About the Cover of “Containing Big Tech” …

I have been asked a few times about the imagery on the cover of my upcoming book Containing Big Tech: How to Protect Our Civil Rights, Economy, and Democracy. 

The book cover is in the tradition of past portrayals of monopolies—represented as ravenous octopuses with tentacles wrapping around politicians, capitols, other industries, workers, and citizens.  Here is the cover of my book:

Specifically, it is a riff on how the robber barons’ railroad monopoly and John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil were depicted, as shown below:

[Source: George Frederick Keller, “The Curse of California,” The Wasp, August 19, 1882. Image from Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Curse_of_California.jpg.  Also see "The Curse of California.", Wasp (San Francisco, Calif.), August 19, 1882, vol. 9. No. 316, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.]

[Source:  Udo J. Keppler, “Next!” Puck, September 7, 1904. Image from the repository of the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2001695241/.]

[Also please note that both images are in the public domain.]

In honoring this tradition, the Big Tech octopus on the cover of this book is now digital and in the cloud. Each tentacle’s app represents one of the eight topics I cover in each chapter: digital surveillance, data brokers, data breaches, AI, persuasive technology, kids’ online safety, extremism and disinformation, and competition. 

See this page for more information on each chapter.  I used the tentacle motif on the first page of each chapter.

The book is available in late August 2023, but if you are reading this blog post before then, you can pre-order now!