Why we let Web 2.0 become the modern-day Stasi

''I know where everyone in this room has been the past year.'' Bram Bonné, a Flemish PHD student in computer science, tells the people present at his TEDx – talk. In this talk, he demonstrates effectively how the technical qualities of smartphones and web 2.0 violate our privacy. Bonné continues by telling one of the people in the audience has been to Bangkok, and must be an important person, for they had stayed in the Hilton hotel and also went to the Arctic. ‘’Your smartphone is sending out information to everyone who cares to listen, as it is looking for a network. Everyone with Wifi connection can access this data and modify it by pretending to be a network’’, he explains. ‘’Your privacy might be more important than you think yourself.’’

People living in the German Democratic Republic (East-Germany) must have been relieved when the Stasi was formally disbanded in February 1990, as the era of mass surveillance was thought to be over. In East–Germany, under communist regime, the Stasi (German ministry for state security) infiltrated every institution of society and every aspect of daily life between 1950 and 1989. "Even intimate personal and familial relationships were being monitored by both the Stasi themselves as a vast network of informants and unofficial collaborators, who spied on denounced colleagues, friends, and neighbours and even family members" (Cameron, 1998).

This article contemplates our culture of connectivity, as van Dijck calls it, the privacy issues that come with it reminding us of Stasi–Germany, and how we all contribute to it. I will emphasise that citizens are being nudged into sharing, resulting in a revival of the era of mass surveillance. With the advent of web 2.0, shortly after the turn of the millenium, we have traded our privacy for convenience to the point there is no way back. The consequences of web 2.0 for our daily lives and our privacy are more profound than many might have thought them to be.

The consequences of convenience and unawareness

"The internet has changed the concept of privacy, particularly the values people find necessary to ensure their dignity and autonomy as human beings" (Woo, 2006 p. 950). Nearly every activity online is reported and profiled. "Although the internet has been praised as an anonymous space, cookie software and other data–gatherers have proven this wrong" (Skok, 2000).

"In many instances, it is about a personal decision, often based on cost–benefit analysis" (Woo, 2006 p. 955), but we often do not have a choice. Websites are often built in a way they are only useful when people agree to their data being used by the platform or when personal information is actively given. We rely on the internet, as governments have digitalized many institutional functions such as correspondence with governmental institutions and the access to our bank accounts. "Many people find the profiling with the help of cookie technology to be an useful, welcome innovation" (Woo, 2006 p.955).

However, "respondents in surveys regarding privacy answer to be concerned about privacy on the internet. Still many of them are willing to sacrifice privacy if they receive some material compensation for revealing their personal information" (Woo, 2006 p.950). When we log in to a public network when having a drink in a bar, or when using the Wi-Fi at the airport when traveling we aren’t always aware that in the meantime companies are picking up the massive amounts of data we unconsciously disseminate by simply going online.

Yes, it is convenient to have free Wi-fi when we’re on the road, but we pay for it with our data, making us easy targets for personalised advertising. "In contemporary capitalist society, consumers voluntarily subject themselves to surveillance in order not to be excluded from practical benefits" (Woo, 2006 p. 956). Whitaker (1999) speaks of "a ‘participatory panopticon’: a consumer panopticon based on positive benefits where the worst sanction is exclusion from these benefits."

Data mining as a symptom of inequality

"The transformation from networked communication to platformed sociality, and from a participatory culture to a culture of connectivity, took place within a decade" (van Dijck, 2013 p.5). New services of Web 2.0 were perceived as a new global infrastructure. "As a medium coevolves with its quotidian users' tactics, it contributes to shaping people's everyday life, while at the same time this mediated sociality becomes part of society's institutional fabric." (van Dijck, 2013 p.6). The big platforms that have become a profound part of our daily life are designed to have us sharing as much as possible. When Facebooks’ Mark Zuckerberg promised to make the world ‘more open and transparent’, "a rhetoric eagerly adopted in the big platforms’ corporate mantra’s" (van Dijck, 2013 p.11), the promise was one – sided.

The inequality of power distribution through contemporary internet, becomes clear when noticing we fully depend  on it and lies in the difference in transparency between users and platforms.

Just like the citizens in East–Germany were demanded to share information about fellow citizens (one could not trust one’s own colleagues, friends and even family members), we share information of our friends and family because we are told it would make us ‘more social’. Being ‘social’ on platforms however, is ambiguous. "It means both the sharing we do with friends and family, and the platforms’ sharing of our data with third parties for financial gain" (van Dijck, 2013).

The sharing is ideological, like in the times of Stasi, but from another authority. Whereas the ideology of sharing used to come from the cold–war communist regime of the East Bloc to prevent ‘unwanted’ counter–ideologies to pop up, the ideology of sharing nowadays has a commercial cause. "Surveillance, spying, marketing and advertising all means the same nowadays; zero privacy for us and data–profits for them. The surveillance possibilities afforded by today’s communication technologies are beyond a Stasi–general’s wildest dreams" (Garton Ash, 2016 p.283).  However tight the Stasisurveillance network might have been, it was not nearly as tight as it is now. "The terrifyingly detailed personal information the big platforms such as Google and Facebook collect, are so easy to data – mine and collate because it has been designed that way. Our personal data is run and exploited by companies and accessed by governments" (Garton Ash, 2016 p.283).

The inequality of power distribution through contemporary internet, becomes clear when noticing we fully depend  on it. "It is far from transparent how Facebook and other platforms utilise their data to influence traffic and monetize engineered streams of information" (van Dijck, 2013 p.12). However when van Dijck talks about ‘their data’, we are in fact talking about ‘our data’, taken from us often unbeknownst by us through cookie software, the platforms’ protocols and the ideology of sharing.

What it comes down to is that we depend on the internet as a digitalised society and the platforms in return  various ways to monetize our data. The platforms with their cookie software, algorithms, targeted advertising and data profiling are the ones in charge and we are the ones depending on them like the citizens in East–Germany depended on their government. When knowledge is power and data is knowledge, and when data leads to both money and power, it all comes down to the same; inequality.

"Contemporary methods of power are methods whose ‘operation is not ensured by right, but by technique, not by law, but by normalisation, and not by punishment, but by control" (Foucault, 1980 p.89). This online power. "Network anonymity works as a critical device for mitigating power relations"(Woo, 2006 p. 966), so it is easy to understand why platforms want to nudge us into sharing as much identifiable information about ourselves as possible.

Social consequences of online privacy violation

"The norms for sharing private information and for accepting personalized advertisements in someone’s social space were very different in the early stage of web 2.0 space than they are nowadays. While users got used to new features, the norms for privacy and accepting monetisation were stretched accordingly" (van Dijck, 2013, p.19). Just as people in East–European countries became used to on – going privacy violation and had no choice but accepting the Stasi  know as much as possible about them, we as contemporary citizens appear to have no choice but to accept data to be shared.

The problem with privacy nowadays however, is not that we don’t have it (as much as we should), but that only a small group of people has control over our privacy.

"Privacy is deeply contextual and varies over time, countries, cultures, generations, social groups and from person to person" (Garton Ash, 2016, p. 287). The meaning of privacy being contextual The problem with privacy nowadays however, is not that we don’t have it (as much as we should), but that only a small group of people has control over our privacy. Problems  for examplewe are rejected for a job because a manager found our ‘nightlife photo’s’ , or when we miss important emails because they have become indistinguishable from targeted advertising emails.

Privacy International, a charity that challenges governments and companies that want to know everything about individuals, describes privacy as ‘’the right to control who knows what about you and under what conditions’’ (Garton Ash, 2016, p.289). Needless to say, we don’t know who knows what about us and under what conditions. An important change in privacy dynamics after the advent of web 2.0  the fact that "the ‘privacy invading entities’ have become broader but less identifiable" (Woo, 2006 p. 954). Developments of technology have increased the gap between information ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’. "The privacy divide", as Woo calls it, is "the gap between users’ level of consciousness regarding online privacy. This difference may result in a serious gap in the degree of  empowerment and self – employment" (Woo, 2006 p. 957).

Run by Erich Mielke, a veteran communist, the Stasi was one of the most feared and effective secret police forces in history. It recorded conversations, opinions, medical histories and any contact with foreigners, in millions of carefully numbered and classified files; the Stasi files, Adam Lebor tells the Guardian. It is funny in a strange way to notice that this recording and filing of the Stasi is not so much different  the contemporary data mining   (Garton Ash, 2016 p.284). Google too has a data base with all of our information (data) carefully classified. Although ‘anonymous’, so much data of us is being profiled, that we have become identifiable .

We should be aware that when we are online, we are not alone. Also, the internet doesn’t forget; anything we share online is like a tattoo (Garton Ash, 2016 p.290) Garton Ash (2016 p. 285) describes privacy as ‘the ability to choose what you want to keep private and then to have confidence that this choice will be respected’. Talking about being aware of this, Garton Ash says: ‘’I think back to Eastern European dissident friends in their kitchen, writing down cryptic messages on scraps of paper to avoid the listening microphones of the secret police.’’ (Garton Ash, 2016 p.285) 

Wikimedia Commons

Conclusion

A lot has changed since the fall of the Berlin wall. Modernism and Fordism were replaced by post – modernism and superdiversity, communist regimes lost territory and the internet has become our infrastructure of communication. What did not change very much however, is the way in which our privacy is still being violated by the ones who are in power. Whether it is a communist dictator or a small elite of internet platforms in charge, we are still being watched, followed, classified and targeted on an enormous scale. We are simply less aware of it.

In networked environments, one relates to the power imbalance since users don’t have a practical option not to provide personal information.  "The ideology of sharing has become embedded in our contemporary culture" (van Dijck 2013) and benefits incorporations and governments, confirming their power further. We become the product by (unknowingly) sharing our data and meanwhile pay for services with our privacy. Adam Lebor states in The Guardian how wonderful it is that the era of intrusive mass surveillance is over",  this is not the case at all.

If we don’t want to be tracked by companies, we have to take active measures to protect our online privacy. It can be done by making simple changes, for example by using an add blocker n your browser or by using Tor – browser. Learn how to use the privacy settings on your phone and your social media and remember that everything you share online is not only being shared with your friends on Facebook.

But in the end,  that the invasion of our privacy is inherently connected to the contemporary techno-economic system called 'surveillance capitalism'. Small patches and fixes will not change that system.

References

Cameron, J. (1998, July 20). Stasi - East German Government. Enceclopaedica Britannica.

Van Dijck, J. (2013) The culture of connectivity : A critical history of social media. New York: Oxford University Press.  

Foucault, M. (1980). An introduction. Vol 1. The History of Sexuality. New York: Vintage. P.89. Cited in: Van Dijck, J. (2013) The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media. New York: Oxford University Press.

Garton Ash, T. (2016) Free Speech. London: Atlantic Books.

Skok, G. (2000) ‘Establishing a Legitimate Expectation of Privacy in Clickstream Data’ , Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review 6: 61-85. Cited in: Woo, J. (2006). The right not to be identified: privacy and anonymity in the interactive media environment. New Media & Society, 8(6), p.955. 

Whitaker, R. (1999) The End of Privacy: How Total Surveillance is Becoming a Reality. New York: The New Press. Cited in: Woo, J. (2006). The right not to be identified: privacy and anonymity in the interactive media environment. New Media & Society, 8(6), p. 956.

Woo, J. (2006). The right not to be identified: privacy and anonymity in the interactive media environment. New Media & Society, 8(6), 949–967.