Demand for Transparency and ‘Social Monitoring 2.0’

The enhancement of surveillance measures reflects trends that have already been around for several years. Recent terrorist attacks place further emphasis on them.

Anyone who uses the Internet today must expect that everything he or she does can be subject to continuous real-time monitoring. We may have already suspected this, but Edward Snowden’s unsettling disclosures on the extent of the National Security Agency’s web surveillance confirm our suspicions.

Of course, some good souls would retort: “So what? If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.” However, behind this statement lies the totalitarian potential for social surveillance and monitoring of our societies. Indeed, it betrays one’s awareness of being monitored and the repression of uneasiness that this engenders. Power then worms its way into this repression, instilling fear, self-censorship and discipline. With the very postmodern order of asserting one’s individuality through all of the “participatory” platforms on the Web 2.0, this disciplinary dynamic is increasing to such an extent in our societies that it seems as if we are being told: “Show your true colors without fear … this proves that you have nothing to hide.”

Nonetheless, it is crucial to remember that this near-absolute demand for transparency applies first and foremost to people; state-owned companies and political machinery are excluded, on the pretext of industrial secrecy, national security, or some other supposedly greater interest. As such, public control over these bodies has crumbled, while their power over us has considerably increased through three major dynamics.

First, there is the transformation of the capitalist economy. For the last few years, Silicon Valley’s major companies, such as Google and Facebook, have been at the forefront of appropriating and commodifying what the “network of networks” produces the most: user data.

In a financialized capitalist economy, where productivity relies on the pursuit of zero risk and how predictable consumer behavior is, this new gold mine has found the perfect opening. The increasingly advanced analysis of mountains of personal data using ever-sophisticated algorithms helps ensure meticulous profiling of individual behaviors. The aim is to provoke certain behaviors – the good ones, that is, the ones that yield a profit – particularly through highly targeted advertisements and reward programs of all kinds. This is what is commonly known as “behavioral marketing,” which adds a new level of refinement to commercial propaganda, which is already omnipresent in our lives.

In addition to this formidable dynamic of the new economy, there is another that is equally unremitting: the reason of the state. The antiterrorism legislation adopted by numerous Western countries following the 9/11 attacks has strengthened the prerogatives of intelligence services in the respective countries, allowing them to widen the scope of their population surveillance schemes considerably. This is especially true about the Patriot Act in the United States, which gave the NSA access to databases belonging to U.S. Internet and telecommunications giants, Google, Apple and Facebook, which allowed it to spy on practically the entire American population by taking advantage of the profiling tools developed by the industry.

However, this security drift, which perpetuates a state of emergency to supposedly protect our freedoms, must be compromised in the broader context of the transformation of the state’s role with the dawn of neoliberalism. In abandoning its social objectives, the state has progressively been falling back on its law enforcement and security functions to become the great guardian of the market. In this way, political opponents, who are constantly growing in number, are increasingly being seen as enemies to be neutralized rather than keepers of a dissident yet legitimate discourse, which nevertheless calls for democracy. Consequently, those who have “something to hide” are now citizens whose point of view goes against the established order, like ecologists, whom we have the audacity to call “eco terrorists.”

The last – but not the least – element of this perfect storm, which is uprooting and sweeping away our privacy rights, is the uncontrolled development of digital technology. For a few years now, countless gadgets and mobile applications have been made available, allowing us to monitor our property or – possibly unbeknownst to them – our close ones with the emptiness of knowing, deep down inside, that none of these instruments will ever replace the shared confidence that is found within a community built on strong ties.

We can thus see the extent of the battle before us if we hope to reclaim our spaces of authentic freedom, which are so very precious and essential for a rich community life, free from the constant fear that threatens our comfort.

Several battles of this kind have already started. Yet, whether they are taking place in the arena of legal affairs or political struggles, they will demand that knowledge on programming, encryption, or simply on how the Internet functions, become much more accessible. Only at this price can we one day hope to subject technological development to true democratic scrutiny, and extract it both from the hands of experts – who have made it into a virtually totalitarian instrument of social control – and from an industrial force that enslaves us instead of liberating us.