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Social Science Privacy & Surveillance)

Reset

Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society

by (author) Ronald J. Deibert

Publisher
House of Anansi Press Inc
Initial publish date
Sep 2020
Category
Privacy & Surveillance), Media Studies, Security (National & International)
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781487008055
    Publish Date
    Sep 2020
    List Price
    $22.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781487008062
    Publish Date
    Sep 2020
    List Price
    $11.99
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781487008086
    Publish Date
    Oct 2020
    List Price
    $15.95 USD
  • Downloadable audio file

    ISBN
    9781487011208
    Publish Date
    Oct 2021
    List Price
    $34.99
  • Downloadable audio file

    ISBN
    9781487011192
    Publish Date
    Oct 2021
    List Price
    $34.99

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Description

In the 2020 CBC Massey Lectures, bestselling author and renowned technology and security expert Ronald J. Deibert exposes the disturbing influence and impact of the internet on politics, the economy, the environment, and humanity.

Digital technologies have given rise to a new machine-based civilization that is increasingly linked to a growing number of social and political maladies. Accountability is weak and insecurity is endemic, creating disturbing opportunities for exploitation. 

Drawing from the cutting-edge research of the Citizen Lab, the world-renowned digital security research group which he founded and directs, Ronald J. Deibert exposes the impacts of this communications ecosystem on civil society. He tracks a mostly unregulated surveillance industry, innovations in technologies of remote control, superpower policing practices, dark PR firms, and highly profitable hack-for-hire services feeding off rivers of poorly secured personal data. Deibert also unearths how dependence on social media and its expanding universe of consumer electronics creates immense pressure on the natural environment. In order to combat authoritarian practices, environmental degradation, and rampant electronic consumerism, he urges restraints on tech platforms and governments to reclaim the internet for civil society.

About the author

RONALD J. DEIBERT is professor of Political Science and director of the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto. The Citizen Lab undertakes interdisciplinary research at the intersection of global security, information and communications technologies, and human rights. The research outputs of the Citizen Lab are routinely covered in global media, including more than two dozen reports that received exclusive front-page coverage in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other global media over the last decade. Deibert is the author of Black Code: Surveillance, Privacy, and the Dark Side of the Internet, as well as numerous books, chapters, articles, and reports on internet censorship, surveillance, and cybersecurity.

 

Ronald J. Deibert's profile page

Awards

  • Winner, Writers' Trust Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing
  • Short-listed, Donner Prize

Excerpt: Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society (by (author) Ronald J. Deibert)

CHAPTER OUTLINE:
Chapter One: Social Media Is Surveillance Capitalism. The economic model of social media is organized around personal data surveillance.
Chapter Two: Social Media Are Addiction Machines. The science of targeted advertising and the “engineering of consent” at the heart of social media.
Chapter Three: Social Media Propels Authoritarian Practices. The rise and spread of authoritarian practices worldwide.
Chapter Four: Social Media Is Environmentally Destructive. The negative environmental impacts associated with social media, from electronic mining to energy consumption to cloud computing’s contributions to CO2 emissions (which now exceeds that of the airline industry) to the growing problem of electronic waste.
Chapter Five: What Is to Be Done? A comprehensive strategy of long-term reform is required, extending from the personal to the political, from the local to the global. We need to imagine a better world and start making it happen before it is too late.

Editorial Reviews

Acute and provocative.

Financial Times

In clear, concise language, Ronald J. Deibert sounds the alarm about social media’s most dangerous and pervasive threats to human autonomy, from the commodification of data to the ever-expanding reach of the surveillance state to the proliferation of disinformation and other tools of manipulation. Paired with urgent warnings about the perils of our online world, Deibert’s three-pronged formula for change — retreat, reform, restraint – is an urgent call we all should heed.

Quill & Quire

Reset is a shocking call to action and a persuasively argued book. It is the sort of text one hopes will be read widely … After all, a reset of the basic infrastructure of life will only come through a profound political reckoning — and like the foment of 1968, it may just be a reconceptualization of what we want and why we want it that finally drives change.

Quill & Quire