In the āShitty Technology Adoption Curve,ā oppressive technologies are first imposed on people who donāt get to complaināāāprisoners, migrants, children, mental patients, benefits recipientsāāāin order to normalize these tools and sand down their rough edges. Once the technology has been rendered a little more acceptable, it crawls up the privilege gradient, bit by bit, until even the most socially powerful among us are using it.
In other words: 20 years ago, if you ate dinner under a CCTVās unblinking eye, you were probably dining in a supermax prison. Today, youāre likely just someone who bought some luxury surveillance, like a āhome automationā system from Google, Apple, Amazon or Facebook.