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Title: Caught in the Web
Author: Anonymous
Date: Winter 2019
Language: en
Topics: the Internet, technology, Dissonanz, Zurich, The Local Kids, The Local Kids #3
Source: Translated for The Local Kids, Issue 3
Notes: First appeared as Ins Netz gegangen in Dissonanz (Anarchistische Zeitung, Zürich), Issue 43, February 2017

Anonymous

Caught in the Web

In a few decades the whole world has been covered in several new webs.

Internet, mobile phone network & co… How fast this web expands, how ever

more densely interwoven it gets… hardly anyone would have predicted.

Optical fibre cables that like veins are extended under cities, signals

that buzz with always higher frequencies through the air, antennas,

modems, mobiles, wireless, home monitoring, the internet of things,

smart city…

Today there is exponentially more talk about social networks, network

integration, networking, the web, etc.… These concept enter into the

vocabulary of businesses, of politics, of interest groups and circles of

friends… really everywhere is this language. It is a total

transformation of theories about organisation while, which shouldn’t be

surprising, at the same time the whole of society is restructured on new

bases.

But what is the purpose of a web? Undoubtedly, a spider weaves its web

to catch insects which it can then devour alive. A fisher brings a net

to catch fish. So, to what end is this brave new worldwide web, that is

build by several businesses and state institutions and is continually

expanded? Well, those who weave and finance this web have their eye on

one thing: capital. Everything that is caught in this web becomes

information in the form of zeros and ones, potentially usable

information which means more capital for those up-to-date.

This web has been woven during several decades, and lots see still more

development potential. What if we expand ever more the web over the

urban architecture? Weave it into homes? Or even into humans? That would

yield even more information. Detailed information, information that can

reflect all of reality, meaning: still more capital. Capital in the form

of security, of control, of speed, of forecasting and predictability…

With the present restructuring, that is developed to save capitalism,

also the relations of domination change. This has been coming for a long

time. Certain now outmoded things that caused lots of disgruntlement,

are more and more relinquished – of course this can change again in the

future. At least the direct and openly authoritarian behaviours in the

family, the school, the workplace etc. can be increasingly toned down as

the direct and unmediated human relations dwindle more and more anyhow.

In their place comes the logic of networks, transparent networks that at

best create a productive knot in the huge web. Domination is more

impersonal and it is unclear to whose algorithm we’re dancing, how it is

programmed, who controls the program… As flies we’re stuck in a spider’s

web, but it seems that we’ve lost the instinct to try to wriggle out and

attempt to fly away. Often we don’t even know what it means – to fly.

As anarchists, I think, we shouldn’t just adopt the language about

networks etc. A web is something with which one is caught, in which one

becomes tangled up and from which one barely emerges again. Rather

should we base our struggle in an open organisation – that can be freely

engaged in and that can always be dissolved by the participants when it

makes sense – and on direct and unmediated relations – beyond social

norms and hierarchies, beyond algorithms and programs.

And while it seems that people fall as flies in the web, lured with

flickering images, convenience and gadgets to the point of nausea,

should we better think about how we cut through the knots and sever the

wires till the whole web tears up!