SOME time ago, it was claimed in the Guardian that Facebook had been unashamedly stealing ideas from Periscope with regard to gradually phasing-in a new video format. Don’t be fooled. This was not a belated development and the long-term plans for the global establishment to further tighten its grip on humanity through increasing dependence on social media were apparent from the very beginning and there are innumerable millions of Facebook members who have welcomed the opportunity to add a live streaming feature to their profiles in the way that it is currently possible to observe twenty-four hour footage of weather conditions battering a coastline.

We English have an expression – ‘hoist with one’s own petard’ – to describe how many individuals have unwittingly created the very conditions that ultimately lead to his or her own downfall. What better way to encourage people to wholeheartedly embrace an Orwellian system of total surveillance than by seeking to appeal to their most base, narcissistic tendencies? Keep smiling for the camera, folks, but always remember that it isn’t just your friends who have an interest in following you around. Large conglomerates also want to know what food you are buying, what clothes you wear, what car you drive, what music you are listening to, where you spend your holidays and, more importantly, whether you are doing anything remotely subversive.

The typical public response to these developments is that ‘if you are not breaking the law then you have nothing to fear’, but how much of your privacy are you really willing to hand over and at what price? I will leave you with these words from the famous nineteenth-century Anarchist, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865):

“To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.”

(from General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century)