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"The idiot does not “communicate”’,2 writes philosopher Byung-Chul Han in Psychopolitics. He may speak, sure, but not to convey a certain message. That makes the idiot instantly subversive in our time, where communication counts among the highest goods. Not so much because we value the exchange of information or because we can learn from each other. But rather, because the ever-accelerating, 24/7 communication cycle is what keeps surveillance capitalism going. It feeds the database and helps train algorithms. If everyone were to quit Facebook and Instagram right now, would stop emailing and messaging and throw their smartphones in the ditch – in other words, if all communicative data flows would rigorously come to a halt – then capital would stop flowing too. Capital that is entangled with the interests of those who want to keep an eye on us, whether it’s governments, security services, or companies like Cambridge Analytica, who sell the dream of propaganda with guaranteed return on investments to whatever political ideology that is willing to pay for it. The means: data profiles. The source: ‘total communication’. The goal: ‘total surveillance’, as Han calls it."

https://www.eurozine.com/faire-lidiot/