Corporate Domination and Cyberpunk Societies: Fiction or Real-life?

One of the main characteristics of societies in cyberpunk stories is that corporations are more powerful than the government. They control the world and the people based on their most important goal: profit. In these stories, money matters more than human lives, which is something to be scared of. The worst thing about that is to notice the similarities with real life. Nowadays, big technology companies have great power over individuals. Because they have access to massive amounts of data - such as what people browse, their location, what they buy - they can influence people’s decisions without them even noticing. This is clearly a form of control, and it brings us close to those societies we are so scared about – at least I am - from Cyberpunk stories.

What is really happening?

To make this clear, let’s bring some theory to the discussion. Shoshana Zuboff – American author and professor at Harvard Business School – created the term Surveillance Capitalism to explain how the control by big companies is established. It describes how companies collect people’s data and use it to: 1. Predict what they will do and 2. Influence their decisions. Zuboff explains that companies like Google and Facebook make money by collecting and using personal data (Zuboff, 2019), which means that instead of selling products, companies sell information about people.

The Cambridge Analytica Scandal

In the 2010s, Facebook was involved in the Cambridge Analytica Scandal, where millions of users had their personal data collected without their consent to create highly targeted political messages for campaigns during the 2016 election (Kozlowska, 2018). This episode exemplifies how corporations sell and use people’s data to influence their decisions and thoughts. It shows how powerful corporations have become in our society and how they can influence democratic processes, such as the elections. Additionally, the fact that a company can affect political outcomes like that challenges the government authority.

Are we heading toward Cyberpunk Societies?

Another perspective we can discuss about this situation is how most people are not aware about how much influence corporations have in our society. The truth is, many users put their personal information on websites, without even understanding the effect this can have. People make themselves vulnerable to manipulation simply by completing a survey or a questionnaire. Honestly, it’s like these big corporations see people as sources of data that can be used for profit or strategic purposes. And isn’t this the key idea in cyberpunk stories? Where people are treated less like individuals with their own identities and lives, but more like participants of a greater system of power and control moved by profit. I hate to admit it, but these societies are not fully fictional anymore.

The Tyrell Corporation in Blade Runner

The movie Blade Runner illustrates this situation really well. The Tyrell Corporation creates replicants and uses them to obtain profit, without even considering their humanity or rights. Similarly, Facebook uses people’s data as a resource, which suggests a priority of interests related to profit, rather than people’s rights of privacy, autonomy, and even society’s democracy. Thus, in both situations – fictional and real-life – individuals are treated as tools within a larger system controlled by a powerful corporation, indicating that our society is heading toward cyberpunk’s corporate dominance.

A Globalized Issue

The growth of corporate dominance is not just a problem in the United States. It is true that American companies tend to have more freedom and can operate within less strict rules, but other countries have been dealing with this situation as well. Countries in Europe, for example, have really strict laws about privacy to try to limit how corporations use personal data. Meanwhile, in China, corporate control is tied to the government, which means companies don’t have that much freedom to act. Therefore, even though corporate control and power is dealt differently across countries, it is noticeable that it’s a global issue enabled by technology and globalization. Because of that, it is extremely important to discuss about this in news, media, and in classes, so people are not oblivious to how their personal information is being used and how vulnerable their privacy is in a world moved, and perhaps controlled, by technology and profit.

Sources

Zuboff, S. (2019). The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. PublicAffairs.

Kozlowska, I. (2018). Facebook and data privacy in the age of Cambridge Analytica. University of Washington. https://jsis.washington.edu/news/facebook-data-privacy-age-cambridge-analytica/

Scott, R. (Director). (1982). Blade Runner [Film]. Warner Bros.