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Digital Fascism is Still Just Fascism -- The Death of the Internet and Karim Khan's Inbox - EmptyWheel
https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/05/22/digital-fascism-is-still-just-fascism/Quinn Norton
A good view on how big tech actually controls our world, probably much more than any government or judicial system. The author has some hopeful notes at the end of his post. As always, there will be lively discussions in this thread going forward.....
The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan is not having a good year, and neither is the ICC in general. It was never an easy job, going after people who commit Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. The ICC tries to prosecute crimes in opposition to regimes like Russia, who do things like murder whole cities and steal children so routinely it’s like doing the laundry for them.
The ICC often have to do that work with few resources, and a ever-growing list of true bastards who need to be stopped. This is complicated by countries who leave the ICC’s legal regime like Russia and America. They (and we) signed up, but left later in order to wage insane and illegal wars against peoples who posed no danger to them (or us).
But right now, it’s even worse than normal, because Khan’s work on Israel has angered the US president.
Khan is under both a cloud of personal scandal and the international political pressure the comes with catching the eye of Donald Trump. His staff have been warned that they could be detained or arrested if they try to enter the United States (including American staffers). His bank accounts have been frozen, he’s been put on leave pending investigation of sexual misconduct in his work place.
All The Tech, None of the Democracy
But the most frightening part of this for the rest of the world is that his email account has been shut down by Microsoft, according to ICC staffers. This may seem like a small thing, especially in the list of other problems he’s facing. In fact, he opened an account with Switzerland-based Proton mail, and presumably got back to emailing people, at least the ones whose email addresses he could remember.
What makes his account suspension so chilling, is what it implies, how it threatens much of the world. His suspension from a Microsoft email account wasn’t court ordered, nor did it legally need to be. Big Tech companies use click-though contracts on everything we use. What they give they can take away at any time, for the benefit of anyone they like, even if who they like is a big angry Cheeto president with tiny, tiny hands.
You don’t have any rights beyond the ones Microsoft gives you in your click-through contracts. And they can, and sometimes do, revoke those too.
Big tech companies were always a flaw in democracy, but it’s never been so apparent. It’s subtle, but what Khan’s troubles with email tell us is that our ability to function in the modern world, especially in the west, is contingent on the good will of American Tech companies. And they don’t have any.
. . .
The ICC often have to do that work with few resources, and a ever-growing list of true bastards who need to be stopped. This is complicated by countries who leave the ICC’s legal regime like Russia and America. They (and we) signed up, but left later in order to wage insane and illegal wars against peoples who posed no danger to them (or us).
But right now, it’s even worse than normal, because Khan’s work on Israel has angered the US president.
Khan is under both a cloud of personal scandal and the international political pressure the comes with catching the eye of Donald Trump. His staff have been warned that they could be detained or arrested if they try to enter the United States (including American staffers). His bank accounts have been frozen, he’s been put on leave pending investigation of sexual misconduct in his work place.
All The Tech, None of the Democracy
But the most frightening part of this for the rest of the world is that his email account has been shut down by Microsoft, according to ICC staffers. This may seem like a small thing, especially in the list of other problems he’s facing. In fact, he opened an account with Switzerland-based Proton mail, and presumably got back to emailing people, at least the ones whose email addresses he could remember.
What makes his account suspension so chilling, is what it implies, how it threatens much of the world. His suspension from a Microsoft email account wasn’t court ordered, nor did it legally need to be. Big Tech companies use click-though contracts on everything we use. What they give they can take away at any time, for the benefit of anyone they like, even if who they like is a big angry Cheeto president with tiny, tiny hands.
You don’t have any rights beyond the ones Microsoft gives you in your click-through contracts. And they can, and sometimes do, revoke those too.
Big tech companies were always a flaw in democracy, but it’s never been so apparent. It’s subtle, but what Khan’s troubles with email tell us is that our ability to function in the modern world, especially in the west, is contingent on the good will of American Tech companies. And they don’t have any.
. . .