Mass surveillance gives uninterrupted access to millions of malleable minds, which can then be meddled with using tools like social media
It was the festive season in Bengaluru and like most young working vicenarians, I strode into my favourite apparel store the day I got my salary. As I casually walked through the men’s section searching for a chambray waistcoat, I noticed a young woman entering the floor, holding a cellphone in her hand. She appeared to be a regular customer at first — moving swiftly from one shelf to another, checking out the newest collections of course — but as she navigated through the counters, I noticed something unusual about her. She was subtly giving the whole store a closer look. She was reading through the banners, redeeming old coupons, seeking advice from sales clerks and taking assistance in spotting the cloth rails. One would think of it all as standard customer behaviour, but here’s why it felt a little odd. Every time she exited a counter, she would furtively type something on her phone.
Given the kind of enigma she invoked, I couldn’t help but think she was a “Mystery Shopper.” Just like mothers employ intrusive cousins to secretly track the activities of a teenager, companies hire external experts to monitor how an organisation works in the absence of top management personnel. This is an established global practice and these experts often pretend to be customers. In reality they are paid detectives who inspect activities and arrangements in stores, right from the bargain basement to the billing counter. They virtually rate everything, from a random smile to rapid customer service, with the aim of reporting competency gaps to the management.
But since it is a dubious intrusion into the privacy of employees, many companies around the world aren’t comfortable doing this. In fact, many have dropped the idea of a secret audit owing to the anxiety it creates among the workforce. After all, who likes being constantly watched and rated? Funnily enough, we seem to have come to terms with the continuous inspection of our private lives by apps, gadgets and online services that we use on an everyday basis. Be it virtual assistants, conferencing tools, search engines, streaming services or social media, the ways we get spied on, are plenteous.
It wasn’t long ago that the login details of over 5,00,000 Zoom accounts were found being sold on the Dark Web, for a paltry one pence each. Although it did strike fear into the minds of many prospective users, the news was forgotten way too soon.
Forget data theft, a 2019 report from Freedom on the Net suggests that at least nine out of 10 Internet users are being actively monitored online. With advances in Artificial Intelligence and pattern analytics, these numbers are only expected to go high. Mass surveillance was thought to be practically impossible given the massive influx of Internet users worldwide, so when Edward Snowden exposed its existence in 2013, it only served as a mild warning to many netizens who presumed it to be less widespread.
But the Internet has changed dramatically since the Snowden scandal and what we experience today, isn’t mere observation.
What starts as a basic “two-step” process, first monitors and analyses political views, personal preferences and buying patterns and dexterously manipulates it to turn hesitations to decisions, considerations to actions and vehemence to outright violence. If you ever thought the growing number of global demonstrations and violent protests post 2010 is a coincidence, think again. Mass surveillance is dangerous because it gives uninterrupted access to millions of malleable minds, which then can be meddled with using digital tools like social media and streaming services, gradually leading to mass indoctrination. Just as Joseph Goebbels filled the public spaces of Germany with Nazi propaganda posters in the 1930s, the social media space today is occupied by carefully-crafted ideas expressed in visual, verbal and auditory forms — virtually locking them up in an echo chamber of thoughts that facilitate groupthink.
The long, ongoing tussle between Conservative and Liberal groups in the US is a classic example of the “division phenomenon” the media deftly created. The efforts have been so sinister that it has essentially transformed the “United” States into countless “divided” ones now, paving the way for political think tanks to benefit from it on a perpetual basis. Much like crony capitalism, as long as the nexus stands - it will keep hurting the common man. And here’s why it’s alarming. These social media outlets and internet monopolies have now practically crossed all physical borders by reach, exceeded every strong army in the world by number and surpassed some of the most robust economies on Earth by wealth.
Alphabet (Google’s parent company) for instance, is now worth over $1 trillion, which is nearly double the Gross Domestic Product of Sweden. With over 2.7 billion active users and a market cap of $800 billion, Facebook too, enjoys a similar privilege. In fact, the tech giant has a total “population” of India and China combined and an “economy” of New Zealand, Denmark and Finland put together. Unlike any known leader in world history, these titans can now easily infuse ideas, influence people and instigate change on a global scale. And therein, lies the concern.
(The writer is a Tax Advisor and Management Consultant. The views expressed are personal)