The Empire Behind the Capital: How Platform Capitalism Became the New Invasion of the Body Snatchers
## Introduction: The Platform Empire: How Empires Learned to Occupy Consciousness In his influential 2018 essay "Delete Your Account: On the Theory of Platform Capitalism," published in the *Los Angeles Review of Books*, Leif Weatherby proposed a provocative interpretation of the digital age by arguing that the concept of the "platform" functions primarily as an ideological disguise. Rather than representing an open, democratic, and participatory space, the platform conceals an increasingly centralised infrastructure through which a handful of technological monopolies extract rent, behavioural data, attention, and ultimately social power. Drawing upon Nick Srnicek's theory of platform capitalism while engaging broader discussions of digital political economy, Weatherby challenged the widespread belief that technological problems can be solved through purely individual decisions, ethical consumption, or voluntary withdrawal from social media. Simply deleting ...