Nicole Aschoff

The Smartphone Society Nicole Aschoff

How tech empowers community organizing and protest movements to combat the systems of capitalism and data exploitation that helped drive tech's own rise to ubiquity. Our smartphones have brought digital technology into the most intimate spheres of life. It's time to take control of them, repurposing them as pathways to a democratically designed and maintained digital commons that prioritizes people over profit. Smartphones have allowed users to connect worldwide in a way that was previously impossible, and provided platforms for global justice movements. But the rise of smartphones has led to corporations using consumers' personal data for profit, unmonitored surveillance, and digital monopolies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon. But people are using their smartphones to fight back. New modes of resistance are emerging, signaling the possibility that our pocket computers could be harnessed for the benefit of people, not profit.