The Panopticon

The internet seems to have become a panopticon of sorts for world leaders. Undoubtedly, one may argue that a country's leadership maintains a stranglehold on information in and out of a country, and can therefore restrict internet access as it pleases. Yet, it is also undeniable that the internet technologies have become sufficiently pervasive that it is now exceedingly difficult to completely silence the peoples' voice short of becoming something of a hermit country much like North Korea.

It cuts both ways. Clearly, the people are being monitored, but this time the panopticon permits the prisoners to stare back. The question now is who the watchers are, and who is watching. In the grand scheme of things, I'd say the leaders are approaching parity with the people. More interestingly, the sheer speed and volume of information dissemination has served to magnify issues the world over. Where only major earthquakes would've made headlines in the days of print media, now even comparatively minor tremblors or even minor tremors may make the peoples' news, massively increasing the salience of issues and events that may have been passed by in the old days. As always, I would find it interesting to see how all this shapes up in the decades and perhaps centuries to come.