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August 28, 2007
Embodied agents in China's online panopticon
The AP reports that China's existing surveillance and restriction of Chinese Internet use will be augmented by persuasive (and frighteningly cute) embodied agents designed to remind surfers of the potential of being constantly watched.
The animated police appeared designed to startle Web surfers and remind them that authorities closely monitor Web activity. However, the statement did not say whether there were plans to boost monitoring further.
It is worrisome, but expected, to see the idea of a panopticon -- a prison in which inmates each might be under surveillance at any moment -- continue to be applied in interactive technology designed for controlling citizens.
Bentham's panopticon
In Discipline and Punish, Foucault uses the panopticon as an important element of his genealogy of Western penal systems. At the second Persuasive Technology conference this April, Julie Leth Jespersen, Peter Ohrstrom, Anders Albrechtslund, Jorgen Albretsen, and Per Hasle from Aalborg University presented a paper which addressed the concept of a panopticon in interactive technology.
-- Dean Eckles
Posted by Dean Eckles at August 28, 2007 10:46 PM