It has become abundantly clear in the past few years that the presence of social media has unquestionably shaped the way in which Americans engage societal discourse. Who you are and what you stand for is public knowledge so long as you aren't private. But even if you are that still does not mean your information is safe as we have seen recently with Mark Zuckerberg's testimony before Congress. Companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google all store information on their users and sell it to advertisers.

While this a concern in it's own right, the problem that concerns me the most is the way in which speech is monitored on these social media platforms. The term "platform" may not even be applicable as the examples of censorship across multiple social media sites indicates that they are behaving far more like publications. Choosing what content they would like to display on their sites while maintaining that they are a open space for interactions.

But what does this kind of environment create? When giant tech companies have access to everything you look up, comment, share, and even private message, it is hard to not feel as though you are being monitored. To further compound this problem, you have no idea who is monitoring what material you put out into the ether. Compliance with the rules is the best method to avoid conflict as you are unsure how those on social media will react to your ideas/beliefs along with who is ruling on your right to be within the social space.

Twitter has already been a stage for boycotts against companies supporting the NRA among other (typically conservative) personalities or outlets so it would seem evident that Twitter and other social sites have practical effects on real society.

So where am I going with this?

Well, the current system implemented by social media platforms is that opinions/ideas labeled as unpalatable for the general public can get silenced or banned. This is decided by either algorithms or by actual people whom we do not know. This leaves us with a modern-day panopticon.

The panopticon was a thought experiment created by 18th century thinker Jeremy Bentham. It is an intriguing model for a prison that it quite applicable to the problem social media poses. Essentially, the prisoners are set in separate cells facing and surrounding a massive pillar. The pillar shines a light on all the prisoners positioned around it so they are always in view. The panopticon itself cannot be looked into, but it can be used to monitor the prisoners from inside. The guards enter and exit through a tunnel underground so the prisoners never when they are being watched or who is watching them. Social media operates in a very similar fashion. However, unlike the original panopticon, other prisoners will aid the guards in catching unapproved behaviors.

So what do you do? Like before, your best course of action is to simply comply with the rules and regulations put in place and keep your head down as you are always being watched. Online actions yield real world consequences. Other prisoners will report unruly members for their dissonance and get rewarded with social praise and notoriety. The idea is that eventually, the prisoners will behave accordingly with the knowledge that they are being watched to the point where there is no longer a need for guards in the tower.

Eventually, everyone becomes complacent and obedient for the consequences for acting out of line are known and unavoidable. Utter one wrong word or phrase...and its time in the hole.