Recently, we came across an article in ‘O’Reilly’s radar’, discussing the phenomenon of ‘the mass adoption of social technologies’. Using the notion of Jeremy Bentham’s ‘Panopticon’, the article argues that “The social technologies we see in use today are fundamentally panoptical - the architecture of participation is inherently an architecture of surveillance.”
There are interesting points made in this article for example, it says, “In many cases we are opting into automated reporting structures”. The article then points out the issue of changing our sense of privacy which is a fascinating area that begs for in-depth research.
However, there are two problems here for me; firstly, the suitability of the usage of the ‘Panopticon’ as a metaphor in the context of our social technology use and secondly, the implication of its argument.
Jeremy Bentham’s ‘Panopticon’ was adopted by Foucault as a metaphor for the ‘automatic functioning of power’. With increasing concerns over surveillance and monitoring usage of information technology, Foucault’s views have been adopted by many people to examine whether we are living in a world of electronic ‘Panopticon’. This is a hypothesis that needs to be challenged, proved and validated as our sense of privacy is changing.
If we accept the fact that our sense of privacy is changing, how can one claim that “…the architecture of participation is inherently an architecture of surveillance”? I expect that with the change in our sense of privacy, the notion of surveillance and our perception of surveillance should be changed too, surely.
What we are witnessing in social technology usage environment is; what was previously considered to be private information is now considered to be public. We post (‘report’) what we read, what we do and where we are etc. However, this information is about 'ME' and by ‘ME’. I intentionally publicised as a consequence of a mental selection process, unless we argue that we act independently from our minds!
I would say that the notion of ‘Panopticon’ is quite real in our CCTV usage. For example, we read and hear about how many CCTV cameras are installed all over the UK. The idea is that we do not know if the CCTV is watching us but because we know that the UK is the country with the largest number of CCTV that when we walk down the street, we become aware of ourselves and conform to norms hence, the self regulation. Extending such notion of ‘Panopticon’ to social technologies usage is problematic as the relationship is very different.
We should also not be confused with the notion of ‘Panopticon’ is the social technology usages by a few people who gather other people’s information with intention to abuse and intimidate i.e. cyber bully and spying.
In our social technology use, it is ‘I’ who decide to publicise information. It is an intentional action to use social technologies. If so, how can we explain the workings of the ‘automatic function of power’? Has the power over myself been shifted? Have I created a surveillance system for myself? If I know what information has been publicised, how would the self regulating mechanism work?
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