Critics like Shoshana Zuboff call Big Tech a parasitic system of control—but philosopher Peter Königs thinks that story is overblown. His 2024 Philosophy & Technology paper argues that the panic around “surveillance capitalism” exaggerates its harms and ignores its benefits.
We discuss his case that targeted ads aren’t especially manipulative, that social media’s political and mental-health effects are far less dire than claimed, and that data collection doesn’t necessarily destroy privacy or freedom.
Is Königs offering a reasonable correction to digital-age hysteria, or just apologizing for the algorithms that rule us? To help answer this, we are joined by STS scholar Michelle Charette