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Short abstract

The concept of illegalism, non-legal behavior as both a tactic and a strategy of projecting power, currently has little conceptual footing. In this paper, I argue that illegalism has new utility as an analytic concept in twenty-first century algorithmic governance.

Long abstract

In his analysis of the concept in his lectures on the development of the “punitive society,” Michel Foucault describes the eighteenth century as a period of “systematic illegalism,” including both lower-class or popular illegalism and “the illegalism of the privileged, who evade the law through status, tolerance, and exception” (Foucault 2015, 142). In this paper, I argue that illegalism has new utility as an analytic concept in the twenty-first century. Illegalism is a characteristic of both the business models and rhetorical positioning of many contemporary digital media firms. Indeed, such “platform illegalism” is so rife that commentators often seem to accept it as a necessary aspect of Silicon Valley innovation.

In this presentation, I describe illegalism as theorized by Foucault and others and develop a theory of platform illegalism grounded in evolution of technical and business models under platform capitalism. This presentation is part of a larger project in which I document the prevalence of illegalism on the part of digital platforms in various arenas, focusing in particular on platform labor and generative AI; examine the range of responses to such illegalism from consumers, activists, and governments; and formulate recommendations regarding ways to account for platform illegalism in scholarly and activist responses as part of governance mechanisms for digitally mediated societies.

Foucault, Michel. 2015. The Punitive Society: Lectures at the Collège de France 1972-1973. Edited by Bernard E. Harcourt. Translated by Graham Burchell. New York: Picador.