“The Shitty Tech Adoption Curve,” in which oppressive technology makes its way up the “privilege gradient”: “Asylum seekers, prisoners and overseas sweatshop workers get the first version. Its roughest edges are sanded off against their tenderest places, and once it’s been normalized a little, we inflict it on students, mental patients, and blue collar workers.” Doctorow writes that remote work surveillance had already been used on at-home call center employees, who tended to be poor Black women. During the pandemic, this type of surveillance spread more widely to university students
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