The Limitations of Social Movements and the Increasing Impact of Digital Surveillance in the Age of Big Data

Abstract

Surveillance is one of the areas where digitalization is discussed intensely today. The phenomenon that can be called digital surveillance is generally discussed in the context of privacy, display, and access to personal information and around concepts such as synopticon, banopticon, and omnipticon. The relationship of digital surveillance with political economy and social movements is often neglected. When examined within the framework of the big data concept, it is seen that the individuals subjected to digital surveillance are categorized. Especially with the pandemic and the focusing of the states on surveillance technologies, the organizational opportunities of social movements are getting harder. The credit system in China is one of the most extreme examples of surveillance technologies. Investments in the metaverse universe add a dystopian fiction to the difficulties mentioned about social movements.