Algorithms of resistance: the everyday fight against platform power

The book ‘Algorithms of Resistance: The Everyday Fight against Platform Power’ by Tiziano Bonini and Emiliano Treré analyses a crucial but often overlooked topic, i.e., users’ agency in relation to algorithms, which they define as algorithmic agency.

The work can be understood as an academic reaction to monolithic accounts of platform power that depict users as powerless individuals at the complete mercy of platform owners. Specifically, their key argument is that ‘there is no platform power without algorithmic agency’ and, therefore, scholars ought to consider ‘forms of algorithmic agency’ as ‘a structural condition of the platform society, not just a set of practices related to one or more platforms’ (p. 161).

The authors develop the argument in detail throughout the chapters of the book. In Chapter 1, they first highlight how most contemporary, apocalyptic analyses of platform power risk disregarding individuals’ agency and ‘all those actions aimed at intentionally influencing algorithmic outputs’ which ‘represent manifold articulations of user agency in facing the power of the algorithms and the institutions that generate them’ (p. 19). Drawing on Giddens’ structuration cycle, they theorize a symbiotic relationship between platform structural constraints and algorithmic agency, namely, ‘the reflexive ability of humans to exercise power over the “outcome” of an algorithm’ (p. 20). Examining algorithmic resistance, they note that there is no clear distinction between agency and resistance, but that there are forms of agency openly resisting platform power that can be identified as forms of resistance to algorithms and through algorithms. As it can be seen in the following chapters, these latter repertoires are the ones of greater interest for the authors.

Chapter 2 discusses the theoretical framework underlying all the book. To begin, Bonini and Trerè revive Thompson’s concept of moral economy to examine what they defined as platform moral economies – i.e., the values embodied by digital platforms – and user moral economies – users’ views of what is acceptable and legitimate, which the authors consider as two potential competing entities in several realms. Then, they connect this conceptualization with de Certeau’s distinction between tactical and strategic action to account for the different availabilities of time, money, expertise and control among users regarding the action they can carry out on digital platforms. Given this scenario, they identify four manifestations of algorithmic agency, ‘strategic algorithmic agency aligned or not aligned with the platform moral economy and tactical algorithmic agency aligned or not aligned with the platform moral economy’ (p. 30)

Within this framework, their empirical analysis focuses on three key domains of practices involving digital platforms – gig work, cultural industries and politics. In the first case, the authors examine the algorithmic agency of drivers and food delivery workers, scrutinising the activities of these workers to resist algorithmic management and control (Chapter 3). Then, they investigate how cultural workers, such as engagement groups (pods) on Instagram, exert forms of collective agency to enhance visibility in platform environments (Chapter 4). Finally, they delve into the realm of algorithmic politics, analysing how institutional political actors and social movements appropriate algorithms for their own political purposes (Chapter 5).

In the final chapter, Bonini and Trerè discuss in depth the importance of considering the diverse aspects and forms of algorithmic agency, the presence of various moral economies within the platform society, as well as the significance of different, banal activities in constructing more organized models of resistance against algorithmic control. Moreover, they attempt to connect their findings with broader debates on artificial intelligence and automation that are currently at the centre of public and academic discussions.

This attention to the banal, everyday, micro-level practices of users within the structural constraints imposed by platforms’ producers is what makes this work so distinctive. The ability to account for how these practices, which can be highly diverse and take place in various instances, can enable the construction of structured models of resistance is remarkable as well.

It should be noted that one of the strengths of this work is that there is not a romanticisation of agency. Throughout the book, the authors clarify that user practices are not necessarily honourable or just and the power differentials are constantly part of which practices and goals are possible to achieve. Moreover, user practices are not necessarily against the values and objectives of digital platforms; in fact, they may be in line with the moral economies of tech companies. Another appreciable element is that there is not an underestimation of platform power, which is continuously acknowledged. Rather, it emerges a desire to provide a framework for analysing the relationship between users and algorithmic media as what Stuart Hall would have defined a ‘battlefield’, where human and nonhuman subjects coexist in multifaceted ways.

Overall, this book has all the potential to become a classic in the literature on the composite relationships between users and digital technologies. While it is going to be of great appeal for all the scholars within the fields of critical algorithm and platform studies, readers from diverse backgrounds interested in issues related to the use of technology can find the book easily accessible given the clarity of the theoretical framework and development, the poignancy of the discussed empirical cases and the overall lucidity of the argument construction.