The creator explains the concept of the Panopticon effect, where the possibility of being watched leads to self-monitoring. She uses Foucault's theory, the aftermath of the Snowden leaks, and the rise of AI to illustrate how this "chilling effect" limits free inquiry online, ultimately comparing modern surveillance to the role of hell in Christianity as an invisible, ever-present force that shapes behavior.
Post caption
Is surveillance the new hell? Have you ever wanted to see what the dark web actually looks like? just out of curiosity, but then stopped because it felt… risky?
This video is not about the dark web itself, but the way being watched (or thinking you might be) can influence the way we search and read on the internet.
Michel Foucault used the Panopticon to explain this self-monitoring. It can also be seen in the decline of traffic to certain wikipedia articles after the Snowden leaks in 2013.
And maybe it sounds dramatic, maybe you don’t feel like you are monitoring on a daily basis, but that is the scary part. because maybe you are, you’re just already doing so unconciously.
sources:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2769645
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-27/wikipedia-terrorism-traffic-fell-after-snowden-leaks/7364088
https://www.vice.com/en/article/snowdens-surveillance-leaks-made-people-less-likely-to-read-about-surveillance
Transcript
You ever wondered what the dark web looks like? Like how do you even get on there? What are people actually doing? You keep wondering, but you still don't go because what if you're flagged? Foucault spoke about this in relation to the Panopticon. The Panopticon was originally a prison design with one tower in the middle. So you never knew if you were actually being watched. The result would be that inmates started monitoring their own behavior because the possibility of being watched was enough. And you can see the same pattern after Snowden. When Edward Snowden revealed mass surveillance of ordinary internet users in 2013, traffic to certain Wikipedia articles about terrorism dropped by around 20 to 30%. It is not illegal to read about terrorism, but it felt risky. Someone might say, but what if terrorists actually tier reading about it? Isn't that good? Best terrorists don't become terrorists because they read a Wikipedia summary. Those pages are mostly for the rest of us trying to make sense of the world. And now with AI, it gets even more confusing because it's all about patterns and combinations. Most of us don't know which mix of searches, locations, and clicks makes us look suspicious. So we can only guess. Maybe even start over correcting, rounding off more corners than probably is necessary. And I don't wanna sound dramatic, but I think surveillance tech today plays a similar role to what hell did in Christianity. You can't actually see it, but you sense that it is tier. Invisible better somehow always watching you. So you adjust your behavior best in case. You don't want to go to hell. Being able to explore ideas freely, even the ones that you don't agree with, is part of how you form your own judgment. If you're always being watched or feel like you are, that process shrinks. You become not who you are, but who you think you're allowed to be.
