Bishnu Chaudhary

The classic by Orwell, 1984, first published in 1949, became an instant hit as the world had just seen the end of Nazis/ Fascists and was watching the rise of a totalitarian government under Stalin’s Soviet Union.
The significance of the book could have waned during the early 90s when the world saw the end of the Soviet Union and Apartheid in South Africa and the proliferation of democracies across the world.

Fast forward 25 years and the book holds no relevance greater than what it does today, thanks to the entrenched roots of the internet and social media-fuelled by smartphone ownership.
Contrary to all the conveniences and panaceas for humankind envisioned by its creators, it has resulted in a Frankenstein- possessing every sort of vice ranging from surveillance, espionage, infiltrating personal privacy to the commodification of individuals, cyberbullying and, worst of all, elongating the arms of the modern-day dictators that reach the dissidents living in distant lands.
The development of high-resolution cameras, face recognising systems, artificial intelligence and data analytics has further aided the cause of modern despots.
Orwellian lexicons like ‘Newspeak’, ‘Thought crime’, ‘Unperson’ and ‘Doublethink’ has come further alive with the unfolding of contemporary socio-political events around the world.

Analysis
Let us start with the social credit scoring system introduced in China in 2014. This analyses the credibility of individuals' public behaviour like jaywalking, traffic violations, their criticism of the government actions, failing to pay taxes on time and so on. On one hand, it awards those with higher scores with benefits like shopping discounts, waiver in deposit while buying or renting properties; on the other hand, it restricts low scorers from travelling, booking a flight, and banning their social media accounts.
Coming to Putin’s Russia, according to reports, in 2020, Russia was third in terms of the number of CCTV cameras per 1000 people. It reportedly spent 53 million USD on facial recognition technology in 2019 alone.

Media propaganda, regarded as one of Russia’s powerful weapons resurfaces time. For example, in 2016, when Sweden was undergoing debate to join NATO, the Russian propaganda machine flooded the Swedish public with the appalling rumour that NATO could use Swedish land to launch attacks without prior information and in case any NATO soldiers raped Swedish women, the perpetrators would be immune to the criminal charges.

Prince Salman of Saudi Arabia (popularly known as MBS) has upped the spending in surveillances, unleashed Social-media Army and even allegedly planted Pro-Saudi tech-expert inside Twitter itself. The acquisition of Pegasus, mobile-spying software by the Saudi Government from Israeli Tech Company in 2017 also explains a lot.
Besides the totalitarian governments, the media companies also hugely manipulate the thoughts of the general public. One such example is the brash, aggressive and religiously polarising television show broadcasted by Arnab Goswami. The most recent was wrongly blaming Muslims for the spread of the coronavirus in India.

The USA, the biggest champion of liberty and personal freedom, is not free from surveillance charges. The U.S. passed the Patriot Act immediately after the 9/11 attacks, stating the need to intercept any terrorism-related activities. The act would allow U.S. security agencies unrestrained rights and access to wire-tap, collect information on suspicious persons based on their cell-phone conversation, Email and Internet browsing histories, credit card usage, break-ins without the owner's permission and so on (the Act was substituted by the revised Freedom Act in 2015 as a response to the 2013 leaks by Edward Snowden).

Surveillance And Control
The scariest thing today, as John Keane states, is- the modern Despots have learned to customise themselves to a changing world. They no longer suppress their subjects with iron fists, but very cleverly, they invite them to submit and lead them to enjoy their powerlessness. They persuade and convince the citizens to obey the necessities in the name of freedom.
The new rulers manufacture cowardice and submission. Instead of using secret police, they use technology and media to cut off the political opposition, garner their calculated support through populist and attractive government policies and create a system of chaos while forwarding suspicious policies.
These new tyrants offer a taste of democracy, like concerted elections, no tolerance for corruption, public forum for participation, easy and quick review and complaint-lodging mechanisms for the government through the use of social media.

The fact is, those complaints get lost, rarely get noticed by the responsible authorities. As a result, the eternal status quo persists. Thus, Big Brother still exists, watching for all our actions, nudging us in particular directions, careful that we do not take any action or conspire that would oppose his eternal exercise of power over us.
The only difference is, the state does not have to pay for all the Winstons and thought policies today. We pay for surveillance that monitors and manipulates us. Earlier, the goal of the surveillance was to sustain the power of The Rulers. Now, it has transcended to large business companies maintaining their brand loyalty. If Orwell warned us of one type of Big Brother, our current reality presents us with multiple Big Brother from Facebook, Instagram to Amazon.

(Chaudhary is a student at the Department of International Relations and Diplomacy, TU. bishnu347@gmail.com)