Distopia de agora #02

“Technology – a child of modern science – is out of humanity’s control, has ceased to serve us, has enslaved us and compelled us to participate in the preparation of our own destruction.”
   
Václav Havel . The Power of the Powerless


"In the mass surveillance states of the 20th century, be it the Soviet Union or East Germany, police forces, spies, civilian informants, judges and jailors were the key players in the systems of surveillance and control. But in modern surveillance states these systems are augmented by a peer-to-peer component. No longer are political suspects, dissidents, and others deemed to be enemies of the state, merely watched by police, followed by spies, or reported on by informants and no longer are judges and jailors the only ones to dole out punishment. Rather, we live in a world transforming into a panopticon-type of open-air prison where the many watch the many, and the many punish the few.
(...)
But the peer-to-peer element of our mass surveillance society is not limited to the surveillance side of the equation, with police, judges and jailors left to take care of the system of control. Rather social media is a medium through which all can act as judge, jury, and in some cases, even executioner.
(...)
Of all these forms of punishment, the attempt to shame and humiliate is the most common and this is no innocuous form of punishment. For online shaming campaigns can reach traumatic proportions as their end goal is often the destruction of the targeted individual’s livelihood. If the target accepts the judgement of the social media mob and succumbs to the shame he or she will be led to believe that his or her very selfhood is irrevocably flawed."

Academy of Ideas . Smartphones and Social Media: A Mass Surveillance Dystopia