) defines privacy as contextual integrity, which is a heuristic

that analyses changes of information processes in specific contexts and flags departures
from entrenched privacy practices as violations of contextual integrity. It then analyses if
these new practices have moral superiority and if the privacy violation is therefore mor-
ally legitimate (Nissenbaum 2010, 164, 182f). In relation to the economy, the concept of
contextual integrity helps understanding that privacy plays another role in a context like
friendship than in an employment relationship: sharing information about very personal
details about your life (like intimacy, sexuality, health, etc.) with a partner or close friends
must be judged with other norms than the sharing of the same information with a boss
because the first relation is based on close affinity, trust, and feelings of belonging to-
gether, whereas the second is based on an economic power relationship. Differentiated
values are therefore needed for assessing privacy in both contexts. The concept of social-
ist privacy is a specific contextualisation of privacy within the economic context – it is a
contextualised privacy context, a double contextualisation of privacy: On the one hand,
it takes into account the power relationships of the economy and on the other hand, it
must in the context of the modern economy take into account class relationships, i.e. the
asymmetric power structure of the capitalist economy, in which employers and compa-
nies have the power to determine and control many aspects of the lives of workers and
consumers. Given the power of companies in the capitalist economy, economic privacy
needs to be contextualised in a way that protects consumers and workers from capitalist
control and at the same time makes corporate interests and corporate power transparent.

Etzioni (1999) stresses that liberal privacy concepts typically focus on privacy invasions by
the state, but ignore privacy invasions by companies. The contemporary undermining of pub-
lic goods by overstressing privacy rights would not be caused by the state, but rather stem
 Chapter Six | Towards an Alternative Concept of Privacy 135

”from the quest for profit by some private companies. Indeed, I find that these
corporations now regularly amass detailed accounts about many aspects of the
personal lives of millions of individuals, profiles of the kind that until just a few
years ago could be compiled only by the likes of the East German Stasi. […]
Consumers, employees, even patients and children have little protection from
marketeers, insurance companies, bankers, and corporate surveillance”.
(Etzioni 1999, 9f)

The task of a socialist privacy conception is to go beyond the focus of privacy concepts
as protection from state interference into private spheres, but to identify those cases,
where political regulation is needed for the protection of the rights of consumers and
workers.

It is time to break with the liberal tradition in privacy studies and to think about alterna-
tives. The Swedish socialist philosopher Torbjörn Tännsjö (2010) stresses that liberal pri-
vacy concepts imply “that one can not only own self and personal things, but also means
of production” and that the consequence is “a very closed society, clogged because of
the idea of business secret, bank privacy, etc” (Tännsjö 2010, 186). Tännsjö argues that
power structures should be made transparent and not be able to hide themselves and

Conclusion: An Alternative Privacy Concept?

operate secretly protected by privacy rights. He imagines based on utopian socialist
ideas an open society that is democratic and fosters equality so that (Tännsjö 2010,
191–198) in a democratic socialist society, there is, as Tännsjö indicates, no need for
keeping power structures secret and therefore no need for a liberal concept of privacy.
However, this does in my view not mean that in a society that is shaped by participatory
democracy, all forms of privacy vanish. There are some human acts and situations, such
as defecation (Moore 1984), in which humans tend to want to be alone. Many humans
would both in a capitalist and a socialist society feel embarrassed having to defecate
next to others, for example by using toilets that are arranged next to each other without
separating walls. So solitude is not a pure ideology, but to a certain desire also a human
need that should be guaranteed as long as it does not result in power structures that
harm others. This means that it is necessary to question the liberal-capitalist privacy ide-
ology, to struggle today for socialist privacy that protects workers and consumers, limits
the right and possibility of keeping power structures secret, and makes these structures
transparent. In a qualitatively different society, we require a qualitatively different con-
cept of privacy, but not the end of privacy. Torbjörn Tannsjö’s work is a powerful reminder
that it is necessary not to idealise privacy, but to think about its contradictions and its
relation to private property.
136 Applications

Note
1 Solove (2008) argues that the family, the body, sex, the home, and communications are con-
texts of privacy.

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References
Chapter Seven
The Ethics and Political Economy of Privacy on
Facebook

7.1 Introduction
7.2 Beyond the Liberal Concept of Privacy
7.3 The Political Economy of Facebook
7.4 Socialist Privacy Ideals and Social Networking
7.5 Conclusion

7.1 Introduction
Facebook has become one of the world’s most accessed Internet platforms. In 2011,
it held rank number two in the list of the most accessed websites in the world (data
source: alexa.com, accessed on 28 May 2011): 41.7% of the world’s Internet users ac-
cessed Facebook in the three-month period from 28th February to 28th May 2011. Ten
years later, Facebook was the seventh most accessed Internet platform (data source:
alexa.com, accessed on 26 March 2021). Given the fact that Facebook is a tremendously
successful project, it is an important research task to critically analyse the economic
structures and power relations of the platform.

In this chapter, I provide an analysis of the political economy of privacy and surveillance
on Facebook, which means that the task is to show how privacy on Facebook is con-
nected to surplus value, exploitation, and class (Dussel 2008, 77; Negri 1991, 74). The
privacy notion is a foundation for the discussion shortly discussed in Section 7.2. The po-
litical economy of privacy on Facebook is analysed in Section 7.3. Potential alternatives
and elements of a socialist privacy strategy are identified in Section 7.4. Finally, some
conclusions are drawn in Section 7.5.

7.2 Beyond the Liberal Concept of Privacy

Definitions of informational privacy have in common that they deal with the moral ques-
tions of how information about humans should be processed, who shall have access
to this data, and how this access shall be regulated (Tavani 2008). They also share the
conviction that some form of data protection is needed. Etzioni (1999) stresses that it is

DOI: 10.4324/9781003279488-9
142 Applications

a typical American liberal belief that strengthening privacy can cause no harm and says
that privacy can undermine common goods (public safety, public health).

Countries like Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, and Austria have a tradition of the
relative anonymity of bank accounts and transactions. Money as private property is seen
as an aspect of privacy, which means that financial information tends to be kept secret
and withheld from the public. In Switzerland, the bank secret is defined in the Federal
Banking Act (§47). The Swiss Bankers Association sees bank anonymity as a form of
“financial privacy”1 that needs to be protected and speaks of “privacy in relation to finan-
cial income and assets”.2 In many countries, information about income and the profits
of companies (except for public companies) is treated as a secret, a form of financial
privacy. The problem of secret bank accounts/transactions and the non-transparency of
richness and company profits is not only that financial privacy can support tax evasion,
black money affairs, and money laundering, but also that it hides wealth gaps. Financial
privacy reflects the classical liberal account of privacy. So for example John Stuart Mill
formulated the right of the propertied class to economic privacy as “the owner’s privacy
against invasion” (Mill 1965, 232). Economic privacy in capitalism (the right to keep infor-
mation about income, profits and bank transactions secret) protects the rich, companies,
and the wealthy. The anonymity of wealth, high incomes, and profits makes income and
wealth gaps between the rich and the poor invisible and thereby ideologically helps
legitimatising and upholding these gaps. Financial privacy is an ideological mechanism
that helps reproducing and deepening inequality. Karl Marx, who positioned privacy in
relation to private property, first formulated the critique of the liberal concept of privacy.
The liberal concept of the private individual and privacy would see man as “an isolated
monad, withdrawn into himself. […] The practical application of the right of liberty is the
right of private property” (Marx 1843b, 235). Modern society’s constitution would be the
“constitution of private property” (Marx 1843a, 166). Torbjörn Tännsjö (2010) stresses
that liberal privacy concepts imply “that one can not only own one-self and personal
things, but also means of production” and that the consequence is “a very closed society,
clogged because of the idea of business secret, bank privacy, etc.” (Tännsjö 2010, 186;
translation from Swedish by the author).

It would nonetheless be a mistake if we were to fully cancel off privacy rights and dis-
missed them as bourgeois values. Liberal privacy discourse is highly individualistic, it is
always focused on the individual and his/her freedoms. It separates the public and the
private sphere. Privacy in capitalism can best be characterised as an antagonistic value
that is on the one side upheld as a universal value for protecting private property, but is
 Chapter Seven | The Ethics and Political Economy of Privacy on Facebook 143

at the same time permanently undermined by corporate and state surveillance into the
lives of humans for the purpose of capital accumulation. Capitalism protects privacy for
the rich and companies, but at the same time legitimates privacy violations of consum-
ers and citizens. Liberal privacy values have their limit and find their immanent critique
within the reality of liberal-capitalist economies.

When discussing privacy on Facebook, we should therefore go beyond a bourgeois no-

tion of Facebook and try to advance a socialist notion of privacy that aims at strengthen-
ing the protection of consumers and citizens from corporate surveillance and other forms
of domination. Economic privacy should therefore be posited as undesirable in those
cases, where it protects the rich and capital from public accountability, but as desirable,
where it tries to protect citizens, workers, and consumers from corporate surveillance.
Public surveillance of the income of the rich and of companies and public mechanisms
that make their wealth transparent are desirable for making wealth and income gaps in
capitalism visible, whereas privacy protection from corporate surveillance is at the same
time also important. In a socialist privacy concept, the existing privacy values have to
be reversed.

Whereas today we mainly find surveillance of the poor, workers, consumers, everyday
citizens, and privacy protests private property, in contrast to this reality a socialist pri-
vacy concept focuses on surveillance of capital and the rich in order to increase trans-

Beyond the Liberal Concept of Privacy

parency and privacy protection of consumers and workers. A socialist privacy concept
conceives privacy as a collective right of dominated and exploited groups that need
to be protected from corporate domination that aims at gathering data for accumulat-
ing capital, disciplining workers and consumers, and for increasing the productivity of
capitalist production and advertising. The liberal conception and reality of privacy as
an individual right within capitalism protects the rich and the accumulation of ever
more wealth from public knowledge. A socialist privacy concept as a collective right of
workers and consumers can protect humans from the misuse of their data by compa-
nies. The questions therefore are: For whom should privacy be guaranteed, for whom
not? What type of privacy should we struggle for on Facebook? Privacy for dominant
groups in regard to the secrecy of wealth and power is problematic, whereas privacy
at the bottom of the power pyramid for consumers, workers, and normal citizens is a
protection from dominant interests. Privacy rights should therefore be differentiated
according to the position people and groups occupy in the power structure. In rela-
tion to Facebook, this means that the main privacy topic is not how many information
users make available to the public, but rather which user data is used by Facebook
144 Applications

for advertising purposes, in which sense users are exploited in this process and how
users can be protected from the negative consequences of economic surveillance on
Facebook.

Helen Nissenbaum (2010) argues that one should go beyond the control theory and the
access theory of privacy and consider privacy as contextual integrity. Contextual integrity
is a heuristic that analyses changes of information processes in specific contexts and
flags departures from entrenched privacy practices as violations of contextual integrity.
It then analyses if these new practices have moral superiority and if the privacy violation
is therefore morally legitimate (Nissenbaum 2010, 164, 182f). Nissenbaum mentions as
relevant contexts education, health care, psychoanalysis, voting, employment, the legal
system, religion, family, and the marketplace (Nissenbaum 2010, 130, 169–179). Contex-
tual privacy is “preserved when informational norms are respected and violated when
informational norms are breached. […] whether or not control is appropriate depends
on the context, the types of information, the subject, sender, and recipient” (Nissenbaum
2010, 140, 148). In relation to the economy, the concept of contextual integrity helps
understanding that privacy plays another role in a context like friendship than in an
employment relationship: sharing information about very personal details about your
life (like intimacy, sexuality, health, etc.) with a partner or close friends must be judged
with other norms than the sharing of the same information with a boss because the first
relation is based on close affinity, trust, and feelings of belonging together, whereas the
second is based on an economic power relationship. Differentiated values are therefore
needed for assessing privacy in both contexts. The concept of socialist privacy is a spe-
cific contextualisation of privacy within the economic context – it is a contextualised
privacy context, a double contextualisation of privacy: On the one hand, it takes into
account the power relationships of the economy and on the other hand, it must in the
context of the modern economy take into account class relationships, i.e. the asymmet-
ric power structure of the capitalist economy, in which employers and companies have
the power to determine and control many aspects of the lives of workers and consumers.
Given the power of companies in the capitalist economy, economic privacy needs to be
contextualised in a way that protects consumers and workers from capitalist control
and at the same time makes corporate interests and corporate power transparent. For
privacy on Facebook this means it should be made transparent what data Facebook
stores about its users and that users should be protected from Facebook’s exploitation
of their data for economic purposes. This requires a differentiated concept of economic
privacy that distinguishes between the roles of consumers, workers, and companies in
the capitalist economy.
 Chapter Seven | The Ethics and Political Economy of Privacy on Facebook 145

Mainstream research about Facebook and social networking sites in general engages in
privacy fetishism by focusing on the topic of information disclosures by users (for a cri-
tique of such studies see: Fuchs 2009b, Chapter 3). These studies consider privacy threat-
ened because users would disclose too much information about themselves. They stress
associated risks. They conceive privacy strictly as an individual phenomenon that can be
protected if users behave in the correct way and do not disclose too much information.
The moralistic tone in these studies ignores how Facebook commodifies data and ex-
ploits users as well as the societal needs and desires underpinning information sharing
on Facebook. As a result, this discourse is individualistic and ideological. It focuses on
the analysis of individual behaviour without seeing and analysing how this use is con-
ditioned by the societal contexts of information technologies, such as surveillance, the
global war against terror, corporate interests, neoliberalism, and capitalist development.

These contexts make it incumbent for critical Internet studies to analyse Facebook pri-
vacy in the context of the political economy of capitalism.

7.3 The Political Economy of Facebook

Alvin Toffler (1980) introduced the notion of the prosumer in the early 1980s. It means the
“progressive blurring of the line that separates producer from consumer” (Toffler 1980,
267). Toffler describes the age of prosumption as the arrival of a new form of economic

The Political Economy of Facebook

and political democracy, self-determined work, labour autonomy, local production, and
autonomous self-production. But he overlooks that prosumption is used for outsourcing
work to users and consumers, who work without payment. Thereby corporations reduce
their investment costs and labour costs, jobs are destroyed, and consumers who work for
free are exploited. They produce surplus value that is appropriated and turned into profit
by corporations without paying wages. Notwithstanding Toffler’s uncritical optimism, his
notion of the “prosumer” describes important changes of media structures and practices
and can therefore also be adopted for critical studies.

It becomes ever more frequent that users or observers of Facebook argue that Facebook
exploits them by making a profit with the help of their data. The concept of exploitation is
frequently not explained and clarified in such circumstances. Karl Marx (1867) provided
the best and most important explanation of exploitation in capitalism. In order to under-
stand how exploitation on Facebook exactly works and to avoid that the use of the ex-
ploitation concept not just is a moral appeal, but a critique that is analytically grounded,
it is therefore necessary to go into some details of the Marxian political economy.
146 Applications

c (technologies,
infrastructure)
M-C . . P1 . . P2 . . C‘ - M‘
(social media services)
vc (paid) v2(unpaid work:
Facebook use

C‘ = Internet prosumer commodity (user-generated content,

transaction data, virtual advertising space and time)
most social media services are free to use, they are no
commodities.
User data and the users are the social media commodity.

FIGURE 7.1 Capital accumulation on Facebook.

Figure 7.1 shows the process of capital accumulation on Facebook. Facebook invests
money (M) for buying capital: technologies (server space, computers, organisational
infrastructure, etc.) and labour power (paid Facebook employees). These are the con-
stant capital (c) and the variable capital (v1) outlays. The outcome of the production
process P1 is not a commodity that is directly sold, but rather social media services (the
Facebook platform) that are made available without payment to users. The Facebook
employees, who create the Facebook online environment that is accessed by Facebook
users, produce part of the surplus value. The Facebook users make use of the platform
for generating content that they upload (user-generated data). The constant and varia-
ble capital invested by Facebook (c, v1) that is objectified in the Facebook environment
is the prerequisite for their activities in the production process P2. Their products are
user-generated data, personal data, and transaction data about their browsing behav-
iour and communication behaviour on Facebook. They invest a certain labour time v2 in
this process. Facebook sells the users’ data commodity to advertising clients at a price
that is larger than the invested constant and variable capital. The surplus value con-
tained in this commodity is partly created by the users, partly by the Facebook employ-
ees. The difference is that the users are unpaid and therefore infinitely exploited. Once
the Internet prosumer commodity that contains the user-generated content, transaction
data, and the right to access virtual advertising space and time is sold to advertising
clients, the commodity is transformed into money capital and surplus value is realised
into money capital.

For Marx (1867), the profit rate is the relation of profit to investment costs:

p = s/(c + v) = surplus value/(constant capital [=fixed costs] + variable capital [=wages]).

 Chapter Seven | The Ethics and Political Economy of Privacy on Facebook 147

If Internet users become productive web 2.0 prosumers, then in terms of Marxian class
theory this means that they become productive labourers, who produce surplus value
and are exploited by capital because for Marx productive labour generates a surplus.
Therefore the exploitation of surplus value in the case of Facebook is not merely ac-
complished by those who are employed for programming, updating, and maintaining the
soft- and hardware, performing marketing activities, and so on, but by them, the users,
and the prosumers that engage in the production of user-generated content. New media
corporations do not (or hardly) pay the users for the production of content. A widely used
accumulation strategy is to give the users free access to services and platforms, let
them produce content, and to accumulate a large number of prosumers that are sold as
a commodity to third-party advertisers. Not a product is sold to the users, but the users
are sold as a commodity to advertisers. The more users a platform has, the higher the
advertising rates can be set. The productive labour time that is exploited by capital, on
the one hand, involves the labour time of the paid employees and, on the other hand, all
of the time that is spent online by the users. For the first type of knowledge labour, new
media corporations pay salaries. The second type of knowledge is produced completely
for free. There are neither variable nor constant investment costs. The formula for the
profit rate needs to be transformed for this accumulation strategy:

p = s / (c + v1 + v2), s … surplus value, c … constant capital, v1 … wages paid to fixed

employees, v2 … wages paid to users.

The Political Economy of Facebook

The typical situation is that v2 ≥ 0 and that v2 substitutes v1. If the production of content
and the time spent online were carried out by paid employees, the variable costs would
rise and profits would therefore decrease. This shows that prosumer activity in a cap-
italist society can be interpreted as the outsourcing of productive labour to users, who
work completely for free and help maximising the rate of exploitation (e = s/v, = surplus
value/variable capital) so that profits can be raised and new media capital may be accu-
mulated. This situation is one of infinite exploitation of the users. Capitalist prosumption
is an extreme form of exploitation, in which the prosumers work completely for free.

What does it mean that Facebook prosumers work for free and are exploited? Adam is a
13-year-old school kid and heavy Facebook user. He has 2,000 Facebook friends, writes
50 wall postings a day, interacts with at least 40 of his close contacts and colleagues
over Facebook a day, updates his status at least ten times a day, uploads a lot of com-
mented videos and photos from each of his weekends that he tends to spend together
with his girlfriend in the countryside. Yet there is one thing that puzzles him: The adver-
tisements at the right-hand side of his profile frequently have to do with what he has
148 Applications

done the last weekend or he intends to do the next weekend. Adam wonders how this
comes and does not feel so well about the fact that obviously his personal data is used
for economic ends and that he does not exactly know and cannot control which of his
data and usage behaviour is stored, assessed, and sold. The answer is that Facebook
closely monitors all of his contacts, communications, and data and sells this information
to companies, who provide targeted advertisements to Adam. Facebook thereby makes a
lot of profit and could not exist without the unpaid labour that Adam and millions of other
of his fellow Facebook workers conduct. Adam is the prototypical Facebook child worker.

Dallas Smythe (1981/2006) suggests that in the case of media advertisement models,
the audience is sold as a commodity to advertisers: “Because audience power is pro-
duced, sold, purchased and consumed, it commands a price and is a commodity. […] You
audience members contribute your unpaid work time and in exchange you receive the
program material and the explicit advertisements” (Smythe 1981/2006, 233, 238; see
also Smythe 1977).

Smythe’s audience commodity hypothesis has resulted in a sustained debate (see for
example, Bolin 2005, 2009; Hearn 2010; Hesmondhalgh 2010; Jhally 1987; Jhally and
Livant 1986; Lee 2011; Livant 1979; Manzerolle 2010; Meehan 1993; Murdock 1978;
Smythe 1978), including a critique by Jhally and Livant (1986) that not the audience, but
their watching time is the commodity. Both Jhally/Livant’s approach (Andrejevic 2002)
and Smythe’s approach (Fuchs 2009a, 2010a, 2010c, 2011b) remain important today for
discussing commodification on the Internet and share a focus on commodification and
exploitation.

With the rise of user-generated content, free-access social networking platforms, and
other ad-based platforms, the web seems to come closer to TV or radio in their accu-
mulation strategies. The users who upload photos, and images, write wall posting and
comments, send mail to their contacts, accumulate friends or browse other profiles on
Facebook, constitute an audience commodity that is sold to advertisers. The difference
between the audience commodity on traditional mass media and on the Internet is that
in the latter case the users are also content producers; there is user-generated content,
the users engage in permanent creative activity, communication, community building,
and content production. In the case of Facebook, the audience commodity is an Internet
prosumer commodity.

Surveillance of Facebook prosumers occurs via corporate web platform operators and
third-party advertising clients, which continuously monitor and record personal data and
 Chapter Seven | The Ethics and Political Economy of Privacy on Facebook 149

online activities. Facebook surveillance creates detailed user profiles so that advertising
clients know and can target the personal interests and online behaviours of the users.
Facebook sells its prosumers as a commodity to advertising clients; their exchange value
is based on permanently produced use values, i.e. personal data and interactions.

Facebook prosumers are double objects of commodification: they are first commodified
by corporate platform operators, who sell them to advertising clients, and this results,
second, in an intensified exposure to commodity logic. They are permanently exposed to
commodity propaganda presented by advertisements while they are online. Most online
time is advertising time.

The labour side of the capital accumulation strategy of social media corporations is dig-
ital playbour. Kücklich (2005) first introduced the term playbour (play+labour) and in the
meantime conferences like “Digital Labour: Workers, Authors, Citizens” (University of
Western Ontario 2009) and “The Internet as Playground and Factory” (New School 2009)
have helped to advance the discourse about digital playbour. The exploitation of digital
playbour is based on the collapse of the distinction between work time and playtime. In
the Fordist mode of capitalist production, work time was the time of pain and the time of
repression and surplus repression of the human drive for pleasure; whereas leisure time
was the time of Eros (Marcuse 1955). In contemporary capitalism, play and labour, Eros
and Thanatos, the pleasure principle and the death drive partially converge: workers are

The Political Economy of Facebook

expected to have fun during work time and play time becomes productive and work-like.
Playtime and work time intersect and all human time of existence tends to be exploited
for the sake of capital accumulation. The exploitation of Facebook labour is one expres-
sion of these changes of capitalist production and the corresponding transformation of
the structure of drives.

Arendt (1958) and Habermas (1989) stress that capitalism has traditionally been based
on a separation of the private and the public sphere. Facebook is a typical manifestation
of a stage of capitalism, in which the relation of the public and the private and labour
and play collapses and in which this collapse is exploited by capital. “The distinction be-
tween the private and the public realms […] equals the distinction between things that
should be shown and things that should not be hidden” (Arendt 1958, 72). On Facebook,
all private data and user behaviour is shown to the corporation, which commodifies both,
whereas it is hidden from the users what exactly happens with their data and to whom
these data are sold for the task of targeting advertising. So the main form of privacy on
Facebook is the intransparency of capital’s use of personal user data that is based on the
private appropriation of user data by Facebook. The private user dimension of Facebook
150 Applications

is that content is user-generated by individual users. When it is uploaded to Facebook

or other social media, parts of it (to a larger or smaller degree depending on the privacy
settings the users choose) become available to lots of people, whereby the data obtains
a more public character. The public availability of data can both have advantages (new
social relations, friendships, staying in touch with friends, family, relatives over distance,
etc.) and disadvantages (job-related discrimination, stalking, etc.) for users (Fuchs 2009b,
2010b, 2010d). The private–public relation has another dimension on Facebook: the pri-
vately generated user data and the individual user behaviour become commodified. Both
types of data are sold to advertising companies so that targeted advertising is presented
to users and Facebook accumulates profit that is privately owned by the company. Face-
book commodifies private data that is used for public communication in order to accu-
mulate capital that is privately owned. The users are excluded from the ownership of
the resulting money capital, i.e. they are exploited by Facebook and are not paid for
their creation of surplus value (Fuchs 2010a). Facebook is a huge advertising-, capital
accumulation-, and user exploitation-machine. Data surveillance is the means for Face-
book’s economic ends. Facebook permanently monitors users for economic ends, which
means that no economic privacy is guaranteed to them: It remains unknown to users,
which of their information and user behaviour is exactly used for targeted advertising,
they cannot control the use of their data and usage behaviour data and are not protected
from the commodification of their personal data.

The use of targeted advertising and economic surveillance is legally guaranteed by Face-
book’s privacy policy. Facebook’s privacy policy is a typical expression of a self-regulatory
privacy regime, in which businesses define largely themselves how they process per-
sonal user data. In general, US data protection laws only cover government databanks,
leaving commercial surveillance untouched in order to maximise profitability (Ess 2009,
56; Lyon 1994, 15; Rule 2007, 97; Zureik 2010, 351). Facebook’s terms of use and its pri-
vacy policy are characteristic for this form of self-regulation. When privacy regulation is
voluntary, the number of organisations protecting the privacy of consumers tends to be
very small (Bennett and Raab 2006, 171).

7.4 Socialist Privacy Ideals and Social

Networking
I question privacy concepts that protect and keep secret capitalist interests and
socio-economic inequality. This means that the liberal privacy concept should be chal-
lenged by a socialist privacy concept that protects workers and consumers. On Facebook,
 Chapter Seven | The Ethics and Political Economy of Privacy on Facebook 151

the “audience” is a worker/consumer – a prosumer. How can socialist privacy protection

policies on Facebook look like? One basic insight of this chapter is that privacy protec-
tion of consumers, prosumers, and workers can only be achieved in an economy that is
not ruled by profit interests, but controlled and managed by prosumers, consumers, and
producers, which would at the same time mean the end of the need for forms of privacy
that protect us from domination. If there were no profit motive on Internet platforms,
then there would be no need to commodify the data and usage behaviour of Internet
users. Achieving such a situation is however not primarily a technological task, but one
that requires changes of society.

True privacy of consumers, workers, and prosumers is only possible in a participatory de-
mocracy. There are today many claims that the Internet has with the emergence of “so-
cial media” and “web 2.0” become “participatory”. So for example Henry Jenkins argues
that with the emergence of a convergence culture “the Web has become a site of con-
sumer participation” (Jenkins 2008, 137) or Axel Bruns (2008, 227f) says that Flickr, You-
Tube, MySpace, and Facebook are environments of “public participation”. Such accounts
do not take into account the socialist origins of the concept of participatory democracy.

Staughton Lynd introduced the notion of participatory democracy to the academic de-

Socialist Privacy Ideals and Social Networking

bate in 1965. Lynd (1965) used the term for describing the organisation principle of the
Students for a Democratic Society (Lynd 1965). Held (1996, 271) says that a key feature
of participatory democracy is the “direct participation of citizens in the regulation of the
key institutions of society, including the workplace and local community”. The two most
important thinkers of participatory democracy theory are Crawford Brough Macpherson
(1973) and Carole Pateman (1970), who are both socialist thinkers. Participatory democ-
racy means that “democratic rights need to be extended from the state to the economic
enterprise and the other central organizations of society” (Held 1996, 268). Some of the
central principles of participatory democracy are the following ones (for a full discussion
see: Fuchs 2011b, Chapter 7):

1) The intensification and extension of democracy into all realms of life: Not just the
political systems, but all realms of life – including the economy – are considered
as being systems of power that require democracy in order to be just.
2) Developmental powers as the essence of man and the maximisation of human
Man’s essence is understood as consisting of a number of positive capacities (de-
velopment powers, such as co-operation, sociality, emotional activities, etc.) that
can depending on the power structures of society be developed to certain extents.
152 Applications

3) Extractive power as an impediment for participatory democracy: Macpherson

(1973) argues that capitalism is based on an exploitation of human powers that
limits the development of human capacities because the modern economy

”by its very nature compels a continual net transfer of part of the power of
some men to others [for the benefit and the enjoyment of the others], thus
diminishing rather than maximizing the equal individual freedom to use and
develop one’s natural capacities”.
(Macpherson 1973, 10–11)

4) Participatory economy: A central aspect of a participatory democracy is a demo-

cratic economy, which requires a “change in the terms of access to capital in the
direction of more nearly equal access” (Macpherson 1973, 71) and “a change to
more nearly equal access to the means of labour” (73). Pateman (1970) terms the
grassroots organisation of firms and the economy in a participatory democracy
“self-management”. A self-managed economy does not consist of classes, there is
no need for one class to control and monitor the activities of another class in order
to protect and maintain its hegemony. Therefore there is no need for economic
privacy violations. Social networking sites and other Internet platforms need to
be controlled by the users themselves and organised within the framework of a
participatory economy in order to be sensitive for the economic privacy of users.

The overall goal of socialist Internet privacy politics is to drive back the commodification
of user data and the exploitation of prosumers by advancing the decommodification of
the Internet. Three strategies for achieving this goal are the advancement of opt-in on-
line advertising, civil society surveillance of Internet companies, and the establishment
and support of alternative platforms.

7.4.1 Opt-in Privacy Policies

Oscar Gandy argues that an alternative to opt-out solutions of targeted advertising

is opt-in solutions that are based on the informed consent of consumers. When individuals

”wish information or an information-based service, they will seek it out. IT is

not unreasonable to assume that individuals would be the best judge of when
they are the most interested and therefore most receptive to information of a
 Chapter Seven | The Ethics and Political Economy of Privacy on Facebook 153

particular kind. Others with information to provide ought to assume that, unless
requested, no information is desired. This would be the positive option. Through
a variety of means, individuals would provide a positive indication that yes, I
want to learn, hear, see more about this subject at this time. Individuals should
be free to choose when they are ready to enter the market for information”.
(Gandy 1993, 220)

“The value in the positive option is its preservation of the individual’s right to choose”
(Gandy 1993, 221). Culnan and Bies (2003) argue that opt-in is a form of procedural jus-
tice and a fair information practice.

Opt-in privacy policies are typically favoured by consumers and data protectionists,
whereas companies and marketing associations prefer opt-out and self-regulation ad-
vertising policies in order to maximise profit (Bellman et al. 2004; Federal Trade Com-
mission 2000; Gandy 1993; Quinn 2006; Ryker et al. 2002; Starke-Meyerring and Gurak
2007). Socialist privacy legislation could require all commercial Internet platforms to use
advertising only as an opt-in option, which would strengthen the users’ possibility for
self-determination. Within capitalism, forcing corporations by state laws to implement
opt-in mechanisms is certainly desirable, but at the same time it is likely that corpo-

Socialist Privacy Ideals and Social Networking

rations will not consent to such policies because opt-in is likely to reduce the actual
amount of surveilled and commodified user data significantly, which results in a drop
of advertising profits. Organising targeted advertising as opt-in instead of as opt-out (or
no-option) does not establish economic user privacy, but is a step toward strengthening
the economic privacy of users.

7.4.2 Corporate Watch-Platforms as Form of Struggle

against Corporate Domination
In order to circumvent the large-scale surveillance of consumers, producers, and
consumer–producers, movements and protests against economic surveillance are neces-
sary. Kojin Karatani (2005) argues that consumption is the only space in capitalism, where
workers become subjects that can exert pressure by consumption boycotts on capital. I
do not think that this is correct because also strikes show the subject position of workers
that enables them to boycott production, to cause financial harm to capital, and to exert
pressure in order to voice political demands. However, Karatani in my opinion correctly
argues that the role of the consumer has been underestimated in Marxist theory and
practice. That in the contemporary media landscape media consumers become media
154 Applications

producers who work and create surplus value shows the importance of the role of con-
sumers in contemporary capitalism and of “the transcritical moment where workers and
consumers intersect” (Karatani 2005, 21). For political strategies, this brings up the ac-
tuality of an associationist movement that is “a transnational association of consumers/
workers” (Karatani 2005, 295) that engages in “the class struggle against capitalism” of
“workers qua consumers or consumers qua workers” (Karatani 2005, 294).

Critical citizens, critical citizens’ initiatives, consumer groups, social movement groups,
critical scholars, unions, data protection specialists/groups, consumer protection spe-
cialists/groups, critical politicians, and critical political parties should observe closely
the surveillance operations of corporations and document these mechanisms and in-
stances, where corporations and politicians take measures that threaten privacy or in-
crease the surveillance of citizens. Such documentation is most effective if it is easily
accessible to the public. The Internet provides means for documenting such behaviour. It
can help to watch the watchers and to raise public awareness. In recent years, corporate
watch organisations that run online watch platforms have emerged.
Examples of corporate watch organisations are as follows:

CorpWatch Reporting (http://www.corpwatch.org),

Transnationale Ethical Rating (http://www.transnationale.org),
The Corporate Watch Project (http://www.corporatewatch.org),
Multinational Monitor (http://www.multinationalmonitor.org),
Corporate Crime Reporter (http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com),
Corporate Europe Observatory (http://www.corporateeurope.org),
Corporate Critic Database (http://www.corporatecritic.org).

Transnationale Ethical Rating aims at informing consumers and research about corpo-
rations. Its ratings include quantitative and qualitative data about violations of labour
rights, violations of human rights, layoff of employees, profits, sales, earnings of CEOs,
boards, president and managers, financial offshoring operations, financial delinquency,
environmental pollution, corporate corruption, and dubious communication practices. Du-
bious communication practices include an “arguable partnership, deceptive advertising,
disinformation, commercial invasion, spying, mishandling of private data, biopiracy and
appropriation of public knowledge” (http://www.transnationale.org/aide.php, accessed
on 26 March 2021). The topics of economic privacy and surveillance are here part of a
project that wants to document corporate social irresponsibility. Privacy is not the only
 Chapter Seven | The Ethics and Political Economy of Privacy on Facebook 155

topic, but can on corporate watch platforms be situated in the larger political-economic
context of corporate social irresponsibility (the counterpart of the CSR ideology).

On the one hand, it is important to document and gather data about the corporate irre-
sponsibility of Internet corporations. On the other hand, it looks like these data are not
very complete and not many Internet corporations are thus far included. So one could
for example also document Google’s targeted advertising practices. Onlien corporations’
data storage and usage practices are highly intransparent to users and leave it unclear
for the single user, which data about her/him is exactly stored and commodified. In any
case, more efforts are required in order to advance the documentation of corporate social
irresponsibility of Internet corporations and to contextualise privacy violations within the
process of watching the watchers.

There is a difference between the surveillance of prosumers by Internet corporations

and the process of watching the corporate watchdogs. The first process is a process of
data collection about users as part of the attempt to exploit users and to thereby deepen
the class power of one class at the expense of another one. Corporate watch platforms
on the other hand are attempts by those resisting against asymmetric economic power
relations to struggle against the powerful class of corporations by documenting data that

Socialist Privacy Ideals and Social Networking

should make economic power transparent. Prosumers and their data can only be made
visible, but not transparent. There is a difference between surveillance for erecting vis-
ibility over oppressed groups, which is the attempt to control and further oppress them,
and the attempt of making the powerful transparent, which is a self-defence mechanism
and form of struggle of the oppressed in order to try to defend themselves against op-
pression. “‘Surveillance’ suggests the operation of authority, while ‘transparency’ sug-
gest the operation of democracy, of the powerful being held accountable” (Johnson and
Wayland 2010, 25). Johnson and Wayland (2010) point out that the notion of transpar-
ency should be used in relation to economic and political power.

Also, WikiLeaks is a mechanism that tries to make power transparent by leaking secret
documents about political and economic power. WikiLeaks does not itself engage in
collecting information about the powerful, but relies on anonymous online submissions
by insiders, who realise the wrongdoings of institutions and want to contribute to more
transparency of what is actually happening. Its overall goal is to make power transparent:

”WikiLeaks is a multi-national media organization and associated library. It was

founded by its publisher Julian Assange in 2006. WikiLeaks specializes in the
analysis and publication of large datasets of censored or otherwise restricted
156 Applications

official materials involving war, spying and corruption. It has so far published
more than 10 million documents and associated analyses”.
(https://wikileaks.org/What-is-WikiLeaks.html, accessed on 26 March 2021)

WikiLeaks and corporate watch platforms have in common that they are both Internet
projects that try to make powerful structures transparent as part of the struggle against
powerful institutions. The prosecution and imprisonment of Julian Assange have made
WikiLeaks’ work difficult.

There are no easy solutions to the problem of civil rights limitations due to electronic surveil-
lance. Opting out of existing advertising options is not a solution to the problem of economic
and political surveillance. Even if users opt-out, media corporations will continue to collect,
assess, and sell personal data, to sell the users as audience commodity to advertising cli-
ents, and to give personal data to the police. To try to advance critical awareness and to
surveil corporate and political surveillers are important political moves for guaranteeing civil
rights, but they will ultimately fail if they do not recognise that electronic surveillance is not
a technological issue that can be solved by technological means or by different individual be-
haviours, but only by bringing about changes of society. Therefore the topic of electronic sur-
veillance should in the public debate be situated in the context of larger societal problems.

7.4.3 Alternative Internet Platforms

The third strategy of socialist privacy politics is to establish and support non-commercial,
non-profit Internet platforms. It is not impossible to create successful non-profit Internet
platforms, as the example of Wikipedia, which is advertising-free, provides free access,
and is financed by donations, shows. The most well-known alternative social networking
site project is Diaspora, which tries to develop an open-source alternative to Facebook. It
is a project created in late 2010 by the four NYU students Dan Grippi, Maxwell Salzberg,
Raphael Sofaer, and Ilya Zhitomirskiy.

Diaspora defines itself as “privacy-aware, personally controlled, do-it-all, open source

social” (http://www.joindisaspora.com, accessed on 11 November 2010). It is not funded
by advertising, but by donations. Three design principles of Diaspora are choice, owner-
ship, and simplicity:

”Choice: Diaspora lets you sort your connections into groups called aspects.
Unique to Diaspora, aspects ensure that your photos, stories and jokes are
shared only with the people you intend. Ownership: You own your pictures, and
 Chapter Seven | The Ethics and Political Economy of Privacy on Facebook 157

you shouldn’t have to give that up just to share them. You maintain ownership
of everything you share on Diaspora, giving you full control over how it’s dis-
tributed. Simplicity: Diaspora makes sharing clean and easy – and this goes for
privacy too. Inherently private, Diaspora doesn’t make you wade through pages
of settings and options just to keep your profile secure”.
(http://www.joindisaspora.com, accessed on 21 March 2011)

The Diaspora team is critical of the control of personal data by corporations. It describes
Facebook as “spying for free” and the activities of Facebook and other corporate Inter-
net platforms in the following way. Maxwell Salzberg: “When you give up that data,
you’re giving it up forever. […] The value they give us is negligible in the scale of what
they are doing, and what we are giving up is all of our privacy” (http://www.nytimes.
com/2010/05/12/nyregion/12about.html). Ilya Zhitomirskiy:

”For the features that we get on blogs, social networks and social media sites,
we sacrifice lots of privacy. […] The features that we get are not anything
special. […] What will happen […] when one of these big large companies just
goes bust, but has as one of its assets all of your personal data and all of our

Socialist Privacy Ideals and Social Networking

personal data, our communications, our photos, our comments? […] They are
in power to do what they please with it”.
(http://vimeo.com/11242604)

The basic idea of Diaspora is to circumvent the corporate mediation of sharing and
communication by using decentralised nodes that store data that is shared with friends
(http://vimeo.com/11242736). Each user has his/her own data node that s/he fully con-
trols. Maxwell Salzberg: “Sharing is a human value. Sharing makes the Internet really
awesome” (http://vimeo.com/11099292). […] Ilya Zhitomirskiy: On Diaspora, users are
no longer dependent on “corporate networks, who want to tell you that sharing and
privacy are mutually exclusive” (http://vimeo.com/11099292).

Diaspora aims to enable users to share data with others and at the same time to pro-
tect them from corporate domination and from having to sacrifice their data to corporate
purposes in order to communicate and share. Diaspora can therefore be considered as a
socialist Internet project that practically tries to realise a socialist privacy concept. The
Diaspora team is inspired by the ideas of Eben Moglen, author of the dotCommunist Man-
ifesto. He says that an important political goal and possibility today is the “liberation of
information from the control of ownership” with the help of networks that are “based on
association among peers without hierarchical control, which replaces the coercive system”
158 Applications

(Moglen 2003) of capitalist ownership of knowledge and data. “In overthrowing the sys-
tem of private property in ideas, we bring into existence a truly just society, in which the
free development of each is the condition for the free development of all” (Moglen 2003).

Ten years after its creation, Diaspora still exits and describes itself as the “online social
world where you are in control” and that is based on the three principles of decentral-
isation, freedom, and privacy (https://diasporafoundation.org/, accessed on 26 March
2021). Diaspora has not been able to compete with Facebook, the world’s dominant so-
cial networking site. While Facebook has billions of users that it reaches via Facebook,
Instagram, and WhatsApp, Diaspora in March 2021 had around 750,000 registered us-
ers (data source: https://the-federation.info/diaspora, accessed on 26 March 2021). The
problem of alternative projects, media, and platforms in capitalist society is that they
often lack people, money, attention, reputation, paid labour-time, influence, resources,
and other forms of power. Not-for-profit projects are in capitalism fair, nice, just, and
alternative, but they often cannot compete with and properly question and struggle
against corporate giants. They are often built on voluntary, self-exploitative, unpaid, or
very low-paid labour and resource precarity. Alternative media, platforms, and projects
have difficulties challenging capitalist corporations.

There are diffuse feelings of discontent of many users with Facebook’s privacy prac-
tices that have manifested themselves into groups against the introduction of Facebook
Beacon, news feed, mini-feed, etc., the emergence of the web 2.0 suicide machine
(http://suicidemachine.org/), or the organisation of a Quit Facebook Day. These activities
are mainly based on liberal and Luddite ideologies, but if they were connected to ongoing
class struggles against neoliberalism (like the ones’ of students throughout the world in
the aftermath of the new global capitalist crisis) and the commodification of the commons,
they could grow in importance. Existing struggles could be connected to the attempts to
establish opt-in policies, corporate social media watchdogs, and alternative social media.
Another idea is a campaign that demands that Facebook and all other corporate social
media platforms to pay a wage to its users. On the one hand, such a campaign could create
attention for the exploitation of user labour, on the other hand, its goal (a wage paid by cor-
porate social media providers) would be short-sighted if it did not aim at the same time at
overcoming the wage economy and exploitation as such. The crisis has created the condi-
tions for new struggles, but the main reaction of the people is that in many countries there
is a shift toward the right and extreme-right and the rise of hyper-neoliberalism. Besides its
strong objective foundations, class struggle from below as part of socialist strategy today is
only “latent or manifests itself only in isolated and sporadic phenomena” (Marx 1867, 96).
 Chapter Seven | The Ethics and Political Economy of Privacy on Facebook 159

7.5 Conclusion
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg says that Facebook is about the “concept
that the world will be better if you share more” (Wired, August 2010). Zuckerberg has
repeatedly said that he does not care about profit, but wants to help people with Face-
book’s tools and wants to create an open society. Kevin Colleran, Facebook advertising
sales executive, says in the Wired story that “Mark is not motivated by money”. In a
Times story,3 Zuckerberg said:

”The goal of the company is to help people to share more in order to make
the world more open and to help promote understanding between people. The
long-term belief is that if we can succeed in this mission then we also [will] be
able to build a pretty good business and everyone can be financially rewarded.
[…] The Times: Does money motivate you? Zuckerberg: No”.

If Zuckerberg really does not care about profit, why is Facebook then not a non-
commercial platform and why does it use targeted advertising? The problems of tar-
geted advertising are that it aims at controlling and manipulating human needs, that
users are normally not asked if they agree to the use of advertising on the Internet,
but have to agree to advertising if they want to use commercial platforms (lack of
democracy), that advertising can increase market concentration, that it is intranspar-
ent for most users what kind of information about them is used for advertising pur-
poses, and that users are not paid for the value creation they engage in when using
commercial web 2.0 platforms and uploading data. Surveillance on Facebook is not
only an interpersonal process, where users view data about other individuals that
might benefit or harm the latter, it is economic surveillance, i.e. the collection, stor-
age, assessment, and commodification of personal data, usage behaviour, and user-
Conclusion

generated data for economic purposes. Facebook and other web 2.0 platforms are
large advertising-based capital accumulation machines that achieve their economic
aims by economic surveillance.

“The world will be better if you share more”? But a better world for whom is the real
question? “Sharing” on Facebook in economic terms means primarily that Facebook
“shares” information with advertising clients. And “sharing” is only the euphemism for
selling and commodifying data. Facebook commodifies and trades user data and user
behaviour data. Facebook does not make the world a better place, it makes the world a
more commercialised place, a big shopping mall without exit. It makes the world only a
better place for companies interested in advertising, not for users.
160 Applications

Facebook’s understanding of privacy is property-oriented and individualistic. It reflects

the dominant capitalistic concept of privacy. Needed are not only a socialist privacy con-
cept and strategy, but an alternative to Facebook and the corporate Internet.

Facebook and Google are only the two most well-known examples for a more gen-
eral contemporary economy that appropriates, expropriates, and exploits the com-
mon goods (communication, education, knowledge, care, welfare, nature, culture,
technology, public transport, housing, etc.) created by humans and needed for all
humans to survive. In the area of the Internet, a socialist strategy can try to resist the
commodification of the Internet and the exploitation of users by trying to claim the
common and participatory character of the Internet with the help of protests, legal
measures, alternative projects based on the ideas of free access/content/software
and creative commons, wage campaigns, unionisation of social media prosumers,
boycotts, hacktivism, the creation of public service- and commons-based social me-
dia, etc. Internet exploitation is however a topic that is connected to the broader po-
litical economy of capitalism, which means that those who are critical of what social
media companies like Facebook do with their data, ought better to be also critical of
what contemporary capitalism is doing to humans throughout the world in different
forms. If we manage to establish a participatory democracy, then a truly open society
(Tännsjö 2010) might become possible that requires no surveillance and no protection
from surveillance.

Notes
1 http://www.swissbanking.org/en/home/qa-090313.htm (accessed on 21 September 2010).
2 http://www.swissbanking.org/en/home/dossier-bankkundengeheimnis/dossier-
bankkundengeheimnis-themen-geheimnis.htm (accessed on 21 September 2010).
3 Times (October 20, 2008, http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/
technology/article4974197.ece)

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Chapter Eight
Information Technology and Sustainability in the
Information Society

8.1 Introduction
8.2 Technology and Capitalism
8.3 Four Approaches to Understanding Sustainability in the Information Society
8.4 Reductionist Understandings of Sustainability in the Information Society
8.5 Dualistic Understandings of Sustainability in the Information Society
8.6. Conclusion: Towards a Critical, Dialectical Understanding of Sustainability in
the Information Society

8.1 Introduction
Sustainability has to do with the question of how present and future generations can
lead a good life in society (for a review of its genesis, see Fuchs 2017). It is a concept
that has been developed in forums such as the United Nations Conference on Environ-
ment and Development and the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development.
In the realm of information and communication technologies (ICTs), the sustainability
concept has played a role in the context of the World Summit on the Information Society
(WSIS). Sustainable ICTs have to do with the question if and how ICTs contribute and/or
harm the development of society in ways that allow present and future generations to
lead a good life.

This chapter asks: how can we think of sustainability and ICTs in the context of a critical
theory of society? How is the sustainability of ICTs related to capitalism and class? The
approach taken in this chapter stands in the tradition of critical sociology. This tradition
“seeks to make problematic existing social relations in order to uncover the underlying
structural explanations for those relations” (Fasenfest 2007, 17). Critical sociology is op-
posed to functionalism, is anti-positivist, uses the tradition of critical political economy,
asks questions of power at large, and deconstructs ideologies (ibid.) Critical sociology is
“a critique of the social order in the exploration of extant power relationships existing
within a society organized under the principles of capitalist social relations” (Fasenfest
2007, 22). Its knowledge addresses “how to influence change toward a more progressive

DOI: 10.4324/9781003279488-10
166 Applications

and positive vision for the future” (Fasenfest 2007, 20). Given such a focus, it is evident
that critical sociology is an approach suited for the study of (un)sustainable development.

Section 8.2 discusses the relationship of technology and capitalism. Section 8.3 identi-
fies four ways of how to think of sustainability in the context of the information society.
Section 8.4 criticises reductionist understandings of information technology sustainabil-
ity. Section 8.5 provides a critique of dualistic understandings of information technology
sustainability. Dualism and reductionism are the predominant mainstream concepts of
sustainability in an ICT context. Section 8.6 suggests an alternative framework that uses
critical theory as the foundation for a critical theory of sustainability in the information
society.

8.2 Technology and Capitalism

The term technology has its roots in the Greek term techné [τέχνη] (Feenberg 2006;
Reydon 2012; Williams 1983, 315), which means the knowledge, art, and craft of making
something. Technology as techné was considered in subjective terms oriented on hu-
man skills, capacities, and knowledge to create something in a purposeful manner and
thereby change the world. With the rise of modern large-scale industry and machinery,
the dominant meaning of the category of technology shifted towards a more objective
understanding. Technology has become to be understood as things, systems, machines,
tools, artefacts, and hardware that apply the results of science for controlling humans
and nature (see Li-Hua 2009; Williams 1983, 315).

Georg Lukács (1971, 131) argues that with the rise of capitalism, “human relations
(viewed as the objects of social activity) assume increasingly the objective forms of
the abstract elements of the conceptual systems of natural science and of the abstract
substrata of the laws of nature”. The economy thereby became “transformed into an
abstract and mathematically orientated system of formal ‘laws’” (105) that is governed
by “the abstract, quantitative mode of calculability” (93). Technology in such a system is
a machine that is used for controlling and instrumentalising nature and human activities
for partial interests such as corporations’ monetary profits and commodity production,
bureaucratic power, possessive individualism, or consumerism.

Alfred Sohn-Rethel (1978) argues that this instrumental understanding of knowledge and
technology goes back to the division of labour between manual and mental labour in
class societies. The “logic of the market and of mechanistic thinking is a logic of intel-
lectual labour divided from manual labour” (Sohn-Rethel 1978, 73). For Rethel, the logic
 Chapter Eight | Information Technology and Sustainability 167

of mechanistic, quantifying, and mathematical reasoning is not something that emerged

with the existence of capitalism, but is much older. He argues that it goes as far back
as ancient Greek slavery that instituted a division between manual labour performed
by slaves and the mental labour of philosophers, politicians, and scientists. “It is Greek
philosophy which constitutes the first historical manifestations of the separation of head
and hand in this particular mode” (66). This division of labour has for Sohn-Rethel to
do with the rise of the mathematical logic of measurement and quantification. Class
society’s division of labour would in the realm of thinking and logic be accompanied by
quantifying reason and in the realm of the economy by exchange value.

In a general understanding, technology is neither knowledge nor a thing, but a process, in

which humans make use of their skills, knowledge, and capacities and of objects in order
to change the world in an intentional and purposeful manner. In modern class society,
technology is no longer a human-controlled means for human-defined ends. Means and
ends are reversed: humanity is not an end-in-itself, but humans have become means and
instruments for dominant classes’ partial interests (Fuchs 2016, Chapter 15). Technol-
ogy is in this context an instrument for domination. Capital, including technology as its
means of production, is a subject that dominates labour. Technology is in such a system
not a means to humane ends, but rather servers a specific instrumental aim, namely
capital accumulation, and as part of this end turns humans into objects.

The instrumental character of technology is not inherent in technology as such or in

society in general, but rather has to do with how partial interests shape technology and
society. Technology is not neutral and value free, but embedded into power structures, Technology and Capitalism
contradictions, and struggles that shape its invention, design, application, and use. This
also means that technologies can be re-designed, re-invented, changed, re-purposed,
abolished, etc. Putting technologies to humane and democratic use requires shaping
society, invention, design, application, and use by humane and democratic values. It
requires a political struggle for alternative technological and alternative frameworks that
benefit all humans.

ICTs are means that humans use for creating, disseminating, and consuming information
about the world. The computer and networked computer systems are particular tech-
nologies that other than traditional media (radio, television, the newspaper, etc.) do not
just allow the consumption of information, but also its production, co-production, and
dissemination.

The networked computer allows the convergence of the production, dissemination, and
consumption of information in one tool. Given that technology is not independent of
168 Applications

society, we cannot speak of the sustainability of technology just in technological terms,

but need to connect this topic to society. A computer-controlled atom bomb is a particular
political technology used for threatening actual or potential enemies. Its existence has
to do with political power relations in the world. Defining technological sustainability
immanently would mean that the atom bomb would be sustainable if it works error free,
has comprehensive usability, can be controlled with the help of a user-friendly, secure
and stable computer interface, etc. The problem with such an understanding is, however,
that the computer-controlled atom bomb is inherently political and conflicts with the goal
of a peaceful global society. It is politically unsustainable.

Such immanent definitions of technological sustainability that stay in the realm of tech-
nology without considering society often take on ideological forms. Mulder, Ferrer and
van Lente (2011) argue that technological sustainability is not an end in itself: “Rather,
sustainability of a technology can only be determined through a socio-political process”
(Mulder, Ferrer and van Lente 2011, 242).

Computer technology cannot simply be made sustainable by changing chips, cables, vari-
ables, codes, or algorithms. Sustainable computing is not a technological matter because
computing is embedded into environmental, economic, political and cultural contexts of
design, production, and use. It is therefore necessary to discuss the topic of computing
and sustainability in the context of the information society. Making computing sustaina-
ble requires shaping technology and society in an integrated manner (cp. Bijker, Hughes
and Pinch 1987; MacKenzie and Wajcman 1999).

Such an understanding of technology is underlying the philosopher Ivan Illich’s (1973)

book Tools for Conviviality. He argues that it is dangerous to base society on what is
technologically possible and not what is politically and ethically feasible. Illich argues
that both society and technology need to be re-designed in an integrated manner. He
therefore speaks of convivial tools in a convivial society. “Such a society, in which mod-
ern technologies serve politically interrelated individuals rather than managers, I will call
‘convivial’. […] I have chosen ‘convivial’ as a technical term to designate a modern soci-
ety of responsibly limited tools” (Illich 1973, 12). We cannot assume that technological
developments are automatically societally responsible.

Sustainability and technology development should be seen as two interlinked social and
political tasks. One can certainly see the critique of unsustainable developments and
technologies as a political task. At the same time, also reflecting on the implications
of critical technology assessment for society and the construction of technology is an
 Chapter Eight | Information Technology and Sustainability 169

important political task. Schot and Rip (1996) argue in this context that constructive tech-
nology assessment and sociotechnical criticism are inherently connected.

For Illich, the problem is that technological innovations have the danger to blind peo-
ple for potential negative consequences. Their all too optimistic adoption can backfire
and result in unforeseen consequences. In an argument comparable to Illich, Horkheimer
and Adorno (2002) argue that enlightenment reason can turn negatively against itself and
have dangerous consequences. This is what they call the dialectic of the enlightenment.
The implication of the problems that technologies can entail is to take an approach that
tries to actively limit negative consequences by designing society and technology in
human-centred ways. Such designs do not think primarily about what is “good for insti-

Four Approaches to Understanding Sustainability in the Information Society

tutions” (Illich 1973, 25), but what is good for all humans.

8.3 Four Approaches to Understanding

Sustainability in the Information Society
Discussions about the un/sustainability of information technology’s role in society have
especially emerged since the First WSIS that was held in two phases in 2003 and 2005.

We can classify information society policy discourses according to how they relate the
domains of the ecology and the economy to the realms of politics and culture. According
to the information philosopher Wolfgang Hofkirchner (2013), there are four ways of how
the relationship of two categories C1 and C2 can be explained: reductionism, projectiv-
ism, disjunctivism/dualism, and dialectical integrativism. Reductionism causally reduces
the relation C1–C2 to C1. Projectivism projects causality into C2. Dualistic thought ar-
gues that C1 and C2 have independent causalities. A dialectical approach sees C1 and
C2 as at the same time relatively autonomous and mutually constituting each other. In
a dialectic, C1 and C2 are identical and non-identical at the same time. I have in other
publications elaborated and applied based on Hofkirchner’s typology a distinction of four
information society policy discourses (Fuchs 2010; Fuchs and Verdegem 2013) (Table 8.1).

Reductionist approaches see ecological or technological or economic developments

(such as GDP investment in information technology and the information economy) as
the sole driving forces of the un/sustainable information society. Projectivist approaches
see the political and/or cultural system as the determining forces of un/sustainability in
the information age. Reductionism sees the physical aspects of society as determining,
whereas projectivism assumes that the realms of human ideas and politics are determin-
ing society’s development. Dualistic approaches define multiple goals and dimensions
170 Applications

TABLE 8.1 Approaches on sustainability and information society policies (based on: Fuchs 2010)

Type of approach Description

Reductionism Ecology, economy, or technology are considered as the driving forces of a sustainable
information society.
Projectivism Politics and/or culture are seen as the determinant forces of a sustainable information society.
Dualism Multiple dimensions and goals of a sustainable information society are identified, but not
causally related to each other.
Dialectic Multiple dialectically interrelated dimensions and goals of a sustainable information society are
identified, existing contradictions of these dimensions are analysed, and changes are seen as
integral, interdependent, and systemic.

of a(n) un/sustainable information society, but do not consider if these goals are com-
patible and if and how they are causally linked. Dialectical approaches see the various
dimensions and goals of un/sustainability in the information society as interdependent,
mutually causally linked, and only relatively autonomous.

Projectivism is an approach that can hardly be found in ICT policy discourses on sus-
tainability because the notion of sustainability originates in the environmental realm and
this kind of discourse tends to be associated with industry interests. Therefore either the
ecological or the economic or both dimensions normally tend to play a role. Theoretically,
ICT sustainability could of course be conceived in purely political or cultural terms with
a pure focus on either digital democracy or fostering online understanding. Reductionist
understandings are much more common than projectionist ones.

8.4 Reductionist Understandings of

Sustainability in the Information Society
Hilty and Ruddy (2010) reject multidimensional definitions of sustainability in general
and in the ICT context in particular because they argue that nature is the most fundamen-
tal dimension of human survival. They say that “multidimensionality mitigates the radical
nature of SD” (Hilty and Ruddy 2010, 11). They define the central concern of sustainable
development as the “sustainability dilemma”, i.e. “the physical impossibility of extend-
ing the present consumption patterns of the industrialized countries to all parts of the
world without putting a great burden on future generations” (Hilty and Ruddy 2010, 10)
and reduce the sustainability of IT to the ecological dimension.

The emergence of ICTs and the Internet has not dematerialised the economy. The deple-
tion of non-renewable natural resources and the massive emission of carbon dioxide con-
tinue. The ecological catastrophe is certainly an important challenge in the information
 Chapter Eight | Information Technology and Sustainability 171

society. But assume that we had solved this problem, then other ways of destroying
humanity could nonetheless still persist, especially politically and ideologically moti-
vated wars and spirals of violence that in escalation could result in the large-scale use of
nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons that could wipe out humanity. Also, economic
crises have the potential to render the lives of many people precarious and can lead to
political crises and in the last instance also to wars. The example of dematerialisation’s
promises shows that in a society, where groups compete for resources (including capital,
influence, attention, support, etc.), technological determinism is used as a means in the
struggle for mobilising resources for political interests.

Hilty and Ruddy create the impression that the environmental crisis is the only problem
that needs to be solved in the information age. Their approach is a form of environmen-

Reductionist Understandings of Sustainability in the Information Society

tal reductionism. We can also not exclude the possibility that it may indeed be possible
to universalise today’s per capita quantity of physical consumption to all humans if it is
at the same time possible to make a large-scale qualitative shift to green energy and
renewable resource use. Given that there is more than one dimension that threatens the
existence of humanity and the attainability of a good society, a one-dimensional use of
the category of the sustainable information society is not feasible.

The European Union in 2010 introduced its new information society policy called A Digital
Agenda for Europe, in which it formulates a policy strategy and goals it wants to reach
until 2020 (European Commission 2010). “The overall aim of the Digital Agenda is to deliver
sustainable economic and social benefits from a digital single market based on fast and
ultra-fast Internet and interoperable applications” (European Commission 2010, 3). The no-
tion of sustainability is here used as both meaning (a) the continuous growth of profits and
the GDP as well (b) the continuous guarantee of social cohesion. There is no consideration
that there may be an antagonism between on the one side the focus on companies’ profits,
which in the past decades has in most part of the world meant a neoliberal policy agenda,
and on the other side the increasing social inequalities that have come along with neolib-
eralism. The overall aim formulated in the Digital Agenda is both economic reductionist
and technologically deterministic: The EU assumes that the combination of the Inter-
net and neoliberalism automatically brings about economic and social sustainability.

The EU expresses its view that the Internet in Europe is not developed enough, not fast
enough and that the uptake is not widely enough:

“More needs to be done to ensure the roll-out and take-up of broadband for
all, at increasing speeds, through both fixed and wireless technologies, and to
172 Applications

facilitate investment in the new very fast open and competitive internet net-
works that will be the arteries of a future economy. Our action needs to be
focused on providing the right incentives to stimulate private investment, com-
plemented by carefully targeted public investments, without re-monopolising
our networks, as well as improving spectrum allocation”.
(European Commission 2010, 6)

One of the keywords of the EU for creating sustainability is the focus on a “vibrant digital
single market” (7) for Internet services, digital content and “telecom services” (7), which
includes Internet access and infrastructure.

”We need very fast Internet for the economy to grow strongly and to create jobs
and prosperity, and to ensure citizens can access the content and services they
want. The future economy will be a network-based knowledge economy with
the internet at its centre. Europe needs widely available and competitively-
priced fast and ultra fast internet access. The Europe 2020 Strategy has under-
lined the importance of broadband deployment to promote social inclusion and
competitiveness in the EU”.
(18–19)

The EU has the objective to achieve “broadband for all” (26) and wants to specifically
foster the deployment of Next Generation Access (NGA) networks (20), which are Inter-
net networks that have a download speed of more than 24 Mbit/s. The EU strategy in
this respect is to “encourage market investment in open and competitive networks” (20).

The EU overall fosters a neoliberal approach to digital society’s sustainability. There are
of course exception, such as the EU research project netCommons (http://www.netcom-
mons.eu) that stresses that we need alternative technological, legal, political, social,
ethical, and economic frameworks for advancing the sustainability of the information
society. The EU sees capitalist businesses as the key to providing Internet access and
services and sees Internet capitalism as the source of the growth of economic profita-
bility and the creation of wealth and social inclusion. In the above-mentioned example
quotes, social goals are reduced to an economic dimension, namely, the advancement of
digital capitalism. The Digital Agenda overlooks that capitalist investments in Internet
access and services do not guarantee social cohesion. Capital has the inherent drive to
increase itself and as one of its means for accumulations tends to aim at a reduction
of wage costs. Precarious and unpaid digital labour, i.e. labour that produces digital
media technologies and services, has been one of the effects of the capitalist Internet
economy (Fuchs 2014b).
 Chapter Eight | Information Technology and Sustainability 173

Regional development is an aspect of sustainable development. If certain regions are

significantly worse off than others, then regional inequality constitutes a form of un-
sustainability. The EU considers regions that have a per capita GDP lower than 75%
of the EU average as being less developed. In the years 2014–2020, this includes all
of Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia as well as parts of
Croatia, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, South Italy, Spain, and
the UK (Cornwall, West Wales). These regions are especially located in Europe’s South
and East, which is an indication of uneven development in Europe (data source: http://
ec.europa.eu/regional_policy), accessed on 12 December 2020). Table 8.2 shows that in
the EU, less developed regions, sparsely populated areas, poor households, and individ-
uals with low education have significantly lower use of the Internet and computers than
the average EU citizen.

Reductionist Understandings of Sustainability in the Information Society

There is less Internet use in less developed regions (data source: Eurostat). Tables 8.3
and 8.4 show the regions in Europe that in 2015 had the largest share of citizens who had
never used a computer and the lowest use of broadband Internet. They again indicate
that it is regions in the South and East of Europe that have the lowest computer and
Internet use.

TABLE 8.2 Internet and computer use statistics for the EU (data source: Eurostat)

Individuals Households Households Households Share of

regularly (at with with owning a individuals
least once a Internet broadband computer, who have
week) using the access, access, 2015 never used the
Internet, 2015 2015 2015 Internet, 2015
EU28 76%, 2010: 65% 83% 80% 82% 16%
Less developed 2013: 59% 2013: 68%, 2013: 66%, 2013: 70%, 2013: 31%,
regions total EU28 total EU28 total EU28 total EU28 total EU28
(2013): 72% (2013): 79% (2013): 76% (2013): 80% (2013): 20%
ICT professionals 92% 3%
Manual workers 72% 17%
Low education 55% 36%
Individuals in poorest 48% 62% 59% 62% 31%
households
(lowest quartile)
Individuals in richest 81% 97% 95% 97% 5%
households (upper
quartile)
Households in 73% 77% 23%
sparsely populated
areas (<100
inhabitants/km2)
174 Applications

TABLE 8.3 Regions in the EU, where in 2015 less than 60% of households
had broadband access at home (data source: Eurostat)

Region %
Severozapaden, Bulgaria 45
North and South Bulgaria 55
Severoiztochen, Bulgaria 56
Yuzhen tsentralen, Bulgaria 56
Corsica, France 57
Macroregiunea, Romania 57
Nord-Est, Romania 57
Sud-Est, Romania 57
Severen tsentralen, Bulgaria 58
Yugoiztochen, Bulgaria 58
Central Greece 59

TABLE 8.4 Regions in the EU, where in 2015 40% or more have never used
a computer (data source: Eurostat)

Region %
Severozapaden, Bulgaria 49
Campania, Italy 42
Apulia, Italy 42
Sud, Romania 40
Molise, Italy 40
Sicily, Italy 40

Given the existence of a digital divide between poor citizens and regions on the one
side and rich citizens and regions on the other side in Europe, the question arises if an
approach that fosters private ownership and for-profit operation of Internet networks is
suited for overcoming such divides. For-profit means that operators charge for network
access. Access is organised as a commodity. Given income inequality, those on lower
income are less likely to afford the same level and speed of access than those who are
better off. Capitalist markets necessarily bring access inequalities with them.

The EU, however, follows predominantly a market approach in the creation of fast broad-
band networks. In 2014, the EU announced the European Fund for Strategic Investments
(EFSI), a plan of investing 315 billion Euros into broadband infrastructure, transport, ed-
ucation, research, and innovation in the years 2015–2017 as a combination of public
funding and private investment.1 Around 80% comes from private investors, the rest
 Chapter Eight | Information Technology and Sustainability 175

from the European Investment Bank and the European Investment Fund (European Com-
mission 2016).

”The Investment Plan for Europe adopted in November 2014 as the first major
initiative of the Juncker Commission has the potential to bring investments
back in line with its historical trends. Via the EFSI, the European Investment
Bank is able to respond quickly to financing needs in areas where alternative
sources of financing are scarce or unavailable. The Bank’s presence often pro-
vides reassurance to other financiers to provide co-financing. The EFSI projects
need to be economically and technically viable, consistent with Union policies,
provide additionality (i.e. they could not be realized without the backing of the
EU guarantee), and maximise the mobilisation of private sector capital”.

Reductionist Understandings of Sustainability in the Information Society

(European Commission 2016)

The President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker commented:

”We need to pursue fiscal responsibility and keep public finances sustainable.
We also need to restore investment levels to overcome the crisis, to kick-start
growth and sustain it. […] We have to […] stimulate private capital. We can-
not spend money we do not have. So this is an offer to the private sector where
the money is […] to join the efforts we are developing”.2

The discussion shows that there is a policy regime in Europe that tends to foster Internet
infrastructure and access as a commodity. There is not just unequal access to the Internet
in Europe, but also a large market concentration in the broadband market. Since 2012,
over 60 billion Euros were spent on mergers and acquisitions of telecommunications
operators in the EU (European Commission 2015). In 8 of 28 EU countries, the incumbent
controls more than 50% of all broadband subscribers (ibid.): Luxemburg, Cyprus, Austria,
Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Croatia, and Lithuania. For all of Europe, incumbents control
41% of the subscribers (ibid.). Table 8.5 provides an overview of the dominant market
player’s share in broadband subscriptions for all European countries.

The Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI) is a measure of market concentration. It is calcu-

lated the following way:

f
HHI j = ∑S 2
ij
i =1

f = number of firms participating in an industry,

176 Applications

TABLE 8.5 Market share of the incumbent in fixed line broadband subscriptions
and minimum level of the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index, data for 2015,
data source: European Commission 2015

Country Share (%) HHI >

Luxembourg 69 4,761
Cyprus 64 4,096
Austria 58 3,364
Denmark 58 3,364
Estonia 58 3,364
Latvia 58 3,364
Croatia 53 2,809
Lithuania 51 2,601
Malta 49 2,401
Portugal 48 2,304
Italy 48 2,304
Spain 45 2,025
Belgium 44 1,936
Hungary 44 1,936
Greece 43 1,849
Germany 42 1,764
Netherlands 41 1,681
France 39 1,521
Sweden 39 1,521
Ireland 37 1,369
Slovenia 35 1,225
Slovakia 34 1,156
UK 32 1,024
Poland 32 1,024
Czech Republic 29 841
Romania 27 729
Bulgaria 23 529
Average in EU 44 HHI > 2,106

Sij = each firm i’s market share in the industry j,

HHI < 1000: low market concentration,

1000 < HHI < 1800: moderate market concentration,

HHI > 1800: high market concentration (Noam 2009, 41).

 Chapter Eight | Information Technology and Sustainability 177

The calculations of the HHI in Table 8.6 show minimum levels. We can infer from them
that in at least 15 of 27 EU countries, for which data is available, the broadband market
was highly concentrated in 2015. The average EU HHI in the broadband market is at least
2106, which is also a very high level.

Mobile broadband has a relatively small share of the broadband market: In 2014, only
8.3% of the homes in the EU used mobile Internet connections for accessing the Internet
(European Commission 2015, 29). Table 8.6 shows that the average minimum HHI for the

TABLE 8.6 Market share of the incumbent in mobile network subscriptions

and minimum level of the Herfindahl–Hirschman-Index, data
for 2014, data source: Eurostat (Digital Agenda Key Indicators),
UK and Germany: Ofcom (2015)

Reductionist Understandings of Sustainability in the Information Society

Country % HHI >
Cyprus 66 4,338
Luxembourg 55 2,973
Slovenia 48 2,345
Portugal 47 2,246
Croatia 46 2,146
Hungary 45 2,049
Malta 44 1,968
Romania 44 1,933
Lithuania 43 1,815
Austria 42 1,776
Latvia 42 1,769
Slovakia 42 1,734
Estonia 41 1,665
Finland 40 1,587
Czech Republic 39 1,556
Denmark 39 1,524
Ireland 38 1,439
Bulgaria 37 1,369
Germany 37 1,369
Sweden 36 1,299
France 33 1,106
Spain 32 1,025
Italy 32 996
UK 30 900
Poland 30 888
EU 41 1,753
178 Applications

mobile communications market in 25 EU countries in the year 2014 was 1,753. Given
that this is a minimum value based on the market share of only the incumbent, we can
assume that the actual value is higher than 1,800 and that therefore also the European
mobile communications market is highly concentrated.

Strong market concentration means that economic power is asymmetrically distributed.

Single companies have economic advantages at the expense of workers in other com-
panies in the same sector, whose economic survival is threatened. Market concentra-
tion also enables price control. An economy characterised by corporate monopolies or
oligopolies can therefore not be considered as being sustainable. In the EU, there is the
dominance of a profit-oriented telecommunications and Internet model, in which large
telecommunications corporations have lots of power. Given that the capitalist develop-
ment of the Internet market has resulted in high broadband market concentration, the
question arises if it is wise to further foster the market model in building new infrastruc-
ture or if alternative models are needed. The EU’s strategy to try to stimulate private
investments into Internet infrastructure can easily enforce further market concentration:
investments into communications infrastructure are very expensive because it involves
the digging of trenches and the laying of fibre cables and ducts. Only companies with
lots of capital can undertake such investments. Given a high concentration of communi-
cations markets as in Europe, the most likely investors into new communications infra-
structure are the incumbent players, which strengthens their market advantages, makes
it more likely that they also dominate the new markets, which then reinforces capital
concentration.

The EU example shows that fostering private investments with the help of public aid in
an overall highly concentrated economic realm such as communications tends to rein-
force concentration. We can therefore speak of a vicious cycle of capital concentration
in the communications infrastructure market. Furthermore, communications corporations
such as Verizon, Vodafone, EE, O2,3 Hutchison, Tele Columbus, Tele2, and Telecom Italia4
seem to have avoided paying taxes in Europe. The argument that private investment is
needed because public finances are under strain seems to overlook that public funding
could certainly be increased if tax avoidance structures could be overcome and large
corporations be made accountable.

Such processes constitute together a vicious cycle of neoliberalism that operates in the
communications market and other markets (see Figure 8.1): Neoliberal policies and ide-
ology foster the commodification of services, society’s resources, infrastructures, and
services (Harvey 2005). The result is the emergence of capitalist markets. Markets in
 Chapter Eight | Information Technology and Sustainability 179

Reductionist Understandings of Sustainability in the Information Society

FIGURE 8.1 The vicious cycle of neoliberalism.

general have a tendency to concentrate and form oligopolistic and monopolistic struc-
tures. Communications markets are affected by concentration in a particular way: invest-
ment into network infrastructures and information technologies are expensive, which
fosters concentration. Advertising-funded media tend to attract advertisers if they attract
large numbers of viewers, readers, listeners, and users, which fosters the concentration
of advertising via an advertising-audience share-spiral (Furhoff 1973). Selling media con-
tent is a high-risk business, in which survival is difficult. All of these mechanisms foster
the concentration of communications markets. Neoliberalism also fosters a tendency for
corporate tax avoidance that together with concentration tendencies strengthens the
power of corporations. Building, maintaining, and operating communications infrastruc-
ture are expensive. Given market concentration, especially existing incumbent operators
tend to be able to afford necessary investments so that there is a tendency that dominant
market actors tend also to control new communications infrastructures. Corporate tax
avoidance not just strengthens the financial power of corporations, but also puts pres-
sure on public finances to further foster neoliberal policy agendas. Increasing corporate
power fosters the tendency that corporations are enabled to threaten state institutions
to withdraw or outsource their capital, which may result in unemployment. The neolib-
eral competition state competes with other states for attracting capital and so tends to
foster ever more commodification, privatisation, and market liberalisation. The outcome
is a vicious cycle of neoliberalism, in which neoliberal policy and ideology, capitalist mar-
kets, market concentration, and corporate power are reinforced. The example analysis
shows that such a vicious cycle operates in the European Union’s information society.
180 Applications

Overall the example of broadband markets in Europe’s confirms the analysis

that the EU’s Digital Agenda is based on a neoliberal economic reductionism
that fosters the market and capitalism in the realm of digital media and sees
the market as primary force for sustainability.
(for a critique of neoliberalism, see also: Harvey 2005;
Saad-Filho and Johnston 2005)

8.5 Dualistic Understandings of Sustainability in

the Information Society
The third type of information society policy discourse is dualistic in character.
The World Summit of the Information Society was a summit that the United Nations
organised. It took place in two phases, with one event in 2003 in Geneva and another
one in 2005 in Tunis.

WSIS identified the potentials of ICTs to eradicate hunger and poverty and foster educa-
tion, gender equality, health care, environmental sustainability, peace, prosperity, free-
dom, democracy, human understanding, cultural diversity, and human rights (WSIS 2003,
§§2, 3, 51). It argued that GDP growth and social equality can be advanced at the same
time through ICTs: “Under favourable conditions, these technologies can be a powerful
instrument, increasing productivity, generating economic growth, job creation and em-
ployability and improving the quality of life of all. They can also promote dialogue among
people, nations and civilizations” (WSIS 2003, §9).

WSIS’ logic of argumentation is dualistic because it assumes that through ICT develop-
ment both capitalist growth and social equality can be achieved at the same time. ICT de-
velopment is seen as a realm of capitalist investment, both in developed and developing
countries: WSIS promoted ICT and Internet development in developing countries through
the support of foreign direct investment and transfer of information technology (WSIS
2003, §40; see also WSIS 2005, §§54+90b). It encouraged “private-sector participation”
(WSIS 2005, §13) and identified a “powerful commercial basis for ICT infrastructural
investment” in developing countries (WSIS 2005, §14). It wanted to “promote and foster
entrepreneurship” in the realm of ICTs in developing countries (WSIS 2005, §90b) and
spoke of “sustainable private-sector investment in infrastructure” (WSIS 2005, §20). We
can here find a peculiar understanding of sustainability as “private-sector investment in
infrastructure”. Sustainability is here not related to the common good that benefits all,
but to the growth of the profits of private companies that own Internet infrastructure. In
a comparative passage, WSIS called for “adequate and sustainable investments in ICT
 Chapter Eight | Information Technology and Sustainability 181

infrastructure and services” (WSIS 2005, §8). WSIS calls for both private ownership and
social benefits for all at the same time.

In contrast to WSIS, the winners of the Noble Prize in Economics Joseph Stiglitz (winner
in 2001) and Amartya Sen (winner in 1998) argue that capitalist growth is no guarantee
for social justice as aspect of sustainability. Stiglitz, Sen and Fitoussi (2010) write that
the GDP is of limited use for measuring social progress and that it is “an inadequate
metric to gauge well-being over time” (Stiglitz, Sen and Fitoussi 2010, 8). Measuring
well-being by the GDP could for example “send the aberrant message that a natural
catastrophe is a blessing for the economy, because of the additional economic activity
generated by repairs” (Stiglitz, Sen and Fitoussi 2010, 265). They call for a shift in em-
phasis “from measuring economic production to measuring people’s well-being” (12) in
policymaking and research in the context of sustainability.

Dualistic Understandings of Sustainability in the Information Society

The WSIS meetings in 2003 and 2005 were based on a neoliberal policy agenda that ad-
vances a dualistic agenda that sees social sustainability and capitalist growth of profits
as achievable by capitalist ownership and the development of ICT infrastructure. Since
the rise of neoliberal politics that advanced privatisation, the commodification of common
goods and public services, market liberalisation, and the deregulation of social policies, in-
equality understood as the distribution of income between labour and capital and between
the rich and the poor, resource inequality, and inequality of health and death has increased.

”In March 2008, before the bubble burst, Forbes magazine listed 1,125 of the
world’s billionaires. Together, they owned $4.4 trillion. That was almost the
entire national income of 128 million Japanese or a third of the income of 302
million Americans”.
(Therborn 2012, 584)

WSIS propagated a so-called “multi-stakeholder approach” that in Internet governance

fosters the co-operation of “governments, the private sector, civil society and other
stakeholders, including the international financial institutions” (WSIS 2003, §60; see
also WSIS 2005, §§29, 34, 80, 83, 97, 98). Such formulations create the impression that
these actors possess equal shares of power in the world. Transnational corporations
have significant shares of money, reputation, and influence and may therefore be more
capable of being more heard in policy debates and policy formulations than civil society
actors. It is therefore not a surprise that in contrast to the official “multi-stakeholder”
documents published by WSIS in 2003 and 2005 that have a corporate-friendly character,
the 2003 Civil Society Declaration to the WSIS formulated a different vision. It said that
182 Applications

”full participation in information and communication societies requires us to

reject at a fundamental level, the solely profit-motivated and market-propelled
promotion of ICTs for development. Conscious and purposeful actions need to
be taken in order to ensure that new ICTs are not deployed to further perpetuate
existing negative trends of economic globalisation and market monopolisation”.
(WSIS Civil Society Plenary 2003, 7)

WSIS saw public service investment and provision of Internet access only feasible in
poor regions: “We recognize that public finance plays a crucial role in providing ICT ac-
cess and services to rural areas and disadvantaged populations including those in Small
Island Developing States and Landlocked Developing Countries” (WSIS 2005, §21). It
did not consider that capitalist ownership of communications infrastructure tends to be,
as we have already seen, economically highly concentrated, which means a high con-
centration of power and private wealth. Public service infrastructure in a world of high
inequality and concentrated capitalist ownership may therefore be a feasible alternative
not just for developing regions. The argument that the public should only step in where
private investors cannot easily make profits overlooks that the market also fails in other
areas, where transnational corporations make large profits and such accumulation re-
sults in market concentration.

Ten years after the WSIS, the WSIS+10 High Level Event conducted a progress review
(Geneva, 10–13 June 2014) and published outcome documents. The approach has ten
years later not changed and remains dualist: ICTs are “cross-cutting enablers for achiev-
ing the three pillars of sustainable development” (WSIS+10 2014, 10). WSIS+10 recog-
nises some problems such as the gender digital divide, the lack of youth empowerment,
the lack of Internet access in the least developed countries, that the voluntary digital sol-
idarity fund does not work, e-waste, or privacy issues resulting from mass surveillance.
But overall it is just like the WSIS outcome documents in 2003 and 2005 over-confident
that capitalism and the market are the right way to social and economic progress.

The WSIS agenda is still dualist: “ICTs should be fully recognized as tools empowering
people, and providing economic growth” (12). And it is also still neoliberal, although the
new world economic crisis has shed doubts on this approach. “To attract private invest-
ment, competition and adequate market liberalization policies to develop the infrastruc-
ture, financing, and new business models need to be studied and deployed, taking into
account national circumstances” (WSIS+10 High Level Event 2014, 36). “We recognize
the critical importance of private sector investment in information and communications
technology infrastructure, content and services, and we encourage Governments to
 Chapter Eight | Information Technology and Sustainability 183

create legal and regulatory frameworks conducive to increased investment and innova-
tion” (United Nations General Assembly 2015, §38).

WSIS simply ignores certain important issues that concern the development of the in-
formation society and show the latter’s contradictions in capitalism: the concentrated
wealth of the rich (including the owners and CEOs of the largest transnational com-
munications corporations), precarious labour (especially in the younger generation),
computerisation- and automation-induced unemployment, the crisis of capitalism, profit/
wage-inequality, income and wealth inequality, the concentration of ownership in the
communications industries, unpaid and precarious digital and crowdsourced labour, com-
munications corporations’ tax avoidance, etc.

In 2015, there were 241 information companies among the world’s 2,000 largest transna-

Dualistic Understandings of Sustainability in the Information Society

tional companies.5 Together they had combined profits of US$537.3 billion (data source:
Forbes 2000, 2015 list). These profits exceeded the combined GDP of the world’s 33 least
developing countries (US$474.0 billion) and the combined GDP of the world’s 74 smallest
economies (GDP of US$536.2 billion) (data source: UNHDR 2015, World Bank Data [GDP I
market prices in current US$])). Table 8.7 shows the world’s ten most profitable transna-
tional information corporations in the year 2015.

The combined profits of the world’s ten largest transnational information corporations
(US$240.0 billion) are larger than the combined GDP of the world’s 16 least developed
countries (US$229.2 billion) and larger than the combined GDP of the world’s 54 smallest

TABLE 8.7 The world’s most profitable transnational information corporations in the year 2015 (data source: Forbes
2000, 2015 list)

No. Forbes rank Company Industry Profits 2015 (billion US$)

1 40 Vodafone Telecommunications 77.4
2 12 Apple Computer hardware 44.500
3 18 Samsung Electronics Semiconductors 21.9
4 25 Microsoft Software and programming 20.7
5 20 China Mobile Telecommunications 17.7
6 39 Google Computer services 13.700
7 44 IBM Computer services 12.000
8 67 Intel Semiconductors 11.7
9 88 Oracle Software and programming 10.8
10 22 Verizon Telecommunications 9.6
Total: US$240.0 bn
184 Applications

economies (US$234.2 billion) (data source: UNHDR 2015, World Bank Data [GDP at mar-
ket prices in current US$]). Vodafone was in 2015 the world’s most profitable transna-
tional information corporation. Its profits amounted to US$77.4 billion. Vodafone’s profits
were larger than the individual economic performance of 114 of the world’s countries
(data source: World Bank Data, GDP at market prices in current US$ for 2015), including
populous countries such as Ethiopia (100 million inhabitants), the Democratic Republic
of Congo (75 mn), Tanzania (52 mn), Kenya (45 mn), Uganda (38 mn) (data source: World
Bank Statistics, year 2014). Vodafone, a British telecommunications company that uses
“a Luxembourg entity to reduce tax bills”, according to reports paid no corporation tax
in 2014/2015.6

These data show the power of transnational information corporations. They are very
profitable companies. Their individual economic power is often larger than the one of
entire countries. Their profitability is often further increased by tax avoidance. At the
same time, there is large inequality between profits and wages, and neoliberalism and
austerity measures have resulted in cuts of social expenditures and the rollback and
privatisation of public services. Talking about the sustainability of the information soci-
ety without talking about the profits of information corporations and the wealth of the
rich, as the WSIS does, has a quite ideological character. Dualistic thought formulates
the goal of corporate profitability together with a wish list of social equality goals and
ignores the actual contradiction between the first and the second. Can there be an alter-
native, critical understanding of sustainability in an information society and information
technology context?

8.6. Conclusion: Towards a Critical, Dialectical

Understanding of Sustainability in the
Information Society
This chapter has shown that there are two dominant versions of ICT sustainability dis-
course: neoliberal reductionism and neoliberal dualism. They have in common that they
both have a quite similar role in society as ideologies that try to legitimatise the domi-
nant way of how corporations and politicians organise information technologies as in-
struments for corporate and bureaucratic control.

Habermas (1968/1989) stresses in this context based on Herbert Marcuse (1964) that
technology becomes a form of technological rationality that is a form of domination and
ideology. The analysis presented in this chapter shows that Marcuse’s and Habermas’s
 Chapter Eight | Information Technology and Sustainability 185

insights about technological rationality remain highly relevant in the time of social com-
puting, the Internet, cloud computing, the Internet of things, and big data. Reductionist
and dualist versions of ICT sustainability are one-dimensional and instrumental concepts
of the relationship between information technology and society. They are means for
domination and ideological legitimation. Langdon Winner (1986, 105) speaks of mythin-

Conclusion: Towards a Critical, Dialectical Understanding of Sustainability in the Information Society

formation as the “conviction that a widespread adoption of computers and communica-
tion systems along with easy access to electronic information will automatically produce
a better world for human living”. Mythinformation is the ideology of those “who build,
maintain, operate, improve, and market” as well as regulate and analyse computing
systems in an instrumental manner (Winner 1986, 113). Reductionist and dualist versions
of ICT sustainability believe in specific versions of mythinformation, namely, that the
combination of computing and capitalism will produce a better world.

Winner (1986) describes how in respect to computing, political questions such as “How
can we live gracefully and with justice?” (162), “Are we going to design and build circum-
stances that enlarge possibilities for growth in human freedom, sociability, intelligence,
creativity, and self-government? Or are we headed in an altogether different direction?”
(17), or “How can we limit modern technology to match our best sense of who we are
and the kind of world we would like to build?” (xi) are often simply not asked. Today, the
moral values of computing are being discussed in the context of buzzwords such as sus-
tainability and corporate social responsibility. Corporations, managers, bureaucrats, and
instrumentalists can no longer simply ignore moral philosophy. Today moral questions
tend to be asked, but the answers remain one-dimensional and naïve, often stressing
that “Information technology will fix society’s problems” (technological reductionism),
or “Capitalist adoption of information technology will fix society’s problems” (economic
reductionism), or “We want to have capitalism, capitalist information technologies and
a good society” (dualism).

Critical theorists of technology and society share the insight that alternative models of
technology and society that transcend instrumental reason are needed. Marcuse speaks
in this context of the need for dialectical rationality (Marcuse 1964) and technologies of
liberation (Marcuse 1969), Habermas (1968/1989) of communicative action, Illich (1973)
of convivial tools, and Raymond Williams (1976) of democratic communications. Winner
(1986, Chapters 4 and 5) reminds us in his critique of decentralised, appropriate technol-
ogies that there is no alternative technology-fix and no alternative consumer culture-fix
to society’s problems. “Appropriate technologists were unwilling to face squarely the
facts of organized social and political power” (Winner 1986, 80). The implications for
186 Applications

alternative computing, networking, online and Internet technologies today are that cen-
tralised power exists in a technologically decentralised world and that alternative digital
technologies not just require alternative designs that foster democratic alternatives, but
also struggles for the democratisation of the institutions, contexts and society, in which
alt-tech is used. The struggle for alternative technologies must at the same time be the
struggle for an alternative society, a participatory democracy.

A dialectical perspective on the information society is based on these insights

and sees unsustainable development as the result of contradictions in society that are
mediated by information technology and result in destruction and inequalities. Table 8.8
gives an overview of the dimensions of un/sustainable ICTs and an un/sustainable infor-
mation society.

What do we mean if we speak of a dialectic (for a more detailed discussion, see:

Fuchs 2014a, 2011, Chapter 2.4)? A dialectic is a contradictory relationship between
two entities. They simultaneously are identical and different. They require and exclude
each other. Dialectical logic challenges classical binary and reductionist thought. It
questions the reduction of the world to just one dimension. It is, however, not just
relational and multidimensional, but also sees the world as being in flux and develop-
ment. Development potentialities emerge out of poles that contradict each other. At
a certain level of organisation, everything constantly develops. There are, however,
also more continuous processes that only change at specific critical points. Dialectical
development includes situations of crisis and change and the emergence of novelty at
such critical points. In society, there are two basic forms of the dialectic: One has to
do with the very basic conditions and the basic development of society. So for example
there is a social dialectic between human beings: In order to exist, humans have to
communicate with each other. They are different individuals, but can only inform them-
selves by mutual symbolic interaction. The second form of societal dialectic has to do
with power relations. In a power dialectic, we find conflicting interests and conflicting
structures.

The basic assumption, on which a dialectical concept of un/sustainable ICTs in an un/

sustainable information society is based, is that unsustainability means that there are
contradictory interests in the production and/or use of digital media technologies, such
as for example a contradiction between nature and society (environmental unsustain-
ability), digital capital and digital labour (economic unsustainability), the rulers and
the ruled (political unsustainability), or a cultural elite and everyday people (cultural
unsustainability).
TABLE 8.8 A dialectical view of the un/sustainability of ICTs and the information society

Dimension Dimension of sustainability Question Dimension of unsustainability Question

Nature Environmental sustainability To which degree does ICT use respect the Environmental unsustainability To which degree does ICT use result in the depletion
of ICTs: protection and preservation of natural of ICTs: of non-renewable natural resources, the
Biodiversity resources so that the survival of nature and Contradiction between nature and consumption of non-renewable energy resources,
(Questions concerning eWaste society is guaranteed? To which degree society the production of non-recyclable (e-)waste, and
and the energy consumption is there an equitable distribution of ICTs’ (environmental pollution, in pollution? To which degree is there an unequal
of ICTs) environmental harms and benefits to certain degradation and depletion) and inequitable distribution of ICTs’ environmental
groups and places? harms and benefits to certain groups and places?
Society: Economic sustainability To which degree is a social system that Economic unsustainability of ICTs: To which degree is a social system that produces,
Economy of ICTs: Wealth for all produces, uses or provides access to ICTs Contradiction between digital uses or provides access to ICTs organised in a
(Questions concerning power, organised in a way that fosters wealth for all capital and digital labour manner that does not guarantee the satisfaction
monopolies, labour, access, and a fair distribution of wealth? (poverty, inequality, economic of the needs of all humans (poverty), that
affordability, and resource crisis) results in unfair distribution of need satisfaction
availability in the digital (inequality) or the irreproducibility of the economy
media industry) (economic crisis)?
Society: Political sustainability of ICTs: To which degree does the social organisation Political unsustainability of ICTs: To which degree is the social organisation
Political Participation and peace underlying the production or use of ICTs Contradiction between the rulers underlying the production or use of ICTs ruled by
system (Questions about eParticipation, enable humans to participate in collective and the ruled (dictatorship and an elite that excludes others from participation in
eDemocracy, cyberwar, online decision-making? To which degree does war) collective decision-making? To which degree does
privacy, digital surveillance) the use of ICTs guarantee the peaceful the use of ICTs foster violence, the violation of
existence and interaction of societies and basic rights and warfare?
the guarantee of basic rights?
Society: Digital cultural sustainability: To which degree does digital culture enable Digital cultural unsustainability: To which degree does digital culture limit mental
Cultural Recognition the development of the human mind, the Contradiction between the cultural development and production, the recognition
system (Questions about online recognition of identities in society, and the elite and everyday people of identities and the reproduction of the human
community and eLearning) reproduction of the human body? (disrespect and malrecognition) body?
Chapter Eight | Information Technology and Sustainability 187

Conclusion: Towards a Critical, Dialectical Understanding of Sustainability in the Information Society

188 Applications

The dimensions of sustainability do not exist independently, but are interdependent, i.e.
a lack of a certain dimension eventually will have negative influences on other dimen-
sions, whereas enrichment of one dimension will provide a positive potential for the en-
richment of other dimensions. So for example people who live in poverty are more likely
to not show much interest in political participation. Another example is that an unsus-
tainable ecosystem advances an unsustainable society and vice versa: If man pollutes
nature and depletes non-renewable natural resources, i.e. if he creates an unhealthy
environment, the problems such as poverty, war, totalitarianism, extremism, violence,
crime, etc. are more likely to occur. The other way round a society that is shaken by
poverty, war, a lack of democracy and plurality, etc. is more likely to pollute and deplete
nature. So sustainability should be conceived as being based on dialectics of ecological
preservation, human-centred technology, economic equity, political participation, and
cultural recognition. These dimensions are held together by the logic of co-operation,
i.e. the notion that systems should be designed in ways that allow all involved actors to
benefit. Co-operation is the unifying and binding force of a participatory, co-operative,
sustainable information society. The logic of co-operation dialectically integrates the
various dimensions of sustainability.

The WSIS Civil Society Plenary (2005) argues that in the WSIS process, civil society in-
terests were not adequately taken into account (for a critique of WSIS see also Servaes
and Carpentier 2006).

”Internet access, for everybody and everywhere, especially among disadvan-

taged populations and in rural areas, must be considered as a global public
good. […] The WSIS documents also mostly focus on market-based solutions
and commercial use. Yet the Internet, satellite, cable and broadcast systems all
utilize public resources, such as airwaves and orbital paths. These should be
managed in the public interest as publicly owned assets through transparent
and accountable regulatory frameworks to enable the equitable allocation of
resources and infrastructure among a plurality of media including community
media”.
(WSIS Civil Society Plenary 2005, 4, 12)

In its own declaration – that is very different from the official dualistic WSIS outcome
documents – the WSIS Civil Society Plenary (2003) argues for an information society
that is based on 34 inclusive principles. Among them are the promotion of free software
and the establishment of a public domain of global knowledge that challenges intellec-
tual property. The focus is on public goods and redistribution. The Plenary stresses that
 Chapter Eight | Information Technology and Sustainability 189

distributive justice is needed and that economic resources should not simply be produced
within economic growth models, but need to be redistributed:

”We aspire to build information and communication societies where develop-

ment is framed by fundamental human rights and oriented to achieving a more

Conclusion: Towards a Critical, Dialectical Understanding of Sustainability in the Information Society

equitable distribution of resources, leading to the elimination of poverty in a
way that is non-exploitative and environmentally sustainable”.
(WSIS Civil Society Plenary 2003, 3)

This chapter has shown that sustainability in the information technology context has
played an ideological role that aims to advance a neoliberal policy framework that con-
ceives ICTs as a realms of private capital accumulation and advances the commodifica-
tion of communications and society. The question that arises in this context is if from
a critical theory perspective, the sustainability concept should therefore be discarded
or not. The view advanced in this chapter is that a critical social theory should provide
an ideology critique of information technology sustainability, but at the same time not
discard, but sublate the sustainability concept into a critical notion of (un)sustainable
information technology sustainability. Such a concept stands in the context of the quest
for an alternative framework for the information technology that goes beyond capital
accumulation and aims to advance communications as a commons.

Notes
1 http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2014/11/eu-unveils-gbp250bn-investment-plan-
infrastructure-broadband.html.
2 http://ec.europa.eu/priorities/jobs-growth-and-investment_en.
3 See: Mobile networks hand small fortune to shareholders – but little to taxpayers. The Guard-
ian Online, July 31, 2013. Vodafone-Verizone deal: Margaret Hodge raises alarm over tax loss.
The Guardian Online, September 2, 2013. Tax breaks used by mobile phone networks face
scrutiny. The Guardian Online, July 31, 2013.
4 See: Luxembourg Tax Files Leaks: Tech Companies, http://www.icij.org/project/luxembourg-
leaks/explore-documents-luxembourg-leaks-database (accessed on 15 February 2016).
5 The following industries were for this purpose classified as information industries: adver-
tising, broadcasting & cable, communications equipment, computer & electronics retail,
computer hardware, computer services, computer storage devices, consumer electronics,
electronics, Internet retail, printing & publishing, semiconductors, software & programming,
telecommunications.
6 Six of biggest ten firms pay no UK corporation tax. The Sunday Times, January 31, 2016, p. 14.
190 Applications

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Summit on the Information Society. http://workspace.unpan.org/sites/Internet/Documents/
UNPAN95735.pdf
United Nations Human Development Report 2015 (UNHDR 2015). New York: United Nations De-
velopment Programme.
Williams, Raymond. 1983. Keywords. A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press.
192 Applications

Williams, Raymond. 1976. Communications. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Winner, Langdon. 1986. The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Tech-
nology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
World Summit on the Information Society. 2005. Tunis Agenda for the Information Society. http://
www.itu.int/net/wsis/docs2/tunis/off/6rev1.html
World Summit on the Information Society. 2003. WSIS Geneva Declaration of Principles: Building
the Information Society: A Global Challenge in the New Millennium. http://www.itu.int/net/
wsis/docs/geneva/official/dop.html
WSIS+10 High-Level Event. 2014. WSIS Outcome Documents. Geneva: ITU.
WSIS Civil Society Plenary. 2005. Much More Could Have Been Achieved: Civil Society Statement
on WSIS. http://www.worldsummit2005.de/download_en/WSIS-CS-summit-statement-rev1-
23-12-2005-en.pdf
WSIS Civil Society Plenary. 2003. “Shaping Information Society for Human Needs”: Civil Soci-
ety Declaration to the World Summit on the Information Society. http://www.itu.int/net/wsis/
docs/geneva/civil-society-declaration.pdf
Chapter Nine
Theoretical Foundations of Defining the Participatory,
Co-operative, Sustainable Information Society (PCSIS)

9.1 Introduction: A Theoretical Model of Society

9.2 Concepts of a Sustainable Information Society (SIS)
9.3 Conclusion

9.1 Introduction: A Theoretical Model of Society

Sustainable information society (SIS), sustainable knowledge society, sustainable pro-
ductive information society, sustainable networked knowledge society, planetary sus-
tainable information and knowledge society, participatory information society, inclusive
information society, and information society for all: these are some of the buzzwords
that have in recent years been employed in the academic and the political discourses
on which society is desirable. Overall, these discourses signify a shift toward the view
that not just any information society that is brought about by the diffusion of digital net-
worked information and communication technologies (ICTs) is needed, but an information
society that is actively shaped by humans in order to gain desirable qualities. Normative
judgements have become more important. But these discourses are also fragmented and
are lacking a theoretical foundation that tries to give concise definitions of the catego-
ries in use. A systematic theoretically grounded comparison of such categories is still
missing.

The task of this chapter is to contribute to the elimination of this deficit by constructing
a comparative typology of approaches that are grounded in social theory. Furthermore,
based on this discussion a dialectical notion that describes an information society that
is normatively desirable for the author and that is suggested for broader consideration is
introduced. So the second task of this chapter is to theoretically ground a notion of the
participatory, co-operative, SIS (PCSIS). The importance of this undertaking is justified by
the fact that during the past few years the insight has become common that not just any
type of information society is needed, but an information society for all. In this context,
the notions of participation, co-operation, and sustainability have become important in
information society discourse.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003279488-11
194 Applications

First, the theoretical background is outlined (Section 9.1), then a typology of approaches
on PCSIS will be introduced (Section 9.2), and finally some conclusions are drawn (Sec-
tion 9.3). Methodologically, this chapter is based on social theory construction and dia-
lectical thinking. By identifying two poles that are important for social theory construction
(base and superstructure), a criterion that allows the distinction of various theoretical
approaches on the notion of the SIS is introduced. Four possible relations between these
two poles are considered as grounding four different approaches. The last of these four
ones is considered as a dialectical approach in the sense that the two poles are different
(each is characterised by the absence of qualities of the other, cf. Bhaskar 1993), but at
the same time related, connected, interdependent, and mediated (Hegel 1830, §116).
Two moments are connected, which are at the same time different and connected and
are encroaching on each other (Holz 2005). The approach introduced by the author is a
dialectical one and can be seen as a synthesis of the other three introduced approaches.

Models of society that privilege one part over other parts, such as economism, politicism,
or culturalism, are not able to explain phenomena that show a relative autonomy. So
for example models of society that reduce explanations to the economy, cannot explain
why protest movements can emerge both in situations of relative economic stability or
instability (compare for instance the economic conditions in the era of the rise of the Nazi
movement with those of the era of the 1968 students’ movement). Models of society that
see society as being composed of independent subsystems, such as Luhmann’s (1984)
theory of functional differentiation, face the problem of explaining phenomena that are
characteristic for the global network society. So they for example cannot grasp that today
economic logic influences and dominates large parts of society. In contrast to reduction-
istic and relativistic social theories, dialectical social theories have proved successful in
conceiving society as being composed of relative autonomous subsystems that all have
their own specificity, but nonetheless depend on each other and influence each other.
The subsystems are conceived as distinct and at the same time mutually interdependent,
which is the fundamental logical figure of dialectical thinking.

Society can be conceived as consisting of interconnected subsystems that are not inde-
pendent and based on one specific function they fulfill, but are open, communicatively
interconnected, and networked. As subsystems of a model of society one can conceive
the ecological system, the technological system, the economic system, the political sys-
tem, and the cultural system (Fuchs 2008c, cf. Figure 9.1). Why exactly these systems? In
order to survive, humans in society have to appropriate and change nature (ecology) with
the help of technologies so that they can produce resources that they distribute and con-
sume (economy), which enables them to make collective decisions (polity), form values,
 Chapter Nine | Theoretical Foundations of Defining PCSIS 195

Introduction: A Theoretical Model of Society

FIGURE 9.1 Society as a dynamic, dialectical system.

and acquire skills (culture). The core of this model consists of three systems (economy,
polity, and culture). This distinction can also be found in other contemporary sociological
theories: Giddens (1984, 28–34) distinguishes between economic institutions, political
institutions, and symbolic orders/modes of discourse as the three types of institutions in
society. Bourdieu (1986) speaks of economic, political, and cultural capital as the three
types of structures in society. Jürgen Habermas (1981) differs between the lifeworld, the
economic system, and the political system.

Each of these three systems is shaped by human actors and social structures that are
produced by the actors and condition the actors’ practices. Each subsystem is defined
and permanently re-created by a reflexive loop that productively interconnects human
196 Applications

TABLE 9.1 An overview of structures in society

Type of structure Structure Definition

Ecological structures (Natural) resources Physical matter that is extracted in labour processes from nature and
that is changed by human activities.
Technological Tools Artefacts, means, methods, and skills of action that are used by humans
structures in order to try to achieve defined goals.
Economic structures Property Goods and resources that are produced, distributed, and used by
humans for satisfying defined needs.
Political structures Power The capacity and means for influencing collective decisions according
to one’s own will.
Cultural structures Definition-capacities The capacity to define and acquire values, skills, and practices that shall
give meaning to life and help re-create human minds and bodies.

actors and their practices with social structures. An overview of the qualities of structur-
ing and structured structures in society is given in Table 9.1.

The economic system can only produce goods that satisfy human needs by human labour
power that makes use of productive and communication technologies in order to estab-
lish social relations and change the state of natural resources. The latter are transformed
into economic goods by the application of technologies to nature and society in labour
processes. The economy is based on the dialectic of natural resources and labour that
is mediated by technology. We can therefore argue that socially transformed nature and
technology are aspects of the economic system.

This allows us to make a distinction between the base and the superstructure of soci-
ety. The economic base is constituted by the interplay of labour, technology, and nature
so that economic goods are produced that satisfy human needs. The superstructure is
made up by the interconnection of the political and the cultural system, so that imma-
terial goods emerge that allow the definition of collective decisions and societal value
structures. Does it make sense to speak of base (nature, technology, and economy) and
superstructure (polity, culture) in society, or does this mean that one reduces all social
existence to economic facts? The superstructure is not a mechanic reflection, that is,
a linear mapping, of the base, that is, the relations and forces of production. It cannot
be deduced from or reduced to it. All human activity is based on producing a natural
and social environment; it is in this sense that the notion of the base is of fundamen-
tal importance. We have to eat and survive before we can and in order to enjoy lei-
sure, entertainment, arts, and so on. The base is a precondition, a necessary, but not
a sufficient condition for the superstructure. The superstructure is a complex, nonlin-
ear creative reflection of the base, the base a complex, nonlinear creative reflection of
 Chapter Nine | Theoretical Foundations of Defining PCSIS 197

the superstructure. This means that both levels are recursively linked and produce each
other. Economic practices and structures trigger political and cultural processes. Cultural
and political practices and structures trigger economic processes. The notion of creative
reflection grasps the dialectic of chance and necessity/indetermination and determina-
tion that shapes the relationship of base and superstructure. There is not a content of
the superstructure that is “predicted, prefigured and controlled” by the base; the base
as Raymond Williams in his famous paper on Base and Superstructure has argued “sets
limits and exerts pressure” on the superstructure (Williams 2001, 165). Stuart Hall (1983)
has in this context spoken of a determination in the first instance exerted by the eco-
nomic system on superstructures.

9.2 Concepts of a Sustainable Information

Society (SIS)
Wolfgang Hofkirchner (2002) has introduced a typology of four worldviews that are based
on the potential relationships between two categories: reductionism establishes iden-

Concepts of a Sustainable Information Society (SIS)

tity by eliminating the difference for the benefit of the smaller, less differentiated part;
projectionism establishes identity by eliminating the difference for the benefit of the
larger, more differentiated side; dualism eliminates identity by establishing a difference
of the two sides, it is a disjunctive approach; finally, dialectical thinking integrates the
two sides so that the two sides have different and identical aspects; they yield a unity
in diversity. The advantage of using this typology instead of other approaches is that it
covers all logical possibilities of how two entities can be related.

Applying Hofkirchner’s typology to the relationship of base and superstructure allows us

to classify definitions of a participatory/co-operative/SIS. The base is less differentiated
than the superstructure because all superstructural phenomena have economic aspects,
whereas not all economic phenomena have political and cultural aspects. Hence the
superstructure is more differentiated and builds upon the base. There are reductionis-
tic, projective, dualistic, and dialectical approaches. Reductionistic approaches reduce
sustainability to the economic base, i.e. they see economic, technological, or ecological
aspects as the determining factors, the superstructure is deduced from the base. Pro-
jective approaches consider political or cultural aspects as the sole determining factors
of sustainability, they give priority to the superstructure, and the base is derived from
the superstructure. Dualistic approaches assert the existence of a variety of dimensions
of sustainability, but they consider these dimensions as being independent. Dialectical
thinking conceives sustainability as on the one hand multidimensional and on the other
198 Applications

hand interdependent. The various dimensions are seen as having their own specific rela-
tive autonomies, but as being at the same time causally related in complex ways, mutu-
ally constituting and influencing.

The reason why it might be problematic to speak of a “sustainable information society”

or a “participatory information society” is that there is evidence that huge gaps in wealth
are characteristic of contemporary society and indicate the existence of a capitalist class
system that is euphemised or blanked out by the concepts of sustainability and partici-
pation (for a detailed macroeconomic statistical analysis compare Fuchs 2008c). Many
Western countries have relatively high poverty rates that are well above 10% of the
population. So for example in the USA, relative poverty rose from 21.0% in 1974 to
24.1% in 2004 (Data: Luxembourg Income Study). In the UK, it increased from 12.4% in
1969 to 19.2% in 2004 (ibid.). Also, income inequality measured by the Gini coefficient
has increased in many countries during the past decades. So for example in the USA, the
Gini coefficient rose from 30.1 in 1979 to 37.2 in 2004 and in the UK in the same years
from 27.0 to 34.5 (ibid.). Branko Milanovic (2002, 2007a, 2007b) has calculated global
inequality based on household income surveys from 91 countries. He has calculated an
increase in Gini inequality for the period of 1988–1993 from 62.5 to 66 and from 66 to 70
for the period of 1993–2003. The developed world accounts for approximately 25% of
the world’s population (United Nations Human Development Report (UNHDR) 2008), but
has since the early 1970s accounted for the majority of the world’s wealth (Figure 9.2).
The least developed countries’ share has dropped from above 3% to a little above 1%
in the time from 1980 to 2007 (UNHDR 2008). The share of Sub-Saharan countries has
remained continuously below 1% during the same time (ibid.). One big change in the

85.0
80.0
75.0
70.0
65.0
60.0
55.0
50.0
45.0
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35.0
30.0
25.0
20.0
15.0
10.0
5.0
0.0
1970
1971
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1973
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1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
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1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
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1989
1990
1991
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2003
2004
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2019

Developed economies China

FIGURE 9.2 Share of developed economies in world GDP.

 Chapter Nine | Theoretical Foundations of Defining PCSIS 199

world economy has been the strong growth of the Chinese economy. The UNCTAD data,
in Figure 9.2, do not include China under the developed economies. But its share of the
world’s gross domestic product has risen from 2.7% in 1970 to 16.2% in 2019, which
is the major factor that has resulted in a drop of the developed economies share from
69.4% in 1970 to 56.8% in 2019. If we include China among the developed economies,
then the share of developed economies in the global GDP has risen from 72.1% in 1970
to 73.0% in 2019. Poor parts of the world such as the Sub-Saharan countries have re-
mained extremely poor during this time period.

In Western countries, productivity increases have resulted in the past decades in con-
tinuously rising profit shares, but at the same time in a drop of the wage rate, which
shows that capital accumulation has been driven by relative drops in total wages. In
the EU15 countries, productivity increased from an index value of 49.7 in 1960 to one of
104.6 in 2009 (Annual Macro-Economic Database). During the same time, total annual
corporate profits increased from €100.0 billion to €2979.8 billion and the wage share
dropped from 62.7 to 57.3 (ibid.). In the USA, productivity increased from an index value
of 60.6 in 1960 to one of 105.7 in 2005 (ibid.). During the same time, total annual cor-

Concepts of a Sustainable Information Society (SIS)

porate profits increased from US$131 billion in 1960 to US$3,594.8 billion in 2009, and
the wage share dropped from 65.3 to 60.8 (ibid.). In Japan, productivity increased from
an index value of 36.4 in 1960 to one of 112.8 in 2009 (ibid.). During the same time total
annual corporate profits increased from ¥6.6 billion to ¥97.2 billion and the wage share
dropped from 73.2 to 58.5 (ibid.). Is it really likely and reasonable to assume that soci-
eties characterised by such class divisions have potentials for becoming “sustainable”
in the near future?

Table 9.2 gives on overview of the approaches and examples that are discussed in Sec-
tions 9.2.1–9.2.4. In the discussion in the succeeding chapters, examples for each of the
four kinds of approaches are given.

9.2.1 Reductionistic SIS Definitions: Base without

Superstructure
Reductionistic approaches see ecological or technological or economic changes as the
sole driving forces of a SIS.

O’Donnell, McQuillan and Malina (2003, 26ff; cf. also O’Donnell 2001) define an inclusive
information society as a society that ensures that all citizens (especially the elderly,
women at home, the disabled, farmers, the unemployed, etc.) have the opportunity to
200 Applications

TABLE 9.2 Approaches on the sustainable information society

Type of approach Examples Description of approach

on sustainable
information society
Reductionism Britton (1996), Commission of the Ecology, economy, or technology is
European Communities (2005), Hilty considered as the driving forces of a
(2000), Lisbon European Council (2000), sustainable information society.
O’Donnel, McQuillan, Malina (2003),
O’Donnell (2001),
Projectionism Macintosh (2004, 2006) Polity and/or culture are seen as the
determinant forces of a sustainable
information society.
Dualism Carrelli et al. (2000), Club of Rome (2003), Multiple dimensions and goals of a
Club of Rome and the Factor 10 Institute sustainable information society are
(2002), Commission of the European identified, but not causally related to each
Communities (2002, 2006), European other.
Commission (1998), eEurope (2002a,
2002b), eEurope (2005), Information
Society Forum (1998, 2000), Radermacher
(2004), Schauer (2003), World Summit on
the Information Society (2005)
Dialectic Fuchs (2008a, 2008b, 2008c), Göhring Multiple interrelated dimensions and goals
(1999), Heinrich Böll Foundation (2003a, of a sustainable information society are
2003b), López-Ospina (2003), World identified, existing contradictions of these
Summit on the Information Society Civil dimensions are analysed, and necessary
Society Plenary (2005) changes are conceived as integral,
interdependent, and systemic.

use ICTs to improve the quality of their lives and communities (community-building and
-maintenance, eCommerce, eBusiness, eLearning, eLeisure, eHealth, and eGovernment),
to contribute to a knowledge-based economy and society (improving human capital and
technology-related skills, foster ICT-related economic growth, increase the use of ICTs,
special support for ICT learning and skills for disadvantaged individuals and rural areas),
and to engage with Government services and participate in the democratic process and
that civil society is engaged with the help of ICTs in ICT training, employment, demo-
cratic participation, online content production, and the building of social capital and trust
in ICTs.

This definition involves economic, political, and cultural aspects, its main problem is
that its four aspects are strongly overlapping and hence have no analytical discrimina-
tory power. It is a very technology-centred definition, led by the belief that technology
access and skills alone suffice to improve the lives of all. What is missing is the in-
sight that technology support needs to be combined with social transformations toward
 Chapter Nine | Theoretical Foundations of Defining PCSIS 201

participatory social systems. The concept of eInclusion provided by O’Donnell et al. is an

example of a technodeterministic-reductionistic definition of SIS.

Lorenz Hilty defines a SIS in purely ecological terms, i.e. with a focus on environmental
protection. He argues that the sustainability aspect of ICTs is “how they could help re-
duce the material intensity of economic processes” (Hilty 2000, 6). His approach is an
ecological reductionistic one.

Another ecological reductionistic view is presented in a special issue of the Journal

of World Transport Policy & Practice (Britton 1996). It is argued that ICTs support sus-
tainability because they are revolutionary in the respect that they “(a) involve relatively
small amounts of material resources, and (b) permit substantial dematerialisation in
many domains” (Britton 1996, 12). Ecological benefits could be achieved by imple-
menting sustainable transport as a bridging strategy that would have positive effects
upon society as a whole. “Even without some form of collective guidance, the Infor-
mation Society is likely to have significant de-materialization impacts, which will work
in the direct of more sustainable behavior” (Britton 1996, 12). Nonetheless, conscious

Concepts of a Sustainable Information Society (SIS)

political action would be necessary in order to tackle unsustainable tendencies. This
approach is reductionistic in the sense that it is focused on ecological and transport
issues and neglects a variety of other issues that are seen as being derived from trans-
port issues.

The development initiative i2010 of the European Commission is oriented on purely eco-
nomic issues, arguing that what is needed today is an “information society for growth
and employment” (Commission of the European Communities 2005). The main objectives
of i2010 are technological progress (“a single European information space”), the ad-
vancement of research and innovation in ICTs, and inclusiveness (ibid.). The economic
goal formulated in the Lisbon strategy “to become the most competitive and dynamic
knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with
more and better jobs and greater social cohesion” (Lisbon European Council 2000) by
2010 has been the driving force of all such EU initiatives. In the eEurope strategy, eco-
nomic goals were seen as being achievable by investment in the economy, polity, culture,
and welfare. This was a dualistic strategy that identified multiple separate goals. The
difference that has emerged with i2010 is that now a rather strictly economic strategy
has been introduced, defining economic goals (growth, employment) as the most im-
portant ones. The EU has shifted from a dualistic toward an economic reductionistic
strategy.
202 Applications

9.2.2 Projectionistic SIS Definitions: Superstructure

without Base
Projectionistic approaches see superstructures (polity and/or culture) as the determining
forces of sustainability. They are the least frequently found approaches in the literature.

One example is the notion of participation underlying the concept of eParticipation as

defined by Ann MacIntosh. The approach focuses on ICTs for advancing the inclusion
of citizens in political decision-making. eParticipation is defined as “the use of informa-
tion and communication technologies to broaden and deepen political participation by
enabling citizens to connect with one another and with their elected representatives”
(MacIntosh 2006, cf. also the contributions in DEMO-net 2006). For MacIntosh (2004),
eParticipation consists of the three aspects of E-enabling, E-engaging and E-empowering
citizens to participate in politics. The focus is strictly on political processes, participation
in cultural or economic, or technological processes is neglected. This approach is a pro-
jectionistic politicism.

9.2.3 Dualistic SIS Definitions: Separating Base and

Superstructure
Dualistic approaches define multiple goals and dimensions of SIS, but do not consider if
these goals are compatible and if and how they are causally linked. Dualistic models are
the ones that can be found most frequently in the literature.

The European Commission has advanced a dualistic view of the SIS by arguing that ICTs
support economic growth, social progress, and environmental sustainability:

“Investing in knowledge is certainly the best, and maybe the only, way for the
EU to foster economic growth and create more and better jobs, while at the
same time ensuring social progress and environmental sustainability. In other
words, it is Europe’s chance to strengthen its model of society”.
(Commission of the European Communities 2006, 2)

It has stressed the importance of economic growth without considering that economic
accumulation has been bringing about income inequalities during the past decades.

”It is clear that with the Information Society, new opportunities are emerging
which will help to achieve both global environmental sustainability and contin-
ued economic growth; to achieve social goals of employment growth and local
 Chapter Nine | Theoretical Foundations of Defining PCSIS 203

community development within a free market framework; and to enable greater

access to work, services and mobility without congestion”.
(European Commission 1998, 9)

The aim of the eEurope initiative was an information society for all, understood as bring-
ing “everyone in Europe – every citizen, every school, every company – online as quickly
as possible” (Commission of the European Communities 2000a, 2000b). In the first phase
of this initiative, the focus was on advancing e-commerce, access for youth, researchers,
students, the disabled, smart cards, eHealth, eTransport, and eGovernment). In the sec-
ond phase, the focus was on advancing eGovernment, eLearning, eHealth, eBusiness, in-
formation infrastructure, and security (Commission of the European Communities 2002).
eEurope was a dualistic strategy that identified multiple separate goals without taking
into consideration the issue of compatibility of the various goals.

A similar dualistic view is advanced by the World Summit on the Information Society
(2005, 10), which argues that ICTs can sustain “economic growth, job creation and em-
ployability and improving the quality of life of all”.

Concepts of a Sustainable Information Society (SIS)

The goal of the Global Marshall Initiative, headed by Franz Josef Radermacher, is the
implementation of a worldwide eco-social market economy that is simultaneously ori-
ented on the growth of economic value-adding and on worldwide social, cultural, and
ecological solidarity (Radermacher 2004, 47, 48). The worldview underlying this con-
ception is termed ordoliberalism and is based on five aspects: international contracts,
environmental protection, social balance, cultural diversity and tolerance, and “the in-
tention to further open markets internationally and co-finance development matters on
the content of a common observance of standards” (62). Needed would also be further
market openings by developed countries for the benefit of the rest of the world (59).
“As has been illustrated, an Eco-Social Market Economy relies on the power of markets
and competition, but it has to be subject to an eco-social regulatory framework at the
same time” (66). Radermacher wants to extend and intensify the dominance of economic
logic (further opening markets) and at the same time advance non-economic social and
ecological benefits. He does not recognise that the instrumental reason underlying eco-
nomic logic has produced many of the problems that humanity is facing today (as will be
shown later in this paper). An eco-social world market economy from this perspective is a
contradictio in adiecto and what is needed is not an “Eco-Social World Market Economy
which links markets and competition to high standards ensuring the welfare of all human
beings” (166), but participation and co-operation as sustainable alternatives to market
logic and competition.
204 Applications

A publication by the Information Society Forum, in which Radermacher is very influen-

tial, suggests that important economic measures for achieving a SIS are the “extension
of liberalization and competition policy to local access networks” and increasing the
“availability of risk capital for entrepreneurs” (Information Society Forum 2000). Eco-
nomic crisis tendencies such as the South-East Asian crisis in 1997, the new economy
crisis in 2000, and the housing market crisis in the USA in 2008 that triggered a new
world economic crisis, have shown that speculative finance capital based on liberalised
commodity and financial markets increases economic vulnerability and is a risk for gen-
eral wealth. Given the crisis-ridden nature of finance capitalism, it is almost ridiculous to
make these recommendations.

Radermacher’s view, which is also the one of the Information Society Forum, is that
ICTs have a potential to bring about dematerialisation, and that the latter simulta-
neously helps to achieve sustainability and economic growth (Information Society
Forum 1998, 93, 95). Dematerialisation has thus far not been successful and it could
indeed be detrimental to economic growth if reusable ICT equipment were introduced
(Fuchs 2008b). In another publication, Radermacher’s dualistic view is legitimated by
publishing together with important persons such as information society researcher
Jan Van Dijk (Carrelli et al. 2000). One mechanism that is specifically stressed in
this chapter is the one of global trading in pollution rights. The market mechanisms
that have caused unsustainable development (as will be argued with the help of sta-
tistics later in this chapter) are considered as solutions to the created problems – a
contradictio in adiecto. The general argument is that “free markets” must be “com-
plemented” (50) by social, cultural, political, and ecological framework. It is not taken
into account that free markets might hinder such frameworks and hence need not be
complemented, but driven back and contested (as will be argued later in this chapter).
Another problematic aspect of this and other publications by Radermacher is that
global population growth is considered as a source of unsustainable development and
the shrinking of the world population as a goal. It is not taken into account that popu-
lation growth is a reaction to global income inequality and that economic productivity
has today reached levels that allow a good life for all people worldwide, given there
is a primacy of global and national economic redistribution (which is not the case for
Radermacher).

Schauer (2003) provides another dualistic approach by arguing that ICTs can advance
ecological sustainability by reducing resource consumption, social sustainability by giv-
ing equal access to information, cultural sustainability by supporting cultural understand-
ing, and economical sustainability by fostering growth: “Information technology will be
 Chapter Nine | Theoretical Foundations of Defining PCSIS 205

the key driver of an economic growth which is decoupled from resource consumption”
(Schauer 2003, 32). The question whether economic growth in late-modern society is
compatible with social sustainability is not considered. This definition does not see that
capitalist development has hindered social equality especially in the last decades (as
will be shown below), it treats economic profitability as one major goal besides ecolog-
ical, social, and cultural issues.

The Club of Rome and the Factor 10 Institute (2002) defines a sustainable networked
knowledge society as a society in which ICTs foster entrepreneurship and access to
world markets even in the poorest regions of the world and provide higher eco-efficiency
of economic growth (social sustainability), ICTs enable global communication that allows
the emergence of cultural diversity, respect for human rights, and a global culture of
co-operation (cultural sustainability), ICTs support resource-use efficiency, the reduction
of toxic anthropogenic material cycles, and the emergence of environmentally sustain-
able lifestyles (ecological sustainability), and ICTs advance economic growth and prof-
itability (economic sustainability). This approach is dualistic, it argues that “economic
sustainability” is a very important dimension and does not see that the current model

Concepts of a Sustainable Information Society (SIS)

of the economy and economic growth threatens sustainability. In another publication,
the Club of Rome affirms this position by arguing that among various measures also
the “liberalization of information and communication network infrastructure and service
provision” (Club of Rome 2003, 10) is important.

The reason why we question dualistic approaches is that there is evidence that
late-modern society is characterised by a culminating antagonism between economic
growth and social and ecological cohesion, economic freedom (of markets) and social
equity. Income inequality measured as the relation of the mean income of the upper and
the lower quintile has decreased in the years 1995–2000 in the EU15 countries, but it
has increased from 4.5 in 2000 to 4.8 in 2005 (Eurostat Online). The higher this meas-
ure, the higher the income disparity between the poorest and the richest. In the EU25
countries, it has increased from 4.5 in 2000 to 4.9 in 2005. In 2000, the richest 5% of
Europeans owned 35.7% of the worldwide wealth (Davies et al. 2006, Table 10a). The
at-risk-of-poverty rate after social transfers measured by 60% of median equivalenced
income after social transfers has risen from 15% in 1998 to 16% in 2005 in the EU15
as well as the EU25 countries (Eurostat Online). Income inequality, as measured by the
Gini coefficient, has increased from 29 in 1998 to 31 in 2005 in the EU25 countries and
from 29 in 1998 to 30 in 2005 in the EU15 countries (Eurostat Online). The in-work at
risk of poverty rate for part-time workers was 11% in the EU25 and 10% in the EU15
countries in 2005 (Eurostat Online). The increase in income inequality, job insecurity,
206 Applications

and poverty risk has been accompanied by a polarisation between capital and labour:
whereas the average profit rate has increased by 39.4% in the years 1987–2007 in
the EU15 countries (net returns on net capital stock, European Commission Annual
Macro-Economic Database), the wage share has in the same time span decreased by
7.5% (Compensation per employee as percentage of GDP at current market prices, Eu-
ropean Commission Annual Macro-Economic Database). It is hence reasonable to as-
sume that during the past couple of decades economic growth has been accompanied
by a rise of relative wage decreases, income inequalities, and poverty risks. Hence
we assume that such a form of economic growth, i.e. the unhindered expansion of
capital accumulation, is not compatible with social sustainability. The conclusion of
many contemporary social analysts is that the dominance of economic logic needs to
be driven back in order to achieve sustainability (e.g. Archer 2007; Harvey 2005; Stiglitz
2003) and that systemic alternatives are needed. It can therefore be hypothesised that
“economic sustainability” in the sense of the continued expansion of capitalist accumu-
lation is not compatible with social sustainability and that a paradigm shift is needed.
Persistent economic growth has been achieved by compromising social sustainability
(e.g. by reducing the total wage labour costs and advancing precarious jobs in order to
raise profits) and by externalising economic costs to nature. It has been based on the
principle of accumulation by dispossession (Harvey 2005). Less profitability and more
corporate taxation are needed in order to provide financial means that can be invested
in social and ecological sustainability. Economic sustainability hence should not be
understood as meaning continuously rising profit rates, but should better be conceived
as self-managed ownership, distributive justice, and the advancement of public goods
(based on the insight that the commons are produced co-operatively and hence should
be owned collectively).

Interestingly, although this alternative view is not dominant (the dualistic approach is the
predominant one), it is shared by a number of institutions and authors who have given
definitions of SIS. One such organisation is the Heinrich Böll Foundation:

”Sustainability of knowledge and information means firstly containing the

currently dominating trend towards commodification, which is aimed at short-
range use and at creating an artificial scarcity of knowledge, although, as a
good, it is essentially free; the agents of commodification are not primarily
interested in the long-range securing of individual and social development or
for freedom in the use of knowledge and information”.
(Heinrich Böll Foundation 2003b, 1)
 Chapter Nine | Theoretical Foundations of Defining PCSIS 207

Another one is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO):

”Struggling for development is not to ensure that a few get rich at the expense
of the rest, or maintaining non-viable companies or institutions. […] Globali-
zation currently imposed the notion of the market on everything: education,
health, communication services, cultural affairs, etc., and political powers can
do nothing about this”.
(López-Ospina 2003, 38, 129)

Such views stress a balancing of dimensions, which would require decreasing the pre-
dominant economic influence on society. They are dialectical instead of dualistic, projec-
tionistic, or reductionistic.

9.2.4 Towards a Dialectical Definition of SIS:

Integrating Base and Superstructure

Concepts of a Sustainable Information Society (SIS)

In 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) published the
“Brundtland Report” (named after its Chair, the former Prime Minister of Norway, Gro
Harlem Brundtland; WCED 1987) that gave much attention to the challenge of overcom-
ing poverty and meeting basic needs and to integrate the environment into economic
decision-making. The WCED defined sustainable development as “development that
meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations
to meet their own needs” (WCED 1987, 43). Applying this idea to systems design means
that with the help of technology individuals, communication processes, organisations,
and societies should be managed and designed in ways that allow all three levels to
develop in harmony and achieve their own goals without compromising the goals of the
other levels or of other actors in the present and the future.

In the discourse on sustainability, there has been a shift from a focus on ecological
issues towards the inclusion of broader societal issues. The “triangle of sustainabil-
ity” introduced by the World Bank has been very important in shifting the discussion on
sustainability from purely ecological aspects toward more integrative concepts. Ismail
Serageldin, then vice-president of the World Bank, identified an economic, a social, and
an ecological dimension of sustainability. “It is not surprising that these concerns reflect
the three sides of what I have called the ‘triangle of sustainability’-its economic, social,
and ecological dimensions” (Serageldin 1995, 17). It has now become very common to
208 Applications

identify an ecological, an economic, a social, and an institutional dimension of sustain-

ability (as e.g. the EU and the UN do). A shift in the meaning of the sustainability notion
occurred between the time of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development
(“Earth Summit”) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable
Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa. “At the time of Rio, sustainable
development was mainly about protecting nature, but now, in the wake of Johannesburg,
it is first and foremost about protecting people” (World Summit on Sustainable Devel-
opment 2002, 22).

If we conceive sustainability as a complex phenomenon, then it includes various aspects

that need to be achieved in sustainable social systems, such as individual well-being,
security, freedom, and self-determination just like collective dimensions such as wealth
for all, social security for all, political participation for all, or health and education for all.

The correspondence of individual, organisational, and societal goals could also be inter-
preted as a contemporary form of Kant’s Categorical Imperative:

”Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that
it should become a universal law. […] Act as though the maxim of your action
were by your will to become a universal law of nature. […] Act so that you treat
humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end
and never as a means only”.
(Kant 1998, 422, 429)

Treating others with the same logic that one wants have applied to oneself means that
there can be no morally privileged logic at any level. But Kant’s Golden Rule fails in situ-
ations where people are willing to suffer, tolerate violence against them, or to die if they
were in the positions of others. Hence one assumption that might need to be added is
that the logics employed at the individual, organisational, and the societal level should
be guided by the spirit of co-operation and participation. This implies that the logic of
co-operation is superior to the logic of competition.

How can the superiority of co-operation to competition be justified? Competition means

that certain individuals and groups benefit at the expense of others, i.e. there is an un-
equal access to structures of social systems. The asymmetric distribution of resources,
domination, and exploitation are the typical outcomes of competition. Competition is
the dominant organisational structure of modern society, modern society hence is an
excluding society. Cooperation is a specific type of communication where actors achieve
a shared understanding of social phenomena, make concerted use of resources so that
 Chapter Nine | Theoretical Foundations of Defining PCSIS 209

new systemic qualities emerge, engage in mutual learning, all actors benefit, and feel
at home and comfortable in the social system that they jointly construct (Fuchs 2008b).
Co-operation includes people in social systems, it lets them participate in decisions and
establishes a more just distribution of and access to resources. Hence co-operation is
a way of achieving and realising basic human needs, competition is a way of achieving
and realising basic human needs only for certain groups and excluding others. We argue
that co-operation forms the Essence of human society, and that competition estranges
humans from their Essence. One can imagine a society that functions without competi-
tion, a society without competition is still a society. One cannot imagine a society that
functions without a certain degree of co-operation and social activity. A society without
co-operation is not a society, it is a state of permanent warfare, egoism, and mutual
destruction that sooner or later destroys all human existence. If co-operation is the Es-
sence of society, then a truly human society is a co-operative society, and from this
insight emerges the categoric imperative to overthrow all ideas and practices in which
man is not considered as the participating centre of society, but treated as enslaved to
instrumental structures.

Concepts of a Sustainable Information Society (SIS)

Participation means that humans are enabled by technologies, resources, organisations,
and skills to design and manage their social systems all by themselves and to develop
collective visions of a better future so that the design of social systems can make use
of their collective intelligence (Fuchs 2008b). A participatory social system is a system
in which power is distributed in a rather symmetrical way, that is, humans are enabled
to control and acquire resources such as property, technologies, social relationships,
knowledge, and skills that help them in entering communication and cooperation pro-
cesses in which decisions on questions that are of collective concern are taken. Provid-
ing people with resources and capacities that enable responsible and critical activity in
decision-making processes is a process of empowerment; participation is a process of
empowering humans.

How are participation, co-operation, and sustainability connected? Participation is

structure-oriented, it is a process in which social structures are designed in such a way
that individuals are included in the constitution of the social systems they live in and actu-
ally take part in these constitution processes. Co-operation is an intersubjective process
within participatory structures, participation is a logical and necessary, but not sufficient
precondition for co-operation. Co-operation is the social process by which sustainable
systems can be produced. Sustainability concerns the long-term form and effects of a
social system. Participation means the structural enablement of humans to take part in
collective processes, co-operation the intersubjective social process of working together,
210 Applications

TABLE 9.3 Dimensions of sustainability

Dimension Definition
Ecology: Preservation Under the condition of ecological preservation, nature is treated by humans in ways that
allow flourishing of natural systems, i.e. the autopoiesis of living systems is maintained
and not artificially interrupted or destroyed and natural resources are preserved and not
depleted.
Technology: That technology is human-centred means that technological systems should help humans in
Human-Centredness solving problems, fit their capabilities, practices, and self-defined needs, support human
activities and co-operation, and involve users in definition, development, and application
processes.
Economy: Equity Economic equity means that there is wealth for all, i.e. defined material living standards
should be guaranteed for all as a right, nobody should live in poverty, and the overall
wealth should be distributed in a fair way so to avoid large wealth and income gaps
between the most and the least wealthy.
Polity: Freedom Freedom can in line with the critical-realist thinking of Roy Bhaskar (1993) be conceived as
the absenting of domination, i.e. the asymmetrical distribution of power, so that humans
are included and involved in defining, setting, and controlling the conditions of their
lives. It is the absenting of constraints on the maximum development and realisation of
human faculties. Freedom then means the maximum use and development of what C.B.
MacPherson (1973) has termed human developmental power.
Culture: Wisdom A culture is wise if it allows the universal sharing and co-operative constitution
of knowledge, ideas, values, norms, and sets standards that allow literacy and
the attainment of educational skills for all, physical and mental health of all, the
maximisation of lifetime in health for all, communicative dialogue in which all voices
are heard and influential, a culture of understanding that allows finding common values
without compromising difference (unity in diversity), the experience of entertainment,
beauty, the diversity of places, mental challenge and diversity, physical exercise for all,
and building communities, relations, love, and friendships for all.

and sustainability the long-term condition and effects of social systems so that all ben-
efit and can lead a good life. Abstractly spoken, a PCSIS is a society that guarantees a
good life for all. A PCSIS is a society in which knowledge and technology are together
with social systems shaped in such ways that humans are included in and self-determine
their social systems collectively, interact in mutually benefiting ways, and so bring about
a long-term stability that benefits all present and future generations and social groups.
Table 9.3 shows the various dimensions of such a society.

The dimensions of sustainability do not exist independently, but are interdependent, i.e.
a lack of a certain dimension eventually will have negative influences on other dimen-
sions, whereas enrichment of one dimension will provide a positive potential for the
enrichment of other dimensions. So for example people who live in poverty are likely
to not show much interest in political participation. Another example is that an unsus-
tainable ecosystem advances an unsustainable society and vice versa: if man pollutes
 Chapter Nine | Theoretical Foundations of Defining PCSIS 211

nature and depletes non-renewable natural resources problems, i.e. if he creates an

unhealthy environment, problems such as poverty, war, totalitarianism, extremism, vio-
lence, crime, etc. are more likely to occur. The other way round a society that is shaken by
poverty, war, a lack of democracy and plurality, etc. is more likely to pollute and deplete
nature. So sustainability should be conceived as being based on dialectics of ecological
preservation, human-centred technology, economic equity, political freedom, and cul-
tural wisdom. These dimensions are held together by the logic of co-operation, i.e. the
notion that systems should be designed in ways that allow all involved actors to benefit,
co-operation is the unifying and binding force of a PCSIS, it dialectically integrates the
various dimensions.

Elements of dialectical approaches on SIS have thus far been marginalised by the
dominance of dualistic views. Nonetheless, there are some exceptions. So e.g. the
UNESCO is calling for a planetary sustainable information and knowledge society
(López-Ospina 2003). It argues for turning away from the pure focus on economic logic
and towards a balanced view that takes into account integrative human rights. The
goal is a society that realises for all the right to life, right to political participation,

Concepts of a Sustainable Information Society (SIS)

right to legal protection, right to freedom, right to benefit of progress to all (economic,
social, and cultural participation), right to minimal income for all human beings, right
to subsistence income and employment, right to education, right to health, right to
sexual and reproductive rights, right to nutrition and food security, right to a healthful
environment, right to housing and equitable human settlements (López-Ospina 2003,
180). This view is integrating the ecological, economic, political, cultural, and social
dimensions of human existence. There is a stress that economic interests are currently
privileged and should be driven back in order to advance advantages for all. So the
causal relation between the various dimensions is taken into account (other than in
SIS dualism), which results in a call for the decolonisation of society by economic
logic. This would also apply for ICTs that according to UNESCO should not be used
for purely economic ends, but for fostering planetary sustainability that benefits all
humans.

”Considering new information and communication technologies, governed at

present and since their outset by the rules of the market and stock markets,
must be lightened in terms of management and international democratic gov-
ernance by firmly incorporating ethical principles and values that will recog-
nize that it is only by seeking intellectual, spiritual and cultural progress for all
peoples that humankind can be prepared for the advent of a more balanced,
212 Applications

equitable, fair world, to assure a good life for all […] Consequently, informa-
tion and communication technologies must be used and managed in a society
in order to humanize and democratize thought in society, rather than to en-
hance economic profitability and efficiency, achieved for better or for worse
using sophisticated administrative and management programs grounded in
different realities from those that were the basis for their original creation”.
(70–71)

There is a stress on the importance of public services in attaining sustainability (77) and
on co-operation: “harmony rather than competition, excellence, elitism, separation or
isolation” (178) would be needed.

The Heinrich Böll Foundation (2003b) defines in the Charter of Civil Rights for a Sustain-
able Knowledge Society a sustainable knowledge society as a society based on free
access to knowledge, knowledge as public good owned by all (the Commons), openness
of technical standards and organisation forms, securing privacy, cultural and linguis-
tic diversity, diversity of the media and public opinion, the long-term conservation of
knowledge, bridging the digital divide, freedom of information as a civil right to politi-
cal activity and transparent administration, and securing freedom in work environment.
This definition takes into account technological, economic, political, and cultural issues,
missing are ecological concerns. A sustainable knowledge society would preserve and
promote human rights, give unhampered and inclusive access to knowledge, provide
means for preserving the natural environment, and provide access to the diverse media
constituting the knowledge of the past (Heinrich Böll Foundation 2003a). The dialectic
of SIS is taken into account by arguing that economisation hinders sustainability: “The
Charter is directed emphatically against the increasing privatisation and commerciali-
sation of knowledge and information. A society, in which the protection of intellectual
property transforms knowledge into a scarce resource, is not sustainable” (Heinrich Böll
Foundation 2003a).

The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Civil Society Plenary (2005) argues
that in the WSIS process civil society interests were not adequately taken into account
(for a critique of WSIS see also Servaes and Carpentier 2006). In its own declaration –
that is very different from the official dualistic WSIS outcome documents –, the WSIS
Civil Society Plenary (2003) argues for an information society that is based on 34 inclu-
sive principles. Among them are the promotion of free software and the establishment
of a public domain of global knowledge that challenges intellectual property. The focus
is on public goods and redistribution. The Plenary stresses that distributive justice is
 Chapter Nine | Theoretical Foundations of Defining PCSIS 213

needed and that economic resources hence need not simply be produced within eco-
nomic growth models, but need to be redistributed:

”We aspire to build information and communication societies where develop-

ment is framed by fundamental human rights and oriented to achieving a more
equitable distribution of resources, leading to the elimination of poverty in a
way that is non-exploitative and environmentally sustainable”.
(WSIS Civil Society Plenary 2003, 3)

Wolf Göhring (1999) speaks of a sustainable productive information society as a society

in which humans with web support publicly plan, produce, run, maintain, repair, and take
systems out of service in a collaborative way, create networked products and systems
so that the free use of machinery, information, resources, free communication, and the
free production of goods advances a sustainable society that benefits all. Göhring is con-
cerned with how people have to interact and produce in order to bring about sustainabil-
ity and corresponding worldviews. His approach is a process- and co-operation-oriented,
a SIS would be a truly post-modern society that eliminates instrumental reason.

9.3 Conclusion
The task of this chapter was to comparatively and theoretically grounded discuss notions
of sustainability, inclusion, and participation in the information society discourse. A the-
oretical model of society as a dialectical system was introduced, in which the economic
base and the political-cultural superstructure are mutually shaping each other. Based on
a distinction between reductionistic, holistic, dualistic, and dialectical worldviews, four
different theoretical approaches on defining the SIS were distinguished, which are based
on how the relationship between base and superstructure is conceived. Reductionis-
Conclusion

tic approaches see ecological or technological or economic changes as the sole driving
forces of a SIS. Projectionistic approaches see superstructures (polity and/or culture) as
the determining forces of a SIS. They are the least frequently found approaches in the
literature. Dualistic approaches define multiple goals and dimensions of a SIS, but do not
consider if these goals are compatible and if and how they are causally linked. Dualistic
models are the ones that can be found most frequently in the literature.

As an alternative to these three models, the dialectical notion of the PCSIS was intro-
duced. Co-operation is based on an inclusive logic that establishes social systems, in
which all involved actors and groups benefit. The logic of co-operation is the binding
force of a progressive society that connects its various dimensions. Participation means
214 Applications

the structural enablement, co-operation the intersubjective social process, sustainability

the long-term condition and effects of social systems, in which all benefit and have a
good life. Abstractly spoken, a PCSIS is a society that guarantees a good life for all. A
PCSIS is a society in which knowledge and technology are together with social systems
shaped in such ways that humans are included in and self-determine their social sys-
tems collectively, interact in mutually benefiting ways, and so bring about a long-term
stability that benefits all present and future generations and social groups. As specific
qualities of co-operation in a PCSIS, ecological preservation, human-centred technology,
socio-economic equity, political freedom, and cultural wisdom are identified and defined.

The task of this chapter was not to quantify to which degree a PCSIS has already been
achieved or to suggest indicators of such measurement. This is an empirical research
task that needs to be tackled in the future. For doing so, a meta-theory that defines the
SIS and provides arguments on which qualities such a society should have and how
this could be achieved is needed. Hence, SIS studies need a theoretical and normative
grounding. One such approach on socio-theoretical grounding was undertaken in this
chapter. Its claim is not to be the only or the ultimate theoretical meta-approach, but the
debate thus far lacks a multitude of approaches, and hence this chapter wants to contrib-
ute to the discourse on the theoretical groundworks of the debate on SIS.

In this chapter, it was pointed out that the discourse on SIS is dominated by dualistic ap-
proaches. In dualistic approaches, various goals are proclaimed, but it is not considered
if these goals are compatible. This view has developed into an ideology that stresses
various desirable goals such as social cohesion and environmental protection, but at the
same time does not question the predominant economic colonisation of society by instru-
mental reason and the logic of commodities and money capital that has caused a rise in
poverty, exclusion, and the income gap during the past decades in Europe, North Amer-
ica, and on the global scale. The problem is that many of the dualistic authors and policy
advisors do not realise that capitalistic economic growth is unsustainable as such and
inherently produces an antagonism between economic freedom and social equity and
that hence systemic alternatives to capitalism must be found in order to truly advance
sustainability. The alternative argument made in theús chapter was that late-modern so-
ciety is characterised by a culminating antagonism between economic growth and social
and ecological cohesion, economic freedom (of markets), and social equity. Less profit-
ability and more corporate taxation are needed in order to provide financial means that
can be invested in social and ecological sustainability. Economic sustainability hence
should not be understood as meaning continuously rising profit rates, but should better
 Chapter Nine | Theoretical Foundations of Defining PCSIS 215

be conceived as self-managed ownership, distributive justice, and the advancement of

public goods (based on the insight that the commons are produced co-operatively and
hence should be owned collectively). The alternative view is shared by a number of in-
stitutions such as the Heinrich Böll Foundation, UNESCO, and the World Summit on the
Information Society (WSIS) Civil Society Plenary.

In the current discourse, concepts such as sustainability, participation, co-operation, and

corporate social responsibility have ideological character, they serve as legitimating pre-
dominant capitalist interests that present themselves as open-minded and willing to
make some small changes as long as these changes do not question profitability and the
capitalist system. Progressive terms that signify inclusion are used for advancing exclu-
sion and capitalist interest (Fuchs 2008b). It is time for a critical alternative to these ide-
ological conceptions. The alternative view of a less-capitalistic or even a non-capitalistic
co-operative information society as SIS is generally marginalised and downplayed by
dominant actors in discourse. Nonetheless, it is existent and the task for the future is one
of academic class struggle that questions ideological dualistic positions and provides
arguments that ground the necessity for the transformation towards a PCSIS, that as a
precondition is non-capitalistic in character.

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Part III

Conclusion
Chapter Ten
The Digital Commons and the Digital Public Sphere:
How to Advance Digital Democracy Today

10.1 Introduction
10.2 Digital Capitalism
10.3 The Digital Public Sphere
10.4 The Digital Commons
10.5 Conclusion: Advancing Digital Democracy

10.1 Introduction
In the past 15 years, the notions of big data and social media have become preva-
lent in everyday life. Associated with it, we have experienced the rise of platforms
such as Google, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Amazon, Twitter, Apple, Baidu, Instagram,
WhatsApp, WeChat, Alibaba, Spotify, or Netflix. These platforms gather lots of per-
sonal user data and provide services such as search engines, video platforms, social
networks, online shop microblogs, photo-sharing platforms, messenger apps, or music
and film streaming.

This chapter asks: what are the democratic potentials of the digital commons and the
digital public sphere? First, the chapter identifies ten problems of digital capitalism. Sec-
ond, it engages with the notion of the digital public sphere. Third, it outlines the concept
of the digital commons. Fourth, some conclusions are drawn and ten suggestions for
advancing digital democracy are presented.

10.2 Digital Capitalism

Capitalism is a type of society that is based on the logic of the accumulation of power
(Fuchs 2020a). Money capital is a particular and important form of power that is ac-
cumulated in capitalist society. But the logic of accumulation also shapes politics and
culture. Politics in capitalist society is the sphere of the accumulation of decision-power.
Culture in capitalist society is the sphere of the accumulation of reputation. Inequality
and injustices are the consequences of the logic of accumulation: the capitalist economy

DOI: 10.4324/9781003279488-13
222 Conclusion

is shaped by the exploitation of labour and the asymmetric distribution of wealth; the
capitalist political system is shaped by domination and asymmetrical influence; the capi-
talist cultural system is shaped by ideology, malrecognition, and disrespect.

Digital capitalism is not a new phase of capitalist development, but rather a dimension
of the organisation of capitalism that is shaped by digital mediation. In digital capital-
ism, social processes, such as the accumulation of power, capital accumulation, class
struggles, political struggles, hegemony, ideology, commodification, or globalisation,
are mediated by digital technologies, digital information, and digital communication.
Transnational digital and communication corporations play an important role in digital
capitalism.

Twenty-one of the world’s largest 100 transnational corporations operate in the commu-
nication, media, and digital industry (Table 10.1). Subsectors of the capitalist communi-
cation, media, and digital industry include, for example, advertising, broadcast networks,
cloud storage, communication/digital networks, digital games, digital hardware, digital
services and platforms, leisure and live entertainment culture, online shopping, online
streaming, or software. The total profits of the dominant 21 communication/digital/me-
dia corporations amounted in the financial year 2019 to USS$2.5 trillion, which made up
3% of the global 2019 Gross Domestic Product.1 That just 21 companies control 3% of
the world’s financial wealth produced during one year shows the large power of capital-
ist companies, including digital and communication corporations.

TABLE 10.1 The domination transnational communication and digital corporations, data sources: Forbes 2000 List
(year 2020), https://www.forbes.com/global2000, accessed on 7 October 2020

Rank Company Country of Commodities Annual Annual

headquarter profits revenues
(US$ bn) (US$ bn)
9 Apple USA Digital hardware, software, digital 267.7 57.2
services, online streaming, cloud
storage
11 AT&T USA Communication/digital networks, 179.2 14.4
broadcasting networks
13 Alphabet USA Digital advertising, digital services and 166.3 34.5
software (e.g. Google, YouTube, Android
OS, Chrome)
13 Microsoft USA Software (e.g. Windows, Office, Skype), 138.6 46.3
hardware (Xbox)
16 Samsung South Korea Digital hardware 197.6 18.4
Electronics
 Chapter Ten | The Digital Commons and the Digital Public Sphere 223

TABLE 10.1 ( Cont.)

Rank Company Country of Commodities Annual Annual

headquarter profits revenues
(US$ bn) (US$ bn)

20 Verizon USA Communication/digital networks 131.4 18.4

Communications
22 Amazon USA Online shopping platform, online 296.3 10.6
streaming of digital content, cloud
storage
27 Comcast USA Communication/digital networks, 108.7 11.7
broadcast networks
28 China Mobile China Communication/digital networks 108.1 15.5
31 Alibaba China Online shopping platforms, online 70.6 24.7
payment, online entertainment
streaming
36 Walt Disney USA Entertainment content, broadcast 74.8 10.4
networks, digital entertainment and
streaming platforms, leisure parks,
merchandising
38 Intel USA Digital hardware 75.7 22.7
39 Facebook USA Digital advertising, digital services 73.4 21
(Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp)
43 Nippon Telegraph Japan Communication/digital networks 109.6 7.9
& Tel
50 Tencent China Digital advertising, digital services (QQ, 54.6 13.5
WeChat), digital games, music and
video streaming,
51 IBM USA Digital hardware, software, cloud 76.5 9.0
computing
58 Sony Japan Hardware, video games, entertainment 79.2 6
content
Digital Capitalism

66 SoftBank Japan Communication/digital networks, digital 87.4 2.9

hardware
69 Deutsche Telekom Germany Communication/digital networks 90.1 4,3
82 Cisco Systems USA Digital hardware, software 51.6 11.1
94 Oracle USA Digital hardware, software 39.8 10.8
Total 2,477.2 367.0

Digital capitalism has been shaped by ten major societal problems (Fuchs 2021, espe-
cially Chapter 14):

1) Communication and digital capital exploits communication and digital labour and
has resulted in the tendency of capitalist monopolies in the communication and
digital industry.
224 Conclusion

2) Dominant Internet culture is shaped by a competitive, individualistic digital

culture that is me-centred and focused on the accumulation and asymmetric dis-
tribution of online attention, influence, reputation, visibility, and voice.
3) Communication/digital corporations and state apparatuses have created a
surveillance-industrial complex.
4) Capitalist social media are anti-social media that have helped advancing
anti-democratic potentials, digital authoritarianism, digital racism, digital nation-
alism, and digital fascism.
5) In algorithmic politics, algorithms create online content and attention and it
becomes difficult for humans to discern which online activities are human and
which ones are machinic.
6) In the online world, there are fragmented digital public spheres where we find
filter bubbles
7) The digital culture industry has created digital ideology, ideologies about the
digital, and ideology disseminated via digital networks. Digital advertising and
tabloid content dominate the online world. Many digital platforms are digital
tabloids.
8) Influencer capitalism dominates social media and has created asymmetric at-
tention, reputation, and visibility on the Internet as well as an ideological culture
dominated by shopping and advertising. Advertising is increasingly hidden and
presented as regular content (“branded content”).

“Influencer capitalism is not a type of capitalism but an ideology that claims

that by being active on social media platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat,
and YouTube there are great opportunities for becoming wealthy and famous.
Influencer capitalism is the dream, fantasy, and desire of users to become ce-
lebrities that accumulate a wealth of social relations, money, influence, likes,
positive comments, etc. Influencer capitalism is the online manifestation of the
American Dream’s ideological claim that in capitalism everyone has an equal
opportunity to make a career, from a dishwasher to a billionaire, by having a
good idea and believing in themselves”.
(Fuchs 2021, 175)

9) The high amount of online information flows processed at high speed has resulted
in digital acceleration. There is a lack of time and space for sustained political
debate.
 Chapter Ten | The Digital Commons and the Digital Public Sphere 225

10) On social media, one frequently encounters fake/false news and post-factual
politics that deny facts and are led by emotionalisation, tabloidisation, and
ideology.

The combined consequences of these ten developments are that democracy is under
threat and we have experienced the rise of authoritarian capitalism where far-right dem-
agogues dominate politics (Fuchs 2018a, 2020b). Digitalisation is not the cause of these
developments, but has rather mediated the antagonism between neoliberal capitalism
and rising social inequalities. The commodification, privatisation, commercialisation, and
individualisation of (almost) everything have turned against liberalism’ civic values and
political freedoms, which has given rise to new nationalist, racist, xenophobic, authori-
tarian, and fascist forces in society.

The question arises what the alternatives are to digital capitalism and digital authoritar-
ianism. Are the digital public sphere and the digital commons such alternatives?

10.3 The Digital Public Sphere

Political communication is an important and indispensable aspect of the political sys-
tem in all models of democracy. In general terms, it can be said that the public is a
central mechanism of the political system. By “public” we generally understand goods
and spaces that are “open to all” (Habermas 1989, 1). One speaks, for example, of pub-
lic education, public buildings, public parks, public squares, public assemblies, public
The Digital Public Sphere
demonstrations, public opinion, public media, etc. Public goods and facilities are not
reserved for a clique or a club of the privileged, but are intended for the general public,
i.e. all members of society.

The public sphere is a sphere of public political communication that mediates between
the other subsystems of society, namely, the economy, politics, culture, and private
life. The ideal type of the public sphere is a realm of society that organises “critical pub-
licity” (Habermas 1989, 237) and “critical public debate” (Habermas 1989, 52). The public
sphere mediatises political communication. It is a mediatising space of political commu-
nication in which citizens meet, who inform themselves about life in society and commu-
nicate politically. The public sphere is a space where political opinions are formed. Public
communication is an important aspect of the existence of humans as social beings and
of society. In modern society, the media system is the most important organised form of
public communication. In the media system, media actors produce public information.
226 Conclusion

There is a number of criticisms of Habermas’s concept of the public sphere, mainly from
the field of postmodern studies. The present author has in other places criticised the dis-
missal of Habermas and the public sphere concept and argues that Habermas’s concept
is useful in and can be updated to the digital age (see Fuchs 2014b).

The digital public sphere is not a separate sphere of society, but a dimension and aspect
of the public sphere in societies where digital information and digital communication
are prevalent. The digital public sphere means the publishing of information, critical
publicity, and critical public debate mediated by digital information and communication
technologies. Not all information and communication via the Internet, mobile phones,
and tablets are part of the digital public sphere. When processes of commodification
and capitalisation (the logic of economic accumulation), domination (the logic of political
accumulation), and ideology (the logic of political accumulation) shape digital practices,
the latter do not form a public sphere. The digital public sphere has then, as Habermas
(1989) argues, been colonised and feudalised. We can then speak of an alienated digital
sphere and alienated communication but not of a digital public sphere. The ten processes
outlined in the previous section are manifestations of digital alienation, digital colonisa-
tion, and digital feudalisation.

The mentioned ten tendencies lead overall to a digital sphere that is characterised and
divided by economic, political, and cultural power asymmetries. The logics of accu-
mulation, advertising, monopolisation, commercialisation, commodification, acceler-
ation, individualism, fragmentation, automation of human activity, surveillance, and
ideologisation turn the digital public sphere into a colonised and feudalised sphere, a
pseudo-digital public sphere that is public in appearance only. In digital capitalism, com-
mercial culture dominates the Internet and social media. Platforms are largely owned
by profit-oriented corporations. Public service media operate on the basis of a different
logic. However, the idea of a public Internet has not yet been able to establish itself
and sounds strange to most ears, as there are hardly any alternatives to the commercial
Internet today.

Public service media are media of, in, and operating through the public sphere. The com-
munication scholar Slavko Splichal (2007, 255) gives a precise definition of public service
media:

”In normative terms, public service media must be a service of the public, by
the public, and for the public. It is a service of the public because it is financed
by it and should be owned by it. It ought to be a service by the public – not
 Chapter Ten | The Digital Commons and the Digital Public Sphere 227

only financed and controlled, but also produced by it. It must be a service for
the public – but also for the government and other powers acting in the pub-
lic sphere. In sum, public service media ought to become ‘a cornerstone of
democracy’”.

The means of production of public service media are publicly owned. The production
and circulation of content are based on a non-profit-making logic and the public service
media remit. Access is universal, as all citizens are given easy access to the content
and technologies of public service media. In political terms, public service media offer
diverse and inclusive content that promotes political understanding and discourse. In cul-
tural terms, they offer educational content that contributes to the cultural development
of individuals and society. Public service media have a special, legally defined remit,
namely, that they have to produce and provide content and services that help to advance
democracy, education, and culture. In debates, public service media such as the BBC are
often incorrectly presented as state-media or state-controlled media. True public service
media are legally enabled by the state (licence fee funding, public service remit), but not
controlled by the state. Public service media are independent media organisations that
are enabled by state laws.

Due to the special qualities of public service media, they can also make a particularly
valuable democratic and educational contribution to a democratic online public sphere
and digital democracy if they are given the necessary material and legal means to do so.

Life in modern society has increasingly been accelerated, which includes the accelera-
The Digital Public Sphere
tion of the economy, political decision-making, lifestyles, and experiences (Fuchs 2014a;
Rosa 2013). The logic of accumulation is the driving force of acceleration (see Fuchs,
2014a). As a consequence, the speed of social relations has been increased, especially
since the rise of neoliberal capitalism. In the realm of the media, the acceleration of
information flows has been an aspect of the tabloidisation of media and communication
that in turn is an aspect of the commercialisation, monopolisation, and commodification
of the media.

The predominant media are high-speed spectacles that are superficial and characterised
by a lack of time provided for debate. They erode the public sphere and the culture of
political discussion. They leave no time or space to citizens for grasping the complexity
of society and for developing arguments. What we need today is the decommodification
and deceleration of the media. We need slow media (see Fuchs 2021; Köhler, David and
Blumtritt, 2010; Rauch 2018).
228 Conclusion

What is slow media?

”Slow media takes the speed out of information, news, and political communi-
cation by reducing the amount of information and communication flows. Users
engage more deeply with each other and with content. Slow media does not
distract users with advertisements, it is not based on user surveillance, and it
is not undertaken to yield profit. It is not simply a different form of media con-
sumption, but an alternative way of organising and doing media – a space for
reflection and rational political debate”.
(Fuchs 2021, 363)

Slow media and slow political communication are not new. Club 2 in Austria and After
Dark in the UK are prototypical examples. The journalists Kuno Knöbl and Franz Kreuzer
designed the Club 2 concept for the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF). It was a
discussion programme which was usually broadcast on Tuesday and Thursday. The first
programme was broadcast on 5 October 1976, the last on 28 February 1995. 1,400 pro-
grammes were broadcast on ORF (Der Standard 2001). Club 2 had a new edition that was
broadcast from 2007 to 2012. However, a different concept was used that did not adhere
to the original principles.

In the UK, the media production company Open Media created a similar format based on
Club 2 under the name After Dark. After Dark was broadcast once a week on Channel 4
between 1987 and 1991 and occasionally thereafter. In 2003, After Dark was shown for
a short time on BBC.

The producer of After Dark Sebastian Cody describes the Club 2/After Dark concept as
follows:

”Namely, the number of participants in these intimate debates (always con-

ducted in agreeable surroundings and without an audience) was never less
than four, never more than eight (like, as it happens, group therapy); the discus-
sion should be hosted by a non-expert, whose job rotates, thus eliminating the
cult of personality otherwise attaching to presenters; the participants should
be a diverse assortment, all directly involved in the subject under discussion
that week; and, most importantly, the programme was to be transmitted live
and be open-ended. The conversation finishes when the guests decide, not
when TV people make them stop”.
(Cody 2008)
 Chapter Ten | The Digital Commons and the Digital Public Sphere 229

The concept of Club 2 sounds rather unusual to many people today, as we are so used to
formats with short duration, high speed, and the lack of time in the media and our daily
lives. Open, uncensored, controversial, live discussions that appeal to the viewer and the
audience are different from accelerated media in terms of space and time: Club 2 was a
public space where guests met and discussed with each other in an atmosphere that of-
fered unlimited time, which was experienced publicly and during which a socially impor-
tant topic was discussed. Club 2 was a democratic public space in public broadcasting.

Space and time are two important dimensions of the public political economy. However,
a social space that offers enough time for discussion is not yet a guarantee for a com-
mitted, critical and dialectical discussion that transcends one-dimensionality, penetrates
into the depths of a topic, and highlights the similarities and differences of different
positions. Public space and time must be organised and managed in an intelligent way,
so that the right people participate, the atmosphere is appropriate, the right discussion
questions are asked, and it is ensured that all guests have their say, listen to each other
and that the discussion can proceed undisturbed, etc. Unlimited space, a dialectically
controversial and intellectually challenging space, and intelligent organisation are three
important aspects of publicity. These are preconditions of slow media, non-commercial
media, decolonised media, and media of public interest.

We need slow media. Online and offline. Let’s decelerate the media and create slow me-
dia 2.0. Is a new version of Club 2 (Club 2.0) as part of the digital public sphere possible
today?
The Digital Public Sphere
Club 2.0 is an example of a public service Internet platform that helps advancing demo-
cratic communication and the digital public sphere. In Club 2.0, the traditional principles
of Club 2 are practiced and updated (see Figure 10.1). There is a controversial live stu-
dio debate without time limit. It is broadcast on television and also on a public service
video platform, a public service version of YouTube. Social media enable user-generated
content and online debate. An updated version of Club 2 should make use of the affor-
dances of digital media: in Club 2.0, users can upload discussion inputs and discuss in
text- and video-based formats on the public service YouTube channel that accompanies
the Club 2.0 television broadcasts. At certain points of time of the TV debate, single user-
generated video discussion inputs are selected and broadcast as part of the television
discussion so that they inform the studio debate.

Club 2.0 is an expression of digital democracy and the digital public sphere. It
manifests a combination of elements of deliberative and participatory democracy.
230 Conclusion

FIGURE 10.1 Club 2.0, first published as Creative Commons in Fuchs (2018b, 74).

Deliberative democracy creates “institutional designs of modern democracy” that are

based on the “principle of reciprocity” (Held 2006, 233). It enables “social encounters
which take account of the point of view of others – the moral point of view” (Held
2006, 233), places “greater emphasis upon those settings and the procedures of pref-
erence formation and learning within politics and civil society” (Held 2006, 233) and
the “giving of defensible reasons, explanations and accounts for public decisions”
(Held 2006, 237). It stresses the communicative dimension of democracy and that
“[c]ritical reflection must link up with public debate and deliberative politics” (Held
2006, 241). Club 2.0 is a communicative mechanism that allows more reflection, ex-
planation, and debate in politics and can thereby strengthen deliberative aspects of
democracy. Participatory democracy stresses “[d]irect participation of citizens in the
regulation of the key institutions of society, including the workplace and local com-
munity” (215). Club 2.0 increases the participation of citizens in culture and political
debate. It is a participatory aspect of culture and politics. Club 2.0 offers space and
time for controversial political communication and enables citizens to participate in
the discussion collectively and individually through videos and commentaries. Club
2.0 brings together the communicative aspect of deliberative democracy and the par-
ticipatory idea of grassroots democracy. The digital public sphere and public service
Internet platforms are social phenomena that are opposed to and challenge digital
capitalism and the capitalist Internet.
 Chapter Ten | The Digital Commons and the Digital Public Sphere 231

10.4 The Digital Commons

Elinor Ostrom, the winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 2009, de-
fines the commons with a theory of economic goods that is based on the two features
of exclusion and subtractability. For Ostrom, common-pool resources have high subtrac-
tability and low exclusivity (Hess and Ostrom 2007, 9). An example is a library with open
accessibility: it has a low entry barrier (low exclusivity) and high subtractability (it be-
comes unusable if too many humans use it at once). In contrast, she argues that a sunset
is a public good because it is non-rivalrous in consumption (low subtractability) and it is
difficult to exclude someone from sunshine and watching the sunset (low exclusivity).

The problem of Ostrom’s concept is that it neglects political economy, i.e. the concept of
common ownership. Ostrom thereby de-politicises the concept of the commons. Yochai
Benkler argues that influenced by Ostrom’s works, “a more narrowly defined literature
developed” (Benkler 2006, 480). Benkler argues for “an entirely different theory of the
commons” (Benkler 2013, 1510). He defines the commons in the following way:

”Commons are an alternative form of institutional space, where human agents

can act free of the particular constraints required for markets, and where they
have some degree of confidence that the resources they need for their plans will
be available to them. Both freedom of action and security of resource availability
are achieved in very different patterns than they are in property-based markets”.
(Benkler 2006, 144)

For Benkler, the commons are non-market and non-profit-based resources that are avail- The Digital Commons

able to everyone (for another definition, see Bauwens, Kostakis and Pazaitis 2019, 3).
Slavoj Žižek (2010, 212–213) identifies three forms of the commons:

• the cultural commons: language, means of communication, education,

infrastructures),
• the commons of external nature: the natural environment,
• the commons of internal nature: the human being.

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (2017 166) identify two basic forms of the commons,
namely the social and the natural commons. They subdivide these two types into five
kinds of the commons:

• the natural commons: ecosystems, the earth;

• the social commons 1: codes, ideas, images, cultural products;
232 Conclusion

• the social commons 2: physical products commonly produced by co-operative

work;
• the social commons 3: rural and metropolitan spaces where human communicate,
co-operate and interact culturally;
• the social commons 4: institutions that provide health care, education, housing,
and welfare for all.

Already Karl Marx stressed that there are resources in society that are produced in a col-
lective and co-operative manner. He argues that universal work creates common goods
that are “brought about partly by the cooperation of men now living, but partly also
by building on earlier work” and involve the “direct cooperation of individuals” (Marx
1894, 199). Commons are resources that are collectively owned and that are produced
in a co-operative manner. The natural commons are resources produced by nature that
are required for all humans to survive. It includes the earth and the universe as the
natural habitat of humans. Nature constantly produces and reproduces itself. It is a self-
organising system. Nature as such is by its own nature a common good because when it
produces itself it is available to everyone.

But historically, capital expropriated and enclosed parts of nature so that they became
private property. In the middle ages, humans used the land, the forests, the fields, the
meadows, etc. as common goods. The formation of capitalism involved what Marx (1867,
part 8) terms original primitive accumulation, the violent transformation of humans into
wage labourers. One measure was the legal enclosure of the natural commons so that
land became private property. Peasants were driven from the land and henceforth had to
earn a living as wage workers.

Socially produced goods are commons when they are collectively owned and co-
operatively produced. There is an important moral-political principle underlying Marx’s
and Engels’s thought and politics: those who produce the goods should collectively own
them. For Marx and Engels, the central characteristic of a communist society is that there
is common ownership of the means of production by the workers:

”In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the sin-
gle sentence: Abolition of private property. […] When, therefore, capital is
converted into common property, into the property of all members of society,
personal property is not thereby transformed into social property. It is only the
social character of the property that is changed. It loses its class character”.
(Marx and Engels 1848, 498 and 499)
 Chapter Ten | The Digital Commons and the Digital Public Sphere 233

TABLE 10.2 Four types and dimensions of the commons

Sphere of Type of the commons Meaning of the commons

society
Nature Natural commons: Common access to natural resources for everyone, common use of
environmental sustainability natural resources in environmentally sustainable manners
Economy Economic commons: socialism Common ownership of the means of production, wealth for and
self-realisation of all humans
Politics Political commons:participatory Humans who are affected by certain phenomena can take
democracy collective decisions about these affairs, basic political rights are
guaranteed for all and commonly respect
Culture Cultural commons:culture of All humans are respected and they are able to understand each
friendship other and live together through common practices in everyday life
so that friendships and a unity of diversity of lifestyles, identities,
and communities are possible

According to Marx and Engels, the commons are not goods that have certain features
as assumed in the theory of economic goods. Rather, any good can be transformed into
collective ownership. They argue that the means of production should be common goods.
A key feature of neoliberal capitalism has been the transformation of common goods
into private property and commodities as part of the process that David Harvey (2005,
165–172) calls the commodification of everything. Commodification is an economic pro-
cess that destroys the material foundations of the commons. It turns something that is
available and accessible to all and benefiting all into a private property controlled traded
on markets. Utman (2020) points out that in the realm of communication, neoliberal cap-
italism has resulted in the expropriation of voice as a common resource and practice and
has thereby undermined democracy. Based on a model of society, Table 10.2 identifies The Digital Commons

four types and dimensions of the commons.

Euler (2018) stresses that there is a structural and a practice dimension of the common.
“Commoning can be considered the social practices that make commons what they are.
[…] commons is the social form of (tangible and/or intangible) matter that is determined
by commoning” (Euler 2018, 12). In capitalism, the commons can only exist as seeds
of a commons society (Euler 2018, 12). Antonis Broumas (2020, 11–14) points out the
commons’ dialectic of resource and community. Given that the commons are not just
resources, but common resources embedded into practices of commoning and commons
communities (Papadimitropoulos 2020, Chapter 1), there is a “distinctive communicative
element” of commoning (Utman 2020, 158).

The digital commons are digital resources that are commonly controlled by humans.
Table 10.3 presents four types and dimensions of the digital commons
234 Conclusion

TABLE 10.3 Four types and dimension of the digital commons

Sphere of Type of the digital commons Meaning of the digital commons

society
Nature Natural digital commons: digital Common control of the mines where natural resources are
environmental sustainability extracted that form the physical foundations of digital
technologies, sustainable environmental impacts of digital
technologies that guarantee the common survival of nature,
humans, and society (e.g. green computing)
Economy Economic digital commons: Common ownership of the digital means of production, the use
digital socialism of digital technologies for the advancement of wealth for and
self-realisation of all humans
Politics Political digital common: Collective governance of decisions about the use of digital
participatory digital democracy resource
Culture Cultural digital commons: Unity in diversity and common recognition and respect
digital friendships of everyone in digitally mediated communities so that
friendships are enabled

At the level of digital infrastructures, community networks run as co-operatives are ex-
amples of a digital commons projects. At the level of software and digital content, free
software and non-commercial Creative Commons licences are examples of digital com-
mons projects. Free, libre, and open-source software (FLOSS) has postcapitalist poten-
tials, but has also in various forms been subsumed under capital (see Berlinguer 2020;
Birkinbine 2020). At the level of digital platforms, platform co-operatives are examples
of digital commons projects. Platform co-operatives are not-for-profit Internet platforms
that are collectively owned and governed by the digital workers who produce the re-
sources that underpin these platforms (see Sandoval 2020; Scholz 2016, 2017; Scholz
and Schneider 2016). Examples of platform co-ops are the music platform Resonate (an
alternative to Spotify, https://resonate.is/), Fairbnb (an alternative to Airbnb, https://fair-
bnb.coop/), Taxiapp (an alternative to Uber), the photography and video platform Stocksy
(an alternative to Shutterstock and iStockPhoto, https://www.stocksy.com), or the collab-
oration platform Loomio (https://www.loomio.org/).

Co-operatives in the realm of the digital economy advance the economic commons and
the political commons because they are non-profit organisations that are collectively
governed and controlled. They are not the only digital commons project. For example,
public service Internet projects advance the economic commons as they are owned by
the public and the political and cultural commons as they are based on public service re-
mits. Digital commons projects do not automatically advance all levels of the commons.
For example, community networks do not necessarily reduce e-waste and energy con-
sumption (environmental sustainability). Some aspects of the commons are per definition
 Chapter Ten | The Digital Commons and the Digital Public Sphere 235

covered by digital commons projects, whereas others are only achieved by active com-
mitment beyond the foundation of particular projects.

Open access publishing has emerged as a response to the monopoly practices of capital-
ist publishers. Open access journals and publishing houses very frequently use Creative
Commons licences, which make the content of published works a digital common in the
sense that it is a common good that can be accessed by anyone and isn’t the exclusive
private property of someone but a form of knowledge that is provided to humanity as
a gratis resource. On 8 October 2020, 15,273 open access journals were listed in the
Directory of Open Access Journals (https://doaj.org).

But open access is not automatically a true digital common that is a manifestation of
all four forms of the digital commons identified in Table 10.3. Capitalist open-access
publishers have subsumed open access under capital (see Knoche 2020). These are
for-profit open access publishers that accumulate capital. The capital accumulation
strategy they employ most frequently is that they charge high fees to authors that
do not just cover production costs but also yield profits that are privately owned. In
capitalist open access, digital content is de-commodified, i.e. the articles and books
are published as Creative Commons, but the principles of capital accumulation, com-
modification, valorisation, and profitability are not given up, but transformed. The
opportunity to get published is commodified while the published content is a com-
mons. The digital commons thereby are subsumed under and colonised by digital cap-
ital. Capitalist open access is a digital capitalism of the commons. “In the Corporate
Open Access Model, companies, organizations or networks publish material online
in a digital version, do so free of charge for the readers, but derive monetary prof-
The Digital Commons

its with strategies such as charging authors or selling advertising space” (Fuchs and
Sandoval 2013, 438).

Commons licences should focus on advancing not-for-profit projects that are seeds of
postcapitalism. Commons licences such as Creative Commons are not automatically crit-
ical of capitalism, some of them are compatible with, subsumed under and supportive of
capitalism. In contrast, diamond open access projects are true digital commons projects
that have a non-capitalist character. Diamond open access is

”a form of non-profit academic publishing that makes academic knowledge a

common good, reclaims the common character of the academic system and en-
tails the possibility of fostering job security by creating public service publishing
jobs. […] In the Diamond Open Access Model, not-for-profit, non-commercial
236 Conclusion

organizations, associations or networks publish material that is made available

online in digital format, is free of charge for readers and authors and does not
allow commercial and for-profit re-use”.
(Fuchs and Sandoval 2013, 428, 438)

Radical Open Access is a network of diamond open access projects that

”promote a progressive vision for open publishing in the humanities and social
sciences. […] We also share a willingness to subject some of our most estab-
lished scholarly communication practices to creative critique, together with the
institutions that sustain them (the university, the library, the publishing house
and so on). The collective thus offers a radical ‘alternative’ to the conservative
versions of open access that are currently being put forward by commercially-
oriented presses, funders and policy makers. […] By showcasing the wide va-
riety of non-commercial, not-for-profit and/or commons-based models for the
creation and dissemination of academic knowledge that are currently availa-
ble, we endeavour to help generate and sustain diversity within the publishing
ecology”.
(https://radicaloa.disruptivemedia.org.uk/about/)

The question that remains to be answered is if and how the public service Internet pro-
jects and the digital commons can contribute to advancing digital democracy. The con-
clusion addresses this issue.

10.5 Conclusion: Advancing Digital Democracy

The digital public sphere is a dimension of the public sphere, where published knowl-
edge takes on digital formats and informs critical public debate. For Habermas, the public
sphere has a democratic, non-capitalist, and unideological character. Therefore, not all
digital knowledge and not all digital communication are part of the public sphere. Public
service media are media that are publicly owned by independent not-for-profit organisa-
tions that are not controlled but enabled by the state and operate basically on the public
service remit to provide content and services that advance democratic communication,
education, and culture. Public service Internet platforms are Internet platforms owned,
operated, and maintained by public service media. Just like public service media, pub-
lic service Internet platforms are media of, in, and operated through the public sphere.
Digital civil society projects such as diamond open access platforms and platform co-
operatives are not-for-profit digital projects that are commonly owned and governed by
 Chapter Ten | The Digital Commons and the Digital Public Sphere 237

the workers who produce the resources underpinning these projects. Public service In-
ternet platforms and digital civil society/community media platforms are both part of the
public sphere and the digital public sphere. Their main difference is that the organisation
operating, controlling, and owning the platform is in the first case a public service media
organisation and a civil society group or community in the second case. Public service In-
ternet platforms operate closer to the state than platform co-operatives and other digital
civil society projects. Public service Internet platforms are, however, not controlled, but
rather enabled by the state.

Table 10.4 outlines some foundations of three political economies of digital platforms.
Public service Internet platforms and civil society Internet platforms are the two types of
digital platforms that operate on non-capitalist principles and thereby negative the polit-
ical economy of digital capitalism. They operate in the digital public sphere. In contrast,
capitalist digital platforms colonise, feudalise, alienate, and destroy the digital public
sphere. Public service Internet platforms and civil society Internet platforms are excellent
foundations for advancing the digital commons, i.e. digital environmental sustainability
(natural digital commons), digital socialism (economic digital commons), participatory
digital democracy (political digital commons), and digital friendships (the cultural digital
commons). Creating such non-capitalist digital platforms is not a sufficient condition

Conclusion: Advancing Digital Democracy

for the advancement of the digital commons, but a good foundation that has a better
likelihood and chances to advance digital democracy, digital equality, and digital jus-
tice than digital capitalism and capitalist digital platforms. It takes a conscious human
effort, social struggle, and material foundations to advance all dimensions of the digital
commons. For example, a digital platform can be democratically governed and owned

TABLE 10.4 Three political economies of digital platforms (further development based on: Fuchs 2021, Table 8.2)

Dimension Capitalist Internet Public service Internet Civil society Internet platforms,
platforms platforms digital community media
Economy Digital capital, private Public service organisation Community ownership, civil
ownership of digital society organisation ownership,
platforms that co-operatives
accumulate capital
Politics Governance by private Governance by a democratically Governance by the community of
owners, shareholders legitimated board members/workers/users
and managers
Culture Publicly available digital Digital content and digital Digital content and services
content that is prone to services that realise the public that support user-generation,
ideology and capitalist service remits of democratic citizen journalism, and digital
values communication, education, participation
culture, and participation
238 Conclusion

(political and economic) but advance e-waste and climate change. The organisations and
communities operating these platforms should therefore support the creation of non-
capitalist green computing.

Political colonisation is the main danger that public service Internet projects face: public
service media lose their independence and critical character when governments are able
to directly influence the appointment of boards, the hiring and firing of workers, and the
produced content. Such media are state-controlled media, not public service media. Just
like traditional public service media, public service Internet projects face the danger of
political colonisation. Marginalisation and neoliberalisation are the two main dangers
that civil society Internet platforms such as platform co-operatives face. The history of
alternative and community media is a history of resource precarity and self-exploitative,
precarious, voluntary labour. Resource precarity and precarious labour are the two twin
political-economic dangers that alternative, community projects face. In addition, digital
culture is highly shaped by a culture of individualism and neoliberal entrepreneurialism.
The two main dangers that platform co-operatives face are that they (a) remain fair and
democratic but small, precarious, and unimportant, which can be their ruin, and (b) that
they turn into capitalist projects.

Nick Srnicek (2017, 127) argues that “all the traditional problems of co-ops (e.g. the
necessity of self-exploitation under capitalist social relations) are made even worse by
the monopolistic nature of platforms, the dominance of network effects, and the vast
resources behind these companies” (Srnicek 2017, 127). Marisol Sandoval (2020) analy-
ses how platform co-operatives have employed the neoliberal language of entrepreneur-
ship (“creators”, “entrepreneur”, “innovation”, “investments”, “shareholders”, “profits”,
“shares”, etc.) and how such a focus has advanced individualism and undermined co-
operatives’ potential for radical politics. “But collective ownership and democratic gov-
ernance do not automatically protect co-ops from the dynamics of entrepreneurialism”
(Sandoval 2020, 811).

The main danger that public service Internet platforms and platform co-operatives face
is that they are paralysed or destroyed by contradictions that stem from economic, po-
litical, or ideological colonisation so that they cannot challenge and oppose the power
of capitalist Internet platforms. Advancing an alternative Internet can therefore only be
successful if it is part of a broader political movement and campaign for strengthening
the public sphere and the commons in society. Advancing the digital public sphere, the
digital commons, and digital democracy requires progressive politics that address issues
such as the following ones:
 Chapter Ten | The Digital Commons and the Digital Public Sphere 239

1) Techno-realism: Progressive digital politics should avoid both techno-optimism

and techno-pessimism and advance realist projects and platforms that are possi-
ble, feasible, challenge, and oppose and point beyond digital capitalism.
2) Advancing digital democracy, the digital public sphere, and the digital commons
should be part and parcel of movements, parties, and movement parties that cam-
paign for the strengthening of democracy, the public sphere, and the com-
mons in general. Advancing the common control of the means of communication
requires the advancement of the common good and the commons in society in
general.
3) Advancing the digital democracy, the digital public sphere, and the digital com-
mons is not a technical question but a question of bringing about good working
conditions of digital and communication workers (and workers in general) and a
good life for all in digital society.
4) Progressive digital politics needs to stand up for the breakup of capitalist mo-
nopolies in the communication, media, and digital sector in particular and in the
economy in general.
5) Progressive digital politics should demand and advance ending corporate tax
havens, corporate tax avoidance, and low corporation taxes. It should campaign

Conclusion: Advancing Digital Democracy

for and implement higher corporate tax rates in general and in particular a
digital services tax that affects large transnational capitalist media and digital
companies.
6) Digital democracy, the digital public sphere, and the digital commons need space,
time, material support, and public/civil society partnerships. Material
support helps creating such space and time. Corporation taxes and a media fee
paid not just by citizens, but also by companies, can create a material support
for alternative projects. The licence fee should be kept where it exists and in-
troduced where it does not yet exist and be used for funding public service me-
dia and public service Internet projects. The licence fee should be extended from
households to corporations and be developed from a flat fee into a progressive
fee. Participatory budgeting can be combined with corporation taxes in order to
create a public sphere cheque that citizens receive in order to support alternative,
democratic public sphere, and civil society projects. Instead of public/private part-
nerships, public/civil society partnerships are needed where public organisations
co-operate with civil society organisations. Where possible and feasible, there
should be partnerships between public service Internet projects and civil society
Internet projects. Using such forms of material support, public service Internet
240 Conclusion

projects and civil society Internet projects, and networks of public service and
civil society organisations should create Internet platforms of, for, and through the
public sphere that advance the digital commons and follow the remit of advancing
democracy, education, culture, and participation in society with the help of digital
technologies. Such public, civil, and public/civil Internet platforms challenge capi-
talist Internet platforms and thereby digital capitalism.
7) Digital, critical, and democratic skills: Digital democracy requires critical,
engaged citizens who practice democratic debate and democracy. Citizens require
time, spaces, educational opportunities, and participation opportunities in order to
develop and practice democratic, digital, political, social, cultural, and other skills.
On the one hand, participation and engagement with others are education on par-
ticipation. On the other hand, measures such as the reduction in working hours
with full wage compensation, the introduction of a redistributive basic income
guarantee funded by capital taxation, political and digital education in schools,
and an offensive in adult learning based on the principles of critical pedagogy, etc.
are material measures that provide foundations and support for skills develop-
ment. Progressive digital politics should advance critical education opportunities.
8) Deceleration, slow media: The public sphere needs time for critical thinking,
reading, critical writing, critical presentation, critical debating, and critical co-
production. Digital media can support such processes that blind online practices
and face-to-face practices. Digital platforms should be designed in such a way that
they enable humans to afford sufficient time for the critical skills just mentioned.
9) Privacy friendliness and data minimisation: Non-capitalist digital media
should respect the privacy of citizens, workers, and consumers. They should use
the principle of privacy by design, minimise data storage to data that is needed for
operating platforms, and be advertising free.
10) Public service Internet platforms and civil society Internet platforms as well as
their users should respect and advance democracy, the plurality of opinions
that respects human rights and the equality of all humans, anti-racism, gender
equality, anti-fascism, anti-classism, and inclusion. Advancing participation
shouldn’t be a fig leave for enabling fascist, racist, and other hate speech. News
and educational programme require high-quality standards and should always be
truthful. There is no place for false news and post-truth politics in progressive
media. Those who hold discriminatory views should be allowed to speak as long
as they do not violate laws (e.g. when voicing death threat or violent threats), but
their views should always be adequately challenged.
 Chapter Ten | The Digital Commons and the Digital Public Sphere 241

Today, digital society is a digital capitalism that undermines democracy, the public
sphere, and the common good. Progressive digital politics that advance the digital public
sphere and the digital commons along with the public sphere, public services, and the
common in general are the active and practical hope for safeguarding and advancing
democracy in the age of and in opposition to digital authoritarianism.

Note
1 Global GDP 2019: US$33.426 trillion, data source: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/
NY.GDP.MKTP.CD (accessed on 7 October 2020).

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Index

Note: Bold page numbers refer to tables; italic page numbers refer to figures and page numbers
followed by “n” denote endnotes.

Adorno, Theodor W. 49, 169 Bok, Sissela 121

After Dark 228 Bookchin, Murray 100
algorithmic politics 224 Bourdieu, Pierre 195
alienation 28, 61–62; communication roles Brandeis, Louis 121
35, 36; digital 38, 39, 71, 72, 74; economic Brey, Philip 76
31; as injustice 30–34, 33 Brin, Sergey 71
Allen, Anita 121 British Psychological Society (BPS): Code of
Alphabet/Google 71 Ethics and Conduct 112; Ethics Guidelines
anonymity 108 for Internet-Mediated Research 112
anti-humanism 88 British Sociological Association (BSA) 107
anti-social media 224 broadband 171–174, 177, 178
Apple 92–94 Brundtland Report 207
applied ethics 5, 6 Bruns, Axel 151
Aquinas, Thomas 52, 59 Burns, Tony 52
Arendt, Hannah 16, 55, 129, 130, 133, 149
Aristotelian–Hegelian–Marxian ethics 70–75 Callinicos, Alex 50
Aristotelianism 55, 60, 63 Cambridge Analytica scandal 65, 72
Aristotle 3, 4, 10, 30, 34, 49, 52, 53, 58, capabilities approach 26–27
59–62, 66, 76; common good 12; justice capital accumulation strategy 235
and injustice 11; Rule of Golden Mean 8; capitalism 10, 34, 37, 37, 38, 41, 49, 91;
virtue ethics 6 commons 233; digital 221–225; economic
Association of Internet Researchers 106 privacy in 131, 142; influencer 224;
audience commodity hypothesis 148 principle of individualism 128; privacy
Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) 228 limits in 126–132; technology and 166–169
capitalist monopolies 223, 239
Benkler, Yochai 46–52, 231; The Wealth of capitalist social media 224
Networks 47 capitalist society, injustice in 34, 35
Bennett, W. Lance 116 Capurro, Rafael 12, 15, 16, 83–90,
Benn, Stanley 125 100, 101, 101n1; Hermeneutik der
Bentham, Jeremy 8–9 Fachinformation 84
Bies, Robert J. 153 Chan, Jenny 92
Bloch, Ernst 53 Charter of Civil Rights for a Sustainable
Bloustein, Edward J. 125 Knowledge Society 212
 Index 245

Club 2.0 228–230, 230 critical theory 3; as Marxist-humanist ethics

Code of Ethics: American Sociological 7, 9–12; of society 17, 90, 189
Association 108; British Psychological Culnan, Mary J. 153
Society 112; International Sociological cultural commons 231
Association 16, 108 cultural imperialism 28
Cody, Sebastian 228 cultural injustice 26
Colleran, Kevin 159 cultural sustainability 205
Collins, Patricia Hill 29 customer 89
commodification 17, 46, 149, 160, 181, 233
common good 46, 59–65, 60, 124, 232, data minimisation 240
233, 235 decision-making 28, 37, 67, 68, 209
common ownership 72, 232 dematerialisation 171, 204
common-pool resources (CPRs) 46, 47, 231 Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) 92
commons 34, 46, 47; based peer production deontology 7, 7–8
48, 51; definition 231; types and Dependent Rational Animals (MacIntyre) 55
dimensions 231–232, 233 dialectics: information society, sustainability
communication 21, 22, 34, 36, 58; alienated in 169, 170, 184–189, 187; justice 23,
media/means 36, 37; forms of 40, 41; 23; Sustainable Information Society 200,
humanist, digital justice 41, 42; media 207–213
injustice 34–38; political 225 diamond open access 235–236
communism 57, 58, 63 Diaspora 156–158
computer ethics 12, 13, 85 digital acceleration 224
consequentialism 70; Bentham 7, 8–9; A Digital Agenda for Europe 171, 172
criticism 9 digital capitalism 51, 221–225
constant capital 146 digital commons 231–236, 234; advancing
consumer surveillance 132 67; common good 59–65; dimensions 69,
contextual integrity 134, 144 69; human essence 52–59; MacIntyre and
cooperation 208–209, 213 48–52; morality 65–71
Corbyn, Jeremy 114, 115 digital corporations 222, 222–223, 224
Corporate Open Access Model 235 digital culture 39, 39, 47, 73, 224
corporate tax 239 digital democracy 236–241
corporate watch-platforms 153–156 digital economy 39, 72, 234
Creative Commons 45, 235 digital environmental sustainability 234, 237
critical digital education 70 digital ethics 5, 12–14
critical digital theory 70 digital friendship 234, 237
critical discourse analysis (CDA) 106, 111 digital ideology 39, 39, 224
critical public debate 225 digital injustice 38–39
critical publicity 225 digitalisation 5, 6, 7, 14, 225
critical sociology 165 digital labour 71, 91–95
246 Index

digital media 13, 38, 69, 91, 112, 186, 240 13, 85; consequentialism 7, 8–9; definition
digital politics 38, 39, 239 5; deontology 7, 7–8; digital commons
digital public sphere 225–230, 236 45–77; forms of 6; information 12; Internet
digital socialism 42, 237 13; Marxist-humanist 7, 9–12; meta 5;
digital tabloids 224 normative 5; private 9; research 106;
Directory of Open Access Journals 235 utilitarian definition 8; virtue 6, 7, 48, 50
domination 10, 28, 29, 34, 90 Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity
Downing, John 117; Encyclopedia of Social (MacIntyre) 54
Movement Media 116 The Ethics of Information (Floridi) 101n1
dualism: information society, sustainability Etzioni, Amitai 124, 134, 141
in 169, 170, 180–184; justice 23, 25–26; Euler, Johannes 233
Sustainable Information Society 200, European Commission Annual Macro-
202–207 Economic Database 206
European Fund for Strategic Investments
ecological sustainability 204–206 (EFSI) 174, 175
economic alienation 31 European Investment Bank 175
Economic and Social Research Council European Investment Fund 175
(ESRC) 112 Europe, Internet in 171–178, 173, 174
economic crisis 105, 126, 182, 204 exclusion 28
economic goods 46, 46 exploitation 10, 31, 38, 54, 66, 89–92,
economic injustice 26 145, 147
economic privacy 142, 143 external nature, commons of 231
economic surveillance 132, 150, 159
economic sustainability 205, 206 Facebook 51, 65, 71, 72, 75, 77n7, 96,
economy 89, 120 116, 141, 143, 145, 159, 160; capital
eco-social market economy 203 accumulation on 146, 146; political
eEurope initiative 201, 203 economy of 145–150; privacy policy 150;
Encyclopedia of Philosophy 5 private–public relation 150
Encyclopedia of Social Movement Media fake/false news 225
(Downing) 116 Farage, Nigel 73–75
Engels, Friedrich 9, 10, 16, 31, 126, 129, 133, fascism 87
232, 233 Federal Banking Act 131, 142
entropy 86 Ferrer, Didac 168
environmental reductionism 171 financial privacy 131, 142
eParticipation 202 Fitoussi, Jean-Paul 181
Ess, Charles 13, 51 Floridi, Luciano 15, 16, 50, 51, 83–90, 100,
essence: definition 53; dialectical logic of 56; 101; The Ethics of Information 101n1
human 52–59 Fossheim, Hallvard 51
ethics 5–6; applied 5, 6; Aristotelian– Foxconn 92
Hegelian–Marxian 71–75; computer 12, fragmented digital public spheres 224
 Index 247

Fraser, Nancy 25, 26, 35 Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI) 175, 176,

freedom of speech 84 177, 177
free, libre, and open-source software Hermeneutik der Fachinformation (Capurro) 84
(FLOSS) 234 Hess, Charlotte 46
free software 45 HHI see Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI)
Freifunk 45 Hilty, Lorenz 170, 171, 201
Frey, Lawrence R. 22 Hitler, Adolf 87, 114
Fried, Charles 122, 125 Hofer, Norbert 115, 116
Froomkin, A. Michael 122 Hofkirchner, Wolfgang 169, 197
Honneth, Axel 24, 25; theory of recognition
Gandy, Oscar 152 24–25, 25; The Struggle for Recognition 25
Gavison, Ruth 121, 125 Horkheimer, Max 169
GDP see gross domestic product (GDP) human essence 52–59
Gerstein, Robert S. 125 humanism 30, 40
Giddens, Anthony 121, 123, 195 humanist, just communication 40–41, 41
Gini coefficient 198, 205 humanist society, dimensions of 40, 40
Global Marshall Initiative 203 Hussain, Waheed 60
Global Science Research (GSR) 72
Göhring, Wolf 213 ICTs see information and communication
Golden Rule 7, 8 technologies (ICTs)
Google 51, 70, 91, 96, 160 IDDL see international division of digital
Gormley, Ken 120 labour (IDDL)
Governing the Commons (Ostrom) 47 idealist-monist theory of justice 23, 24–25
Government Communications Headquarter Illich, Ivan 169, 185; Tools for Conviviality 168
(GCHQ) 95, 102n15, 102n17 individualistic digital culture 224
Grippi, Dan 156 influencer capitalism 224
gross domestic product (GDP) 181, 183, information and communication technologies
199, 222 (ICTs) 17, 85, 91, 165, 167, 170, 180, 182,
193, 200, 205
Habermas, Jürgen 8, 16, 35, 84, 120, 129, information ethics 12; business 89; Capurro
130, 133, 149, 184, 185, 226, 236 and Floridi 83–90; as descriptive theory
Haider, Jörg 115 83; digital labour 91–95; as emancipatory
Hall, Stuart 197 theory 83; entropy 86, 87; Internet
The Handbook of Internet Studies (Consalvo surveillance 95–99
and Ess) 13 Information Society Forum 204
Hardt, Michael 231 information society, sustainability in:
Harvey, David 31, 34, 233 dialectical integrativism 169, 170,
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 56, 59, 60, 84 184–189, 187; disjunctivism/dualism 169,
Heinrich Böll Foundation 206, 212, 215 170, 180–184; projectivism 169, 170, 170;
Held, David 151 reductionism 169–180, 170
248 Index

informed consent 108; limits 111; scope 109 language 54, 55, 89
injustice 11, 62; alienation as 30–34, 33; Lasswell formula 111
capitalist society 34, 35; communication/ Le Pen, Marine 75
media 34–38; communicative dimension Lente, Harro van 168
35, 36; cultural 26; digital 38–39; liberalism, Marxian critique of 128
economic 26 liberal privacy 132, 133, 135, 141–145
Instagram 75, 224 liberal rights 24
internal nature, commons of 231 Livant, Bill 148
international division of digital labour (IDDL) Locke, John 59, 128
91, 94, 95 Logic of Connective Action (2013) 116
International Handbook of Internet Research Luhmann, Niklas 194
(Hunsinger, Klastrup and Allen) 13 Lukács, Georg 30, 58, 166
International Labour Organization’s Lynd, Staughton 151
Convention C030 – Hours of Work 93 Lyon, Dadvid 128
Internet 13, 45, 46, 84; alternative platforms
156–158; ethics 13; in Europe 171–178, MacIntosh, Ann 202
173, 174; surveillance 95–99 MacIntyre, Alasdair C. 3, 4, 15, 32, 53, 60,
intersectionality theory 29, 30 61, 64, 66; After Virtue (2007) 52, 54;
Dependent Rational Animals (1999) 55;
Jenkins, Henry 151 and digital commons 48–52; Ethics in the
Jhally, Sut 148 Conflicts of Modernity (2016) 54; Marxism:
Johnson, Deborah G. 155 An Interpretation (1953) 52
Journal of Communication 22 Macpherson, Crawford Brough 128, 151
The Journal of Political Philosophy 22 Malina, Anna 199
Journal of World Transport Policy & Practice Maner, Walter 12
(Britton) 201 Marcuse, Herbert 56, 184, 185
Juncker, Jean-Claude 175 marginalisation 26–28, 238
justice 11, 62; dialectics 23, 23; dualism Margulis, Stephen 125
23, 25–26; idealist monism 23, 24–25; Marxian critique of liberalism 128
Nancy Fraser’s theory 25, 26; pluralism 23, Marxism 22, 52
26–30; political 24, 26; Rawls’s concept 24; Marxism: An Interpretation (MacIntyre) 52
theories of 23–30 Marxist philosophy 22
Marxist theory 10, 22, 153
Kant, Immanuel 7–8, 84, 208 Marx, Karl 3, 4, 9, 10, 12, 15, 16, 25, 31–32,
Karatani, Kojin 153 52, 53, 56–58, 62, 66, 84, 89, 126, 127,
Knöbl, Kuno 228 130, 133, 142, 145, 232, 233
knowledge labour 147 matrix of domination 29, 29
Kreuzer, Franz 228 McNaughton, David: Moral Vision: An
Kucklich, Julian 149 Introduction to Ethics 22
 Index 249

McQuillan, Helen 199 normative ethics 5

media 36–38 Nussbaum, Martha 26, 27, 32
media justice 40, 41
mediation 36, 49, 222 O’Donnell, Susan 199, 201
Meikle, Scott 53 Open Media 228
metaethics 5 oppression: forms of 27, 27; gender-related
Milanovic, Branko 198 37, 37
Miller, Arthur 122 opt-in privacy policy 152–153
Mill, John Stuart 122, 126, 128, ordoliberalism 203
131, 142; Principles of political Ostrom, Elinor 46, 47, 231; Governing the
economy 121 Commons 47
Mills, C. Wright 96 The Oxford Handbook of Internet Studies
Mitchell, Eve 30 (Dutton) 13
modern slavery 91
Moglen, Eben 157 Page, Larry 71
Moore, Barrington 126 Parker, Donn 12
Moor, James H. 13, 76, 122 participation 209, 213
moral freedom 8 participatory, co-operative, sustainable
morality 5–6, 9, 23, 65–71 information society (PCSIS) 193, 210, 214;
moral philosophy 4, 5, 7, 22, 23 Sustainable Information Society 197–213;
Moral Vision: An Introduction to Ethics theoretical model of society 193–197
(McNaughton) 22 participatory democracy 151–152, 230, 237
Mulder, Karel 168 participatory economy 152
multi-stakeholder approach 181 participatory social system 209
mythinformation 185 Pateman, Carole 151, 152
patriarchy 37, 37, 38
National Security Agency (NSA) 95, 97 PCSIS see participatory, co-operative,
natural commons 231, 232 sustainable information society (PCSIS)
Nazis 50, 87, 88 Peters, John Durham 21
Nazism 87, 100 The Philosophical Review 22
Negri, Antonio 231 platform co-operatives 234, 237
neoliberalism 171, 178, 179, 179, 238 Plato 23, 59, 60
netCommons 172 playbour 17, 149
new international division of labour (NIDL) 91 pluralistic theory of justice 23, 26–30
New York Times 72 political colonisation 238
Next Generation Access (NGA) networks 172 political communication 225
Nicomachean Ethics 11 political economy 96, 126, 127, 145–150
Nissenbaum, Helen 48–52, 134, 144 political justice 24, 26
Nock, Steven 121 possessive individualism 128
250 Index

post-factual politics 225 reification 24

potency 11–12, 62 research ethics 106; critical-realist Internet
powerlessness 27, 28 109–116; guidelines 106–109
practice, definition of 48–49 restricted access/limited control theory
Principles of political economy (Mill) 121 (RALC) 122, 123
Prism 95, 96 right to social security 24
privacy 119–124; control theory 122; critics Rip, Arie 169
124, 127; definition 120, 134; economic rivalrous consumption 46
131, 133, 142, 143; fetishism 124–126; Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 59, 60
financial 131, 142; friendliness 240; Ruddy, Thomas F. 170, 171
liberal 132, 133, 135, 141–145; limits in Rule, James B. 122
capitalism 126–132; restricted access Rule of Golden Mean 8
theory 122; rights 134, 143; socialist 134,
143, 144, 150–158 Salzberg, Maxwell 156, 157
private ownership 131 Sandel, Michael 60
private property 128, 129 Sandoval, Marisol 238
private sphere 120, 122, 123, 128, 130, 131 Schauer, Thomas 204
Proferes, Nicholas John 111 Schoeman, Ferdinand 120, 121, 125
projectivism 169, 170, 170; information Schot, Johan 169
society, sustainability in 169, 170, 170; Schultz, Robert A. 122
Sustainable Information Society 200, 202 Second International Handbook of
prosumer 145, 147, 155 Internet Research (Hunsinger, Allen and
public goods 225 Klastrump) 13
public service Internet platforms 237, 240 Segerberg, Alexandra 116
public service media 226–227, 236 Selden, Mark 92
public sphere 225, 226, 236 Sen, Amartya 26, 32, 181
Pufendorf, Samuel 7 Shils, Edward 122
Pun, Ngai 92 SIS see Sustainable Information Society (SIS)
slow media 228, 240
Quinn, Michael 122 Smith, Adam 59, 60
Smythe, Dallas 148
Rachel, James 125 Snapchat 224
racism 37, 37, 38 Snowden, Edward 15, 95–100
Radermacher, Franz Josef 203, 204 social commons 231–232
radical open access 236 socialism 10
Rawls, John 59, 60; A Theory of Justice 24 socialist privacy 134, 143, 144, 150–158
reductionism 169–180, 170; environmental Social Justice Research 22
171; information society, sustainability in social media 16, 75, 96, 97, 105–106, 111, 221
169–180, 170; Sustainable Information Social Media Research: A Guide to Ethics
Society 199–202, 200 (Townsend) 112–113
 Index 251

social movement 116, 117 Tännsjö, Torbjorn 135

social networking 150–158 Tannsj, Torbjörn 142
social sustainability 205, 206 Tavani, Herman T. 121
society: cultural system 194–196, 195; Taylor, Charles 32, 60
as dynamic, dialectical system 194, technological sustainability 168
195; economic system 194–196, technology 166–169
195; political system 194–196, 195; techno-realism 239
structures in 195, 196; theoretical model teleological cause 30
193–197 Tempora 95, 96
Sofaer, Raphael 156 A Theory of Justice (Rawls) 24
Sohn-Rethel, Alfred 166, 167 TNCs see transnational corporations (TNCs)
Solove, Daniel J. 120, 122, 125, 136n1 Toffler, Alvin 145
Spinello, Richard 122 Tools for Conviviality (Illich) 168
Splichal, Slavko 226 transnational corporations (TNCs) 91, 93, 182,
Srnicek, Nick 238 183, 183, 222, 222
Statement of Ethical Practice 107 triangle of sustainability 207
Stiglitz, Joseph 181 Trump, Donald 21, 72, 75, 105, 113
Strache, Heinz Christian 115, 116 Twitter 68, 74, 75, 107, 109, 110, 113
The Struggle for Recognition (Honneth) 25
Students & Scholars against Corporate United Nations Conference on Environment
Misbehaviour (SACOM) 93, 94 and Development 165, 208
sublation 49 United Nations Conference on Sustainable
Supplier Responsibility 2014 Progress Development 165
Report 93 United Nations Educational, Scientific and
surveillance: consumer 132; economic 132; Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 207, 211
Facebook 148–149; ideologies 98–99; United Nations Human Development Report
Internet 95–99; workplace 132 (UNHDR) 198
surveillance-industrial complex 96–98, 224 United Nations Independence Party (UKIP)
sustainability 165; cultural 205; dilemma 73, 74
170; dimensions 210, 210; ecological Universal Declaration of Human Rights 8,
205; economic 205, 206; in information 24, 84
society 169–189; social 205, 206; Utman, Jorge S. 233
technological 168
sustainable development 207 value-sensitive design (VSD) 76
Sustainable Information Society (SIS) 214; Van der Bellen, Alexander 115, 116
dialectic 200, 207–213; dualism 200, Van Dijk, Jan 84, 204
202–207; projectionism 200, 202; variable capital 146
reductionism 199–202, 200 violence 28, 29
sustainable knowledge society 212 virtue ethics 6, 7, 48, 50
Swiss Bankers Association 131, 142 virtue of generosity 11
252 Index

virtues of friendship and justice 10 World Commission on Environment and

Vodafone 184 Development (WCED) 207
World Summit on Sustainable Development
Walzer, Michael 59, 60 (WSSD) 208
Warren, Samuel 121 World Summit on the Information Society
Wayland, Kent A. 155 (WSIS) 17, 165, 180–183, 203
The Wealth of Networks (Benkler) 47 WSIS Civil Society Plenary 188, 212, 215
Weizenbaum, Joseph 12
Wesen 56–58, 63 XKeyScore 95, 96, 102n14
Westin, Alan 122, 125
Wiener, Norbert 12 Young, Marion 27, 35
WikiLeaks 155, 156 YouTube 71, 72, 224, 229
Wikipedia 45, 66, 76
Williams, Raymond 89, 185 Zhitomirskiy, Ilya 156, 157
Winner, Langdon 185 Zimmer, Michael 109, 111
workplace surveillance 132 Žižek, Slavoj 99, 231
World Bank 207 Zuckerberg, Mark 71, 159