https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274668/enabling-chinas-mass-surveillance-system-mark-tapson
In the 18th century, Jeremy Bentham, an English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer, introduced the idea of the Panopticon, a disciplinary concept brought to life in the form of a central observation tower placed within a circle of prison cells. Each cell is flooded with light, which creates an environment in which prisoners are under constant watch. Even if no guard is on duty, a prisoner will always feel as if they are being watched. Bentham described it as “[a] new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind.” The Panopticon is the optimal prison; it enables an unprecedented level of surveillance.
When we discuss the concept of surveillance, one country automatically springs to mind.
China’s transition from what Rebecca MacKinnon calls a “networked authoritarianism” to what is now a form of networked totalitarianism is almost complete. The difference is not merely semantic. As John Naughton writes, “An authoritarian regime is relatively limited in its objectives: there may be elections, but they are generally carefully managed; individual freedoms are subordinate to the state; there is no constitutional accountability and no rule of law in any meaningful sense.”
In contrast, according to Naughton, totalitarianism “prohibits opposition parties, restricts opposition to the state and exercises an extremely high degree of control over public and private life.” The historian Robert Conquest put it best when he argued that a totalitarian state recognizes no limits to its authority. Proponents of totalitarianism have no respect for privacy. In a totalitarian state, privacy is but an illusion.