Resistance and Political Organization in the Shadow of Big Tech

All right. Thank you so much. Um I think while we are um waiting for the third person. Uh let me just start um by saying hello. Um I'm very happy uh to see your faces here and talk about the resistance and political organization in the shadow of Big Tech.

Um we will soon be three people and I will uh introduce the three people, but maybe until this point um I just make a little introduction. First, we want to talk about the problem of Big Tech today. Um and we want to offer some views here and maybe some ideas about the theory of change and uh then we will have some time to exchange with you uh and maybe discuss ways of action. So, the idea somehow that um um uh Josie here and then Jonathan will talk 5 minutes each to give a little like a little input. Um then then I will just spend 5 minutes on clarifying things and then we have a bombastic 10 minutes for Q&A, uh but we all will be here later on so you can just find us.

So, see this in a little bit now as a buffet and then we let's eat afterwards together, but now we just want to show what's on display. So, um what we want to do now and um maybe let's see if this No, it's not the person. Um okay, I'll wait with the introduction uh of people. Um So, what we want to do is to offer some uh political organizing and we want to um connect movements um a little bit in the way as Bits and Bäume used to do to connecting tech and climate justice people together. Um now we want to like present um, how we and many others um, are connecting and extending our um, our movements with other with other um, like with the topic present here.

And there we have the third person coming in. Um, and we what we want to do is uh, if we want to talk about the problem of big tech, we want to connect this discussion uh, for example, with urban politics. If we I mean, we're in Berlin right now, so we talk about Berlin versus Amazon. Amazon is not a good neighbor. So, this is kind of how how do cities actually change when big tech arrives like UFOs.

Um, um, other another example would be off Google when Google started wanted to have a campus in Berlin and you know, the movement here in Berlin actually scared them off. Um, we also want to connect it to the sustainability people uh, challenging the technological assumptions of universality uh, or efficiency, for example, uh, while putting a like a finger on power centralizing and hyper extractive technologies like AI. Uh, we also want to connect it um, to military activities. Uh, like we will later see a no tech for apartheid here apartheid, sorry. Um, how big tech actually um, um, fuels genocide and supports it.

So, what we want to talk about now is um, those topics of labor, feminism, and anti-fascism. And that's why we have those wonderful two people here um, who I actually met through the cables of resistance. Thanks a lot. And first we have Josie on your right hand side um, expert and active in geopolitics, uh, technology, and technological governance. And we have Jonathan um, a tech worker uh, active in the tech workers um, coalition.

Um, and talk we'll talk about organizing. Um, and I am Reiner. Uh, I'm a researcher and activist on convivial technology and the epistemic of automation. So, now we will start, as I said, with Jonathan's 5 minutes, then Josiah's 5 minutes, and then I will just maybe ask some questions, and then we'll get into the 10 minutes of exchange, and afterwards we will all be at the bar discussing about the things you've heard. So, maybe Jonathan, you can may start now.

Uh the mic work great. Uh so, I'm Jonathan, and I initially got into myself into tech as a subcontractor for Google. I was working with the ground truth Google Maps teams in the US. And since then, I have been a tech worker in Germany, primarily working in automotive tech industry. Um I think it's challenging to kind of talk in these different spaces cuz there's people who, you know, within the tech industry are kind of ambivalent about the idea of organizing tech workers.

And then you have other people who are doing a lot of organizing who are quite suspicious, with good reasons, of people who work in the tech industry. And also, what do we mean by people who work in the tech industry, right? Um just, you know, I worked as a software engineer, so without doubt a tech worker, uh even if the worker part is contested. But then you also have people, you know, the millions of people who make tech companies run, everything from service workers, you know, cleaners, janitors, but also content moderators. So, all of these different hierarchies of kind of corporate office-based workers.

There's a spectrum of highly paid to highly uh precarious. And then, of course, in warehouse and in manufacturing, right? None of the AI boom would happen without the extraction of minerals or the manufacturing of high-end and low-end chips. Um how do we change slides? That's

That's a good idea.

Amazing. All right. I'll keep speaking in the meantime cuz we have 5 minutes. Fortunately, we have a extended Q&A. So, um I already had a slide kind of talk about the most valuable companies uh by capital valuation kind of already went out of date with the new SpaceX IPO.

Um for me, on one hand, it's clear, right? There's a kind of a worrisome trend of hyper monopolization of and financialization of tech companies specifically, but I also see a lot of points for optimism. Uh a lot of these companies are relatively new, you know, over the past 50 years. Like Apple is kind of on the older end, and then you have newer companies like SpaceX. But the labor organizing and the kind of resistance, I think, is one part of the puzzle.

And it's only in the past 5 years that we've started to see workers at these different companies start to collectively mobilize. So, at Samsung, you now newly have, for the first time ever, uh trade unions in uh South Korea and India. At Foxconn, you have trade unions in Brazil. Okay, China's a bit of a special case cuz it's kind of a business union, uh pro-management union. But um Yeah.

And green button. Yeah, here we go. So, we have um almost half of the top 50 companies are tech companies, right? Uh but for me, I think what I would like you to take away from this is um we're kind of starting from zero in that we have near zero percent worker representation in the tech industry. And so, we can only go from here.

And I'm we're talking here as part of cable zero resistance because labor organizing, I think, is only one part of the puzzle, right? Um it's not to say that if all workers at SpaceX uh unionized, then SpaceX would be a benevolent uh company in the public interest. That's not necessarily the case. You see this historically, right? In the automotive industry today in Germany, uh there's a huge tension on one hand, you know, about saving jobs, and on the other hand, kind of the ecological transition uh to future public interest.

So, you know, it's without doubt, I think a workplace representation democracy is important, but we also need to ensure that workplace organizing is also in the interest of the public commons. And this is I think where we need to marry or merge the interest of organizing with social movements. Um so this is a photo from last year, but uh this week um it's at the same vent event in the United Nations International Labor Organization. We have now for the first time ever uh it was just passed 2 days ago the uh International Labor Organization Convention C193 on platform work. So, that's everything from ride hailing like with Uber, Uber Eats, but also digitally mediated work like content moderation, which might happen as micro tasks or uh with workers in a big company either directly employed, but in most cases in BPOs.

So, these are workers from uh 30 different countries who gathered last year in Geneva. This year we met up in Kenya in a pre-summit that was also much more reflective about the workforce. When we think of tech industry, we too often think of Silicon Valley or Berlin, uh but this is only a small tip of kind of the tech's layers. So, we met in Nairobi uh 2 weeks ago talking about um many of the issues that are actually globally relevant even if the specificities are quite different. So, I just want to say global organizing in any context, you know, textile industry, automo- automotive sector, quite rare.

So, it's extra special to see this happening in the tech industry that there's kind of an interest in the transnationalism, an interest in what's happening in the different workplaces. I think I'm running out of time, so I'll try to cut it short. Um yeah, so I'm part of an organization or network called the Tech Workers Coalition. In short, we're present in not enough countries, right? Uh we're predominantly in uh Europe and North America, but we do a lot of collaboration with uh the players in other countries, most notably the Philippines with BIEN, it's a Filipino BPO union, and in Nairobi with the different actors.

Yeah. So, 1 minute. Um I'm not going to read all this text cuz there's a lot. So, 80% of the organizing I do is local cuz I think the power is always rooted in the local. So, we have 40 different tech companies in Germany uh that we have supported the formation of works councils.

So, we've covered about 1/3 of the tech sector in Berlin. That means there's still 2/3 of tech workers in Berlin to go, but also how do we bring these practices in other places in and out of uh Berlin and both across Germany, but also across the rest of the planet. Um some more im- images. Maybe this is something so you can take away with you. A lot of different workers coming in different contexts, you know, some highly politicized, others coming, you know, it's over half uh migrantized.

So, that also means, you know, we have comrades coming from Brazil, you know, where trade union tradition is very strong, but we also have uh co-workers, you know, coming from South Asia, from Eastern Europe, Russia, Ukraine, where trade unions has a very bad taste. And so, we have the challenge of reinventing, reimagining kind of what collective action could be. Um I will kind of posit over here just to in the interest of time, but I we can speak a lot more if you want about specific workplaces and how it connects with the kind of social movement piece, which I think Josie

Yes.

speak more to. Thank you.

Okay. Thanks a lot. So, this is one way of, you know, how to achieve change and theory of change. Now, we get some perspective, yes, from uh Josie. Yeah, maybe you just start.

Yes. Thank you, Reiner. Um so, it's great to see everyone. I love to see a good 50/50 split in the room, especially when presenting on the topic of feminism. Um I think what I'd like to leave everyone with today is highlighting the importance of feminist perspectives in social movements and we're really seeing this in the resistance against Big Tech as well, as we had mentioned in Cables of Resistance.

Um, and some of this might be familiar. I'm sure for at least 50% of the room it is. Uh, but I just like to elaborate a little bit on how these perspectives are really critical in making sure that going ahead, we don't replicate the same harms that we have already been uh, working with in our societies. So, often with the feminist perspective, what gets highlighted is who gets silenced first and then who gets exposed and punished for it. So, a prime example that we're seeing this happening in the realm of Big Tech is the targeting of trans people and women on social media.

This has been a decade-long experimentation uh, uh, investigating into Big Tech moderation. So, you kind of have two ends of the spectrum in how this plays out. On the one hand, you have under moderation. So, we've seen uh, examples on X, uh, a lot of hate speech towards trans people. This has significantly gone up since 2022, upwards of 60%.

Uh, and for example, you also now with the advent of Gen AI, we're also seeing a lot of non-consensual sexual content being generated of women and in particularly of girls. Uh, and on the other side, you also have over moderation. So, Instagram and TikTok uh, actively suppresses trans content, uh, transition content, uh, any including words like queer. This results in shadow banning or outright uh, censoring and blocking users. Um, this also extends into specific areas like uh, sex workers and adult content producers.

So, during COVID for example, OnlyFans removed queer and trans content producers. Um there was no warning. There was no appeal. And all of this was swept under a PR statement of risk management. So, these are just two ends of the spectrum of how we're seeing the same platforms and the same rationale being used to silence and exclude marginalized groups.

Um whether it be censoring identities on one end and then enabling and ignoring hate speech on the other side. Now, this is this is not a bug, right? You cannot blame this on just a technical issue. This is what happens when you build without asking who it's built for and who it will be used against. And I think this is part of the feminist critique that we really need and are really bringing into resisting Big Tech because if we do not examine um what social norms and biases are being baked into the tech that we're building, including alternative tech that might be open source, we will just end up repeating the same harms again and ending in the same position.

I think what makes the feminist critique in social movements um particularly critical is uh it's always been the first to raise the alarm bell about structural power imbalances, right? It's the canary. Uh the fight uh of feminists and trans people is not on the peripheries. It is very much central to what we want to create in our futures going ahead. Um Sadly, this pattern is very old, right?

Feminist movements have always named structural power very early on and then been dismissed. And I think what's really exciting is a lot of the labor movements that are coming out of resisting big tech um has really led this fight and try and and is building and integrating it into its processes. So you saw this in early days in women's fight to be recognized in labor movements and we now today all enjoy the benefits of that fight, whether it be parental leave, more flexible workplaces or uh harassment um protocols and ensuring that doesn't continue. Um so the key takeaway here is surprise, surprise, if you build in feminist perspectives, it makes your movement stronger, not softer. And it really brings in this question of who is the system designed for and who at the end of the day does it grind down on.

And social movements now in resisting big tech, if we apply these uh perspectives early on, then our movements become more durable and precise in our our mission. And the same is for big tech. These alarms were raised years ago. They were initially seen as niche or fringe. And now it's everyone's problem.

So I think what this means for us and everyone in this room going ahead is understanding that in emerging forms of tech resistance, we're now seeing this playing out in real time and the significance of it no longer just affecting a small minority group. And we are building it into our warning systems and how we can shape new technologies and structures going ahead. Um so just wrap up, uh I think what the takeaway here is that we need to be able to design for the hardest cases and the hardest cases no longer being classified as just the edge case, right? They are the stress tests um and the feminist critique and big tech resistance want the same thing. And I think that's really critical for all of us going ahead in this mission.

Great. Thanks, Ellen. Thanks, Josie. So, I hope from those two spotlights became clear that we are kind of complementing technical approaches resisting big tech as you might see a lot on this conference with this kind of community approach and community-based approach and organizing approach. So, we're kind of getting beyond like those questions of just demanding free and open source, right?

A U EU-based free and open source Palantir would not solve anything. And we also want to extend those technical decentralization ideas with a tech focus, which most of the like a lot of time end up with social atomization in a way. And so, that's kind of a like a extending this or sometimes even contrasting it. So, now we have a few minutes for for some I would say maybe questions or or inputs if you wish. And then afterwards, we wrap it up and then we're there for further deep discussions.

Are there any comments or questions here?

Thank you. Hi. Thank you so much for your input. I have a question because I worked in tech myself. I know how much it takes to learn about these different things first, like naming, theories, and stuff.

So, I was wondering I think it was you you mentioned that there are some people who already know stuff and then some others who don't. How do you make sure you all get on the same page because this needs to I feel like happen rather quickly.

I mean there's two ways you can do this, right? One is you kind of set out a a grand manifesto and then just hope that everyone gets along. Um if that was the case, you know, after every radical academic conference we would be done because I think we have enough manifestos, but what we're lacking is kind of the as a practice the consensus building and so right, for example, I can give you my personal opinion of what the future of tech and society should look like, but I can definitely tell you talking with these people they're not going to just listen and so um this is why I think, you know, when we do the workplace organizing we might be focusing on things that are very bread and butter specific to their individual workplaces on layoffs and stuff, but this as a practice helps develop a kind of a language or a way to develop a consensus around the harder systemic questions, right? So uh with anti-militarism for some of the workplaces they immediately see the connections because they're migrants who have families in areas affected by militarism war and other workplaces, you know, the only thing they think about when they think about militarism is uh job opportunities, stable income from the federal government and so we also as practice embrace the contradictions, so we're not looking for perfectionism or kind of a narrative we're looking to reshape and challenge and so consensus building in short.

Oh, yeah, question in the back.

Hi, um thank you for your talks. I'm just interested in the overlap between both of your works because when we're talking about feminism, I heard mostly focus on end-user feminism, but this is of course there is women that are building the infrastructures that big tech is using and is profiting off of. So I'm just wondering if you can just touch upon that from your different perspectives. What does that look like in your organizations? Thank you for that.

Yeah, in my example it is very much end user focused. I think when it comes to examples of feminist participation in tech construction and design the examples that I can give who attended Cables or Resistance are I would say this is not a perfect example of feminist design and tech and but for example we had one group called Nawai which was a African based labor organizing but specifically for women in data cleaning and the rights there involved for their well-being but also in exposing sort of the harms and structural inequalities that that was present, right? So I think this there is a little bit of I feel like an over emphasis in the representation of feminist building tech that's happening because a lot of female roles in tech do tend to be on the lower end and more manually focused. So it would be ideal if we had more representation. I do have some doubts in if we just made gave women more opportunities to build tech things would just be better.

Which I'm not saying you're implying but I think for me personally I haven't seen as many super strong examples but within Cables or Resistance this is something that like we're definitely really keeping center and always on the lookout for. So if you know anyone or know any examples definitely please come approach me afterwards.

I mean, I think there's two aspects to this question. One is about the kind of the composition of the people, and so and that's very uneven and it's not a coincidence. So, when we talk about the tech industry in Berlin, it's near 70% men, 30% women, one of the most uneven even within the European Union. But, when you look globally, you know, around the world or in specific sectors, for example, content moderation, predominantly feminized. Um and then the other aspect, I think, is about what is the politics.

So, um of course, you know, women naturally understand the issues that affect women more collectively. Of course, it's not a homogeneity. But, I think all labor organizing should be feminist, right? And so, uh when we look at the kind of the the workplace leaders that we have, then the compensation in Berlin and elsewhere changes, right? There's an overrepresentation of women, an overrepresentation of trans people, uh people of color uh part, and it's two-fold, right?

One is cuz they're taking up leadership roles, uh but hopefully or more optimistically, it's also they're taking um uh getting recognition and shaping what needs to happen. So, I don't think I think the other thing we need to do is kind of shift shift some of the percept perception. Like, when we think of trade unions, we have this very outdated image of the kind of male construction worker, when the vast majority of workers around the world are not men, and even in within the labor when we think about the strongest labor movements, it could be teachers, it could be hospitals, overwhelmingly feminized uh sectors. So, I think we need a transformation of both feminism within the labor movement and also outside. It's still a bit of a shame that we talk about feminism and labor as two separate things when they're absolutely intertwined.

Uh

We have 10 more short questions.

Okay. Um I can So, I can imagine that profit driven big tech corporations with a lot of wealth and power in that sense might struggle or resist change or influence on change. So my question on one side would be how has politics responded to your initiative and is there a reception there? And two, as we have you might be inspiring a room full of people, what are you looking for both of you?

Maybe if you want you can also connect your answer with a kind of like a last comment.

I mean I think all of us here have different roles to play and let's also be very clear not all of us have equally the same kind of entry points or opportunities or privileges and we need to use those right? So if you're working directly in a tech company that's a different role to play than if you're part of civil society maybe on the external. We can discuss the specifics of what the balance needs to be but it's very clear we need to throw everything if we're going to beat back and fight tech. But I think what needs to happen that isn't happening enough is we need to be embracing the contradictions or the difficult conversations right? And a lot of crypto or decentralized spaces they you know network with the other fast people but we don't network enough with people who are outside of the technical spaces or people who are maybe more skeptical of the approaches we're taking and I think within the labor movement there's also a lot of work to do right in terms of marrying it more with the social movement unionism and asking yourself questions about to what end or where are we going?

For me I'm just quite inspired with a lot of what's been happening over the years and I think it's still it's not enough right? So this is a very difficult message say kind of we're winning but we're also we're not winning but we're making progress. So So short I think wherever you are coming from if it's in Berlin or elsewhere, get involved in a trade union, get involved in a collective. Tech Workers Coalition would be very happy to hear from you or uh maybe point you in a direction if you have if you're looking for a political home. Josie?

Thank you. Uh it's great to be the woman having the last word. Um I think uh I for just to sum up and I'd actually like to build on a little bit of the last top the question that we had um the one before. I think when it comes to resisting Big Tech and specifically on the topic of feminism, there is a there is a uh elephant in the room um that does need to be addressed, which is you know, feminism is not a homogeneous movement. We've seen online a lot of internal debates between the feminist agendas and and that also shows up, I think, in a lot in the labor context and also in Big Tech.

So uh you can fight me in the parking lot over this statement, but I'm afraid girl bossing doesn't count as feminism to me. And I think this is something that we do see in a lot of the tech spaces that you have this representation. We might have more women in positions of leadership and um uh other other other um marginalized groups, but that does not mean that we're actually advancing on the right causes in the right direction. So this is something that I think it's very critical that we have a a semi-coherent agreement, right? And also the ability to point out when these things are being branded and used in the wrong way um because they can be very damaging from the inside and can be very invisible, too.

So um in terms of what would I say for feminists uh uh pushing for feminist uh perspectives in resisting Big Tech. I think it's critical we have conversations, we bring this up, we take up space, and we really highlight the importance of this, and I'll give it up, which is very exhausting, so I want to acknowledge that.