According to Yuval Noah Harari the “covid crisis” was a watershed moment in terms of surveillance and personal data. During a panel discussion at the 2020 Athens Democracy Forum, Harari was asked what were his fears and concerns about digital surveillance. He said televisions not only know what we’re watching but could also know how we feel while watching it.
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This article is a reprint. It was originally published on 6 March 2023.
The 2020 Athens Democracy Forum was held on 30 September 30 – 2 October 2020, as a virtual event. The Forum was organised for the second year by the Democracy & Culture Foundation, in association with The New York Times and under the Patronage of H.E. the President of the Hellenic Republic, Ms. Katerina Sakellaropoulou.
When people look back at the “covid crisis,” Harari told the Forum’s panel, the thing they will remember is that this was the moment everything went digital, when everything became monitored and “that we agreed to be surveilled all the time.”
“This is the moment when surveillance started going under the skin … I think the big process that’s happening right now in the world is the ability to hack humans to understand deeply what’s happening within you … Having the ability to really monitor people under the skin this is the biggest game changer of all,” he said.
Further into the discussion, he described emotions such as anger as a “biological phenomena … a biological pattern in your body.”
With this kind of surveillance, of what’s happening under the skin, “you watch the big president, a big leader, gives a speech on television,” he said, and “the television could be monitoring you and knowing whether you’re angry or not, just by analysing the cues, the biological cues, coming from your body,”
“So now people are now watching us online all over the world – this conversation now – maybe even right now the people who are watching us are being watched and analysed.
“It’s not just that we know you’re watching this … we also know how you feel.”
To begin to understand the power of surveillance through our televisions (“TV”) and how it’s done, it’s worth reading an essay written in 2018 by Ananda Mitra and published in IntechOpen in 2019.
In her essay, Mitra argued that TV, originally the conduit for offering passive narratives to the audience, is transforming into a tool that can watch over the audience and construct a dynamic narrative of the audience, thus operating as a tool for surveillance.
The following are excerpts from Mitra’s essay. You can read her full essay ‘The Future of Television’ HERE.
Watched by TV
In February 2018, an analysis by the reputed magazine Consumer Reports announced that their testing revealed that the increasingly ubiquitous “smart TV” was capable of “watching” the viewer and keeping a detailed record of the viewer’s TV watching patterns and related behaviour. As more of smart devices find a place in the average home, there are other gadgets that can work in tandem with smart TVs to perform the task of “watching.”
Consider, for instance, the Alexa device that responds to voice commands to perform simple tasks, including connecting with a smart TV to control the smart TV. All such devices and functions rely on the fact that these devices always “surveil” their environment – watching with built-in cameras, listening with built-in microphones, and capturing data with built-in sensors. Real people occupy the space that is under the surveillance of these devices.
It is useful to briefly consider the way in which the process of surveillance has been examined over a period of time. The practice of surveillance has been around since the times that people wanted to “watch over” others. The need to watch has most importantly been related to the notion of security where the watcher has been concerned about the fact that the watched poses a threat to the interests of the watcher. Those interests could be intertwined with the interests of the watched as well; thus, the process of watching becomes particularly important to maintain a sense of order within a specific societal system. Indeed, this perspective was aptly summarised by Mike Rogers, the chairman of the intelligence committee in the American House of Representatives, following the embarrassing report in 2013 that the National Security Agency (“NSA”) was surveilling the phone conversations of European leaders such as Angela Merkel. Mr. Rogers was quoted to have said, “It’s a good thing. it keeps the French safe. It keeps the US safe. It keeps our European allies safe.”
The intimate connection between the maintenance of order and discipline becomes the central thesis of the academic examination of the process of surveillance when scholars such as Foucault begin to connect surveillance to power and discipline.
Among the different ideas of surveillance that emerged as important was the notion of the Panopticon which claims that the powerful are constantly watching everything all the time. The Panopticon society was built around a strict definition of discipline, and in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the metaphor was principally used to describe the ways in which totalitarian nations and despots would want to constantly watch everything to maintain power and discipline.
In some cases, however, there is the emergent interest in examining how the watchers could also include corporations and institutions that had a motive unrelated to discipline and power but more interested in understanding the “market” that the institution would be interested in serving. This is especially true for the type of interactive technologies described in this essay. The advent of the technologies described earlier in this essay is, however, concerned with the corporate watching rather than the discipline and power-based Panopticon world that earlier scholars were concerned with.
The new Panopticon created by TV at home is less about discipline and power and much more about the way in which the “customer” who is being watched can be analysed as a commodity who can be sold to those that are interested in selling to the watched. Simultaneously, the Panopticon condition becomes far more benign and perhaps even comforting to the watched by creating a cocoon of comfort within which the watched can dwell, where the cocoon is created by the TV itself. This process is possible because the customer voluntarily interacts with the TV by offering information to the TV and the vast array of interests that the TV represents. There are broadly two kinds of information that the watched offers to the watcher through the modern television – attitudes and behaviour.
The information about the attitudes, interests, beliefs, and tastes is offered by the specific discourse the watched offers to the different providers of information that bring content to the TV.
Consider, for instance, the simple act of accessing a digital video service such as YouTube that can be accessed on a smartphone and then projected on the TV. In some cases, the TV itself would offer the option of connecting directly to a service such as YouTube. Indeed, it is estimated that nearly 80% of TVs in American homes would be connected to the Internet by 2019 and any TV that is connected to the Internet can potentially be accessing YouTube without the need for any other ancillary device.
This connection makes TV the conduit for the vast amount of data available on YouTube as well as many other segments of the digital space that contain searchable data. One of the key aspects of this connection is the ability of the person being watched to search for specific kinds of content that can be accessed by TV and displayed on the screen. The person inscribes attitudes and preferences in the language of the search.
Companies like Google have been using similar information for a long time and are thus able to offer personalised advertising when a person is working on a computer. There are ways in which such personalisation of marketing messages can be turned off through the adjustment of specific settings on an application provided by a corporation. The matter becomes a little different on TV where the very purpose of the tool, the TV, is to watch narratives, and in the environment of services such as YouTube, the viewer must reveal interest information to customise what the person is watching or interested in watching. The process of using TV to access narrative content is intimately connected with the process of revealing to TV the watcher’s interests, attitudes, and beliefs.
This information is also connected with the disclosure of behaviour patterns. Given that much of the consumption of the content is happening through the content providers such as YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, and other Internet-based content delivery systems, there is a constant record of what was watched, when it was watched, how it was paid for, and in some cases greater granular information related to the particular watcher in a multi-people home. For instance, Netflix offers the opportunity to set up multiple sub-accounts under one primary account for each member of the household, and the data that is built up actually shows which particular person was actually using specific content. In homes that have multiple TVs, it is also possible to surveil which particular TV was being used to watch what content offering a detailed understanding of the specific members who are being watched by the corporations through the conduit of TV.
The attitude and behaviour data that such surveillance offers eventually become a narrative about the people who are being watched over. It is this narrative that becomes especially important in the new Panopticon system produced by the modern TV.
Where does this leave us, the watched?
If TV is allowed to surveil, and it is connected with the other tools that surround the TV, then it will eventually be able to create an increasingly complete life story of the person who uses TV. This complete life story could become the way in which TV constructs a mediated reality for the person who is being watched. As discussed earlier, this reality can become progressively myopic and an echo chamber within which the person would reside while the Panopticon TV creates the comfortable media space for the person.
Numerous companies such as Amazon, Roku, and Apple are offering accessories that could be connected to the TV, and program would be delivered through the connection of the accessory to the Internet. Thus, a Roku “stick” can connect to the Internet, and the programs would be offered by Roku in collaboration with other content aggregators such as Sling, YouTube, and Hulu, to name a few. In some cases, a complete ecosystem is produced by a company like Amazon that would offer the accessory for TV, a household voice-activated information retrieval system such as Alexa, and content through the vast store of content that Amazon owns. As the user is migrating to these options, the user is also required to share information through the conduit of the TV with all these different corporations that continue to watch the watcher. It is indeed a world of constant surveillance, whenever the TV is switched on.
Further reading:
- You watch TV. Your TV watches back. Washington Post, 18 September 2019
- Your smart TV is watching you, but here’s how you can stop it, Action News, 11 October 2019
- Smart TVs May Be Watching And Listening In Your Home, FBI Warns, Patch, 2 December 2019
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Categories: Breaking News, World News
Orwell was right.
have not had a TV in 15+ years. do not watch any steaming services. sometimes put a band aid over the camera of the computer as well. of course they all can read our comments, our emails, our social media.
I stopped watching TV ages ago & my brain & my mind are so liberated from constant indoctrination & propaganda agenda.
When I was a kid, the most favorite TV program was cartoon & documentary about outer space especially about planets & vast interstellar universe.
Obsessed with the ‘photo’ of planets with satellite in background who took the photo…. Then… wait… The satellite took a ‘selfie’ or another satellite took that photo..? My brain just… wait the minute..!!!
Then I watched Apollo’s moon landing video…. Who took the video of the rocked outside..? Who took the video of Lunar Lander on moon orbit before landing on moon..? Another rocket or someone with camera flying..?
OMG..!! How does the buggy car (magically) ever fit in the Lunar Lander Module or where they put it..? How does the rubber-tire filled with air not melted or explode in vacuum of space..??
During lunar lander module take-off from moon to return to earth, who took the video of that..? Wait… astro-not who took that Lunar Lander module was left behind. Is he still on the moon surface until today..?
If there are mechanical auto-camera took it, how did the recorded footage was retrieved,,? Using Starlink Wi-Fi connection download..?
My brain was filled with all these questions without any logical answers. Then, I realized, this a TV show… not a real moon landing…What the Fork & Spoon..!!
The “tire” was a stainless steel mesh or something to the effect. Not saying it went anywhere, just saying they were not “that dumb”. 🙂
stainless steel tire do NOT bouncing (filled with air) on moon surface… idiot!
One sixth gravity you bonehead. You can’t make direct comparison with one G one atmosphere earth and 1/6 G zero atmosphere moon. Especially as you clearly have no science background…
Hi AK ,
I agree with your comment.
I don’t believe we went to the moon.
I was three years old and three months when the moon landing episode took place in July of 1969.
It was the first time I was allowed to watch television ( Back in the 1960s and early 1970s the government actually said children shouldn’t watch television if under 7 years old.
I was only Permitted to watch for TWO Minutes !!?
As soon as I saw the landing within Ten seconds I screamed FAKE at the Television, This resulted in my family getting mad at me and My family believed it was real , because of my Fake shouting outburst My two minutes was reduced to 30 seconds they spun me around so I could only hear as punishment for revolting and after listening for a minute my time was up.
Now add in Stanley Kubrick admitted that NASA hired him to make a movie of the moon landing, and Stanley Kubrick said he filmed it in Australia on a movie set he created.
Now add in during the 1980s
Space Rockets were redesigned to look like an airplane with wings to make space take off and landings cheaper and easier,
Except what happened was Brave Scientists spoke out and said : The shell of the rocket needs to be covered with ceramic tiles a minimum of six inches thick and still may not hold up to the High heat of the van Allen belt.
Now Add in ; The Space Station is roughly between 75 to 85 miles above earth.
And The moon is 240,000 Thousand Miles away.
IF WE Really Went To the moon The space station would be much higher than 75 to 85 miles above earth.
It’s a form of control is my guess why they lie , Which in return gives them power , through control , and also Fear is also used and knowledge, meaning the dumbing down on purpose of the people by design.
Hopefully you understand what I’m saying… But it’s a Shame how things are and done.
your right on target .. bombs away
Dear Jimmy,
Thanks for the long life story. I do ‘understand’ it.
What MORE SHAME things is, modern people will fully functional brain still believe (not even questioning) this nonsense & defending it to the level of die-hard-fan-boy of LGTBQRSTUYWXYZ+++++++ on steroid for NASA & Elon Musk.
We been stuffed with ALL-FAKE CGI footage. Elon Musk with car floating/orbiting earth like satellite in space was so hilarious to me but so ‘life-inspiring’ to most dumb (sheeple) people.
Elon Musk talking about Mars so casually when the Moon was just NEVER been conquered yet seem BS to me if nearer object such as moon still no one or country ever put 24/7 camera pointing at earth surface for mapping or calendar purposes.
If we look at Model of ‘theory’ of solar system, when should the time/date we could EVER see Mercury & Venus planet because ALWAYS at a DAYTIME of smaller circle than earth circling the sun..??? How..??? Tell me the date & time for me to use my Nikon P700 super zoom function to see.
Nikon P700 could zoom miles away. On the highest peak on mountain (clear atmosphere), I could zoom & recorded time-lapse of the sun ”SUDDENLY APPEARED’ small then getting bigger & bigger towards me & then getting smaller & disappeared ON HORIZON instead of disappeared over the ball earth’s curvature when evening. This shown the sun was local & really near.
The reason for Ball Earth theory & outer space deceptions was to imprison our physical body & let our mind go wild with false imagination of endless outer space. At the same time, diverted our mind about REAL closed ecosystem under the celestial dome.
OUTER SPACE DOES NOT EXIST. PLANETS ARE WONDERING STARS, A ENERGY-PLASMA JUST LIKE MOON & SUN (NOT A ROCK WE COULD LAND & EXPLORE).
Wow so many points in the moon landing denier bingo…flerf too? You talk a lot of butter ollocks.
Corrections.. not a FLERF moon landing denier but a human with fully functional brain (not a retard) like you), always have common sense, always asking logic & fact for ‘sane science’ and trusted own eyes rather than what presented by others.
You’re a fact & logic DENIER, here. Just like brainless fan-boy. Enjoy your rainbow pride parade, Karen..!!
You’ll never get through to the Reverend, ARL….He’s too indoctrinated and can’t think for himself….
You definitely have your eyes open and I salute you….
Air pressure on earth, vacuum in space. In Genesis God made the firmament. Nothing gets out, not even a space rocket. We are supposed to be spinning at 1000 mph, circumference of earth, divided by 24 hours.
If gravity can hold this sea water on a spinning globe then how does a butterfly take off or a bumble bee. The bee is quite massive in comparison. It’s all about buoyancy and density, not gravity. Almost everything we are taught is fake. Keep an open mind.
I think one thing you don’t understand is how Mercury or Venus could ever be visible in the dark of night, but this is easily understood.
As you point out, Mercury and Venus are closer to the Sun than earth. This means the line from the Earth to Mercury or Venus will always have an angle to the line from the Earth to the Sun of less than 90 degrees. But the angle could perhaps be say 40 degrees (I don’t know the actual number, but greater than zero). Then, speaking approximately, if it’s two hours after sunset, the Sun would be maybe 30 degrees below the horizon, so it would be dark out; but Mercury or Venus could still be 10 degrees above the horizon and so be visible.
To be clear, I believe it’s likely that humans have never gone to the Moon; but the evidence that the Earth is basically a sphere and that the Galilean model of the solar system is basically correct is extensive.
Saying 10 degrees above horizon…? Are you kidding me..? Have a good look a “THEORY” of solar system of planetary path ring. I’m not blind you know. It’s never could be seen unless we lived on flat surface.
Then EXPLAIN to me with your ‘angle calculation’ expertise on upcoming SUN ECLIPSE of August 2nd. 2027 that covered half of the globe model for more than 6 hours.
Please MAKE SURE the globe is SPINNING when explaining the eclipse path travel from WEST to EAST.
The fact here is, 6 hours equal to 1/4 quarter of the globe already move to nighttime and the Eclipse still travel half a globe.
Ask NASA to produce a detailed animation video on globe model of this eclipse with spinning globe during the path of the eclipse travel from WEST to EAST.
Theoretically & practically is impossible. But still, I would like to see how NASA’s geniuses will TWIST this LOGIC in order to fool the masses.
About ISS= International Scam Station,
Why we NEVER had video or snapshot of THOUSANDS of satellites floating taken from ISS inhabitants..? Why ISS only had camera towards front earth. Should be 4 camera of all angles into space (front, back, outer space (stars) & earth surface). NASA can’t afford to buy more camera with millions of budget daily..???
There are plenty of photos of satellites. You just haven’t looked. Space is big…and most satellites are higher than the ISS…whose cameras look down at earth….duh. outer space really isn’t that interesting, and there are things like hubble doing that job.
Then show me the link to see those “PLENTY OF PHOTO OF SATELLITE… My eyes could detect & differentiate what CGIs, what real photo.
“you say…. OUTER SPACE ISN’T THAT INTERESTING…?”. CGI was more interesting & fun way to enjoy fake & delusional.
Not interesting? Then, FAKE CGI Oumuamua& iAtlas was not interesting then.
The CGI produced was so crappy/junk. NASA with all the advanced HD camera & super zoom, the graphic was STILL using 1990’s Photoshop version. The ‘photo’ was so embarrassingly to watch… poor graphics. Need more morphine.
What a load of unscientific bloke said nonsense. My uncles were all WW2 and Korea radio and Radar guys. They, along with hundreds of Ham operators around the world monitored the signals from the space craft. They went. Sorry but everything you say has been debunked over and over.
Science MUST stand of LOGIC first. Then FACT. Theory only base/foundation that need to have further evidences & facts to support.
Common sense these days should be labelled as Science-superpower rival to comic-superheroes powers.
Where your common-sense, Scott?
The space station is 250 miles up. You debunk yourself.
The number of miles will NEVER be exact because ISS was fake.
Staged upside down in Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory Pool & sometime using Trajectory for zero gravity maneuver Project Mercury astronauts on board aircraft C-131 Samaritan flying named “vomit comet“.
The camera was mounted externally. Big deal. The Rover was designed to fit the LM. The tyres were steel mesh. A little research could do you good, instead of personal incredulity and bloke said. The takeoff of the LM was filmed remotely from earth with a bit of timing. It only worked once… oh and the earth isn’t flat.
Remotely..?? How? Where (photo) the TRANSMITTER TOWER ON MOON TO EARTH LOCATED..? What frequency WAVELENGTH was used..?
WHY THE CAMERA ANGLE WAS never ‘REMOTELY’ UPWARD TO EARTH TO SEND CONTINUOUS DATA SIGNAL OF EARTH SURFACE?
70’s technology already that advanced..? Facts over fictions, please.
…it’s concerning how insidious the surveillance is becoming, a more so that the majority of people ’emit’ no inclination to reject it!…interesting link to IntechOpen, thanks on both counts, Rhoda, for the post as well, btw are u aware of… Substack Breach Exposes User Emails in October Hack | The Tech Buzz https://share.google/SFZz6ZrerqncC3C8Q … Substack Data Breach Leads to Leak of Nearly 700,000 Records https://share.google/Ytm2mhC9XlZRVHuoQ … Substack confirms data breach affects users’ email addresses and phone numbers | TechCrunch https://share.google/WDbiGJSusRkzMZitI …i received an email confirming that my email was among the ‘affected’… 🙏➕🙏…
Worry about TV watching (spying) on you…? How about your smart-phone watching on you..? How about Laptop? Siri? Alexa? Facebook? Military+Government Apps? Military+Government cell tower? or any other apps that need google to download & install?
The list are endless…. Orwell does right, Carl L. McWilliams… Thanks for pointing that out..!
Hi Rhoda,
Another interesting article.
This is how the Polish leader of Israel, was tracking and killing reporters and their families in Palestine.
They were even blowing Hospitals to pieces, because there were tracked mobile phones there.
This is just how evil people operate these days.
They delighted in tracking and killing Women and Children.
I just never attach the network to the TV in any manner. Media is routed through a computer and HDMI’d to the TV. No wireless, bluetooth, or wired connections. Why make it easy for them. We have our local network Vlan’d and blocked at the router. Traffic comes in when we want and none ever leaves. People make want convenience and they give up their privacy for it. Only they can decide if it’s a good trade. I’m done trying to convince people to consider their families. But I ask these same people if they leave their bedroom and front door open while having sex because it is essentially what they are doing when they allow audio and video surveillance of themselves. I severely doubt Harari allow the same sort of access to his private life but does expect it of you. If people really understood the type of man he is they would have a completely different outlook on his privacy opinion and that of his boss.
Dave hello from canakastan I have a question sir if I may ; did you see and read the post on Ivanka trump ( White House press release ) ?
Hi , I Just want to Make a Simple comment about this article on television / surveillance.
When he said : people will look back and say this is when Surveillance started under the skin….
I Sure Hope People are Grasping what Exactly He’s Talking About / means.
In my opinion : The under skin reference is The mRNA Covid-19 Vaccines / Boosters ( BioWeapons )
IF you did your research you know there’s tainted Covid-19 Vaccines that to put it short makes people half human half robot… Because of the technology in them..
Television has been watching and listening to people since 2009 when Television stopped being analog and Became Digital Signal.
And like the article said , Now add in Alexis and the other modern appliances like the Refrigerator with a touch screen since 2014 that allows you to order food / groceries for pick up or delivery,
Those touch screen refrigerator’s have a listening microphone in them and before you doubt it , They have been used to catch robbers who committed break-in’s and talked in the vicinity of the modern appliances, there have been robbers who have been caught and arrested through these modern appliances, which might make them sound good to have , doesn’t matter one day that’s all that will be available on the market eventually as time goes by…
The Surveillance is to get people to submit into submission and OBEY ,
A Setting The Stage To Bring The Anti-Christ , once arrived these modern appliances and All Other surveillance stuff will snitch out those who hold out and refuse the Mark OF The Beast..
It’s All By Design..
Just my opinion , imagine I could be wrong… I could also be correct…
Either way to find out I know where I stand on if it could really be happening why ???
Because of everything else that connects the dots of the way this world is…..