‘We are our own Panopticons’: On Social Media Influencing Public Behaviour While Being Unaware of Its Role in the Process.
Summary
In an age where social networking platforms possess the ability to set the political discourse of a society, how exactly did these platforms rise to gain so much power over humans is a discussion that is being carried out everywhere. In contrast to much existing studies on how platforms pre-mediate most of human actions and repercussions, this article attempts to argue against the popular notion of platforms being in full control of how the public engages with their affordances. The article attempts to make a statement that social networking platforms many-a-times modify public behaviour and bring about social changes, while being completely nescient of their role in the process.
Facebook as a Tool for Social Change
Since the advent of social networking platforms in the early 2000s, the likes of Facebook and Twitter have grown exponentially and have become an integral part of our daily life. Among the many usages and affordances of these platforms, they have been utilized significantly to socialize, chat, consume information and create social awareness. Facebook and Twitter played a significant rolein the Arab Springs that started in 2010, a series of revolutions where the authoritarian regimes of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya etc., were ousted by the pro-democracy protestors. During the course of these revolutions, Facebook and Twitter were effectively put to work in order to facilitate communications and interactions among ground-level activists and like-minded citizens. Hashtag trends on Twitter were initiated and Facebook groups were created to organize demonstrations, raise awareness and spread the word of democracy. This particular case where social networking platforms came in handy to overthrow authoritarian regimes was praised enormously by the global media. Another case where these platforms played a significant role in creating awareness regarding a social concern was in 2017, when hashtag #MeToo messages flooded Facebook and Twitter as an online movement against sexual harassment faced by millions of women in the world. The hashtag was popularized by American actress Alyssa Milano on Twitter in October 2017 and was tweeted nearly 20 million times in a span of one year, as reported by a Pew research. What is particularly commendable about the ilk of Facebook and Twitter is not whether a social campaign carried on or through them have been successful or not, but the very fact that they have given people a voice in the face of authorities is. While legal actions and investigations against many accused of #MeToo are yet to be initiated, the campaigns’ success came in it amplifying the voices of distressed and mirroring the magnitude in which women increasingly lead life in an undesirable environment.
The Story so far and the Article’s Aim
A lot has been talked about how users of social networking platforms utilize the tools and affordances of it in several innovative ways; how these users go the extra mile to combine different tools of a particular platform or variant tools from different platforms to act towards the betterment of society. On the contrary, the volatility of technology and how the advent of social media has paved way for vices in the society has been focused too. Much academic work has also been done on the design and algorithmic aspects of social networking platforms and their ability to modify public behaviour; how these platforms prompt users to take specific actions through their interface or affordance. John Cheney-Lippold in his ‘New algorithmic identity’ talks about the idea of ‘soft-biopower’ and how platforms work not by the coercion of disciplinary power, but through seduction or persuasion. Karen Yeung on the importance of algorithms, discusses the concept of ‘Hyper-nudge’ and how the architecture of an algorithm can play a role in regulating or controlling public behaviour.
With a framework consisting of theories from the studies of new media platforms and their affordances, the present article intends to take a socio-technical approach to Facebook and argue that the platforms ability to modify public behaviour is not always premediated. Contrary to the popularly held belief in the academic circles that the designers of a platform are in full control of a user’s will and how he/she/they interact with the affordances, the article argues that the behavioral modification aspects of Facebook are at times totally unknown, both to the platform and its users. In other words, a platform’s ability to prompt a user to take specific actions towards the betterment of the society many-a-times works in a highly discreet manner and goes unnoticed; the platform itself being unaware of it working in such manner to control public behaviour.
To achieve the aforementioned, the article attempts to juxtapose Philosopher Michel Foucault’s interpretation of the 18thcentury institutional building ‘Panopticon’ with the structural setting and design of Facebook, in order to compare, contrast and shed light on the behavioral modification aspects of both the entities and how a person influenced to them is psychologically prompted to act in a more humane and acceptable manner. The major difference being, the actions of a person are premediated in the panopticon but are the opposite in Facebook.
Bentham, Foucault and the Panopticon
English philosopher Jermey Bentham, famously regarded as the father of modern utilitarianism envisioned a prison model named ‘Panopticon’ in the year 1787. The Panopticon was a prison designed to exert constant surveillance on the prisoners and morally reform them in the due course, while using the least of resources and making the best out of the architecture. “Before you look at the plan, take in words the general idea of it. The building is circular. The apartments of the prisoners occupy the circumference. You may call them, if you please, the cells.”says Jeremy Bentham in his description of the penitentiary design (The works of Jermey Bentham 1843). The idea of Panopticon was to exercise control over the prisoners by observing them from a central tower without them being able to know if they were being observed at all or not at a given point of time. This obscurity that prevailed among the prisoners was supposed to make them stay cautious at every point of time and conduct themselves in a manner that would please the observers. Thus, with just one guard at the helm (or none at all), the prisoners could be brought to effectively behave themselves. Bentham also noted that this concept of ‘oppressive self-regulation’ could fit into many other social settings like schools, industries, hospitals etc. Philosopher Michel Foucault reflects on the idea of ‘Panopticon’ in his 1975 book Discipline and Punish, and sheds light on how modern disciplinary societies have/had moved away from requiring to assert power and control on it’s people physically to asserting it in a more psychological manner; the model of ‘oppressive self-governance’ as observed in Bentham’s panopticon.
Facebook: A Virtual Panopticon
Facebook, at a structural level, resembles the panopticon and it’s abilities to modify public behaviour in a highly significant manner. “Any social networking platform has a set of affordances and constraints defining its properties and how it should be used” (Davis & Chouinard 241). “Design of the platform and the algorithmic design in particular play a very important role in selecting what information is considered most relevant to its users and act as a crucial feature of users’ participation in public life” (Gillespie 167). “This design can also be used as an instrument to control or regulate public behaviour” (Karen Yeung 120).
When these platforms are at their initial stages of development, a lot is brainstormed on how many intended or unintended ways can the platform be put to use for. While the designers of Facebook might have predicted its affordance of connecting people for a cause and sparking discussions, it is an easy assumption to make that they might not have thought about its role as a powerful tool for pro-democracy dissenters of the Arab world. Thus, “the power that lies in the hand of designers is crucial as they can enable and constrain certain action possibilities through their design choices” (Bucher & Helmond 6). However, it is again to note that this article will further not deal with those possible predictions the designers had with regard to Facebook’s affordances, but, with those ways in which Facebook unknowingly played a significant role in the betterment of society. In other words, mediating a social change, while not realizing the role in the process.
Facebook in its simplest definition is a platform for online social networking and building connections. The platform currently boasts of having 2.4 billionmonthly active users and is still growing at an enormous pace. To distinguish oneself from the crowd, Facebook allows each of its users to build an own identity of theirs. This identity, that is usually reflected on the ‘profile page’ of the user, contains his/her/their profile picture, cover picture, a short bio consisting of the academic and professional whereabouts of the user etc., the profile also displays the posts shared by the particular user. This identity of the user, particularly the profile picture users choose to represent themselves are in the discretion of none but the users themselves. If we juxtapose Facebook and the panopticon, there are a few similarities and a few contrasts that can be noted. To talk about the infrastructural aspects of these two entities, Panopticon is a social-setting, perhaps a concrete-physical building that affords a centralized way to observe the inmates of the building. On the other hand, viewing from a user’s perspective, Facebook too would qualify as a social setting, but the need for a ‘physical space’ here is eliminated. Facebook is a virtual space that too affords observation of an user, however the observation here is not conducted by one single central figure, but many different users, who could be both the observers and the observees. Hence, it can be noted that the Panopticon lacks an inmate-to-inmate observation system and Facebook lacks a physical space, but both the entities are similar in their functioning as a space for observation and their larger role as social settings. However, it is to be noted that on Facebook, the user is not being directly observed, but a digital-double of the user, or the identity a user has created to represent oneself on the digital world is being observed.
As noted by Foucault, Panopticon as an institution works as a mode of power and a tool for psychological control of those influenced to it. The concept of oppressive self-regulation (here, behavior modification) plays a crucial role as the prisoners are self-motivated to modify their behaviour considering there might always be an eye on them. Hence, it becomes essential for the prisoners to conduct themselves in way that is considered to be acceptable, regardless they are interested in behaving in such a manner or not. A user on Facebook is subjected to several gazes, Facebook’s affordance to forge online friendships, share pictures, like and comment on posts etc., become a user’s extended identity apart from their profile. The ‘news feed’ section of Facebook works as journal which displays images shared by a user, the profile pictures changed, posts liked, and the comments made etc., A user here, just like the prisoners in panopticon is under supposed constant observation by other users. Alike the prisoners of panopticon, users on Facebook too cannot judge if their posts and profile as a whole are under constant observation or being observed at all, hence it becomes important for a user to presume they are being observed and judged, subsequently conduct their self in a way that pleases the observers. The important thing here to note is that almost every task a user carries out on Facebook, tasks as simple as liking a post, is not just a task, but a performative act; an act that is being observed and judged, hence, it becomes a user’s duty to perform well (here, self-regulate or modify behaviour), a psychological stress is exerted on the user to perform in a way that is normally accepted or is popular, regardless the user ethically or morally complies with it or not.
To get a clearer picture about the behavioral modification aspects of Facebook, an example of a current humanitarian crisis happening in Sudan and the way social media reacted to it can be taken. A few months ago, social media was flooded with a wave of plain blue profile pictures accompanied by a hashtag #BlueForSudan. Millions of Facebook users changed their profile pictureto a plain blue image to express solidarity against the exploitation of human rights by the Sudanese authorities. Following the political unrest in the country, many pro-democracy activists had been killed by the military and in the month of June 2019, a pro-democracy protestor named Moahammed Hashim Mattar was shot dead by the authorities as he was trying to guard two females from the gunshots. The colour Blue, which supposedly was Mattar’s favorite colour and his profile picture on various social media handles was co-opted by the users of internet as their identity to raise awareness about the hundreds of protesters who were dead or were going to be dead if the crisis prolonged. This response by the users of Facebook also came from a vantage point that the global news media was almost silent on the atrocities happening in Sudan, hence it was up for the general public to raise awareness and express solidarity against the inhumane activities. Facebook’s structure here plays an important role. All those profile pictures changed to blue indicated a user’s character and concern towards the issue, as a regular user of Facebook, when a person observes thousands of people identifying with a social cause, the popular notion here to support the cause becomes something that is ethically and morally right and the urge to identify oneself with the crowd that’s contributing towards the cause increases exponentially. Eventually, a person tends to educate oneself on the issue and change his/her/their profile picture (here, modify behaviour) to identify with the crowd that is regarded as being ethically and/or morally right. This affordance of Facebook, where users are self-motivated to bring changes in their identity and things they identify with, knowing they are being observed, talks about how the panopticon’s properties of modifying behaviour work effectively in the realm of Facebook too. This can also be looked from a perspective of ‘Bandwagon effect’, a psychological phenomenon that persuades people to do something for the simple reason that everyone else around them is doing. Thus, it can be argued that the structural design of Facebook is involuntarily compatible with the bandwagon effect as it unknowingly prompts people to modify their behaviour for the greater good of the society. However, counter arguments may arise that the observation exerted in panopticon is totally different from the one in Facebook. While observation is imposed in the former setting, the same is sought in the latter setting, but, the fact that both these entities psychologically modify a person’s behaviour either by imposed or sought observation highlights their similarities and proves why Facebook is indeed a panopticon of the virtual world.
To be noted
A major takeaway from juxtaposing Facebook as a platform with the panopticon and identifying the similarities is to learn how James Gibson’s idea that“the world is perceived not only in terms of objects, shapes and spatial relationships but also in terms of object possibilities for action (affordances)” can be extended to those possibilities or affordances that are unknown to both the users and designers themselves. What is notable here is the fact that sometimes, the affordances work so covertly that they are neither visible and known to the designers nor to the users, but still tend to leave a lasting mark either on the user or on the society as a whole. The way in which Facebook modified user behaviour in the Sudanese episode and the millions of profile pictures that turned blue and brought the world’s attention highlights how Facebook unknowingly (to itself and its users) helped in shedding light onÍ the issue that the global media failed to cover in its initial days. The major part here is played by the way in which Facebook has been designed, design here may mean both the broader infrastructural setting of the platform and also the design and architecture of algorithms. One major point to be noted here is how the ‘architecture’ of a platform plays a crucial role in shaping public behaviour, while the architects or those who designed it themselves are unaware of their role.
On a closing note
It is important to address the limitations of this article and acknowledge the fact that juxtaposing Facebook with the panopticon can also highlight the privacy concerns with regard to the social networking platform. The very fact that the ‘observation’ of a Facebook user discussed in the article can also be viewed in a way that the users are being surveilled and hence invasion of their privacy. The behavioral modification and self-regulation aspect of Facebook too can be viewed as a mode of privacy invasion and a threat to the user’s free will. However, while these ideas are highly crucial, they currently remain irrelevant as the article intends to talk about Facebook in a positive light and highlight the way in which it has been designed to bring the best out of a user and subsequently contribute towards the society’s betterment, while it not realizing its very role in the process.
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