Surveillance and the power of platforms

It is a truism that the power of platform companies rests, among other things, on their capacity to engage in surveillance. Their existence depends on the acquisition and analysis of data, which fuels their movement, that is steered by algorithms. Surveillance capitalism, usually instantiated in the activities of platform companies, expanded even more markedly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Platforms have ambiguous relations with already existing corporations and government agencies, often leading to tension and conflict. Also, surveillance enabled by the massive datasets used by platforms does not have uniform outcomes. Its operations sort populations into categories, enabling differential treatment, which may be experienced negatively by some vulnerable groups. This includes groups experiencing precarity, and in particular places. An emergent kind of power is visible in surveillance-dependent platform companies, raising critical questions of political resistance and legal regulation.