Can Social Media Companies Profit off the Data of the Dead? with Carl Ohman

Do the dead live forever on social media? If so, how might the social media companies exploit their memories - AND the data of the living? The citizens of the modern age have handed over responsibility for the dead - and culture, and history - to the powers of social media and the market. Why does that matter?

Still Spoken explores how the dead live on: through us, through our stories, and through technology. In this episode, Elaine Kasket, author of All the Ghosts in the Machine: The Digital Afterlife of Your Personal Data, has a fascinating conversation with Carl Ohman. Carl is a recent PhD graduate from the Oxford Internet Institute, the 2020 recipient of the Scotus Early Career Researcher award for Arts and Humanities. He's predicted the tipping point when Facebook becomes a digital cemetery - with more dead profiles than live ones - and more recently he's raised alarms about the dire consequences if Facebook fails.

Carl and Elaine talk economics, equality, politics, history and technology, and how it all links to the digital dead.

Host Elaine Kasket is a psychologist, storyteller, and author based in London. She's an expert in bereavement and in death & the digital. Her latest book is All the Ghosts in the Machine.

Produced by me, Elaine Kasket. I do this podcast ALL BY MYSELF with no production team, editors, or help from anyone other than my wonderful guests. If you want a simple, easy start to your own podcast, you can do what I did: get a great podcasting platform (see the link for mine below) and easily add music and sound effects with an affordable subscription to Epidemic Sound.

Music and sound effects all purchased under license from Epidemic Sound:

Savannah Nights - Zauana
Computer Wiz - Marten Moses
Ga$ Money - Xavy Rusan
Erudition - Ambre Jaune
My Machines - Real Heroes
Rather Erratic - Benjamin Rice

Get to know Elaine's writing on Substack and Medium.

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