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Surveillance, anonymity and obedience

-- By ClaireCaton - 21 Nov 2020

People are naturally inclined to seek security. The Hobbesian social contract intervenes to ensure security by alienating individual freedoms. By entering into the social contract, people willing to live in a democratic society have accepted a limitation of their freedom in exchange for laws guaranteeing their security and the perpetuation of the social body. People therefore agreed to abide by man-made laws and obedience is necessary to ensure their safety.

But people likely behave differently when they are on their own than when they are in the public sphere. It goes from the way they dress, the way they talk, to whether they will abide by legal rules. People can find themselves in two different situations: when they are on their own, i.e. when they are not seen by others, they only have to deal with their self-consciousness; when they are outside of their private sphere, i.e. when they are facing public judgment.

If people comply with the rules only when being watched, then surveillance is a condition for obedience. If obedience is the way to social safety, people likely agreed to being watched. But surveillance through nowadays’ technology seems to be coupled with absence of anonymity. Are people willing to sacrifice anonymity in order to be safe? Is anonymity a hurdle to a peaceful social body? How does it influence our behaviors? Identity-shielding online and anonymity in general has the power to abet antisocial behavior and lead to a different set of manners than those which would occur in a transparent sphere. Being watched might be a condition for obedience (I) and being constantly identifiable prevents feeling of impunity (II).

Section I Surveillance, a condition for compliance with the law and pro-social behaviors

People are more inclined to obey rules and standards when they know they are being watched or recorded. A study of hand-washing among medical staff found that when the staff knew they were being watched, compliance with hand-washing was 55% greater than when they were not being watched1. Moreover, Daniel Batson’s experiment on moral hypocrisy and pro-social behavior2 showed that there is something about us as social being that encourages us to behave in moral ways when the sense of being observed is activated within us. The simple act of feeling that we are being observed is sufficient to provoke pro-social behavior. When we think of ourselves as unobserved, it is hard to act in conformity with moral norms. Therefore, we could argue that for the greater good of the social body and for it to remain disciplined, allowing the state to surveil people is preferable and even necessary.

However, modern technology has rendered surveillance so easy that individuals are not only being watched but they are also identified, thus losing anonymity. The modern society is structured in such a way that there are the equivalent of eyes in our smartphones and eyes in our computers and everywhere we go. States could argue that in order to provide the stability and safety to their citizens, they need their citizens to act in keeping with the laws, and a way to make them do so is to “provide” surveillance and destroy anonymity. States can claim that surveillance is required to correct the inclination on the part of human beings to act in anti-social way when being unobserved.

1. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16941318/ 2. https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/whats-wrong-with-morality-a-social-psychological-perspective/

Section II Anonymity, a gateway to impunity and anti-social behaviors

Being unobserved can make us act differently. But how would humans behave if no one knew who they are and if there were no consequences of their uncivil actions? Impunity, this idea of absence of punishment entails absence of fear. It can have greater power to alienate human behaviors than simply being unobserved. Freedom from punishment could be an incentive for people to speak their thoughts freely, but also to harm others. An example of this tendency is what happened with “Yik Yak”.

“Yik Yak” is a social media smartphone application launched in 2013 and shut down since. It was an anonymous messaging application that allowed people to post anonymous messages, with pseudonyms, that can be seen by anybody within a 5-mile radius. This application guaranteed impunity from any alleged wrongdoing, or the subsequent judgment associated with them. Feeling of freedom through the idea of being anonymous has led to vulgarity. H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man can also depict one way we could expect humans to act when they benefit from anonymity. By turning himself invisible, Griffin seems to secure an extensive form of freedom and impunity. Because he was invisible, Griffin does not need to worry about the consequences of his actions. He uses this freedom to commit anti-social acts, such as shooting a policeman and burgling.

Anonymity on the Internet has often revealed the darkest side of human beings. Anonymous threats made against students on “Yik Yak” are consequence of being offered the possibility to speak and do things without having to take responsibility. Online anonymity and pseudonyms allows people to let out what they really think beneath their social facade. But more disquieting is when anonymity in society is likely to unleash a human desire for impunity.

Conclusion

Being watched and identified influence our behaviors. Being totally free from punishment through anonymity can corrupt and alter moral principles, whereas the loss of anonymity might make many people more civil in their behavior and more pro-social in their actions.

But surveillance and absence of anonymity might go far beyond the conditions of the social contract. The idea of constantly monitoring citizens evokes features of totalitarian states. Nowadays, technology generally surveils in the name of providing safety. How much of our identity are we willing to give up in this process? Appropriate balance should be found between protecting anonymity and guaranteeing safety, because surveillance leads to fear, which leads to self-monitoring, which leads to a loss of free speech. We should neither be living in a fishbowl nor wearing the ring of Gyges.

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