Even though the term “surveillance capitalism” was widely adopted, Zuboff’s depiction of a kind of digital mind control has come under scrutiny. The presentation will focus on two of her most prominent critics who have both long established themselves as bloggers and public intellectuals: Cory Doctorow and Evgeny Morozov. Doctorow picks up on the term “surveillance capitalism” in a long serious of blog posts that subsequently were published as a non-fiction book titled “How to destroy
surveillance capitalism”. He agrees to Zuboff’s basic premise that this form of digital economy challenges democratic norms and poses a threat to the human species. But he disagrees with her diagnosis why this is this case and ultimately blames her of actually aggravating the problem by depicting Big Tech as stronger as it actually is.