PRIVACY AND SURVEILLANCE IN COMPUTER SUPPORTED COOPERATIVE WORK:
“Whenever individuals are being informally watched or listened to, they are somewhat inhibited by what they imagine others’ reactions to be. This is how informal social control works in groups. We tend to try not to upset the people around us, especially if they have the means to retaliate in some way. Gossip and other private communications are an ordinary part of both group and organizational office politics. In informal conversation it’s one person’s word against another’s as to what was said and by whom. A private comment can be publicly denied. However, once a conversation gets recorded (for example in a paper memo or in an e-mail message) it assumes a more formal existence. As people begin to suspect they’ll be held accountable for their spontaneous utterances, their freedom to express themselves is inhibited. While this may be an improvement in the case of malicious gossip, it also destroys the backstage area where so much of group work is actually done.”
This may give us a clue as to why so many organisations are keen for people to blog. Once a blog post is published, it is almost impossible to delete any trace of it from the net, and when people know their comments are “permanent” and they believe they are being read and watched, they tend to normalise their behaviour. Blogs, while being a powerful tool for democracy may also become a Deleuzian “society of control.”
