Surveillance erodes trust and has an oppressive effect. This is a key mechanic of the panopticon, i.e. the modern prison, and the constant surveillance of late

Surveillance erodes trust and has an oppressive effect. This is a key mechanic of the panopticon, i.e. the modern prison, and the constant surveillance of late modern societies amounts to a 'prisonifying' of both private and public spaces. There is a harsh power imbalance between the corporations mediating that surveillance and the surveilled, since corporations under capitalism aren't reachable through democratic means. At best they're indirectly, abstractly and highly bureaucratically regulated, but usually by a corrupt parlamentarian neo-noblesse using surveillance techniques to gatekeep and reproduce their power. Half a century ago this was mainly done through probing the public with polls and the like, as pointed out by Baudrillard in his short work In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Shadow_of_the_Silent_Majorities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Shadow_of_the_Silent_Ma... Contemporary surveillance is much more invasive, immediate and relies on evermore sophisticated psychometrics and technologies. To willingly participate and submit to this regime is arguably worse than being a slacker, (in)famously studied in a paper by Buzzfeed founder Jonah Peretti. http://www.datawranglers.com/negations/issues/96w/96w_peretti.html http://www.datawranglers.com/negations/issues/96w/96w_perett...