Surveillance In 1984 By George Orwell

Imagine being in a world where your life is controlled or monitored and privacy becomes a thing of the past. These fears that were once disregarded as impossible are now a reality seeing as government and social media platforms can control and oversee every part of our lives. We see that mass surveillance is the premise of the novella, 1984, by George Orwell of how our lives can be monitored where anything and everything you say can be controlled. While Orwell wrote this Dystopian novella in 1948, most of his ideas are spot-on to what we see in our government today. 1984 portrays a society where the government has total surveillance over citizens using technology like telescreens, microphones, and spies to monitor its citizens. Compare this

The surveillance systems being used are Dataminr and Geofeedia, where Dataminr provides alerts and breaking events and Geofeedia uses location based monitoring (Gelardi). These surveillance systems are extremely concerning because this social media monitoring can lead to unconstitutional surveillance that can directly violate the first amendment. Continuing on with the surveillance systems, they aren’t even fully accurate so the reliability of a computer system can be the difference between whether someone gets arrested or not. Chris Gelardi, a publisher for the New York Focus, stated, “ The use of social media monitoring has been criticized by civil liberties advocates, who say it can lead to unconstitutional surveillance and violation of privacy”(Gelardi). The quote is referring to the New York Police Department using the previously mentioned surveillance systems and how this is a direct violation of their protocols. This furthermore shows how the power cannot be in the hands of the platform but in the peoples, if the user revolts together they can make it so the platform cannot take information. Tying this into how the rate of technology and computers have been advancing almost double every

This infringement of privacy shows how the government cannot be trusted in power because this sensitive information can be used independent content moderation. If government agencies are in control of these platforms, it can create a butterfly effect causing more political pressure on decisions. John Samples, publisher for Cato Institute, stated, “If the government were to regulate social media content moderation, it would be subject to political pressures and could silence dissenting voices”(Samples). This quote reminded me of the events that happened on January 6th and how former President Donald Trump was in a position of power and used that power to manipulate people into storming the capital. If government officials were able to control social media content, they can control and manipulate people’s minds. Using these different tools the New York State Police can control what they want their citizens to see allowing for different guidelines to be applied in no context. Chris Gelardi, a publisher for the New York Focus, stated, "The report notes that the New York State Police has not disclosed any guidelines or policies regarding its use of social media monitoring tools"(Gelardi). Disclosing the guidelines are a necessity for state officials because for all we know they could