by Philip Otieno

Marshall McLuhan’s’ prophesy on the present continued surveillance on individuals and the society in general in relation to the use of the new media is just a tip of the iceberg of his apocalyptic media theories that are shaping and forming basis for argument on new media.  

‘Electrical information devices for universal tyrannical womb-to-womb surveillance are causing serious dilemma between our claim to privacy and the communities need to know’, this statement by him, gives us food for thought as we try understand monitoring and data collection that has become custom to new media. Individuals, companies and governments are so much interested in what sites we visit, what sort of content we search for as well as the things we post, like and dislike.

Since the new media has become part in our routine life, surveillance through social media has taken center stage, where governments and telecommunication companies are in constant race to have more access to the big data sets. The popular story of Edward Snowden explains this race better. He was an American whistleblower who leaked classified information from National Security Agency (NSA). According to The Washington Post and The Guardian newspapers, he disclosed a series of global surveillance programs ran by the government in collaboration with telecommunication companies. His revelation sparks the beginning of understanding the secret world on surveillance, and even giving life to the discovery of more programs ran secretly. The story of Snowden is dual-faced, with some part of the public praising him to be a hero for his actions. Meanwhile criticism also has a side to his actions, some portray him as a traitor to his country. This just depicts the murky waters that holds us on the surveillance debate.

The new face of surveillance is disguised under social media tools we often use. Surveillance often done on our online activities. Algorithms are used to collect personal data. Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg in his testimony on April 2018, before the Congress admitted to the company suffering data leaks. Despite his admission the public were concerned about the elephant in the room which is, violation of privacy. Social media companies have been accused of using algorithms to only show content that the algorithm thinks are relevant to us. This has an effect on shaping our online experiences and lives. It is hazardous because our real lives are shaped based on bias stories twisted by the media to be “relevant” or grab our attention. We therefore typically live in a black box where we aren’t challenged by new ideas. Mr. Richard Feynman the renowned theoretical physicist’s argument “I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned” serves best for our black box era where we barely understand the secrets surveillance behind new media.

 Surveillance presents an acute dilemma as McLuhan predicted; we are tone between genuine good it brings, for example intelligence or the darker side of unknown to many where individuals’ data is used without consent and continued monitoring. Well, during such circumstances am tempted to think the Smoke signals used by my ancestor Ramogi of the rocky hills, would be much better for their inability to automate the picking of what content is “relevant” to see, hear and perceive.