Abstract – This lecture focuses on the mutual dependence linking large digital platforms, i.e., ‘Big Tech’, and the military apparatus. Three main elements are brought at center stage: an ‘originary linkage’ binding the development of digital platforms with governments’ military R&D efforts; the critical nature of infrastructures and technologies controlled by platforms; and their role as their government’s ‘eyes and ears’(both at home and abroad). Focusing on the US and China, this lecture will document the growing relevance of Big Tech as military contractors, as well as key actors in war scenarios. In so doing, the main facets of a new military-digital complex will be highlighted, showing how the intertwining of Big Tech’s surveillance-based strategies aimed at monopolizing markets and those directed at the political-military hegemony of nation states (i.e., the US, China and their vassals) constitute a threat to humanity whose integrated character is essential to grasp.
Participate via Zoom (Password: 0dzqxqiy).
- Speaker: Dario Guarascio, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
- Moderator: Susan Winter, University of Maryland, College of Information Studies, USA