Eaten by the Internet

This book makes internet infrastructure visible as a force of political power, which is transforming the social world, from the bottom up—through fifteen chapters contributed by a global set of researchers, activists, and techies. We are living a unique moment: internet technologies are the default infrastructure for society, not just how we communicate but also how we organise our social life, politics, and economy, all the way down to our material environments, like cities. Our world is eaten by the internet. This means that those who control the internet control the bounds of public speech, economic production, social cohesion, and politics, making its infrastructure a core political terrain in the networked age. The book’s chapters cover a wide set of topics, spanning from the global politics of content moderation by internet infrastructure to the colonialism inherent in the race to plug the moon, from the harms wrought by blockchain companies in rural America to the particularities of online censorship across Asia. The chapters take on thorny topics, discussing power consolidation in the advertisement and cloud industry, the role of internet infrastructure in the war in Ukraine, and tech’s environmental impact—amongst others. In doing so, this book roots contemporary technology debates in the politics of internet infrastructure and urges us to ask how can we ensure our infrastructures sustain us, rather than consume us?

Edited by: Corinne Cath

Contributors (alphabetically): Mehwish Ansari, Yung Au, Corinne Cath, Joan Donovan, Ksenia Ermoshina, Suzanne van Geuns, Gurshabad Grover, Fieke Jansen, Mallory Knodel, Ashwin Mathew, Maxigas, Francesca Musiani, Niels ten Oever, Britt Paris, Jenna Ruddock, Shivan Kaul Sahib, Michael Veale, and Meredith Whittaker.

Publisher: Meatspace Press (2023)

Place of publication: Manchester, United Kingdom

Weblink: meatspacepress.com

Design: Carlos Romo-Melgar and John Philip Sage

Commissioning editors: Mark Graham and Joe Shaw

Managing editor: David Sutcliffe

Copy editor: Suzanne van Geuns

Format: Paperback and pdf

Length: 128 pages

Language: English

Product code: MSP231001

ISBN (paperback): 978-1-913824-04-4

ISBN (pdf, e-book): 978-1-913824-05-1

DOI: 10.58704/dmnx-1r61

License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA