tinker, tailor, soldier, spy
Listen to the news, scan the headlines, read your paper, immerse yourself in social media and you’ll soon realise there are lots of things we should be panicking about: the ever-present threat of big tech, imminent collapse of capitalism, re-appointment of The Saj, penalty-taking in our national side and the continued fall-out from the Northern Ireland protocol. Oh, and climate change. And the pandemic. And what exactly is going on with the new format of Love Island?
The motivation for all this alarmism, and the use of extreme language, is that it’s the only way to get heard. In our attention-scarce/interruption-driven society the easiest way to be compelling is to insist your message is the one we can’t afford to ignore. The one we can’t live without. Consequently, both the exaggeration and volume are dialled-up to eleven and not playing the game is the promotional equivalent of ‘Walk-on. Nothing to see here.’
So, I make no apology when I hysterically state that the component of human-life that’s currently exercising my alarm is the widespread installation of alarming doorbells, specifically ‘all-seeing all-speaking’ video doorbells. YouTube is able to deliver hour upon hour of alarming footage: attempted burglaries, doorstep muggings, upper-cuts and right hooks, package theft, knock-a-door-running kids, athletic animals, nosy neighbours, apologetic Jehovah’s Witnesses and ever-polite posties. Individually, I fully concede such an innovation is relatively innocuous and knowing when Janet actually leaves for work or confusing next-door’s prowling cat can be harmless enough but collectively it has grown into something far more sinister – a self-appointed, quasi-vigilante, global CCTV surveillance network. And the police appear pleased about it.
Working hand-in-hand with the manufacturers, police forces from Humberside to Herefordshire and New Hampshire to New York have handed out free doorbells in areas of higher crime, endorsing the proliferation of neighbourhood watch style apps and groups. Amazon Ring’s Neighbors (sic) actively encourages users to share, view and comment on their footage and the company has now filed a patent for creating a “suspicious persons” database, using images taken by the products. Furthermore, police authorities sent requests to Californian users requesting they identify legitimate peaceful BLM protestors. Immoral certainly, if not illegal.
Such operations run the danger of blatantly pedalling fear and division, as fear is almost as profitable as data, and of turning us into, at best, surreptitious snoopers and, at worst, McCarthy-esque Cold War spies. Once upon a time we kept-up with the Joneses, now we keep an eye on them. Notwithstanding that their use will have undeniably led to perpetrators being arrested and custodial sentences being meted out, these practices encourage society to amplify its prejudices and, in essence, change the nature of the world we live in. But do remember, the next time someone tells you it’s time to panic, it almost certainly isn’t. Ding dong.
