The Digital Panopticon - Self Censorship on Social Media
In 1787 an Englishman named Jeremy Bentham, while traveling in Belarus, put together the initial series of ideas that would become the concept of a revolutionary prison known as the Panopticon. The idea was to create a prison that could allow a very small number of guards and overseers to manage a large number of inmates. In essence the Panopticon is a circular structure with prison cells built into the circular walls of the prison. The center is a completely open space dominated by a central tower with windows facing in every direction. The cells all face inwards towards the tower and are all open fronted with bars. This allows the overseers to observe the actions of all the prisoners at all times from a central location while the prisoners cannot see the overseers due to mirrored windows. This means that the prisoners may be under observation at any or all times, or not at all, they do not know. Without knowing when the prison guards may be watching prisoners essentially have t...