The Volunteer Surveillance State: The Panopticon in Your PocketA Private Moment, A Global Trial

When a video of two attorneys from an elite New York law firm kissing on a bench in Bryant Park went viral on TikTok, millions of strangers immediately began investigating them. Users created new content dissecting their relationship, speculating about workplace ethics, identifying their employer, and debating what professional consequences they deserved—all before either individual had publicly addressed the incident.¹

It was hardly an isolated case. Just months earlier, Astronomer CEO Andy Byron and the company's head of Human Resources, Kristin Cabot, were unexpectedly shown embracing during Coldplay's now-infamous "kiss cam." A moment lasting only seconds spread to tens of millions of viewers, generated days of online commentary, and preceded Byron's resignation amid intense public scrutiny.²

Neither incident involved criminal conduct. Yet both became public investigations conducted not by law enforcement or the courts, but by algorithms and online audiences. They are among countless examples of a profound shift in modern life—one in which ordinary people are transformed into subjects of mass surveillance, public judgment, and real-world consequences.

Bentham's Prison Without Walls

The idea of the Panopticon predates the internet by more than two centuries. In 1791, English philosopher Jeremy Bentham proposed a prison built around a central watchtower. Prisoners could never know when they were being observed, so they learned to behave as though they were always being watched. Uncertainty itself became the mechanism of control.³

Nearly two centuries later, French philosopher Michel Foucault expanded the idea beyond prisons in Surveiller et punir (Discipline and Punish). Modern institutions, he argued, no longer needed to rely solely on force. The mere possibility of surveillance encouraged people to regulate themselves long before punishment became necessary.⁴

Today, Bentham's Panopticon fits inside our pockets.

The Algorithm Isn't the Only Guard—We Are

At first glance, it appears that the algorithm has replaced Bentham's guard. Social media platforms quietly monitor what we search, watch, purchase, share, and ignore, deciding which voices are amplified and which disappear.

But the algorithm is more than the guard.

It is the architecture itself.

The real guards are us.

Unlike Bentham's prisoners, we entered voluntarily. We publish our relationships, political opinions, purchases, vacations, triumphs, and failures for audiences we cannot fully see. We don't merely accept surveillance—we perform for it. Likes, comments, and shares reward certain behaviors while silence discourages others.

Gradually, the question shifts from What do I believe? to What will perform well? and finally to What will happen if I post this at all?

When Visibility Becomes Currency

Social media platforms must, at times, remove genuinely harmful content such as illegal material, exploitation, or incitement. But their greater influence lies in reshaping the incentives surrounding speech itself.

Content that attracts engagement is rewarded with visibility. Content that violates community standards—or simply conflicts with the commercial interests of advertisers, investors, or other stakeholders—may be quietly demoted, demonetized, or removed altogether.⁵ Sometimes moderation is explicit. More often, creators are left wondering whether declining engagement reflects public disinterest, an algorithmic adjustment, or an unseen moderation decision.

For journalists, artists, consultants, retailers, and small business owners, a social media account is no longer merely a communications tool. It functions simultaneously as a storefront, portfolio, advertising platform, and customer network. Losing that platform can mean losing clients, income, years of work, and professional credibility.

The old question was:

"What's the point of having a platform if you don't use it?"

Today it has become:

"What will it cost me if I do?"

The result is a powerful incentive toward self-censorship. Users quickly learn which subjects reduce engagement, which words trigger moderation, and which opinions risk making them commercially inconvenient.

Visibility has become a form of currency.

The Rise of the Volunteer Surveillance State

Platform moderation, however, is only half the story.

Entire TikTok accounts—and increasingly automated systems—exist for the sole purpose of identifying and exposing people they consider morally reprehensible. Viewers crowdsource names, employers, family members, social media profiles, and sometimes even home addresses so that online outrage spills into real-world punishment.

Those targeted often face coordinated harassment, death threats, professional consequences, and social ostracism wildly disproportionate to the original offense.

The effect extends far beyond the individuals involved. It produces a chilling effect on freedom of speech—and increasingly freedom of movement—as people censor themselves not because the government demands it, but because they fear becoming the internet's next spectacle.

Bentham imagined one guard watching many prisoners.

Social media has created billions of prisoners watching one another.

America's Unofficial Social Credit System

This naturally invites comparisons with China's social credit system.

China maintains a network of government blacklists, regulatory databases, and local programs that can restrict travel, borrowing, or business activities for individuals and companies that violate certain legal or administrative rules.⁶

The United States is unlikely to adopt that centralized, government-directed model. Yet a decentralized system driven by private companies, reputation, and market incentives may prove just as influential.

Credit bureaus evaluate financial reliability. Employers routinely review applicants' social media.⁷ Insurance companies assess behavioral risk. Online marketplaces rate buyers and sellers. Rideshare companies score both passengers and drivers. Social platforms rank influence, trustworthiness, safety, and engagement. Artificial intelligence increasingly assists in decisions involving hiring, lending, moderation, insurance, and even who is allowed to reach an audience.⁸

There may never be a single American social score.

There doesn't need to be.

Separate corporate systems need not coordinate perfectly to shape a person's opportunities. Together, they create a digital reputation that follows someone through professional, financial, and social life.

AI Makes the Tower Invisible

Artificial intelligence will only accelerate this trend.

AI systems can evaluate language, relationships, purchasing habits, images, and patterns of behavior at a scale no human observer could ever achieve. Increasingly, consequential decisions may be influenced by systems whose criteria remain invisible to the people being evaluated—and difficult to challenge once made.

The modern Panopticon therefore has no single watchtower.

Its architecture is the platform.

Its algorithms determine who is visible.

Its owners control access.

Its users police one another.

And artificial intelligence is making the tower increasingly invisible.

Who Guards the Guards?

Bentham believed people could be controlled because they never knew when they were being watched.

Our generation faces something even more powerful.

We know we are being watched.

The question is no longer whether surveillance exists.

It clearly does.

The more important question is whether a free society can remain truly free when speech, reputation, livelihood, and social standing increasingly depend on satisfying audiences—and algorithms—that we can neither fully see nor meaningfully challenge.

Endnotes

1. See reporting on the Bryant Park viral TikTok incident by major news organizations, including The New York Timesand NBC News (2026).

2. Reuters, CNBC, and the Associated Press, coverage of the Coldplay "kiss cam" incident involving Astronomer CEO Andy Byron and Kristin Cabot and Byron's subsequent resignation (2026).

3. Jeremy Bentham, Panopticon; or, The Inspection-House (1791).

4. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Pantheon Books, 1977 (original French edition, Surveiller et punir, 1975).

5. Meta, "Community Standards" and "Transparency Center"; TikTok, "Community Guidelines."

6. Rogier Creemers, "China's Social Credit System"; DigiChina (Stanford University); Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS), research on China's social credit system.

7. Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), research on employers' use of social media in hiring.

8. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework (AI RMF 1.0), 2023.

Authorship disclosure: AI participated in the creation of this essay or article, specifically through research support, organization, drafting, editing, and formatting and layout. Responsibility for the ideas was mostly human; responsibility for the final form was entirely human. The questionnaire calculated AI Thought at 34/100 and AI Mechanical at 63/100, with a Human Originality Score of 57/100. Human verified. Human approved. Tool identified: chatgpt.