Chapter 8.3
Public Intimacy and the New Face (Book) of Surveillance:
The Role of Social Media in Shaping
Contemporary Dataveillance
Lemi Baruh
Kadir Has University, Turkey
Levent Soysal
Kadir Has University, Turkey
Public Intimacy and the New Face (Book) of Surveillance:
The Role of Social Media in Shaping
Contemporary Dataveillance
Lemi Baruh
Kadir Has University, Turkey
Levent Soysal
Kadir Has University, Turkey
Abstract
In recent years, social media have become an important avenue for self-expression. At the same time, the ease with which individuals disclose their private information has added to an already heated debate about the privacy implications of interactive media.
This chapter investigates the relationship between disclosure of personal information in social media and two related trends: the increasing value of subjective or private experience as a social currency and the evolving nature of automated dataveillance. The authors argue that the results of the extended ability of individuals to negotiate their identity through social media are contradictory. The information revealed to communicate the complexity of one’s identity becomes an extensive source of data about individuals, thereby contributing to the functioning of a new regime of surveillance.
Introduction
Since their first inception in 1997 (with Six Degrees.com), social network sites - such as Facebook, Friendster, Orkut, and MySpace - allowed users to create online profiles about themselves and connect with other users. Starting with MySpace, user profiles on social network sites were no longer limited by preset categories determined by the network owners (Boyd&Ellison,2007). Today, the types of information that users can post on their social network accounts are virtually limitless. A few examples include: age, educational status, favorite music bands, movies or books, current mood, a detailed list of daily activities performed, relationship status, likes and dislikes, and hobbies.
According to Liu (2007), an important consequence of this characteristic of social media is that social network sites have become very suitable venues for self-expression and identity formation. By enabling users to list their own interests, hobbies, social preferences, among other forms of information, social network sites empower individuals to go beyond the traditional tokens of identity, such as profession and social class, to engage in what he calls “taste statements” (p. 253) and more freely communicate oneself to others. And according to Evans, Gosling, and Carroll (2008), what individuals have to say about themselves in social media does not fall on deaf ears: a person who views the online profile of another person usually forms impressions that are congruent with the profile owners.
However, the same feature that enables individuals to freely communicate their identity to their social networks also leaves traces of data in unprecedented detail. As such, the main purpose of this chapter is to discuss these two related trends and their implications for intimacy, social relations, privacy and identity in contemporary societies. Following a brief overview of social media, the chapter begins by arguing that increased transparency is one of the defining characteristic of the new individual in contemporary societies.
Next, the chapter focuses on how social media, in a world of transparency, enable individuals to communicate their multiple identities to others. In the final sections, the chapter focuses on the privacy implications of this heightened transparency by discussing the characteristics of a regime of surveillance that increasingly relies on an automated collection, collation and interpretation of the data individuals reveal and by summarizing the role that social media play in this regime of surveillance.
Background
According to Barnes (2006), social media is an all-encompassing term that describes loosely organized online applications through which individuals can create personas and communicate with each other. Especially since 2003, social network sites (such as MySpace, Orkut, Facebook, and LinkedIn) have become extremely popular. For example, in 2007, Facebook had close to 100 million and MySpace had more than 100 million unique visitors (Comscore.com, 2007). Weblogs or blogs are another form of widely used social media. By the end of 2007, there were an estimated 67 million blogs worldwide (Rappaport, 2007).
This rising popularity of social media, within which individuals reveal minute details of their lives, is closely related to the transformation of society’s expectations about what constitutes an acceptable form of information. Noting this transformation in individuals’ expectations about the type of truth that the media should make available, several commentators suggest that an important characteristic of current culture is the elevation of individualism around mid-1960s and the subsequent rise of the subjective and intimate experience of individuals as the guarantor of truth (Cavender, 2004; Corner, 2002). Commenting on this transformation, social theorist Beck (1994) points out that there has been a shift in individuals’ relationship with institutions. Accordingly, whereas in early modernity, meaning and identity were grounded on somewhat loyal reliance on institutions and structures, starting with late 20th century, the locus of meaning shifted to the individual. The self became the primary agent of meaning.
Within this context, by aiding the circulation of the intimate, social media are quickly becoming a platform for self-expression and creation of meaning. However, the audiences for these attempts at self-expression via intimate disclosure are usually not limited to a few friends or potential friends.
As such, the ease with which users reveal their personal information, while using social media, has triggered a heated debate over the privacy implications of social media in general and social network sites in particular (Solove, 2007; Viegas, 2005). Researchers have focused on a number of issues including: social media users’ ability to limit who has access to identification information (Lange 2007); corporate snooping and intrusion (for marketing and employee recruitment)(Maher, 2007; Solove, 2007); data security and use of publicly accessible personal information for fraud(Gross&Acquisti,2005; Jagatic, Johnson, Jakobsson, &Menezer.2007); and protection of underage users’ privacy (Barnes 2006; George2006).
Despite their invaluable contribution to current debates regarding privacy in social media, most of the current studies in this area adopt a piecemeal approach. Within this approach, different privacy threats are considered in isolation from each other and from the greater framework of surveillance as an increasingly data-intensive risk management tool for institutions (government and private).
Gary Marx (2004) argues that this newer form of surveillance has several important characteristics such as being continuous, automated, more intensive and extensive (because every individual is subjected to his/her data being collected in a data collection phase), invisible (as is the case when data about individuals is collected and subsequently disseminated to dispersed databases) and involuntary (partly as a result of this invisible nature of data intensive surveillance). The typical end-result that institutions seek from this process is to utilize the data to draw inferences about their identities and sort them into common types of so-called “unique” categories (Gandy, 1993;Lyon,2001). Then,what could be ahead for individuals is a conflict between the personas and identities that they communicate in social media and the identity that they have been ascribed to as a result of this automated surveillance (also called datavaillence). The remainder of this chapter explores the relationship between disclosure of personal information in social media and two related trends: the increasing value of subjective/private experience as a social currency and the evolving nature of automated dataveillance.
Public Intimacies AND the NEW surveillance Formations of the New Individual
Since the 1980s, the imaginary timeline of change, which can also be traced back to the anti-conservative upheavals of the 1960s in almost every facet of life, the individual has increasingly come to the center stage of social, economic, and technological order. Her rights have been significantly expanded, in particular with impetus generated by the hegemonic discourses of human rights (Benhabib,2002;Turner,1986;SoysalY., 1994). The new individual, so to speak: (a) has rights to her identity and culture (in other words, she possesses identities as a member of a categorically cultured collectivity that is differentiated by gender, sexual preference, disability, ethnicity, religion or spirituality); (b)is extensively involved in financial and security markets as a rational actor (she is entrusted with security of her own self, family, and future under terms dictated by the market); and, © achieves intimacy in public (she lives her sociality and establishes her intimate relations primarily in public stages, enabled by institutionalized public discourses). She is at the center of multiple, and ever increasing, lifespaces that enact synthetically modular lives.
In the globalizing world the new individual asserts herself, the lines that so preciously divide the time renowned cultural, social, and political categories into inside and outside, private and public are rapidly fading away under the duress of massive economies of circulation, imitation, and sociability. As sociability is amplified and externalized, and public and private become indistinguishable, intimacy (social, cultural, or personal) becomes displaced and public (Soysal L., 2007).
While intimacy as conventionally understood requires an inward movement toward the private sites of self, family, home, marriage, culture, and nation(Berlant,1997,1998;Herzfeld1997),public intimacy suggests an outward move to locate the formations of intimacy. In public intimacy, the emphasis is on the shared discursive spaces of public engagement, rather than the shared, inviting spaces of the cultural or personal kind (SoysalL.,1999;Berlant,1997,1998;Wilson, 2004). Public discourses and expressions, even in their most formalized discursive modes, constitute and conjure intimate connections. They provide a vocabulary to engage and question prescribed techniques and “institutions of intimacy” (Berlant, 1997, 1998) as in romance, dating, and marriage, while suggestively constructing intimate attachments between persons.
Furthermore, in today’s world, the “close association, privileged knowledge, deep knowing and understanding” (Jamieson, 1998) anticipated by proper definitions of intimacy are incomplete and temporary. When the engagement ends, the setting and conditions for organized intimacy simply cease to exist. Individuals leave behind their provisional partners in intimacy with whom they shared stories and sociality. A corresponding transformation can be observed in how individuals live and enact sociality—in that sociality today is increasingly exogenous.
Contemporary metropolitan spaces have become locations for year-round festivity. What’s true for mega cities such as London, Paris, New York is true for most metropolitan centers. Festivals of all sorts and sizes mark the topography of culture in cities. City becomes unthinkable without its festivals—its impressive and expressive façade.
Even cities not so famous for its carnivals, such as Istanbul and Berlin, are now year-round stages for spectacles—film, music, theater festivals, street parades,international sports meets, as well as commercial fairs, IGO and NGO meetings, state summits, and professional conferences. The moment one of them ends, another is given start (Soysal L.,2005). Add to this the fact that individuals spend more time and money on extra-home entertainment as epitomized by the proliferation of eating-out, fitness activities, shopping, and travel.
Said differently, as the sociality of the spectacular and extra-home entertainment—or the hold of what is anthropologically known as expressive culture—amplifies, the exogenous encircles the individual and the interior dissolves in the lives lived, enacted outside. Under circumstances of globalization, not only social lives increasingly happen outside the privacy of homes, offices, and selves. Gradually, but surely, sociality takes place in virtual worlds. In other words, intimacies are being carried into virtual worlds where privacy proper is not operational.
The new individual now lives, works, and shops in transparent interiors of buildings with glass facades (for example, Berlin’s parliament with its transparent dome, Richard Meier apartments in New York). In fact, as Sternberg (2001) notes, the new individual now is occupied in a phantasmagoric workplace and is responsible to create a suitable persona to present her “iconographic capabilities” (p. 11). In other words, the labor of the new individual is a labor of self-presentation.
Strangely enough, this labor of self-presentation, which used to be the domain of celebrities such as movie or rock stars, is now a full-time labor for many individuals, who, for example, wear their emotions on their t-shirts or sweatpants that read Milf in Training, Jerk Magnet, Your Boyfriend Wants Me, or Juicy.
In the digital realm, live webcam feeds through which individuals broadcast what transpired in their bedroom can be considered as an example to the trickling down of the act of self-presentation. And nowadays, the new individual has Facebooks, MySpaces, YouTube—the proliferated virtual worlds of sociality—where she not only displays but also actualizes intimacies in public.
First, thanks to the modular structure of social media sites, e.g., Facebook or MySpace, the new individual can now determine what components of her own modular identity to display and prioritize (Donath&Boyd,2004;Liu,2007, Lampe, Ellison, & Steinfeld, 2007; Marwick, 2005).
For example, she can choose to display information about her music taste at the top of the page whereas another might choose to share her travel experiences and the places she visited. Second, specialized social network sites allow the individuals to compartmentalize their personas by displaying information they see fit for different contexts. For social shopping, she can use VogueShop TV and go to StyleHive, FashionWalker.
From the convenience of her cell phone, she can announce the course of her new love affair by minute to anyone who listens—actually to anyone who has Twitter, the “quick blogging” tool. If she is interested in networking to find new employment opportunities, she creates an account in LinkedIn to share her professional background. And let us not forget second lives and socialities she may enact in Second Life and its clones. Friends can even be determined via DNA matching by a visit to a social networking website (https://www.23andme.com) to be unveiled by a new personal genomics start-up in Silicon Valley (Soysal L., 2007).
In this respect, what users of social media do by creating their online personas is to engage in what can be called “introversive publicity.” In social psychology, individuals with introversive personality are characterized as retiring people who value introspective thinking and intimate relationships(Eysenck&Eysenck,1975). The act of subjective expression on social media (introversive publicity), despite its public nature, is introspective. It requires careful consideration of how each modular component of one’s identity works in coherence with each other. As such, the resulting persona is as intimate as it is public.
It is as coherent as it is modular. However, the public presentation of the virtual modular self is not solely a self-publicity project. Rather, it is a crucial component of how individuals develop and negotiate their own identity. As Simmel (1922/1964) pointed out with respect to rational group memberships, each component added to this modular identity helps establish a unique identity.
This is the world of amplified sociality, virtual intimacy, and actual simulacra we inhabit. And in this brave new world, as Google prophesizes in its newest slogan, “Social Will Be Everywhere” and intimacies that matter will be public (Soysal L., 2007). social Media: reclaiming the right to Privacy What are the privacy implications of public intimacies on social media? Being able to create online profiles and communicate one’s own identity in a manner that one prefers may be considered as exercising one’s privacy rights. This perspective reflects a long-standing socio-legal understanding that defines privacy as one’s ability to have control over when, how and to what extent information about them is known by others(Bing,1972;Fried, 1984;Wacks,1989;Weintraub,1997).
As such, by publicizing information about their subjective experiences and everyday lives, users may be exercising their privacy right to disseminate information about themselves. Recently, several commentators suggested that individuals’ voluntary submission to the gaze of other people (as is the case when Internet, users leave their Web cam turned on throughout the day) is not only an exercise of privacy rights but also an act of counter-surveillance (Dholakia&Zwick, 2001;Koskela,2004). Accordingly, in an environment of extensive surveillance, self-disclosure is seen as the only viable way for individuals to actively participate in the creation of images about themselves (Groombridge, 2002).
The real situation of Hasan Elahi is a perfect illustration of this perspective. After being mistakenly put on the U.S. government terrorist watch list, Mr. Elahi decided that the best way to be free from government intrusion would be to document and publish online every single detail of his daily affairs. Today, Mr. Elahi’s blog, sometimes visited by U.S. law enforcement officers, contains a slew of details including scanned images of the receipts of every transaction he enters and regularly updated GPS location images of his whereabouts.
The key to being left alone, Mr. Elahi says, is to give away one’s privacy (Thompson, 2007). Regarding such a conceptualization of privacy, Gavison (1980) argues that although knowing disclosure of information can be construed as an exercise of privacy rights, it is nevertheless a loss of control over information because after the act of disclosure, individuals will have little control in the subsequent dissemination of the information. The popular media frequently covers such mishaps. For example, recently Kansas University decided to penalize students after finding out that the photographs they uploaded on Facebook contained evidence that they violated an alcohol policy of the University (Acquisti&Gross, 2006).
Similarly, Microsoft officials admit that they frequently peruse Facebook profiles of job candidates (Solove, 2007). However, as the remainder of this chapter will discuss, these incidents of corporate/institutional snooping may be the tip of the iceberg with respect to the problematic of privacy as control over personal information.
Uncertainty and risk Externalization in the New surveillance
Since Foucault’s Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1977), Bentham’s panopticon—an architectural design that would allow the constant monitoring of prisoners from a central tower—has captured the imagination of many scholars studying contemporary surveillance. In perhaps one of the most influential studies of surveillance in the information age, Gandy (1993) used the panopticon metaphor to characterize the continuous surveillance of everyday transactions and sorting of populations into “consuming types” as a form of rationalization (in the Weberian sense) of inequality—through computers, which are for all practical purposes rationality incarnate.
An important characteristic of the new surveillance is that it relies on a machine based, automated collection of personal information. Even the most innocuous transactions leave data trail that can be stored for later analysis(Gandy,2002; Marx, 2004). To some extent, the development of interactive media (e.g., the Internet, digital cable), which allow for a two-way flow of information between the content provider and the consumer, has added to the impetus for continuous tracking of individuals’ behavior and creating profiles that can be used to categorize them into homogenous segments(Baruh,2004;Turow,2005b).
Within this context, social media and social network sites add to what is already a very large pool of data about individuals. Private information that individuals voluntarily reveal in social media about their hobbies, favorite pastimes, music preferences, close friends and even changes in their mood can be used further to refine their profiles and categorize them into groups.
An important problem concerning the vast amount of information that institutions collect about individuals is to interpret the ensuing data. Just as with the collection phase, a process known as “data mining” increasingly allows the use of algorithms for automatic detection of patterns that can be used to predict future behavior and risk (Gandy,2002;Zarsky,2002,2004). That the data collection and interpretation process is automated has important consequences in terms the uncertainty that surround individuals’ interaction with contemporary surveillance. Clearly, uncertainty was an important component of the disciplining function of the panopticon. Whereas guards can observe prisoners at any time, prisoners have no way of knowing when they are being observed.
The concept “chilling effect of surveillance” underlines an important consequence of this uncertainty regarding when one is being monitored. Accordingly, an individual will be less likely to express her controversial opinions in public if she suspected that any behavior she engages in can be recorded (Marx, 1988), or vice versa, individuals may reveal opinions, at times abundantly, as if it should matter to their listeners. The prospect of fully automated analyses of data about individuals may introduce additional uncertainties. As Gary Marx (2004) argues, the new surveillance does not target suspected individuals.
It is carried out superficially, with an intention to closely investigate later. As such, surveillance systems that rely on automated data mining are akin to a fishing expedition that starts by comparing each data-point to the population base. This comparison, done without human interpretation or prior hypotheses about what constitutes risk, has the potential to signal any deviation as risk, which could then invite further
scrutiny (Andrejevic, 2007).
A related component of such uncertainty regarding what constitutes the automated risk categorization is the violation of the contextual integrity of information. As noted by several theorists, an important function of privacy in a world where information about us is abundant is to protect individuals from being (mis)identified out of context (Nissenbaum,1998;Rosen,2000).
As we suggested before, the self is a modular and perennially evolving entity. This notion is perhaps best reflected in Erving Goffman’s (1959) conceptualization of selfhood, which is comprised of multiple roles we play and masks we wear. Each snapshot of the multi-modular self in a different context will provide factually correct information about that context. However, in automated data mining, rather than interpreting each photograph as an independent unit, the analysis is based on creating a collage without paying attention to the contextual background. A collage created from hundreds of independent snapshots of the same person will probably not contain factually incorrect information. Each bit
of data is actually about the subject.
However, depending on how the independent photographs are rearranged, the person may look overweight, underweight or right on scale. The point that we seek to make with this discussion is not that the inferences made through automated data mining will always be factually inaccurate. Rather, this process largely diminishes individuals’ ability to determine (and find ways to challenge) inferences that are made about them.
This is partly due to an informational asymmetry between individuals and surveillant institutions. The concept of privacy, which supposedly protects individuals from undue attention, when combined with intellectual property rights, provides institutions with a high level of protection from external oversight regarding the accuracy of data, how the data are used, and whether the data are properly protected (either from individuals or from agencies representing individuals). Noting this trend, Andrejevic (2007) argues that privacy is now the keyword for increased surveillance with “diminished oversight and accountability” (p. 7).
Future Trends
Considered from the perspective provided above, the new surveillance (if fully utilized) will be more Kafkaesque than Orwellian(Lyon,2001; Solove, 2001). In Kafka’s The Trial (1937) the main character, Joseph K. is subjected to a long judicial process without ever knowing what he was accused of.
In The Trial Joseph K.’s circumstances are particularly illustrative of two characteristics of the new surveillance this chapter discusses. First, the subject will not know when she is being surveilled, who uses the data, who wants the information, and what or who distinguishes acceptable behavior from risky behavior (Baruh, 2007; Solove,2007).Second,the digital revolution (along with enhanced storage capacity) makes it increasingly difficult for our society to forget and move on, making it almost impossible for individuals to have a second chance (Solove, 2007):
“We are losing control…because if what we do is represented digitally, it can appear anywhere, and at any time in the future. We no longer control access to anything we disclose” (Grudin, 2001, p. 11). Third, data mining rationalizes surveillance by removing humans from the interpretation process. The dehumanization of the analyses is important because it removes the so-called human bias from the interpretation process. As such, when combined with the fact that contemporary data mining relies on quantification of information (a seemingly dispassionate and objective method of interpreting the social world), this dehumanization projects an aura of objectivity, consequently making it even more difficult to challenge its premise (and the findings it provides).
In the end, data targets lose whatever control they used to have over the management of their multiple identities. Many scholars would argue that rather than being a loss of control over one’s identity, what happens is increased accountability, which in turn reduces social costs associated with individuals’ tendency to misrepresent themselves to others (Posner, 1978). However, it is very difficult to argue that just because individuals may occasionally misrepresent themselves, the inferences that institutions make about individuals should gain such an absolute credence over individuals’ self-representations (Baruh, 2007).
Conclusion
The rise of social media coincides with shifting norms about what constitutes an acceptable form of private information in contemporary societies. Namely, an important characteristic of contemporary popular culture is the elevation of individualism (especially since the 1960’s) and the subsequent rise of the subjective experience of the individual as an acceptable form of truth. Within this context, social media have become the loci of virtual public intimacies within which individuals communicate their multifaceted identities through their virtual personas. Perhaps, then, virtual public intimacies can even be considered as enabling individuals to actively practice their privacy rights by giving them an opportunity to communicate the complexity of their identity.
However, the paradoxical consequence of this ability to make active decisions regarding one’s own immediate privacy through public intimacy is that the subjective information revealed in social media becomes the most extensive source of data about individuals, thereby contributing to the functioning of a new regime of surveillance. This new regime of surveillance is characterized by an expansion in the uncertainty that surrounds the criteria surveillance systems utilize to distinguish between prospects and threats. Each component of our modular online identity can be a potential factor that leads to discrimination. And in the end, the individual is left assigned to a category that may not only ignore the complexity of her modular identity but also is virtually (and practically) impossible to challenge because of its automated nature and consequent aura of objectivity.
Let's highlight and underscore the most important bits from that article posted above -
Done by machines
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An important characteristic of the new surveillance is that it relies on a machine based, automated collection of personal information. Even the most innocuous transactions leave data trail that can be stored for later analysis(Gandy,2002; Marx, 2004). To some extent, the development of interactive media (e.g., the Internet, digital cable), which allow for a two-way flow of information between the content provider and the consumer, has added to the impetus for continuous tracking of individuals’ behavior and creating profiles that can be used to categorize them into homogenous segments(Baruh,2004;Turow,2005b).
Dehumanization of the 'intelligence'/'data'
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As Gary Marx (2004) argues, the new surveillance does not target suspected individuals. It is carried out superficially, with an intention to closely investigate later. As such, surveillance systems that rely on automated data mining are akin to a fishing expedition that starts by comparing each data-point to the population base. This comparison, done without human interpretation or prior hypotheses about what constitutes risk, has the potential to signal any deviation as risk, which could then invite further scrutiny (Andrejevic, 2007)."
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Third, data mining rationalizes surveillance by removing humans from the interpretation process. The dehumanization of the analyses is important:
My note: Dehumanization of the analysis - let's just pause for a minute and realize the full extent of the 'dehumanization' that we are talking about here. Not only the 'people' are dehumanized because they are nothing more than little ants - little numbers - little IDs/entries in this system, but the data ITSELF is dehumanized because all of this information / intelligence gathering is done on behalf of machines - and it's basically stored and archived forever because storage space is now so goddamn cheap - I mean - 40/50 bucks will get you a 1.5 Terabyte harddrive in stores - imagine what government agencies and defense department agencies can buy themselves to serve as storage. So, what enables all of this total information gathering is the fact that storage is cheap. Now, John P. Stenbit already let it be known that the next paradigm shift will be when 'bandwidth' becomes cheap - when bandwidth becomes cheap, then they will become 'asymmetric' in time - meaning total control over time, who said what, when he said this or that, what we can infer from such and such event having occurred in the past, unlimited bandwidth to send whatever data you want to transmit - and so on
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Because it removes the so-called human bias from the interpretation process. As such, when combined with the fact that contemporary data mining relies on quantification of information (a seemingly dispassionate and objective method of interpreting the social world), this dehumanization projects an aura of objectivity, consequently making it even more difficult to challenge its premise (and the findings it provides).
(My note: What they argue here is - who will argue with 'intelligent/smart cameras' watching where you go and keeping tabs on your daily activities? It's just a camera - it's not a real private inspector spying on you - this is just data that we will MAYBE look at if we feel like it or when we need to single you out because for whatever reason you are now a conceivable 'threat.
It's all (purportedly) part of scientific inquiry. So the gist of it is that they're instantly 'dehumanizing' you by surveilling you and they have 'dehumanized' the surveillance itself because it's not a private guy with a camera snooping on you - no - it's an 'intelligent camera' - an 'intelligent sensor' - that 'senses' certain things - such as movement (motion sensors) - the excuse would be that it isn't actively looking for the person itself - it just keeps tabs on you IN CASE they might need that data/video feed/capture of your movements/actions in the future.
And what this is all leading to - is that this entire 'system of systems' is going to govern and rule itself without human intervention at all being necessary. Machines will tell people what to do - hence even more perfect 'dehumanization'. This is the completion of the Enlightenment philosophy - or rather, insanity) - it's perfectly 'rational' from a scientific perspective, but all the same it doesn't take into account that this way of surveillance is ultimately even less reliable in terms of really estimating (or rather, guesstimating) threats - but I would say that is not even the intent in the first place.
'Chilling effect' of the panopticon'
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That the data collection and interpretation process is automated has important consequences in terms the uncertainty that surround individuals' interaction with contemporary surveillance. Clearly, uncertainty was an important component of the disciplining function of the panopticon. Whereas guards can observe prisoners at any time, prisoners have no way of knowing when they are being observed.
The concept 'chilling effect of surveillance' underlines an important consequence of this uncertainty regarding when one is being monitored. Accordingly, an individual will be less likely to express her controversial opinions in public if she suspected that any behavior she engages in can be recorded (Marx, 1988), or vice versa, individuals may reveal opinions, at times abundantly, as if it should matter to their listeners."
My note: They evidently are fully aware of the psychological effect this kind of surveillance has on the public. But also note how this extends to expressing certain 'controversial opinions' in public - such as '9/11 was an inside job', or 'the H1N1 swine flu was a hoax'. That's why they are lumping everybody in under this broad stigmatizing label 'conspiracy theorist' - that is why the US government has an official page dedicated to 'conspiracy theories' - they basically give you a couple of conversational topics on that site, and they basically tell you - 'if you utter this in public, you deserve to be stigmatized/ridiculed/abused, and so on - because you are spreading MISINFORMATION'. See, there where we go - total control over the 'information flow' - that's what these guys want - so they even want to insert themselves into this debate.
Self-presentation - How people THEMSELVES are being readjusted to the 'panopticon' through social engineering
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The new individual now lives, works, and shops in transparent interiors of buildings with glass facades (for example, Berlin’s parliament with its transparent dome, Richard Meier apartments in New York). In fact, as Sternberg (2001) notes, the new individual now is occupied in a phantasmagoric workplace and is responsible to create a suitable persona to present her “iconographic capabilities” (p. 11). In other words, the labor of the new individual is a labor of self-presentation.
You see folks, this is so far-ranging I don't think many people can wrap their heads around it. Even ARCHITECTURE is in on the agenda - notice indeed all these 'glass domes', where workers have to be perfectly identifiable at all times by anyone and everyone - everyone has the right to 'know' what this or that person is doing - in the name of cutting down 'slacking off time'.
This has also been tried in schools - these glass domes where teachers and other government bureaucrats/wards of the state had to be perfectly visible by everyone inside the school. When teachers complained about it or pasted something on the windows so that they were no longer visible, all of a sudden the architects went into a frenzy and demanded they remove whatever it was they pasted on their windows, because it was interfering with their 'artists' conception' of how the building ought to look like.
So just remember -when you're at work, sitting in one of these new glass domes where you can be perfectly spied upon by other people, notice YOU are being dehumanized and reshaped to fit inside this panopticon society - without the manager even purposefully being aware of it himself.
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Strangely enough, this labor of self-presentation, which used to be the domain of celebrities such as movie or rock stars, is now a full-time labor for many individuals, who, for example, wear their emotions on their t-shirts or sweatpants that read Milf in Training, Jerk Magnet, Your Boyfriend Wants Me, or Juicy.
Sense and respond supply chain applied to 'mating' - 'partying' - 'women' - 'objects' - 'dating' - whatever you want to term it - wearing emoticons and 'statements of intent and readiness' on your clothing
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In the digital realm, live webcam feeds through which individuals broadcast what transpired in their bedroom can be considered as an example to the trickling down of the act of self-presentation. And nowadays, the new individual has Facebooks, MySpaces, YouTube—the proliferated virtual worlds of sociality—where she not only displays but also actualizes intimacies in public.
Why are women soliciting for sex - or indicating on their shirts that they are really itching to get it on with a random member of the opposite sex (for example - wearing a T-shirt with the text 'MILF in training', or 'Your boyfriend wants me', or 'Juicy')? Why are girls voluntarily putting up webcams in their bedrooms? Why do women advertise their latest breakup or their new boyfriend vis-a-vis Twitter? Because these are all paradigms instilled by social engineers, and because these women are 'trend followers' - they follow the 'trend' - but that does not mean they know what the 'trend' was meant to achieve in the first place - this they are never conscious of. 'Emotions' and 'inner states of mind' are now broadly 'advertised' on one's personal gear, such as their clothes - they are basically applying the 'self-advertising' and 'self-whoring' as practiced by successful actors and applying that to themselves.
And here's even more food for thought - you know, what they are doing here - is applying 'sense and respond' to 'partying' / 'mating' / 'promiscuity'. Really, a girl enters into a club with the sign 'Hey there - I'm such a hot mom that everybody wants to f**k' - and hey - this 'sense' / this 'broadcast' is then sent to the entire 'club' - and then all the 'men' come engage this 'girl' in the engagement grid which is the club - and she gets to choose her pick. SENSE - AND RESPOND.
You know, people, you think this stuff is 'kinky' or 'sexy' - women wearing 'MILF in training' and the like - it gives you a hard-on or whatever when women are advertising their 'readiness' - like some sick 'sense and respond' supply chain loop applied to mating/promiscuity. But notice - this not only further removes 'privacy', it utterly destroys any semblance of keeping 'thoughts to yourself' - because your 'T-shirt' becomes your 'emoticon board' - it becomes some kind of advertising space on which you can express your emotional/sexual state of mind.
BTW, know who first helped bring this meme into existence - 'MILF in training'? Britney Spears. You see - the 'culture industry' 'instigates' these trends - and Britney herself being 'handled' by umpteen managers and so on - I'm not even sure she was even in charge of what she was going to wear that day.
It's a pretty sick state of affairs - everywhere you look, all of this stuff - all of this new 'normalcy' - IT'S ALL PART OF THE GODDAMN PLAN TO PUT EVERYONE INSIDE THE PANOPTICON. And it's going to get worse.
Needless to say, this document/essay is pretty important. To all women out there who are currently walking around with T-shirts such as 'I am horny' or 'MILF in training' or 'Come here rude boy - can you get it up?' - regain your womanhood - don't fall for the social engineers' purposefully engineered trends so they can acclimatize you even more into giving up all your personal information, your sense of being, your sense of pride, your desires - because this by itself is not the endgame. They want a totally regimented society consisting of 'transhumanist' hordes - with SOA services feeding them whatever it is they need to be thinking of now, at this particular time, based upon his or her's value to society and social status.
And here is where the 'psychological operation' behind the catchword 'privacy' comes into play:
Quote
The concept of privacy, which supposedly protects individuals from undue attention, when combined with intellectual property rights, provides institutions with a high level of protection from external oversight regarding the accuracy of data, how the data are used, and whether the data are properly protected (either from individuals or from agencies representing individuals). Noting this trend, Andrejevic (2007) argues that privacy is now the keyword for increased surveillance with “diminished oversight and accountability” (p. 7).
Has it occurred to any of you that, as part of the national debate surrounding 'body scanners', 'surveillance' or whatever kind of subject you can imagine that involves sensors/cameras/spying, the keyword 'privacy' is always brought up, and immediately following that, there is some plug to the ACLU? That is not by coincidence. Allaying your 'privacy concerns', and even the very mention of 'privacy' itself, is a PSY-OP. As is suggested here, it is a code-word for 'increased surveillance with "diminished oversight and accountability".
MAY 21, 2010
Facebook, MySpace Confront Privacy Loophole
http://online.wsj.com/
By EMILY STEEL And JESSICA E. VASCELLARO
Facebook, MySpace and several other social-networking sites have been sending data to advertising companies that could be used to find consumers' names and other personal details, despite promises they don't share such information without consent.
The practice, which most of the companies defended, sends user names or ID numbers tied to personal profiles being viewed when users click on ads. After questions were raised by The Wall Street Journal, Facebook and MySpace moved to make changes. By Thursday morning Facebook had rewritten some of the offending computer code.
Advertising companies are receiving information that could be used to look up individual profiles, which, depending on the site and the information a user has made public, include such things as a person's real name, age, hometown and occupation.
Several large advertising companies identified by the Journal as receiving the data, including Google Inc.'s DoubleClick and Yahoo Inc.'s Right Media, said they were unaware of the data being sent to them from the social-networking sites, and said they haven't made use of it.
Across the Web, it's common for advertisers to receive the address of the page from which a user clicked on an ad. Usually, they receive nothing more about the user than an unintelligible string of letters and numbers that can't be traced back to an individual. With social networking sites, however, those addresses typically include user names that could direct advertisers back to a profile page full of personal information. In some cases, user names are people's real names.
Most social networks haven't bothered to obscure user names or ID numbers from their Web addresses, said Craig Wills, a professor of computer science at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, who has studied the issue.
The sites may have been breaching their own privacy policies as well as industry standards, which say sites shouldn't share and advertisers shouldn't collect personally identifiable information without users' permission. Those policies have been put forward by advertising and Internet companies in arguments against the need for government regulation.
Facebook, MySpace and several other social-networking sites gave advertising companies information that could be used to look up individual profiles, which, depending on the site and the information a user has made public, include such things as a person's real name, age, hometown and occupation. Above, Facebook's headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif.
The problem comes as social networking sites—and in particular Facebook—face increasing scrutiny over their privacy practices from consumers, privacy advocates and lawmakers.
At the same time, lawmakers are preparing legislation to govern websites' tactics for collecting information about consumers, and the way that information is used to target ads.
In addition to Facebook and MySpace, LiveJournal, Hi5, Xanga and Digg also sent advertising companies the user name or ID number of the page being visited. (MySpace is owned by News Corp., which also owns The Wall Street Journal.) Twitter—which doesn't have ads on profile pages—also was found to pass Web addresses including user names of profiles being visited on Twitter.com when users clicked other links on the profiles.
For most social-networking sites, the data identified the profile being viewed but not necessarily the person who clicked on the ad or link. But Facebook went further than other sites, in some cases signaling which user name or ID was clicking on the ad as well as the user name or ID of the page being viewed. By seeing what ads a user clicked on, an advertiser could tell something about a user's interests.
Ben Edelman, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School who studies Internet advertising, reviewed the computer code on the seven sites at the request of the Journal.
"If you are looking at your profile page and you click on an ad, you are telling that advertiser who you are," he said of how Facebook operated, if a user had clicked through a specific path, before the fix. Mr. Edelman said he had sent a letter on Thursday to the Federal Trade Commission asking them to investigate Facebook's practices specifically.
The sharing of users' personally identifiable data was first flagged in a paper by researchers at AT&T Labs and Worcester Polytechnic Institute last August. The paper, which drew little attention at the time, evaluated practices at 12 social networking sites including Facebook, Twitter and MySpace and found multiple ways that outside companies could access user data.
The researchers said in an interview they had contacted the sites, which some sites confirmed. But nine months later, the issue still exists.
The issue is particularly significant for Facebook on two fronts: the company has been pushing users to make more of their personal information public and the site requires users to use their actual names when registering on the site.
A Facebook spokesman acknowledged it has been passing data to ad companies that could allow them to tell if a particular user was clicking an ad. After being contacted by the Journal, Facebook said it changed its software to eliminate the identifying code tied to the user from being transmitted.
"We were recently made aware of one case where if a user takes a specific route on the site, advertisers may see that they clicked on their own profile and then clicked on an ad," the Facebook spokesman said. "We fixed this case as soon as we heard about it."
Facebook said its practices are now consistent with how advertising works across the Web. The company passes the "user ID of the page but not the person who clicked on the ad," the company spokesman said. "We don't consider this personally identifiable information and our policy does not allow advertisers to collect user information without the user's consent."
The company said it also has been testing changing the formatting for the text it shares with advertisers so that it doesn't pass through any user names or IDs.
Privacy Problem
Internet sites that share information that could be tied to individual profiles. See graphic
MySpace, Hi5, Digg, Xanga and Live Journal said they don't consider their user names or ID numbers to be personally identifiable, because unlike Facebook, consumers are not required to submit their real names when signing up for an account. They also said since they are passing along the user name of the page the ad is on, not for the person clicking on the ad, there is nothing advertisers can do with the data beyond seeing on what page their ad appeared.
MySpace said in a statement it is only sharing the ID name users create for the site, which permits access only to the information that a user makes publicly available on the site.
Nevertheless, a MySpace spokeswoman said the site is "currently implementing a methodology that will obfuscate the 'FriendID' in any URL that is passed along to advertisers."
A Twitter spokeswoman said passing along the Web address happens when people click a link from any Web page. "This is just how the Internet and browsers work," she said.
Although Digg said it masks a user's name when they click on an ad and scrambles data before sharing with outside advertising companies, the site does pass along user names to ad companies when a user visits a profile page. "It's the information about the page that you are visiting, not you as a visitor," said Chas Edwards, Digg's chief revenue officer.
The advertising companies say they don't control the information a website chooses to send them. "Google doesn't seek in any way to make any use of any user names or IDs that their URLs may contain," a Google spokesman said in a statement.
"We prohibit clients from sending personally identifiably information to us," said Anne Toth, Yahoo's head of privacy. "We have told them. 'We don't want it. You shouldn't be sending it to us. If it happens to be there, we are not looking for it."
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