Exploitation Forensics


Exploitation Forensics is a collection of maps and documents created as a result of the research conducted in the last couple of years by the SHARE Lab.

The maps presented in the lecture will help the audience dive into invisible layers of modern technological black boxes and their fractal supply chains, hiding different forms of hidden labor and exploitation of material resources and data.

There are plenty of reasons to be interested in the black boxes hidden within Facebook algorithm factory. They are the mediators of all our interactions, recording our most intimate conversations, keeping track of our behavior and activities. The invisible walls of this specific algorithm factory hide the machinery that is constantly weighing out which information to display, what content to inject into our reality, what to censor and what to delete. These black boxes define entirely new forms of labor and exploitation, making the owners of these invisible factories incredibly wealthy and powerful, creating an enormous economical gap between the owners and the consumers. Somewhere deep down beneath the layers of Facebook algorithm machines, new forms of human rights violation are lurking, as well as new ways of exploitation and different manipulation mechanisms, influencing billions of users every single day.

Every networked device and the vast Internet infrastructure hide many interesting stories about fractal supply chains, resources exploitation and energy consumption. Another focal point of this lecture will be the invisible labor hidden in remote locations – from mine shafts in Africa over outsourced factories and offices all around the globe and finally, to invisible workspaces for digital labor. This part of the lecture will take the audience on the journey of birth, life, and death of a networked device, based on a centralized artificial intelligence system – Amazon Echo.