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< | The Matrix: A Non-Fiction | >
> | They Are Watching! | | | -- By NathalieNoura - 06 Dec 2021 | |
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< | Inside the Matrix | >
> | A New Form of Surveillance | | | | |
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< | Surveillance is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as a close watch kept over someone or something. Traditionally, surveillance was an invasion of privacy by the state with the goal of controlling the masses and eliminating individual freedom, as Orwell warned in his book 1984. Surveillance was always associated with feelings of fear, anxiety, stress, and distrust. It results in individuals changing their behavior or suppressing their free will. However, in the past century, a new form of surveillance has emerged dubbed "Surveillance Capitalism" which has shown to have a similar effect on individual freedom. Nevertheless, people do not seem to be threatened by it. As Shoshana Zuboff defines it, surveillance capitalism is the exploitation and control of human behavior, by private companies. Companies like Google and Facebook extract information from us and employ it to re-design our behavior to increase their profit. Quite simply, these companies are using technology to gradually, slightly, imperceptibly change users' behaviors and perceptions. By using these platforms, we willfully surrender our free will and agree to be surveilled, manipulated, and engaged rather than actively making free undirected choices. Additionally, surveillance capitalism is also being utilized by governments to control societies by manipulating elections, suppressing opposition, and directing the population to adopt the government's way of thinking. An example of that would be Russia's use of Facebook and Twitter in creating accounts and spreading polarizing misinformation, to manipulate Americans into casting their votes for Donald Trump. | >
> | Surveillance is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as a close watch kept over someone or something. Traditionally, surveillance was an invasion of privacy by the state with the goal of controlling the masses and eliminating individual freedom, as Orwell warned in his book 1984. Surveillance was always associated with feelings of fear, anxiety, stress, and distrust. It results in individuals changing their behavior or suppressing their free will. However, in the past century, a new form of surveillance has emerged dubbed "Surveillance Capitalism" which has shown to have a similar effect on individual freedom. Nevertheless, people do not seem to be threatened by it. As Shoshana Zuboff defines it, surveillance capitalism is the exploitation and control of human behavior, by private companies. Companies like Google, Amazon, and Facebook extract information from us and employ it to re-design our behavior to increase their profit. Quite simply, these companies are using technology to gradually, slightly, imperceptibly change users' behaviors and perceptions. By using these platforms, we willfully surrender our free will and agree to be surveilled, manipulated, and engaged rather than actively making free undirected choices. Additionally, surveillance capitalism is also being utilized by governments to control societies by manipulating elections, suppressing opposition, and directing the population to adopt the government's way of thinking. An example of that would be Russia's use of Facebook and Twitter in creating accounts and spreading polarizing misinformation, to manipulate Americans into casting their votes for Donald Trump. | | | | |
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< | Why do we "trust this device"? | >
> | Why we "trust this device" | | | It is no longer secret that surveillance capitalism employs tools used to surveil us and modify our behavior to maximize profits. Yet somehow, even when Mark Zuckerberg was testifying before the Senate following the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook was still making billions. We embrace this form of surveillance rather than fear or reject it.
Perhaps an explanation to our enthusiastic reaction to surveillance lies in that the threat of surveillance capitalism is not visible nor tangible. Fear is an emotional reaction largely motivated by what we perceive threatens our existence, triggered by instinct or memory. A person cannot fear what they cannot see and in the absence of a visible surveillance threat, no instinctive response is triggered. Moreover, new generations (millennials and GenZ? ), save for Uyghurs in XinJiang and people in Hong Kong or similar Big Brother regimes, did not experience surveillance and do not recognize its dangers, which fails to trigger these emotions through memory. After all, we are simply getting a cappuccino delivered to our doorstep, not a gun. So, where's the harm? | | | | |
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< | Getting Out of the Matrix | >
> | There is hope! | | | | |
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< | These "attractive" tools have taken on the form of a physiological nervous system capable of creeping into our mind and manipulating our behavior. This "being" is not a harmless object. It is a threat to freedom of choices and thought just like traditional surveillance is. However, there is still hope. Of course, I am not suggesting to abandon the net. Instead, it is about ensuring freedom of thought while using the net. Once can learn how the nervous system works and choose hardware and software that ensure freedom from surveillance and manipulation, such as managing one's own servers instead of uploading to a cloud or using the freedom box. Other practical approaches can be gluing a pair of eyes to the phone, decreasing the uploading of stories and posts, not swiping up for advertisements, turning off all notifications, not watching another episode, gradually decreasing our engagement by the phone, and ultimately leaving our phones at home for hours, or even days. The latter may may seem strange and unsettling at first, but it will also be liberating. | >
> | These "attractive" tools have taken on the form of a physiological nervous system capable of creeping into our mind and manipulating our behavior. This "being" is not a harmless object. It is a threat to freedom of choices and thought just like traditional surveillance is. However, there is still hope. Of course, I am not suggesting to abandon the net. Instead, it is about ensuring freedom of thought while using the net. Once can learn how the nervous system works and choose hardware and software that ensure freedom from surveillance and manipulation, such as managing one's own servers like FreedomBox instead of uploading to a cloud. Other practical approaches can be gluing a pair of eyes to the phone, decreasing the uploading of stories and posts, not swiping up for advertisements, turning off all notifications, not watching another episode, gradually decreasing our engagement by the phone, and ultimately leaving our phones at home for hours, or even days. The latter may may seem strange and unsettling at first, but it will also be liberating. | | |
Some links would be helpful, so that the reader can follow your thought process while also being one click away from the sources that have shaped your thinking. That's what the Web excels at helping us to as we write, so we should take advantage of it. |
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