Tech criticism often stands in for more generalized complaints about the state of the world. When we get anxious about data collection or electronic surveillance or algorithmic decision-making, we may be less worried by the technology per se than by what it signifies. It’s about impersonality and bureaucracy; it’s about quantification and the flattening of social experience; it’s about neoliberalism and the intensifying concentration of capital. To be sure, new technologies might illuminate the scope and reach of these dynamics into our daily lives, or represent their intrusion into formerly sacred spheres. And in doing so, tech might exacerbate the inequities and injustices that these systems wreak on our world. So technology is not a straw man here—far from it. But we should be clear about which quality of a specific tech it is, precisely, that raises our hackles.

Karen Levy, “The Case for Precise Outrage”