some simple application of readings:

Many new media technologies, including the World Wide Web, serve as a multifaceted tool for organizing public commons, connecting the entire world and changing the way society operates as a whole. The World Wide Web represents infinite potential, but the existence of poor content, illegal activity and issues like “cyber-bullying” seem to ratify a need to monitor and control. We, as Web users, continually want more, and want it faster than ever before and as our wants increase, so too does the technology that fuels it. Recent technology (iPads, iPods, tablets, smartphones, laptops) are especially geared toward our wants, users of iPhones or Android smartphones can buy personal applications. So, is it really that surprising to find our technologies collecting our personal information and adapting itself for us?

Jodi Dean, in her article Webs of Conspiracy, explores why the Web has this effect on us, and why it can be potentially detrimental to our privacy. Ultimately, Dean observes that the problem solely relies on a user’s trust because “anxiety about the World Wide Web tends to center on its excesses, on the overabundance of information, the overstimulation of graphics and gimmicks, the multiplicity of links” (63). The everyday Web user today must come codified; fast-paced absorption of information and a constant pursuit of knowledge. However, they can’t be too expeditious; in fact the everyday Web user needs to quickly learn how to operate safely or they have no business being on the Internet at all. It reminds me of my Mum’s favourite childhood saying, “it is a privilege, not a right” and I would be the one saying it to her now. Like the Web, conspiracy and conspiracy theories are derided from an inability to distinguish fact from fiction. Ultimately, the Web is a platform for personal opinions, millions websites are spawned and the idea of trust or truth becomes a lot more difficult. (see Dean’s example, www.thesmokinggun.com). On the Web, credibility isn’t associated with academic resourcing, but the site’s ability to draw in users, creating “traffic”, or a sort of payment. One of the easiest examples of creating traffic involves a strategically placed link with an unsophisticated headline to an article, inciting the user to click on the link. It is as easy as that.

Clearly the need for digital surveillance exists, but at what cost to our privacy? Exploring social implications of new and emerging surveillance practices, specifically those surrounding technology, is beneficial. Stephen Graham and David Wood’s article, Digitizing Surveillance, claims digitalization is significant for two reasons; first, it enables monitoring, prioritization and judgment to occur. Second, it allows active sorting, identification and tracking. Take Facebook’s example of Beacon, however, and this point becomes more problematic. Beacon was apart of an advertisement system that sent data from external websites to Facebook, for purposes of allowing targeted advertisements to users. (for full information on Beacon, see www.whalerstechnology.tumblr.com). Beacon was eventually shut down for privacy concerns, and was called a mistake by CEO Mark Zuckerberg but the point is applications like Beacon exist and are still used today.

Graham and Wood call for a mutual transparency of both State and Individual, but ideas such as these are difficult to imagine in current political climates. Resistance to digital surveillance exists (for example, www.bmcconnell89.wordpress.com discusses the “Do Not Track Me Online” act) but specific legislation has not yet been passed. What is clear is that resistance like this is key in the concept of change; hopefully by resisting information gathering and sharing, this issue will reach a broader audience currently unaware of its happening. In a post-privacy period, where every click of our mouse is monitored, surely the Web could be more productive in current situations (www.rgrimms.wordpress.com posits in the prevention of crime) as seen in Spielberg’s 2002 Minority Report, or implementing facial recognition and movement algorithms in CCTV, as suggested by Graham and Wood.

In many respects, surveillance is constitutive of our modern society. While this is especially the case in today’s information society, in which our data grows increasingly fast, surveillance and the resistance thereto have long been common. While new information technologies change, so too should the basic motivations for and practices of surveillance. Resistance to digital surveillance is an increasingly topical issue in the media, policy and academic circles. UK graffiti artist, Banksy, has also given popular expression to a growing anti-surveillance movement that is emerging in response to expanding surveillance programs in the United Kingdom. His “One Nation Under CCTV” graphic on Newnam Street is one prominent and easily identifiable example. Banksy’s piece resonates with societies discomfort over the creeping expansion of government surveillance in the UK, the intentions of which are unclear. A. K Martin’s article, Surveillance and Society, discusses a report from the House of Lords (2009) that helps to reinforce the resistance to surveillance. Speaking on national television (the BBC News 2009), Lord Norton described surveillance in the UK as “Orwellian”, critical of the Home Office for proposing expansions to the government’s surveillance powers.

In the end, the Web remains a spotlight of infinite potential. Does poor content exist? Absolutely. The Web truly is a privilege, not a right; there needs to also be some onus on the Web user, some responsibility. However, even I can’t argue the fact that our individual privacy is dead. One can’t help but take Lord Norton’s Orwellian comment and think far into the dystopian future.