Problems (7): PR-00001–PR-00007 — Meaning Crisis, Illegitimate Domination, Performance Society Exhaustion, Fascization, Epistemic Power Concentration, Platform Feudalism, Knowledge Isolation Models (5): Han, Fisher, Foucault, Vervaeke, Graeber/Anarchism Values (6): Epistemic Sovereignty, Authority Requires Justification, Exhaustion Is Structural, Mutual Aid Over Market, Digital Autonomy Is Political, Deep Reflection As Practice Arguments (3): Platform Feudalism → Democracy, PKM as Epistemic Strategy, Algorithmic Rationality Erodes Autonomy Organizations (5): IndieWeb, Wikimedia Deutschland, Reporter ohne Grenzen, Mehr Demokratie e.V., netzpolitik.org Plans (1): de-plan1-sven.md — Germany plan with 6 challenges, 5 strategies Data (1): DE-Democracy-Metrics — V-Dem, RSF, EIU, ARD-DeutschlandTREND, Bundeswahlleiter, More in Common Cross-linking: KNOWLEDGE-GRAPH.md + entities.json index Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Epistemic Power Concentration
Statement: Knowledge is never neutral. Algorithms, platforms, and AI systems are now the dominant epistemic actors — they determine visibility, relevance, and truth. Those without their own epistemic space live in someone else's truth regime.
Scale: Global / Societal / Structural
Key Thinkers: Michel Foucault, Shoshana Zuboff, Donna Haraway
Mechanism: Foucault's power-knowledge nexus has acquired a new digital surface. Wahrheitsregime (truth regimes) now operate through algorithmic curation: what becomes visible, what disappears, what counts as credible. This is not conspiracy but system logic — Maschinelle Epistemologie (machine epistemology).
Epistemic violence: the destruction of knowledge forms, worldviews, and languages of marginalized groups. Not mere ignorance but active erasure. Zuboff (Surveillance Capitalism): behavioral data is extracted, processed, and sold — the subject becomes simultaneously object of optimization and product.
Haraway: knowledge is situated — every claim to objectivity conceals a particular perspective.
Evidence:
- Zuboff: "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" (2019)
- Filter bubble research (Pariser, 2011)
- Platform monopolization: Google (92% search share), Meta (social graph control)
- Algorithmic amplification of outrage over accuracy (internal Facebook research, 2021)
Connections:
- Related Problems: PR-00006 (Platform Feudalism — digital instance), PR-00007 (Knowledge Isolation — downstream effect), PR-00004 (Fascization — epistemic fragmentation as entry condition)
- Models explaining this: MO-00003 (Foucault), MO-00005 (Anarchism/Graeber on epistemic hierarchies)
- Values in response: VA-00001 (Epistemic Sovereignty), VA-00005 (Digital Autonomy Is Political)