Digital technologies of social control: prospects and social consequences of their implementation

Introduction of digital technologies in all spheres of life is a factor that radically change the social interactions and mechanisms of social control. This rising trend, that turn the various digital technologies into main form of realization of “the social” is complex and contradictory. We are confronted more and more with multiplicity of social control with simultaneous unification of its procedures, determined by digital technologies. The functions of social control are transferred from human actors to machines and algorithms. The social control is automated. Under the cover of objectivity and neutrality such automatization contains political, economical and ideological imperatives. The machine has human core, yet difficult to discern. Implementation of algorithmic forms of governance, based on Big Data, significantly increases the scope of population monitoring and shifts the “power logic” to control and construction of opinions, creation of the demands, mobilizing action in accordance with the prescribed standards of conduct. COVID-19 Pandemic enhanced the activities of national States to take advantage of digital control over the population. In fact, during few months of quarantine measures in most countries unprecedented in its global reach and universal in their technical solutions instruments of control over the population have been deployed. In doing so the digital social control generates very specific forms of social asymmetry. There remains an open question: who has access to information, generated by the machines of control. For the development of modern smart cities and digitalization of social practices relevant and correct data are needed. Сompromise between citizens’ rights to privacy and rapid development of new smart technologies is inevitable. Personal data collected not only by the State but also by private corporations, especially by owners of digital platforms. Rights to obtain and use data need to be regulated and rules set for their commercial application. COVID-19 Pandemic, accelerating implementation of digital social control, reduced “public sensitivity” to violation of private borders for the sake of security. The need for a rapid response to COVID-19 changes the rules of the game as to how сitizens, organizations and authorities in different countries deal with personal data and actualizes the question, where the balance lies between confidentiality of personal data and public health and/or security.

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