Vigilância participativa??

Intervenção de Eric Gordon na Lista do iDC [Institute for Distributed Creativity] discute o quanto o uso de ferramentas participativas e de tecnologoias "web 2.0" em comunidades e redes sociais geograficamente conectadas, bem como no governo de cidades, pode gerar dados valiosos que sirvam à vigilância.
Reproduzo a intervenção na íntegra e indico link com respostas de Lucas Bambozzi e Sergio Tisselli (http://www.zexe.net) à provocação de Gordon.

[iDC] city as social network

ERICK GORDON

"Hi everyone.  My name is Eric Gordon – I’ve been watching this list 
for some time but I’ve made only a few contributions.  Perhaps as a 
means of forcing my involvement, Trebor has asked me to moderate a 
discussion on the topic that has lately occupied most of my time – 
place-based social media and its implications for privacy, public 
space, and democratic engagement.  Following the recent conversation 
about Feedburner, I want to consider how that discussion might extend 
to physical communities (neighborhood, organization, city) that are 
enabled/bolstered/fortified by social web media.  Many community 
groups and neighborhood organizations are using digital networking 
technologies to foster community interaction (http://
www.ibrattleboro.com/).  And of course, what is widely known as 
citizen journalism plays into this as well – placebloggers (http://
placebloggers.com) and Community Media organizations tend towards 
hyperlocal networked content (http://www.cctvcambridge.org/) with an 
aim towards reinforcing existing geographical connections.  The 
processes that bind non-geographical communities in networks are 
similar to those that are binding geographical communities – shared 
interests, practices, goals, etc.    However, unlike traditional 
online communities that have a basis in anonymity, digitally 
annotated physical communities often rely on the full disclosure of 
identity for their functionality.  For instance, when it comes to 
neighborhood issues – it is important to know one’s real name and 
location.

And as city governments are seeking ways to adopt “web 2.0” 
technologies into their existing “citizen management” projects, the 
lack of anonymity and the simple traceability of social actions open 
up new concerns.  Social media tools have the capacity to 
significantly expand participation in local governance, but they also 
have the capacity to trace citizen behavior and map social trends.  
Cities are interested in this technology for the same reason that 
corporations are – it offers valuable user data.   Politicians can 
survey the concerns of their constituency; agencies can identify 
problems in neighborhoods; and law enforcement…well, there are many 
scenarios possible.  It can also be turned around: citizens can have 
greater access to their politicians, and government proceedings can 
at least have the impression of transparency.

While the conversations on this list have devoted considerable time 
to corporate surveillance, the question not often asked in this  
context is what should be made of local surveillance – from the  
people in one’s neighborhood to city governments?  In the wake of  
connectivity, discourse and collaboration, there is always  
documentation, processing and interpretation. From neighborhood  
chatrooms to local annotated mapping projects to virtual town hall  
meetings, participation equals surveillance – for better or for worse.

When I consider a digital future in which I want to live – it 
includes networked access to my neighborhood services, communities, 
city government and public spaces. However, there is little 
possibility for that to take place outside of the proliferation of 
data that would make communities vulnerable to excessive internal and 
external management. And as citywide wifi and mobile web devices 
proliferate, the outlets for that recycled data expand.  At the same 
time, American cities, like corporations, are glomming onto digital 
media because of its populist resonances.  They are paying attention 
to online neighborhoods and seeking to aggregate that data into 
meaningful information.  The ideology of digital media – as evidenced 
in the phrases “participatory media” and “user-generated content” – 
is accessibility.  Digital media directly aligns the rhetoric of 
progress with the rhetoric of populism.  Social web media makes 
explicit what has only been implied in the recent rhetoric of city 
governments – that anyone, regardless of social position, can 
participate in the ordering of city experience and politics.

From cities to towns to neighborhoods, the populist promise of 
social web media is transforming the nature of public space and civic 
participation.  I am referring only to the American context, because 
that’s what I know, but it would be great to engage in comparative 
dialogue in order to better understand the scope of how these 
technologies are being implemented in official or unofficial 
capacities to change perceptions of cities and city life, not to 
mention public space and community engagement.

I suppose I’ll leave it at that for now.  I look forward to the 
conversation.

Eric"