Many Eyes Watching Me: Surveillance Capitalism in the New Gilded Age

By Jiaming Zheng / Winter 2021

A real, creepy experience happened to me recently. As usual, I got together with my buddies. We talked about everything, about our lives. The evening at the party was as pleasant as ever. When I got home and turned on my phone, my quick swiping hands stopped when I saw the ads that my browser had pushed so closely to tonight's topic: The shoes I want to buy, the gift I'm picking out for my girlfriend's Valentine's Day, and the hotel advertisement for my friend's trip to Macau. I nervously looked back at the room where I knew there was no living thing, but I could feel many weird eyes watching me. I suddenly realized how funny I was. I was like a naked man lying in a confined space full of cameras. It scares me a lot.

Sitting in my chair, I wonder if the information explosion had side effects. My experience is certainly not unique, but the whole society has to think about the information age, what big data has given us, and its cost.

From the very beginning, Big Data has made people realize that this technology is destined to push the information age to a new starting point. Before big data, technology has not been perfected, information was more about the fast speed and wide range of information transmission, providing convenience. However, this is still not enough. Big data can enable retailers to grasp the market dynamics in real-time and respond quickly through algorithms. It can provide decision support for businesses to develop more accurate and effective marketing strategies. It can help enterprises offer consumers more timely and personalized services; in the medical field, it can improve diagnostic accuracy and drug effectiveness; in the public sector, big data can also make the government more efficient. We don't have to deny the advantages of big data.

However, the negative impact of big data on the public is also visible to the naked eye. Big data collects user information through social media and Internet platforms and uses algorithms to analyze user habits and behavior patterns. Users' privacy is entirely in the hands of Internet companies. Whether users' privacy is disclosed or traded can only depend on the state's supervision and enterprises' self-regulation. However, due to the imperfection of laws and the vast interest chain behind big data, big data development is now more like a train running at high speed without brakes, moving forward at high speed without buffering measures.

The New York Times article What You Don't Know About How Facebook Uses Your Data by Natasha Singer points out how these tech giants are using big data to make huge profits for themselves. "Facebook meticulously scrutinizes the minutiae of its users' online lives, and its tracking stretches far beyond the company's well-known targeted advertisements. Details that people often readily volunteer — age, employer, relationship status, likes, and location — are just the start. Facebook tracks both its users and nonusers on other sites and apps. It collects biometric facial data without users' explicit "opt-in" consent. And the sifting of users can get quite personal…… Among many possible target audiences, Facebook offers advertisers 1.5 million people "whose activity on Facebook suggests that they're more likely to engage with/distribute liberal political content" and nearly seven million Facebook users who "prefer high-value goods in Mexico." The tech giants are quietly stealing our privacy and freedom.

Meanwhile, more worrying is the tech big data monopoly, which is the most profound concern about the rampant use of big data. Companies like Facebook and Google trust the most valuable data because of their precise algorithms and user ecosystem. And the data is traded constantly among companies. The public's privacy and personal data sell like goods, only for the "convenience" and "technology" that companies claim to bring to their users. While these companies obtain the data legally and with users' consent, users are, in fact, unknowingly being affected in every aspect of their lives.

The most obvious is the company's big data adjustment algorithm to increase the APP addiction effect. This method enhances the user's viscosity, and the social media platform is more attractive. Still, it also makes the user oblivious to the growing number of APP they use time. This APP and social media bind their life, which is not a good thing.

Based on the analysis by the article This is Your Brain on Instagram: Effects of Social Media on the Brain, "Just like a gambling or substance addiction, social media addiction involves broken reward pathways in our brains. Social media provides immediate rewards — in the form of attention from your network — for minimal effort through a quick thumb tap. Therefore, the brain rewires itself, making you desire likes, retweets, emoji applause, and so on. According to TED, five to 10 percent of internet users are psychologically addicted and can't control how much time they spend online. Brain scans of social media addicts are similar to those of drug-dependent brains: There is a clear change in the regions of the brain that control emotions, attention and decision making." Before we know we addict to social media, our habits of thinking and acting are entirely absorbed in social media's pleasure. Users' dependence on and addiction to social media, specifically algorithmic, undoubtedly affects their lifestyle, supported by research and data. According to swaps, Twin & You: A Battle for Your Time by Trevor Haynes, a study from Harvard University, "If you've ever misplaced your phone, you may have experienced a mild state of panic until it's been found. About 73% of people claim to experience this unique flavor of anxiety, which makes sense when you consider that adults in the US spend an average of 2-4 hours per day tapping, typing, and swiping on their devices—that adds up to over 2,600 daily touches...... Although not as intense as a hit of cocaine, positive social stimuli will similarly result in a release of dopamine, reinforcing whatever behavior preceded it. Cognitive neuroscientists have shown that rewarding social stimuli—laughing faces, positive recognition by our peers, messages from loved ones—activate the same dopaminergic reward pathways. Smartphones have provided us with a virtually unlimited supply of social stimuli, both positive and negative. Every notification, whether it's a text message, a "like" on Instagram, or a Facebook notification, has the potential to be a positive social stimulus and dopamine influx." Companies such as Facebook and Google, which rely on advertising and content placement to make money, are naturally happy to see users wasting time on their peaceful apps. That's how they make money. Users' attention and time have entered a race among companies best at developing products that function as the brain's reward system.

In addition to the tech giants, what role do the state and government play in all this? Governments are well aware of the advantage of using big data on the Internet. The bearing capacity and transmission capacity of social network technology have significantly changed the scale, scope, and precision of information transmission in the digital age, enabling the government to directly listen to the public's voice to adjust its policies and guidelines. However, on the contrary, the government can also control and influence public opinion by creating public opinion and confusing public opinion through the "cyber troops." This means of controlling the masses through public opinion is like a "Pandora's Box," where the country will lose "real" democracy. The government seeks to maintain its rule through modern Internet technology. In the massive wave of public opinion, the public will be challenging to maintain a clear perception of things and rational judgment.

A report from Oxford University report "The Global Disinformation Order: 2019 Global Inventory of Organised Social Media Manipulation," by Professor Philip Howard, confirms there is indeed a “cyber troop” in the government's service. The report shows that "Organized social media manipulation has more than doubled since 2017, with 70 countries using computational propaganda to manipulate public opinion…… In 45 democracies, politicians and political parties have used computational propaganda tools by amassing fake followers or spreading manipulated media to garner voter support…… In 26 authoritarian states, government entities have used computational propaganda as a tool of information control to suppress public opinion and press freedom, discredit criticism and oppositional voices, and drown out political dissent……25 countries are working with private companies or strategic communications firms offering a computational propaganda as a service."

These studies demonstrate that the government plays an essential role in the use of modern Internet technology. When it comes to using big data to serve politics, we can see that both democratic and authoritarian countries have opened a "Pandora's Box" without exception. At the same time, it seems inevitable that governments and tech companies will work more closely together. Technology companies' products allow users to "selflessly" contribute data to the government's needs, and users' political views, stances, and political affiliations cannot be hidden from the eyes of modern Internet technology. By soliciting this data from tech companies, the government can "guide" users' thinking on social media, subtly changing their minds.

When we try to connect users' dependence on high-tech companies' products with the mining and reuse of users' data by state co-capitalists, we are surprised to find that history seems to repeat itself in a cycle. We are back in the Gilded Age. Two hundred years ago, in the Gilded Age, capitalists dug for gold by exploiting the people's labor at the bottom. The capitalists made their fortunes without work, while the people searching for gold only got enough to feed themselves. However, today, technology and procedural justice have stripped the "modern Gilded Age" of its bloody cloaks. Capitalists carry out data mining through users and rely on users' dependence on products to get data "offered" by users to complete the continuous accumulation of capital. Nothing seems to have changed. The state and the capitalists are like sharks, swimming in like people when they smell the blood of money. Universal values have not eased capitalism's essentially limitless pursuit of profit.

What's more, neoliberalism has contributed to surveillance capitalism. First of all, the government's neoliberal policies in the early days of the Internet's rise played down the government's role on the Internet, allowing monopolistic technology companies to take advantage of it. For example, "adopted as part of general telecommunications legislation in 1996. According to William Kennard, the best approach to policy, a chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), was appointed by Clinton. He was to allow the 'marketplace to find business solutions...' As an alternative to intervention by the government, "President Clinton's intention to change information transmission through the Internet was good. Still, it avoided any regulation of emerging economies and led to technology giants' reckless behavior on data mining when the era of big data came. In the early days of laissez-faire, the era of big data opened up. After that, capitalists continue to attract users through fixed-point delivery of information and "personalized content "as selling points.

Secondly, Neoliberalism's emphasis on the individual is easily exploited by surveillance capitalism. As Monbiot says, "Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling. A process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency." Emphasizing the importance of individual competitiveness in society makes the definition of "success" limited to how to obtain worldly life. Individuals are caught in endless competition. Society turns pity to blame for weak competitors, which is what the capitalists want to see. Surveillance capitalism provides personalized content to satisfy the neoliberal emphasis on the individual, the individual who consumes from the personalized content provided by the capitalist. So-called "personalized products," on the other hand, mine the data generated by consumers' purchases and attention to products. This closed-loop of profits allows the tech giants to reap huge sums of money from individuals.

Lastly, the "independent" thinking of individuals results in an asymmetry between individual thought and social mainstream thought. The network "tribes" people on the social platform and sends them to different groups and content according to their habits and interests through the algorithm. Users in a "tribe" communicate their values and gain recognition from others among a group of users who share the same values. In different "tribes," people have more and more divergences and disagrees with each other over time. While individuals seek identity in the "tribe," they also strengthen the values of self-identification. Each "tribe" and individual emphasizes their thoughts and their definition of values. This thinking of "self" rather than "independence" confuses social thinking and allows populism to spread on the Internet.

An article by Marina Elvira Ruiz etc., supports my claim. “He (Michel Maffesoli) theorized communities emerging within social media as 'neo-tribes' that facilitate the formation of archaic forms of community based on 'pre-rational,' 'pre-capitalistic' affective interactions. It is his contention that they open up a space for 'feeling something together' that represents an overcoming of some of the central categories of modernity, such as individualism and rationalism. However, while the community-building capacities of 'neo-tribes' are potentially liberating, they can also be exploited. The danger connected to the ‘re-enchantment of the world' constituted within 'neo-tribes' lies in the transformation of power conditioned by de-rationalisation: power takes the form of seduction, giving rise to populism which appeals to sentiments rather than rational arguments." In different "tribes," people have more and more divergences and disagrees with each other over time. While individuals seek identity in the "tribe," they also strengthen the values of self-identification. Each "tribe" and individual emphasizes their thoughts and their definition of values. This thinking of "self" rather than "independence" confuses social thinking and allows populism to spread on the Internet. "Tribe" and individual emphasizes its ideas and its definition of values.

When I look around my empty but camera-filled space, I am sick of the online world full of seemingly free but full of surveillance. However, I deeply understand that the age of information has brought people closer to each other. Compared with the past, our access to information has increased exponentially. We should not abandon web and social media use because of data mining and monopolies by tech giants. Instead, we should be thinking about ways to address the misuse of data by surveillance capitalism on people affected by Neoliberalism, cutting through the fog of personalized information, and finding ways to think genuinely independently.

As an institution that can control monopoly and the abuse of big data, it's time for the government to end the indulge in the Internet industry chain. It is imperative to perfect the relevant laws and regulations of the abuse of big data. The government should pay close attention to big technology companies in emerging technology companies’ annexation and the data sharing between big companies and use. While users enjoy the convenience of product and personalized push, they also consume product content as a consumer. Tech companies should not reuse this de facto consumer base, disrespecting users' privacy and an insult to democratic freedoms. Simultaneously, we naked people who are deeply affected by Neoliberalism should consider whether personalized content brings us independent thinking when we enjoy the convenience brought by the Internet. Do we influence the Internet, or did the Internet affect us? It should be reflected that the over-emphasis on freedom and the neglect of the role of society has deprived us of the human care and compassion that universal values deserve.

I want to end with what Henry Giroux said in the video "Neoliberalism, Youth, and Social Justice," He warns, “We have lost the language of compassion, and we've lost the public spheres that nourish it. We've lost a media that has any interest in it in a world where sovereignty is now corporate rather than political, and corporations define values in corporations define social relationships. Corporations define what matters in life. What matters is money. So you get sick." Competition is necessary and essential for capitalism to flourish, but a cold material society and a single definition of success do not make us democratic and free. Instead, it makes us instruments of capital. We can't avoid the big data era's impact on our privacy and freedom, but we need to stick to our values and clearly understand the nature of the era of big data. The only way to help us find ourselves in this era is to keep rational and think independently.

Works Cited

Singer, Natasha. “What You Don't Know About How Facebook Uses Your Data.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 11 Apr. 2018.

Maxwell, Amanda, et al. “This is Your Brain on Instagram: Effects of Social Media on the Brain.”

Stephen Hartley, et al. “Dopamine, Smartphones & You: A Battle for Your Time.” Science in the News, 4 Feb. 2021.

Oxford Internet Institute. “Use of Social Media to Manipulate Public Opinion Now a Global Problem, Says New Report.”

Starr, Paul. “How Neoliberal Policy Shaped the Internet-and What to Do About It Now.” The American Prospect, 2 Oct. 2019.

George Monbiot, “The Zombie Doctrine.”15 Apr. 2016.

Theory, Culture, & Society. “Neoliberation: The Self in the Era of New Media - Theory, Culture & Society: Global Public Life.” Theory, Culture Society | Global Public Life, Theory, Culture & Society | Global Public Life, 18 Nov. 2020.

Giroux, Henry. “Neoliberalism, Youth, and Social Justice.” YouTube, 27 Mar. 2014.