Tanner Humanities Center

Many of the frustrations of being online today—harassment, surveillance, misinformation, and the general sense of dysfunction—are not defects, but chosen outcomes of major platforms. As Cory Doctorow argues, large tech companies tend to lure users in, monetize their participation, and then squeeze both users and workers once alternatives have disappeared. The result is an internet organized around extraction rather than connection. Doctorow calls us to confront the outsized power of a handful of firms and strengthen the capacity of workers and regulators to push back.

A book-signing with Weller Bookworks will follow the event.

Reviews

• “The Age of Enshittification” — Kyle Chayka, The New Yorker
• “A Powerhouse Writer Found One Word to Change the Debate About Tech” — Joseph Bernstein, The New York Times
• “Why the Internet Is Turning to Shit” — Alex Skopic, Current Affairs
• Interview by Amy Goodman — Democracy Now

One of the Internet’s most interesting writers.
— Edward Snowden 

Big Tech does not just plunder your data. It does not merely rob you of your privacy. It does something far, far worse than that. You know it. You feel it. But you won’t be able to put your finger on it until you have read Cory Doctorow’s Enshittification. Once you do, you will know and, more importantly, you will stand a better chance of resisting.
— Yanis Varoufakis, author of Technofeudalism

Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author, activist, and journalist. His nonfiction books include The Internet Con and Chokepoint Capitalism. He has received the Arthur C. Clarke Imagination in Service to Society Award and the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity.

Doctorow has also been an activist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He co-founded the UK Open Rights Group and holds visiting appointments at the Open University, MIT, Cornell, and the University of North Carolina.

His website is craphound.com.

For class visits or large group bookings, please contact us at tanner-humanities@utah.edu for special ticketing. 

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Views expressed in Tanner Humanities Center events do not reflect the official views of the Center or the University of Utah.