OPINION: Big Brother’s watching… How the echoes of ‘1984’ are heard today

“WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”

George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984,” published in 1949 in the earliest days of the Cold War, has stuck in the public consciousness for a reason.

The novel centers around narrator Winston Smith, a member of the Ingsoc Party (“newspeak” for English Socialism, though it isn’t representative of any real political party or economic system) and his realization of the issues with society. Over the course of the novel he goes from a questioning but obedient follower of Party doctrines to becoming involved in a group of dissenters, then through brainwashing and torture, back to a faithful member.

“The whole idea of ‘1984’ with government surveillance had to do with the growth of technology… and that advancement of technology has just made it even easier to track what people are doing,” OH social studies teacher Brenda Shay said.

The core issue that sets up the premise and haunts the characters through the entirety of the novel boils down to technological advancements making it feasible for the government to track and listen in on any and all of its citizens that it deems as a threat. The characters are constantly evading — or at least attempting to — cameras and microphones hidden throughout their city and homes. It is unclear in the book just how that information is being sorted through to identify threats or dissenters, but with modern technology, systems like that hardly require manpower.

Constant observation

“A hot topic across the country is Flock Cameras, right? I can’t drive from Illinois to Florida without somebody figuring out exactly where I went and at what time now,” OH Library and Media Director Drew Mundsinger said.

Flock cameras have recently been the subject of a lot of criticism for collecting extensive information to a national network, sifted through by AI, which can and has been used by ICE, as well as having the potential to be used by private individuals or businesses to identify license plates. While, presently, the system only tracks license plate numbers (sometimes incorrectly), between them and other companies like Ring Doorbell cameras building AI-powered tracking networks, it doesn’t seem far-fetched for all people to be watched at any time.

The notion that anything you say or do could potentially be recorded and used against you at some point in the distant future is a relatively new one. In the past, metaphorical witch-hunts — like the Red Scare in America when “1984” was published — relied on word-of-mouth and often hearsay. 

For information to get out, someone specific had to hear about or observe it, then that individual had to decide it was worth sharing and forward it to whoever would seek vengeance for it. Nowadays, “cancel culture” is a lot more prevalent, and is often done retroactively for things that happened in the past.

“When I was younger I could do whatever, I mean, whatever I did. None of it was recorded. None of it was on Facebook or Internet, and … there wasn’t even really photographic evidence of it. So, nobody’s going to bring up my past, but people in [Gen Z] and Millennials? I mean, whatever they chose to post is out there,” Shay said.

Controlling the Narrative

When Orwell wrote “1984,” televisions were fairly new— even the rising ubiquitousness of telephones was an advancement, and security cameras seemed like a thing of the future. In the novel, they were a central aspect of the surveillance and propaganda alike, providing a constant stream of information to the Party members, as well as recording people’s day-to-day lives in what was supposed to be the privacy of their homes, judging them on their participation or lack thereof in the expected activities. Sound familiar?

“I think there’s a lot of people that criticize Hollywood and news media for disseminating that propaganda and influencing the minds of young people specifically,” Shay said.

The biggest issues we are currently facing come from the monopolies — when a few companies own most others, those few mega-corporations end up having their voices shown disproportionately, making it harder and harder for other people to voice their opinions. In “1984,” their equivalent of a media mega-corporation was the government-controlled Ministry of Truth: while, in the US, people tend to be strongly against direct government involvement in the media and press, it is important to remember that non-government doesn’t mean non-partisan or non-biased.

“Sometimes [journalists] don’t get the chance to give the whole story because of the owners or the people who, you know, sign their paychecks, and they tell you to do something you kind of have to do it,” Mundsinger said. “Or if you push back, like in the case of ‘60 Minutes’ where the owner said, I want you to run the story this way, and that some of the news guys [were] like, ‘I’m not doing it,’ they got fired,” he added.

While shows like “60 Minutes” or Jimmy Kimmel’s temporary suspension from ABC are high-profile examples and get a lot of attention and coverage, similar things are happening more quietly in many areas of the news industry. Social media’s algorithms focusing on reactions and supporting existing views have only exacerbated the problem.

Social Media’s Role

“[Social media has] increased the propaganda machine, I mean, it’s the algorithm, the algorithm force-feeds you things that … are on one side of the spectrum, and you hardly ever get to see the other side,” Shay said. “And I mean, Americans are addicted to their phones, social media specifically, kids and adults alike…. If you’re only hearing one side of the story that’s what you’re gonna believe. If your mind is never challenged… when you fear something, it’s very easy to blame the other side.” 

Social media creates oft-ignored echo chambers. In “1984,” under pseudo-socialist government control, the views constantly being echoed back at people were all that of the Party, the only socially accepted political ideology. In today’s world, though, with personally curated algorithms figuring out individuals’ political beliefs, it seems different.

“A lot of what we see social media [creators] do when they have an issue or when they want to start an issue, they do it very plainly. … Instead of experiencing something and saying, ‘No, I don’t think this is right for me or my family,’ they just automatically assume, ‘Oh, I heard somebody say bad things about it, so it must be bad, so therefore we’ve got to stop it,” Mundsinger said.

AI is only adding to these issues. 

“The more AI that you use, the more AI is going to get to know you and your personality, the more… the algorithm is going to say ‘This might be something they would like to hear or like to see, and then … let me create an image that supports what you’re reading,’” Mundsinger explained.

In “1984,” there were designated breaks several times a day for the “Two Minutes Hate,” where people would gather in front of one of their telescreens and watch recordings of the people and things they found abhorrent, the “other” side of the world, and rally against them, simply because the Party said to. While there are situations and times where taking a minute to allow people to feel outraged at mass tragedies or atrocities is fitting, it isn’t enough to actually make change. 

With algorithms and the people creating things for them actively encouraging rage and fear to increase engagement and thereby revenue, it’s easy to fall into a pattern of frustration without doing anything to resolve the issues. Another problem both in the novel and today is letting certain issues take precedence.

“Being in constant conflict … can sometimes be a distraction to the real issues, and it can hide what maybe the government is doing behind the scenes. People pay attention to that because it’s sensational versus paying attention to other, more important things,” Shay said. 

“I think the uproar about Dobbs V. Jackson [overturning Roe V. Wade]… had the ability to incite people to action. It had the ability to, like, kind of, you know, rev people up and make people feel like, ‘Oh my God, this is the worst thing in the world,’” Shay said. “That’s all going on at the same time that our economy is failing, and we’re dealing with rising prices and people can’t afford homes and things like that.”

Self-imposed Limitations

In any society there are many problems that need to be dealt with, but when people are focused on only what issues are being sensationalized in the moment, it limits their ability to actually resolve either those issues or other underlying issues throughout society. 

It isn’t reasonable or efficient to expect certain organizations to work on and cover all issues, or for every individual to be an expert in every field. 

“When you have to research a topic on your own, even if it’s online, it allows you then to take multiple pieces of information and say, ‘Is this credible? Is this reliable? Is this something, I believe?’ whether you agree with it or not. … And I think that you’ve lost some of those skills because information is so easily available to us,” Mundsinger said.

Technology and bias aren’t going to magically go away. Controlling them and avoiding the harm relies on people learning to understand how and why they work, and going about it with ethics and critical thinking.

“We all need to be careful about the use of new technology. Go slow with it. Understand the risks,” Shay said.

Ignorance is easy; real strength comes from understanding and questioning. In “1984,” fascism was able to persist because people didn’t take the time to think critically and question whether the information they were being fed was valid, or defend themselves from surveillance before it was too deeply intertwined with their understanding of safety and normalcy. 

While modern America isn’t nearly to that point yet, it is important for people, especially young people who are soon going to be inheriting the government, to understand and value media literacy, research, and critical thinking before we let it get there.