From a US President being banned from social media to the blocking of his supporters on AirBnB as well as the disappearance of the Parler app from the network; from the explosion of the lockdown revenues of Amazon to Google’s bio-surveillance of contagion; from the Uber/Lime bike/scooter-sharing colonisation of public grounds to the endless meetings on Zoom: the Covid outbreak is intensifying the platformisation of existence. Leading many spheres of contemporary life, data-intensive infrastructures have become the gatekeepers of social order, the boosters of economic production, the hosts, managers, and saviours of old and new labour practices. This panel aims at investigating the escalation of digital platforms, as well as the possibilities to detach from, reform, and challenge this ruling paradigm of our pandemic times. The speakers are Niels van Doorn (University of Amsterdam), Sarah Gainsforth (freelance journalist and researcher), and Simone Robutti (Tech Workers Coalition Italia).
