Book presentation: Platform Brutality
door Geert Lovink
10 october
17:00 - 19:00
Platform Brutality is a scathing diagnosis of our digital condition in the aftermath of Covid, grappling with a world overwhelmed by platform decay, social media addiction, and the psychic toll of techno-capitalism. The central thesis is that social media no longer just distracts—it wounds. And yet, we stay. Lovink labels the dominant emotional landscape as copium—a metaphorical opiate for digital despair, numbing users trapped in endless loops of scrolling, doom, and distraction.
The book covers topics such as the paradox of loneliness on social media, mythologies of smartphones, the role of dreaming in this digital age, and techno-feudalism as the political economy of Big Tech oligarchy. The internet’s current state is one of permacrisis: a condition of stagnation, rage, and numbness, where algorithmic manipulation, AI slop, “enshittification”, and techno-feudalism define the everyday. As the eighth volume in Lovink’s critical internet cultures series, the book moves from critique to exit strategies: first diagnosis, then treatment. Platform Brutality is a monument to digital fatigue, and a final urgent appeal for collective withdrawal.
Geert Lovink will present his newly released book along with the years-long research that led up to its publication, and a panel of theorists and philosophers will help to deepen the discourse.
Panelists: Miriam Rasch, Arie Altena, Marissa Memelink
Technologies of Solidarity is a three-day programme by V2_Lab for the Unstable Media in collaboration with engage. It invites participants to explore alternatives to dominant digital technologies shaped by corporate interests, asking what technology could look like outside capitalist logics. Through presentations, workshops, and artistic interventions, the event will examine past and present efforts in open-source, ethical AI, and analog forms of connection, while building practical tools and celebrating community-driven approaches to technology. On Saturday evening, V2_ invites you for a special edition Media Art Cafe with curated DJs and an interactive pub quiz for tech solidarity.
Geert Lovink is a Dutch media theorist, internet critic, and author of books including Zero Comments (2007), Social Media Abyss (2016), Sad by Design (2019), and Stuck on the Platform (2022). He founded the Institute of Network Cultures in 2004 and is Professor of Art and Network Cultures at the University of Amsterdam. Since 2022 he has supported Ukrainian artists through UKRAiNATV, a streaming art studio network.
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