Meatspace Press are excited to announce our sixth paperback publication Eaten by the Internet, edited by Corinne Cath.
This book makes internet infrastructure visible as a force of political power—through fifteen chapters contributed by a global set of researchers, activists, and techies. It 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?
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. How can we ensure our internet infrastructure sustains us?
The book is available to buy in print and ebook formats from the Meatspace Press shop. Like all Meatspace Press publications, it is also open access and freely available to download in pdf format (see below).
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.
Design and illustration by Carlos Romo-Melgar and John Philip Sage.
You can buy a copy of the book (and support future Meatspace Press projects!) in our shop. This includes both paperback versions and a range of ebook formats available from the shop (epub, mobi, azw, etc). We also have discounts available for students and/or those on low incomes, as well as a range of offers and discounts on the Meatspace Press back catalogue.
The paperback edition comes with a FREE POSTER, featuring the book’s illustrations. Lucky customers will also receive FREE STICKERS!
Contents
- Introduction: eaten by the internet (Corinne Cath)
- Building muscle in infrastructure: Meredith Whittaker on Signal’s space in tech (Interview with Meredith Whittaker)
- The sprint to plug in the moon (Yung Au)
- Trust issues: internet privacy and centralised infrastructure (Shivan Kaul Sahib)
- Confidentiality washing in online advertising (Michael Veale)
- Mining ‘Silicon Holler’ for alternatives (Britt Paris)
- The problem is growth: environmental harms of tech revisited (Fieke Jansen)
- Pipeline ironies: the colonial religious history behind online hate (Suzanne van Geuns)
- The infrastructure of censorship in Asia (Gurshabad Grover)
- Encryption as a battleground in Ukraine (Ksenia Ermoshina & Francesca Musiani)
- Encryption regulation, and what to do about it? (Mallory Knodel)
- Standing out: critical infrastructure walks in Amsterdam (Niels ten Oever & Maxigas )
- The human in the machine: trust in internet governance (Ashwin Mathew )
- Standard politics: the state of civil society’s participation at the ITU (Mehwish Ansari)
- Towards a public interest internet: learning from social movements (Jenna Ruddock & Joan Donovan )
- Acknowledgements
Details:
Title: Eaten by the Internet
Edited by: Corinne Cath
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
Open access:
We hope that you will support the project by buying a paperback copy or the digital download on our shop (which includes both a pdf version and a range of ebook formats). However you may also download a pdf version (9mb) via Internet Archive (redirect link).
