For laid back lifestylers... with a sense of humour
GOT ISSUES 9
2019
The original Big Brother was a fictional character from George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. A symbol of a one-party state in which the rulers wield total power over the people, “for its own sake”. In the social order described by Orwell, everyone is under constant surveillance by the authorities, mainly by telescreens (sounds familiar), and people are continuously reminded by giant posters that “Big Brother is watching you”.
The term ‘Big Brother’ is so integral to our modern-day lexicon that it seems to have lost its sting. We might not see posters but there are cameras EVERYWHERE. Big Brother is no longer a synonym for the abuse of government power (the Brexit debacle has stolen the march on that debate), especially regarding civil liberties connected to mass surveillance. But the question remains: are we being watched? (YES) Who’s watching or listening? And what are ‘they’ doing with all that information? Do we even care if millennial technologies and increasing social media
trends encroach upon our personal privacy? Is society moving ever closer to an Orwellian state? While it’s hard to get the facts, every week public outrage is raised over new abuse. Remember the social media scandal of 2017, where Brexit votes were massaged via political advertising? And no one knew it was happening. The manipulation wasn’t uncovered until 2018 and showed extraordinary liberties taken by Cambridge Analytica: Facebook revealed that they could have harvested the personal data of 87 million people.
And did you know that in 2011 Microsoft patented a product distribution system with a camera or capture device that monitors the viewers that consume the product, allowing the provider to take “remedial action” if the actual viewers do not match the distribution license? Even your own laptop is watching you. What’s more, our mobile devices are always “awake,” passively listening for the appropriate command to activate, such as “Alexa,” or “Hey Siri,” or “O.K. Continues on page 2
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