Posts By: Geert Lovink

Social in the Abyss–Interview with Geert Lovink by Tuğçe Yilmaz for K24

By Geert Lovink, April 19, 2018

Published first on March 18, 2018 by K24 in Turkish. Tuğçe Yilmaz: Social Media Abyss is the fifth volume of your ongoing investigation into critical internet culture. What is the main idea behind your treatment of social media as a dreadful abyss? Geert Lovink: The motive of falling into an vortex is a scary one, I [...]

Radical Think-Tank Theory–Interview with Ralf Homann and Manuela Unverdorben

By Geert Lovink, April 19, 2018

  By Geert Lovink How can we imagine to do radical research outside of the established academic institutions and large mainstream media? Is this possible anyway? For decades this has been my dream. At first, my 1980s generation imagined this as an intellectual practice that was allocated deep inside the social movements. This was mostly [...]

Q & A on Fake News and The Yes Men Legacy

By Geert Lovink, April 9, 2018

Interview with Geert Lovink by Hadas Emma Kedar, including a guest appearance by Jacques Servin (The Yes Men). Hadas Emma Kedar is masters student of Media Arts Cultures in Krems/Austria, working with Ana Peraica on her thesis on the legacy of The Yes Men in relation to today’s activist media arts. Hadas Emma Kedar: Why [...]

Let’s Talk about Social Media

By Geert Lovink, April 7, 2018

First published in Amsterdam Alternative #17, April 2018 By Geert Lovink “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” Dr. Suess In early 2018, social media criticism has reached a new stage. In past months, voices from deep inside the IT industry have made themselves heard. The suspicion against Google and Facebook started with [...]

Rude Awakening: Memes as Dialectical Images by Geert Lovink & Marc Tuters

By Geert Lovink, April 3, 2018

(This is part II of our critical meme theory, originally published here. The first part can also be found on non.copyriot.com here) “It’s not that what is past casts its light on what is present, or what is present its light on what is past; rather, image is that wherein what has been comes together [...]

Interview: Background & Strategy of #deletefacebook

By Geert Lovink, March 30, 2018

“Fragmentation of the internet is our key aim right now.” Original: https://catharsismagazine.com/2018/03/30/geert-lovink-fragmentation/ Geert Lovink, net critic and theorist and advisory editor of Catharsis and Swagat Baruah, managing editor of Catharsis discuss the recent Cambridge Analytica data mining scandal and other relevant issues pertaining to the internet and social media. Swagat Baruah: The data mining scandal [...]

Der Freitag Kommentar: Für soziale Netzwerke schlägt die Stunde null

By Geert Lovink, March 30, 2018

https://www.freitag.de/autoren/geert-lovink/das-leben-danach Das Leben danach #deletefacebook Für soziale Netzwerke schlägt die Stunde null. Her mit den Alternativen! Von Geert Lovink. In: Der Freitag, Ausgabe 13, 2018. Nach den neusten Enthüllungen über den großen Datenklau bei Facebook wollen viele nur noch weg. Aber Facebook zu löschen ist eine Sache, was danach passiert, eine andere. Viele haben Angst, [...]

Plattform Politik: Ein Gespräch zwischen Stefan Heidenreich, Geert Lovink and Pit Schultz

By Geert Lovink, March 30, 2018

http://www.carta.info/85453/plattform-politik/ Stefan Heidenreich: Warum genau wird die Cambridge Analytica – und Facebook-Affäre noch einmal aufgerollt? Die vergangenen Monate ging es schon darum, Facebook aus dem Politikgeschäft herauszudrücken. Nicht unbedingt bedauernswert. Aber worum geht es? Geert Lovink: Es geht um die Zukunft der Politk und eine Veränderung der Vermarktungs-Taktik, von der politischen Klasse gewollt, mit Micro-Targetting [...]

Platform Politics: Conversation between Stefan Heidenreich, Geert Lovink and Pit Schultz

By Geert Lovink, March 30, 2018

This is the original, somewhat rough version of the dialogue.  The ‘official’ German version (translated by Stefan Heidenreich) was published on March 22, 2018 by Carta.info here. Stefan Heidenreich: Why is the Cambridge Analytica affair coming back ? The events of the past months look like a concerted effort to push Facebook out of the [...]

Distraction and its Discontents–Ebbs and Flows in Social Media Sensibility

By Geert Lovink, March 27, 2018

(a shorter web version of the essay is published by Eurozine here) “Never get high, on your own supply.” (Ten Crack Commandments)—The Other as Distraction: Sartre on Mindfulness (Open University lecture)—“She never felt like she belonged anywhere, except for when she was lying on her bed, pretending to be somewhere else.” (Rainbow Rowell)—“This content is [...]