Sometimes to deal with challenges that result in constructive development one must face the truth for what it is, look at the worst case scenario and even hypothesise to gauge the status quo and what, perhaps, we ought to do. As the living homo sapiens we must acknowledge that we have entered a period of uncomfortable truths which call for responses that equate to the challenge we face.
The 1984 novel by George Orwell (True name – Eric Blair) is like the author walked from what was a future to (1949: date of publication) predict a period of complete authoritarianism.
In the pantheon of dystopian warnings, 1984 stands tall as a cautionary tale of totalitarian control and the erosion of individual freedom. Though this novel was written in the earlier half of the 20th century, it is worth noting the futuristic hypothesis about what the world may, in the long run, turn into.
But as they say, every story is a subjective snapshot. Whilst Eric Blair wrote this piece inspired by what he opined on Nazist Germany regarding what was referred to as World War 2 and Europeans at the same time running a totalitarian regime across Africa, the book contains some inescapable similarities to the status of what is referred to as social media today. It seems to be global in character which speaks to totalitarianism as a general concept than a particular episode or for a specific region. It may be to an extent but there are chances that we are going through Orwell’s 1984.
Are we not living or partly living or indirectly living or fully living this dystopian dilemma as represented in ‘1984’. Though it may be debatable on who the authoritarian’s identity is but I can say, with sufficient certainty, that there are some pointers.
IS BIG BROTHER COMING THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA?
What was once a fictional nightmare has begun to seep into our reality, manifesting in the ubiquitous presence of social media and the bizarre spectacle of the Big Brother show.
Fellow members of the human race let’s get real. Life is no longer as straightforward as it ought to be. Social media has become the ultimate telescreen that watches and listens to our every move. We willingly surrender our private lives and share our intimate details with a voyeuristic audience that includes peeping toms.
‘This is Big Brother’. That voice of instruction is yelling instructions or isn’t it?
Indeed, Big Brother is watching and we are stars in his show! The reality Television phenomenon, Big Brother, is a twisted manifestation of the 1984 Orwellian surveillance state, where contestants trade their freedom for fame and fortune. One could argue that contestants compete to be the best citizens of the foretold 1984 totalitarian and authoritarian regime.
Let us explore the unsettling parallels between the 1984 novel, the rise of social media, the disturbing phenomenon of the Big Brother show and the conformance by a homo sapiens chapter that seems willing to trade its freedom for entertainment and aggrandisement. Are we living in a world where the surveillance state is our new definition of utopia? Does social media not destroy individuality and truth? Put differently – does it not create an impression that targets are living a whole when they are confined in silo-chambers that influence both their conscience and subconscience? Do we recognise if we are being influenced or not?
TOTALITARIANISM (LIVED AND) FORETOLD
Orwell’s 1984 has an unapologetically totalitarian regime. When i speak about a regime, in this context, I am referring to those who are in control of the social space whether politically, economically or otherwise. The regime possesses the most extreme powers to exercise absolute control over its citizens, crushing individuality and freedom. And again, citizenry is related to those affected by the regime and they could be national or global recipients.
The Orwell foretold totalitarianism is characterised by the regime’s omnipresence, reception of the authority and compliance.
OMNIPRESENCE
Big brother’s eyes don’t blink in the 1984 novel and the reality television show called Big Brother.
Both on 1984 and on the TV show Big Brother’s telescreens are always watching, always listening to your every move even when you are sleeping or unconscious. Even though the novel was based on two way communication, the basis was control of each individual.
Telescreens have some very interesting similarities to social media showing certain attributes of omnipresence. Every like, comment and share on social media is a data point, feeding the surveillance beast. Your online activity is the modern equivalent of availability. Companies are the puppeteers or mini-big brothers pulling strings to keep you engaged.
This is surveillance on the 1984 context.
PANOCTICON EFFECT
As targets we have become victims of the Panocticon Effect.
Persons modify their behaviour in response to perceived surveillance, often resulting in self-censorship and conformity. Social media users are increasingly aware of being monitored and tracked. The notion that one is constantly being watched can lead to a state of perpetual obedience because individuals seek to avoid censure or repercussions. This raises important questions about the role of power and control in digital media messaging.
The Panopticon Effect in social media is exacerbated by the collection and analyses of vast amounts of personal data, often done without the users’ full understanding or consent. This has significant implications for individual autonomy, privacy and freedom of expression. They will send you a thesis of ‘terms and conditions’ which you will accept without fully understanding the repercussions.
The opaque nature of the data-driven decision-making processes does create a sense of powerlessness among users, who may feel that their online experiences are being shaped by unseen forces.
Social media has elements of theft of individuality who seem willing to part with their privacy and autonomy.
‘WAR IS PEACE. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH’
Misinformation is the central driver behind Big Brother wherein citizens are to redefine their understanding and start believing that war is peace and that an ignorant citizen is strong.
Propaganda is defined as the dissemination of information, ideas or rumours for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, cause or person. It can involve biased or misleading information, often used to influence public opinion. It shapes narratives and controls discourse.
Propaganda plays a huge role in a totalitarian state.. The Party (1984 Novel) commanded by the Minister of Thruth defined what the truth is and used propaganda to control people’s thoughts, manipulate reality and maintain power. Slogans like “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength” are a living philosophy for the subjects.
1984 speaks of Thoughtcrime, Newspeak and Doublethink as the tools used for oppression and propaganda, wielded by the Party to subjugate the masses.
Doublethink
Doublethink is based on making subjects believe two contradictory phenomena simultaneously. This mental gymnastics includes believing propaganda whilst knowing that it is false. It’s very thought provoking because it suggests that the human mind is willing to ingest ills whilst knowing that they cause sickness.
The human mind is caught between a rock and a hard place. Persons share sensational headlines, advocate for free speech whilst calling for censorship and champion authenticity while curating fake online personas. The phenomenon of doublethink on social media can be likened to feigning familiarity with song lyrics, where individuals pretend to know the words while secretly unsure. This pretence is a manifestation of the human tendency to project a certain image online.
In reality, people may only partially understand or completely fabricate their online personas, mirroring the concept of doublethink. By doing so, they navigate the complexities of social media, where appearances often take precedence over actual knowledge or truth. What can one really believe about today’s human beings?
Doublethink has gone mainstream. Fake news are what’s popular on social media. ‘Kaizer Chiefs signs Kyllian Mbappe’ – that story will sell like hot cake and people will entertain it even though they know that it’s not true and dismiss the truth as prooaganda. Everyone knows that this is not true but they will run helter-skelter to click on that article which will make Big Brother earn quite a figure from advertisers. Misinformation spreads like wildfire whilst information walks at a tortoise pace.
It’s strange the extent to which people can go to entertain a story even when they know that it’s not true. That is why companies under attack must be alive to these and protect their customers from Big Brother. Problem exists when even these businesses, as a basis, are economical with the truth. In that case, the target market is being exchanged between various Big Brothers.
It’s as if the entire internet is one giant echo chamber, where contradictory truths coexist and the very notion of objective reality is up for debate. This is the Doublethink Dilemma, lines between truth and falsehood are blurred and the loudest voices win – no matter how absurd their claims may be.
Thoughtcrime
Based on 1984, thoughtcrime is the unwritten rule of self-censorship that has gone mainstream, where individuals police their own thoughts and opinions to avoid social ostracism or online backlash.
It’s the mental equivalent of walking on eggshells, where people refrain from expressing dissenting views or genuine thoughts, lest they be labelled as problematic or extremist. This is the suppression of genuine expression which has led to a culture of fear, where people believe in one thing but hide that to advocate for censorship. Sometimes they believe in authenticity while creating fake online personas.
In a comparable way to doublethink, expressing true thoughts tend to lead to social repercussions and conforming to prevailing views can lead to internal conflict. The difference from Doublethink is that with the latter the fully believes in both contradictory messages.
Thoughtcrime is the ultimate form of self-censorship, where individuals silence themselves to avoid being ostracised. It is Big Brother based companies that will, as a communication strategy, facilitate the attainment of that kind of ostracism by containing their customers within a bubble of untruths whilst encouraging a negation of all truths that may reduce their sales.
This creates a culture of performative acting to ger attention, where people pretend to be outraged or offended, rather than genuinely engaging with differing perspectives in a persuasive and constructive approach. This is where individuals feign outrage or support while secretly unsure of their own opinions. This pretence is a manifestation of the human tendency to project a certain image online, even if it means compromising one’s own valuesm
Thoughtcrime stifles genuine debate and free expression. It leads to an erosion of intellectual diversity and the homogenisation of thought.
Newspeak
Newspeak was designed to set the agenda and control thoughts, expressions and views on 1984. It made dissent impossible. Newspeak worked on surveillance or omnipresence, distortion, propaganda and all methods that had to do with influencing people’s minds.
Newspeak facilitates doublethink and thoughtcrime as in tge social media context it has infiltrated our online discourse, with euphemisms and loaded language used freely to manipulate and deceive. Words are twisted, deliberately obfuscated in meanings, distorted, redefined and truth is the first casualty. It’s a linguistic labyrinth, where Orwell’s fictional Newspeak has morphed into the doublespeak of modern politics, advertising and online discourse – and we are all struggling to keep up.
In this Orwellian landscape, words like freedom are used to justify oppression and security is invoked to legitimise surveillance. The goal of Newspeak is to limit the range of thought, to make certain ideas and concepts unthinkable and to render people docile and unquestioning. I’m one of those who believe that questioning and asking questions is crucial to development as it is evolutionary, revolutionary and constructive.
On social media, Newspeak manifests in hashtags where language is stripped of its meaning and used as a tool for propaganda. The proliferation of buzzwords and jargon, designed to sound impressive but lacking in substance, further contributes to the erosion of meaningful communication. As a result, people are left with a lexicon of empty phrases and clichés, unable to articulate their thoughts or engage in genuine dialogue.
The use of emojis also limits the true value of the messages as it is not clear if the sender and the receiver understand the message similarly or if the sender means what those pictures mean. The use of abbreviations like ASAP, OMG, etc is part of the social media newspeak that has removed the human element from social media communication. Therefore using emojis, alphabets and the social media abbreviations is a thought controlling process as the subjects use the social media lexicon to interpret and, therefore, have their thoughts controlled.
By doing so, those who control the lexicon are able to narrow people’s interactive processes. Limiting language controls future thoughts and even thoughts about the past.
By limiting thoughts they also limit emotions and imagination. Lovers no longer express the meaning and depth of their love as common emoji define the preferred words from the Social media lexicon. Indirectly and unconspicuously, social media users have become robots as they remain obsessed with images. Ask a person why he is a fan of one football team he or she is less likely to give you a convincing reason except that it runs in his veins. That is the power of thought control.
Like in the 1984 Newspeak, social media avails applications for people to enhance their picture facial appearances, most times with the user unaware, using features of a certain personality that the users are encouraged to try and look like. This is one of the saddest chapters in human development.
When social media evolution was at its earliest, people were excited about MMSs which had a picture element. Actually, for human beings a picture no longer mean thousand words but a million.
Social media is a method that, through its newspeak version, decision makers can make people comply with unlegislated directives. It can be the worst form of human manipulation. The consequences are striking – a populace that is increasingly refuse to think critically or to engage in rational discourse is emerging.
Newspeak facilitates the loss of the truth in a sea of manufactured outrage and misinformation. The very fabric of our language is being rewired and with it, our capacity for independent thought is painfully getting buried.
ARE WE SURRENDERING OUR FREEDOM TO ENTERTAINMENT?
Again, consider the reality TV phenomenon, Big Brother. Contestants willingly submit to 24/7 surveillance, sharing intimate details of their lives with a voyeuristic audience. The show’s popularity speaks to our collective fascination with the darker aspects of human nature and our willingness to surrender our privacy and autonomy for the sake of entertainment.
Social media platforms gather vast amounts of user data, including location, interests and interactions. This data is used for targeted advertising, often without the target market being aware. Every click, like and search is monitored and recorded.
PRIORITISED CONTENT
Social media has gotten us stuck in a filter bubble. We are sipping from the same cup, getting fed what they want us to hear and missing out on the real tea.
They are giving us headlines designed to get us hooked, shying away from the truth.
WE HAVE MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS
What’s strange is that modern day persons using social media, just like the ones on the fictional 1984, are aware that they are being monitored. Are they, perhaps, enjoying the attention?
The future remains unclear.
Are we willing to acknowledge the parallels between our online lives and the surveillance state? Can we see the telescreens in our pockets, the gadgets that are shaping our reality or are we too distracted and too entrenched in our digital echo chambers? The main question is, will we wake up before it’s too late?
Further, social media is likely to become even more integral to daily life, with virtual and augmented reality experiences becoming more prevalent. AI-driven activity and personalised advertising will probably increase, making it even harder for users to distinguish between reality and tailored content. Deepfakes could challenge the notion of truth online, exacerbating misinformation issues. As tech giants continue to grow, there’s a possibility of increased regulatory scrutiny and potential fragmentation of the social media landscape.
Expect stricter content moderation policies, potentially leading to increased censorship concerns. The lines between social media, online shopping and financial services might blur further, with platforms integrating more services and potentially becoming primary hubs for commerce and identity.
Governments and companies will likely continue to leverage social media for surveillance and influence, making online freedom and privacy hot topics. Ultimately, the future of social media will hinge on how societies balance innovation with regulation, freedom with security and openness with protection.
Let me conclude by saying Big Brother or Social media or whichever way you prefer to call it is any component, whether it is governments or businesses or influencers, who have climbed the stairs to a point where society follows him or her or them blindly attempting to define normalcy through the latter’s distorted definition of reality.
As you enjoy using your advanced gadget remember that ‘Big Brother is watching you!’
Please read part III.
Ruo ruo!!
