Computers, Privacy & the Constitution

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AudreyAmsellemFirstPaper 5 - 30 May 2017 - Main.AudreyAmsellem
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Who Cares If You Listen?

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Who Cares If You Listen? Agency and Surveillance in Societies of Control

 
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-- By AudreyAmsellem - 04 Mar 2017
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-- By AudreyAmsellem - May 30 2017
 
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In 1984, George Orwell imagined a future society in which surveillance is a totalitarian tool to control and subject populations. In Orwell’s scenario, a centralized power structure is surveilling subjects, and the hand of the government has transcended the public space to be present in every home. This turned out to be true. Yet, what Orwell failed to predict, is that this would happen with the consent of a population who willingly submit themselves to being constantly recorded.
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In 1984, George Orwell imagined a future society in which surveillance is a totalitarian tool to control and subject populations. In Orwell’s scenario, a centralized power structure is surveilling subjects, and the hand of the government has transcended the public space to be present in every home. The Orwellian fantasy has been used to express a worry; following Trump’s election, the sales for the book have been at an all time high (Freytas-Tamura 2017), and nationwide screenings of the film are currently happening as anti-Trump protests (Lull 2017). Yet, what the Orwellian nightmare does not present is that surveillance could happen with the consent of a population who willingly submit themselves to being constantly recorded. The type of agency that exists in dystopian literature is usually that of resistance, not that of submission.
 
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The Snowden revelations of 2013 revealed the NSA’s activities and the extent of mass surveillance.
 
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In no way in the same league as 1984, surely. The point of what Snowden disclosed was not technological totalitarianism, but rather a system that had been uniquely subject to the rule of law eroding. The degree of public response you describe as surprisingly slight below seems to me rather large, in fact: it might have been a good idea to cite a source, indeed, for the information.
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The Snowden revelations of 2013 revealed the NSA’s activities and the extent of mass surveillance. Yet neither private nor federal surveillance have elicited much concern from the public. Several polls have concluded that the majority of Americans find the NSA’s activities acceptable (Rassmuren Reports 2015). That is not to say the Snowden revelations had no impact: an average 25% of people have changed their online behavior in response to surveillance and taken some steps to protect themselves from invasion of privacy (Gao 2015). Those numbers do not reflect a consensus in how surveillance is perceived by populations, but do suggest a tendency towards complaisance. In this essay, I will investigate the questions: does the general public not care about being recorded? Who has agency in surveillance?
 
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My aim here is to describe and problematize the irresistible desire that both consumers and data gatherers feel, as I argue that the Behavior Collection Network (Moglen 2017) is both derived from and exploiting desire: the desire to listen, and the desire to be heard.
 
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Yet neither private nor federal surveillance have elicited much concern from the public. Several polls have concluded that the majority of Americans find the NSA’s activities acceptable. That is not to say the Snowden revelations had no impact: an average 30% of people have changed their online behavior in response to surveillance and taken some steps to protect themselves from invasion of privacy. Yet, those numbers are startlingly low compared to the threat of privacy invasion and its consequences on individual freedom. In this essay, I will investigate the question: why does the general public not care about being recorded?
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In his 1992 “Postscript on the Societies of Control,” Deleuze argues that while Foucault identified the 18th to early 20th centuries as disciplinary societies, we are in the process of inhabiting societies of control, in which corporations have replaced factories. While in disciplinary societies, humans are constantly incarcerated or in between incarcerations, in control societies, humans are within a continuous network, governed by data. Deleuze has in many ways foreseen today’s society in which data is used as a tool of control by higher powers in place. But what Deleuze describes is an apparatus in which citizens have no say or power over changes inflicted upon them. He doesn’t even call for resistance: “There is no need to fear or hope, but only to look for new weapons,” he argues.
 
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Is that a question justified in its assumptions by the preceding sentences, which themselves didn't rest very securely on any sources? Something needs to be nailed down as an anchor for this castle in the sky.
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Within the behavior collection network, we expose ourselves. This is partly because the technological tools at our disposal are effective means of communication. However, there are other ways to communicate that don’t invade our privacy, but these are perceived as less accessible, due to technological illiteracy. Furthermore, the absence of obvious physical means of surveillance in virtual surveillance make it look harmless, because the virtual has been associated with opportunity, freedom, and the advent of a more democratic age, through the utopian discourses and marketing strategies of techs. Techs have provided sophisticated entertainment wrapped up in a constant reference to freedom. Thus, both the illusion of freedom and the illusion that technology is their domain, and not the domain of the people, are purposefully perpetuated by techs.
 
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The strategy in 1984 is to crush desires, not to enhance them, as Silicon Valley does. The political apparatus of Airstrip One is built around anti-sex leagues or hate songs. Social media is the opposite. Access to sex and culture is much easier, and social media plays on the need to be desired and desire in others. This is particularly apparent with Facebook, which creates an alternative social circle, giving the illusion of control over one’s image, and through this, their identity. We post and receive forms of gratification through ‘likes’ or comments, and we have the ability to delete those that we don’t wish to see.
 
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When Snowden leaked the NSA documents, he didn’t do so with an intent to forge a public opinion, but to start a conversation. Ultimately, it is up to the people to decide whether or not they care about their privacy. This paper aims at describing and problematizing the irresistible desire that both consumers and data gatherers feel: I will argue that the behavior collection network is both derived from and exploiting desire: the desire to listen, and the desire to be heard. To ask how we can create public policies to change how surveillance operates in our society, to protect privacy is first and foremost to ask the people to care.
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The service that techs provide, the bait, gives us the impression of being ‘the center of the world.’ These new technologies are ones of personification and individualization, allowing for a continuous life-assistant. The collection of big data allows them to offer all sorts of tailored services letting the consumer satisfy his narcissistic desires. Social media satisfies an old fantasy of both observing (the common Facebook ‘stalking’) and being observed, while Facebook satisfies the same desire: it observes us observing others. But data gathering does not only play on people’s desire, it is derived from it. Talking about big data, an engineer with IBM said: “It will change our existing notion of privacy. A surveillance society is not only inevitable, it's worse. It's irresistible.” (Pariser 2017). Today’s society is the achievement of an old fantasy: the desire to hear everything. This has been successful because it was done without the totalitarian connotation, the imposition of surveillance. As federal surveillance has played on the desire to be safe, corporate surveillance has played on the desire to be heard. The question then becomes why this desire to be heard is more powerful than privacy, and why isn’t secrecy a desire? Desire, as opposed to need, is never fulfilled. It is this very nature of desire techs have exploited to gather users data, and are themselves subjected to when they gather data.
 
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The temptation here is to interpret techs as an all-controlling force, thereby removing agency from the people, describing them as submissive to the enthralling force of the capitalist agenda. However, there are examples of civil resistance, most notably through hacktivism. A clearer picture might then be to understand people as not being solely subjected to their rulers’ desires, but being subjected to their own desires. Towards the end of 1984, a thought police officer tells Winston: “The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.”
 
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The technological tools we use today are essentially the same spy stations that are described in 1984, except that now, we put ourselves on the screen. This is particularly the case for young people, they have less of a worry because this is the world they were born into, the world as they know it.
 
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There are some practical justifications for this behavior. We expose ourselves partly because the technological tools at our disposal are effective means of communication. However, there are other ways to communicate that don’t invade our privacy, but these means are perceived as less accessible, due to technological illiteracy.
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Bibliography:
 
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Deleuze, Gilles. "Postscript on the Societies of Control." October 59 (1992): 3-7.
 
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Furthermore, the absence of obvious physical means of surveillance in virtual surveillance make it look harmless, because the virtual has been associated with opportunity, freedom, and the advent of a more democratic age, through the utopian discourses and marketing strategies of tech companies. Techs have provided sophisticated entertainment wrapped up in a constant reference to freedom. Thus, both the illusion of freedom and the illusion that technology is their domain, and not the domain of the people, is purposefully perpetuated by techs.
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Freytas-tamura, Kimiko De. 2017. “George Orwell’s ‘1984’ Is Suddenly a Best-Seller.” The New York Times, January 25. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/books/1984-george-orwell-donald-trump.html.
 
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Gao, George. 2015. “What Americans Think about NSA Surveillance, National Security and Privacy.” Pew Research Center. May 29. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/29/what-americans-think-about-nsa-surveillance-national-security-and-privacy/.
 
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The strategy in 1984 is to crush desires, not to enhance them, as Silicon Valley does. The political apparatus of Airstrip One is built around anti-sex leagues, hate weeks or hate songs. Social media is the opposite. Access to sex is much easier (Facebook, Tinder…), access to culture is much easier (Spotify, Youtube…) and social media plays on the need to be desired and desire in others. This is particularly apparent with Facebook, which creates an alternative social circle, giving the illusion of control over one’s image, and through this, their identity. We post and receive forms of gratification through “likes” or comments, and we have the ability to delete those that we don’t wish to see.
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Moglen, Eben. 2017. Class Lecture. Columbia University, January 18.
 
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Orwell, George. 1949. 1984. New York, NY: Signet Classics.
 
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The service that techs provide, the bait, gives us the impression of being “the center of the world.” These new technologies are ones of personification and extreme individualization, allowing for a continuous life-assistant. The collection of big data allows them to offer all sorts of tailored services letting the consumer satisfy his narcissistic desires. Social media satisfies an old fantasy of both observing (the common Facebook “stalking”) and being observed, while Facebook satisfies the same desire: it observes us observing others.Similarly, we buy Iphones, or Google Homes to inspire jealousy and desire in others. These are expensive tools that “make life easier” and pretend to inscribe themselves with modernity and progress. They are seductive tools to seduce.
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Pariser, Eli. 2017. “Welcome to the Brave New World of Persuasion Profiling.” WIRED. Accessed March 3. https://www.wired.com/2011/04/st_essay_persuasion_profiling/.
 
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But data gathering does not only play on people’s desire, it is derived from it. Talking about big data, Jeff Jonas, an engineer with IBM said: “It will change our existing notions of privacy. A surveillance society is not only inevitable, it's worse. It's irresistible.” For centuries, many authors, philosophers and politicians have imagined, theorized and instated surveillance. Today’s society is the achievement of an old fantasy: the desire to hear everything. This has been successful because it was done without the totalitarian connotation, the imposition of surveillance. As federal surveillance has played on the desire to be safe, private surveillance has played on the desire to be heard. The question then becomes why this desire to be heard is more powerful that privacy, and why isn’t secrecy a desire, when there is nothing that creates more desire than secrecy
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Rassmuren Reports. “Illegal or Not, Voters Are More Supportive Than Ever of NSA - Rasmussen ReportsTM? .” 2015. May 11. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/may_2015/illegal_or_not_voters_are_more_supportive_than_ever_of_nsa.
 
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This isn't an argument, only some sort of truism. Perhaps the observation being turned aside with a cliche should be causing reconsideration, rather than suffering deletion.
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Snowden, Edward, and Oliver, John. 2017. “Government Surveillance: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO).” HBO. Accessed April 17. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M.
 
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Anthropologist Joseph Masco described spies as intending to “understand and create a representation of someone else’s reality.”

A citation?

But what happens when techs are shaping realities, telling us what to read, what to listen to and how. The temptation here is to interpret techs as an all-controlling force, thereby removing agency from the people, describing them as submissive to the enthralling force of the capitalist and totalitarian agenda. But a clearer picture might be to understand people as not being solely subjected to their rulers’ desires, but being subjected to their own desires. This might be what the paradox reveals. Towards the end of 1984, a thought police officer tells Winston: “The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.”

Aside from the places where I think execution can be improved, already noted, I think the primary route to improvement here is to take your fundamental proposition a little less dogmatically. Human beings in the societies where the ideas of privacy and freedom exist at all appear divided---perhaps unequally but hardly lopsidedly so---in their fundamental impulses on these issues. If you start from the fact of the diversity rather than trying to explain a uniformity that seems problematic to assert, I think the analysis you have begun promisingly develops more successfully.

 
You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable.

AudreyAmsellemFirstPaper 4 - 04 May 2017 - Main.AudreyAmsellem
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Who Cares If You Listen?

-- By AudreyAmsellem - 04 Mar 2017


AudreyAmsellemFirstPaper 3 - 28 Apr 2017 - Main.EbenMoglen
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It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted.
 

Who Cares If You Listen?

-- By AudreyAmsellem - 04 Mar 2017

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In 1984, George Orwell imagined a future society in which surveillance is a totalitarian tool to control and subject populations. In Orwell’s scenario, a centralized power structure is surveilling subjects, and the hand of the government has transcended the public space to be present in every home. This turned out to be true. Yet, what Orwell failed to predict, is that this would happen with the consent of a population who willingly submit themselves to being constantly recorded.

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In 1984, George Orwell imagined a future society in which surveillance is a totalitarian tool to control and subject populations. In Orwell’s scenario, a centralized power structure is surveilling subjects, and the hand of the government has transcended the public space to be present in every home. This turned out to be true. Yet, what Orwell failed to predict, is that this would happen with the consent of a population who willingly submit themselves to being constantly recorded.
 
Changed:
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The Snowden revelations of 2013 revealed the NSA’s activities and the extent of mass surveillance. Yet neither private nor federal surveillance have elicited much concern from the public. Several polls have concluded that the majority of Americans find the NSA’s activities acceptable. That is not to say the Snowden revelations had no impact: an average 30% of people have changed their online behavior in response to surveillance and taken some steps to protect themselves from invasion of privacy. Yet, those numbers are startlingly low compared to the threat of privacy invasion and its consequences on individual freedom. In this essay, I will investigate the question: why does the general public not care about being recorded? When Snowden leaked the NSA documents, he didn’t do so with an intent to forge a public opinion, but to start a conversation. Ultimately, it is up to the people to decide whether or not they care about their privacy. This paper aims at describing and problematizing the irresistible desire that both consumers and data gatherers feel: I will argue that the behavior collection network is both derived from and exploiting desire: the desire to listen, and the desire to be heard. To ask how we can create public policies to change how surveillance operates in our society, to protect privacy is first and foremost to ask the people to care.

>
>
The Snowden revelations of 2013 revealed the NSA’s activities and the extent of mass surveillance.
 
Added:
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In no way in the same league as 1984, surely. The point of what Snowden disclosed was not technological totalitarianism, but rather a system that had been uniquely subject to the rule of law eroding. The degree of public response you describe as surprisingly slight below seems to me rather large, in fact: it might have been a good idea to cite a source, indeed, for the information.
 
Deleted:
<
<

The technological tools we use today are essentially the same spy stations that are described in 1984, except that now, we put ourselves on the screen. This is particularly the case for young people, they have less of a worry because this is the world they were born into, the world as they know it.

 
Changed:
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There are some practical justifications for this behavior. We expose ourselves partly because the technological tools at our disposal are effective means of communication. However, there are other ways to communicate that don’t invade our privacy, but these means are perceived as less accessible, due to technological illiteracy.

>
>
Yet neither private nor federal surveillance have elicited much concern from the public. Several polls have concluded that the majority of Americans find the NSA’s activities acceptable. That is not to say the Snowden revelations had no impact: an average 30% of people have changed their online behavior in response to surveillance and taken some steps to protect themselves from invasion of privacy. Yet, those numbers are startlingly low compared to the threat of privacy invasion and its consequences on individual freedom. In this essay, I will investigate the question: why does the general public not care about being recorded?
 
Added:
>
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Is that a question justified in its assumptions by the preceding sentences, which themselves didn't rest very securely on any sources? Something needs to be nailed down as an anchor for this castle in the sky.
 
Deleted:
<
<

Furthermore, the absence of obvious physical means of surveillance in virtual surveillance make it look harmless, because the virtual has been associated with opportunity, freedom, and the advent of a more democratic age, through the utopian discourses and marketing strategies of tech companies. Techs have provided sophisticated entertainment wrapped up in a constant reference to freedom. Thus, both the illusion of freedom and the illusion that technology is their domain, and not the domain of the people, is purposefully perpetuated by techs.

 
Added:
>
>
When Snowden leaked the NSA documents, he didn’t do so with an intent to forge a public opinion, but to start a conversation. Ultimately, it is up to the people to decide whether or not they care about their privacy. This paper aims at describing and problematizing the irresistible desire that both consumers and data gatherers feel: I will argue that the behavior collection network is both derived from and exploiting desire: the desire to listen, and the desire to be heard. To ask how we can create public policies to change how surveillance operates in our society, to protect privacy is first and foremost to ask the people to care.
 
Deleted:
<
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The strategy in 1984 is to crush desires, not to enhance them, as Silicon Valley does. The political apparatus of Airstrip One is built around anti-sex leagues, hate weeks or hate songs. Social media is the opposite. Access to sex is much easier (Facebook, Tinder…), access to culture is much easier (Spotify, Youtube…) and social media plays on the need to be desired and desire in others. This is particularly apparent with Facebook, which creates an alternative social circle, giving the illusion of control over one’s image, and through this, their identity. We post and receive forms of gratification through “likes” or comments, and we have the ability to delete those that we don’t wish to see.

 
Added:
>
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The technological tools we use today are essentially the same spy stations that are described in 1984, except that now, we put ourselves on the screen. This is particularly the case for young people, they have less of a worry because this is the world they were born into, the world as they know it.
 
Added:
>
>
There are some practical justifications for this behavior. We expose ourselves partly because the technological tools at our disposal are effective means of communication. However, there are other ways to communicate that don’t invade our privacy, but these means are perceived as less accessible, due to technological illiteracy.
 
Deleted:
<
<

The service that techs provide, the bait, gives us the impression of being “the center of the world.” These new technologies are ones of personification and extreme individualization, allowing for a continuous life-assistant. The collection of big data allows them to offer all sorts of tailored services letting the consumer satisfy his narcissistic desires. Social media satisfies an old fantasy of both observing (the common Facebook “stalking”) and being observed, while Facebook satisfies the same desire: it observes us observing others.Similarly, we buy Iphones, or Google Homes to inspire jealousy and desire in others. These are expensive tools that “make life easier” and pretend to inscribe themselves with modernity and progress. They are seductive tools to seduce.

 
Changed:
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But data gathering does not only play on people’s desire, it is derived from it. Talking about big data, Jeff Jonas, an engineer with IBM said: “It will change our existing notions of privacy. A surveillance society is not only inevitable, it's worse. It's irresistible.” For centuries, many authors, philosophers and politicians have imagined, theorized and instated surveillance. Today’s society is the achievement of an old fantasy: the desire to hear everything. This has been successful because it was done without the totalitarian connotation, the imposition of surveillance. As federal surveillance has played on the desire to be safe, private surveillance has played on the desire to be heard. The question then becomes why this desire to be heard is more powerful that privacy, and why isn’t secrecy a desire, when there is nothing that creates more desire than secrecy

>
>
Furthermore, the absence of obvious physical means of surveillance in virtual surveillance make it look harmless, because the virtual has been associated with opportunity, freedom, and the advent of a more democratic age, through the utopian discourses and marketing strategies of tech companies. Techs have provided sophisticated entertainment wrapped up in a constant reference to freedom. Thus, both the illusion of freedom and the illusion that technology is their domain, and not the domain of the people, is purposefully perpetuated by techs.
 
Changed:
<
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Anthropologist Joseph Masco described spies as intending to “understand and create a representation of someone else’s reality.” But what happens when techs are shaping realities, telling us what to read, what to listen to and how. The temptation here is to interpret techs as an all-controlling force, thereby removing agency from the people, describing them as submissive to the enthralling force of the capitalist and totalitarian agenda. But a clearer picture might be to understand people as not being solely subjected to their rulers’ desires, but being subjected to their own desires. This might be what the paradox reveals. Towards the end of 1984, a thought police officer tells Winston: “The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.”

>
>
The strategy in 1984 is to crush desires, not to enhance them, as Silicon Valley does. The political apparatus of Airstrip One is built around anti-sex leagues, hate weeks or hate songs. Social media is the opposite. Access to sex is much easier (Facebook, Tinder…), access to culture is much easier (Spotify, Youtube…) and social media plays on the need to be desired and desire in others. This is particularly apparent with Facebook, which creates an alternative social circle, giving the illusion of control over one’s image, and through this, their identity. We post and receive forms of gratification through “likes” or comments, and we have the ability to delete those that we don’t wish to see.

The service that techs provide, the bait, gives us the impression of being “the center of the world.” These new technologies are ones of personification and extreme individualization, allowing for a continuous life-assistant. The collection of big data allows them to offer all sorts of tailored services letting the consumer satisfy his narcissistic desires. Social media satisfies an old fantasy of both observing (the common Facebook “stalking”) and being observed, while Facebook satisfies the same desire: it observes us observing others.Similarly, we buy Iphones, or Google Homes to inspire jealousy and desire in others. These are expensive tools that “make life easier” and pretend to inscribe themselves with modernity and progress. They are seductive tools to seduce.

But data gathering does not only play on people’s desire, it is derived from it. Talking about big data, Jeff Jonas, an engineer with IBM said: “It will change our existing notions of privacy. A surveillance society is not only inevitable, it's worse. It's irresistible.” For centuries, many authors, philosophers and politicians have imagined, theorized and instated surveillance. Today’s society is the achievement of an old fantasy: the desire to hear everything. This has been successful because it was done without the totalitarian connotation, the imposition of surveillance. As federal surveillance has played on the desire to be safe, private surveillance has played on the desire to be heard. The question then becomes why this desire to be heard is more powerful that privacy, and why isn’t secrecy a desire, when there is nothing that creates more desire than secrecy

This isn't an argument, only some sort of truism. Perhaps the observation being turned aside with a cliche should be causing reconsideration, rather than suffering deletion.

Anthropologist Joseph Masco described spies as intending to “understand and create a representation of someone else’s reality.”

A citation?

But what happens when techs are shaping realities, telling us what to read, what to listen to and how. The temptation here is to interpret techs as an all-controlling force, thereby removing agency from the people, describing them as submissive to the enthralling force of the capitalist and totalitarian agenda. But a clearer picture might be to understand people as not being solely subjected to their rulers’ desires, but being subjected to their own desires. This might be what the paradox reveals. Towards the end of 1984, a thought police officer tells Winston: “The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.”

Aside from the places where I think execution can be improved, already noted, I think the primary route to improvement here is to take your fundamental proposition a little less dogmatically. Human beings in the societies where the ideas of privacy and freedom exist at all appear divided---perhaps unequally but hardly lopsidedly so---in their fundamental impulses on these issues. If you start from the fact of the diversity rather than trying to explain a uniformity that seems problematic to assert, I think the analysis you have begun promisingly develops more successfully.
 



AudreyAmsellemFirstPaper 2 - 21 Mar 2017 - Main.AudreyAmsellem
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 It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted.
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 -- By AudreyAmsellem - 04 Mar 2017
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Section I

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In 1984, George Orwell imagined a future society in which surveillance is a totalitarian tool to control and subject populations. In Orwell’s scenario, a centralized power structure is surveilling subjects, and the hand of the government has transcended the public space to be present in every home. This turned out to be true. Yet, what Orwell failed to predict, is that this would happen with the consent of a population who willingly submit themselves to being constantly recorded.

 
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Subsection A

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The Snowden revelations of 2013 revealed the NSA’s activities and the extent of mass surveillance. Yet neither private nor federal surveillance have elicited much concern from the public. Several polls have concluded that the majority of Americans find the NSA’s activities acceptable. That is not to say the Snowden revelations had no impact: an average 30% of people have changed their online behavior in response to surveillance and taken some steps to protect themselves from invasion of privacy. Yet, those numbers are startlingly low compared to the threat of privacy invasion and its consequences on individual freedom. In this essay, I will investigate the question: why does the general public not care about being recorded? When Snowden leaked the NSA documents, he didn’t do so with an intent to forge a public opinion, but to start a conversation. Ultimately, it is up to the people to decide whether or not they care about their privacy. This paper aims at describing and problematizing the irresistible desire that both consumers and data gatherers feel: I will argue that the behavior collection network is both derived from and exploiting desire: the desire to listen, and the desire to be heard. To ask how we can create public policies to change how surveillance operates in our society, to protect privacy is first and foremost to ask the people to care.

 
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Subsub 1

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The technological tools we use today are essentially the same spy stations that are described in 1984, except that now, we put ourselves on the screen. This is particularly the case for young people, they have less of a worry because this is the world they were born into, the world as they know it.

 
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Subsection B

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There are some practical justifications for this behavior. We expose ourselves partly because the technological tools at our disposal are effective means of communication. However, there are other ways to communicate that don’t invade our privacy, but these means are perceived as less accessible, due to technological illiteracy.

 
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Subsub 1

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Furthermore, the absence of obvious physical means of surveillance in virtual surveillance make it look harmless, because the virtual has been associated with opportunity, freedom, and the advent of a more democratic age, through the utopian discourses and marketing strategies of tech companies. Techs have provided sophisticated entertainment wrapped up in a constant reference to freedom. Thus, both the illusion of freedom and the illusion that technology is their domain, and not the domain of the people, is purposefully perpetuated by techs.

 
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Subsub 2

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The strategy in 1984 is to crush desires, not to enhance them, as Silicon Valley does. The political apparatus of Airstrip One is built around anti-sex leagues, hate weeks or hate songs. Social media is the opposite. Access to sex is much easier (Facebook, Tinder…), access to culture is much easier (Spotify, Youtube…) and social media plays on the need to be desired and desire in others. This is particularly apparent with Facebook, which creates an alternative social circle, giving the illusion of control over one’s image, and through this, their identity. We post and receive forms of gratification through “likes” or comments, and we have the ability to delete those that we don’t wish to see.

 
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Section II

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The service that techs provide, the bait, gives us the impression of being “the center of the world.” These new technologies are ones of personification and extreme individualization, allowing for a continuous life-assistant. The collection of big data allows them to offer all sorts of tailored services letting the consumer satisfy his narcissistic desires. Social media satisfies an old fantasy of both observing (the common Facebook “stalking”) and being observed, while Facebook satisfies the same desire: it observes us observing others.Similarly, we buy Iphones, or Google Homes to inspire jealousy and desire in others. These are expensive tools that “make life easier” and pretend to inscribe themselves with modernity and progress. They are seductive tools to seduce.

 
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Subsection A

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But data gathering does not only play on people’s desire, it is derived from it. Talking about big data, Jeff Jonas, an engineer with IBM said: “It will change our existing notions of privacy. A surveillance society is not only inevitable, it's worse. It's irresistible.” For centuries, many authors, philosophers and politicians have imagined, theorized and instated surveillance. Today’s society is the achievement of an old fantasy: the desire to hear everything. This has been successful because it was done without the totalitarian connotation, the imposition of surveillance. As federal surveillance has played on the desire to be safe, private surveillance has played on the desire to be heard. The question then becomes why this desire to be heard is more powerful that privacy, and why isn’t secrecy a desire, when there is nothing that creates more desire than secrecy

 
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Anthropologist Joseph Masco described spies as intending to “understand and create a representation of someone else’s reality.” But what happens when techs are shaping realities, telling us what to read, what to listen to and how. The temptation here is to interpret techs as an all-controlling force, thereby removing agency from the people, describing them as submissive to the enthralling force of the capitalist and totalitarian agenda. But a clearer picture might be to understand people as not being solely subjected to their rulers’ desires, but being subjected to their own desires. This might be what the paradox reveals. Towards the end of 1984, a thought police officer tells Winston: “The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.”

 



AudreyAmsellemFirstPaper 1 - 04 Mar 2017 - Main.AudreyAmsellem
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META TOPICPARENT name="FirstPaper"

It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted.

Who Cares If You Listen?

-- By AudreyAmsellem - 04 Mar 2017

Section I

Subsection A

Subsub 1

Subsection B

Subsub 1

Subsub 2

Section II

Subsection A

Subsection B


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