The Notion of Surveillance Capitalism and its Relevance to Pakistan

The concept of Surveillance Capitalism explains an economic system at a global level based on various market trends in cyberspace. The spread of business communities in the digital landscape formulates a widespread digital data culture, its collection from different android applications, and its sale and purchase as a market product. The personal data gathered from various smartphone software applications, usually based on sensitive information, individual details, and location tracing material has been considered an effective weapon used as practical tools for dominating a states’ political, social, and economic affairs. The notion of Surveillance Capitalism emphasizes an economic market in the international system linked to a global corporate network in cyberspace where the business of data trading has become a most profitable activity. The digital world’s data modifying techniques have been recognized as an effective product for making profit with the rise of smartphone users’ across the world which has created a digital culture of various android software applications that collect various types of information for different trading purposes. The spread of smartphone technology has made all states equally vulnerable in cyberspace, where territorial borders do not matter for corporate societies. In this way, the active participation of leading corporate companies in the world of digital realities has created an international environment of data trading that could be used for various economic purposes. The personal data consisting of various materials can be modified in attractive profit-making products, which could be used further to dominate the foreign markets by regulating a specific nation’s socio-economic orientations.

The concept of Surveillance Capitalism was initially introduced by a Harvard University professor of business school. She defined and explained the idea of digital market trends in her book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. Shoshana Zuboff, an American social psychologist explores the modern notion of market trends in the digital revolution. This digital revolution leaves impacts of the worse kind on the entire international economic order. Zuboff initially explained the formulation of such a market environment at the global level under the academic survey ‘The Digital Declaration’ which was a scholarly explanation of new warfare strategies in cyberspace. In the world of rapidly evolving digital realities, the whole international system has started empowering the corporate sector’s role in cyberspace, where the trade of computerized data has become a most profitable commodity. The formulation of data as a profitable business product will help states in dominating and enhancing their influences in the mainstream economic affairs of rival nations. The further extension of Zuboff’s work leads the whole debate towards more utilization of the digital data acquired from different android software applications. The varying patterns of data consisting of specific information of a particular nation would help regulate the political and strategic environments of targeted States. The use of sensitive data will later enable the states to control a rival nations’ political and social tendencies under the entire globe’s intense globalized culture. In a strategic competition of two states, the data acquired from different digital sources will help dominate the political and social affairs of rival states for the achievement of strategic objectives. The achievement of strategic objectives in the decades-long conflicts between different archrival nations has fabricated a strategic environment in which the borderless digital culture in various regions has become an undeniable reality for the whole international system.

In the age of globalization, the concept of Surveillance Capitalism is directly linked to the rise of globalized values that structured a digital market culture emphasizing the trade of digitally modified data. The data is usually acquired from countless social media applications has become a standard tool for regulating a particular nation’s socio political trends. The most effective tool for collecting information based on public opinions about political developments of a specific nation is associated with the social media platform, which has encircled the whole globe. The objective of misleading the nations in a specific direction could contain the potential for regulating the public’s political opinions, but it could also propagate various political scenarios of a specific nation. The data gathering from social media accounts has highlighted the role of various digitally formulated information communication networks, which have grown dramatically across the globe. In this way, Surveillance Capitalism details an updated format of cybersecurity threats under the shadow of data commercialization in the global economic system. Such cybersecurity threats under Surveillance Capitalism can empower rival nations to use the sensitive information acquired from several social-media applications for the meeting of different strategic objectives.

The rise of surveillance capitalism and its emerging role in world politics has become an undeniable reality for the international community in which all states are equally vulnerable. Analogous to many other states, Pakistan’s emerging digital infrastructures are consistently pushing the Pakistani nation toward a global digital order where different formats of data collected from various android software applications have become a serious concern for the government. The dramatic rise of smartphone applications and the unprecedented growth of android software have fabricated a complex network of digital communication channels. The information consisting of personal details, location identification, and changing patterns of public opinions about specific political and social developments are largely being considered to be the most profitable market product with the rise of smartphone users in Pakistan. The data obtained from various android users can easily be used for various political objectives under the broader rubric of information warfare. An appropriate application of information warfare under the newly-invented conception of surveillance capitalism can easily be seen in the New Delhi Islamabad hostility. The Indian strategic community is trying to create problems/disturbances in the civil-military relations of Pakistan. The manipulation of data acquired from the digital world has become a most helpful weapon for New Delhi against Pakistan.

In the presence of growing multi-layered hostility levels, the government higher ups officers from New Delhi and Islamabad are strong minded in pursuing their values in cyberspace. The combination of territorial and non-territorial spheres of hostility has pushed both nations towards a modern way of war fighting techniques through various socio political campaigns. These campaigns are considered the most effective weapons in the age of digital realities where social media is firmly cemented in New Delhi’s offensive role against Pakistan and its people through controlling social media platform in the form of Twitter. The culture of using social media through smartphone technologies has increased in South Asia dramatically in which Indian and Pakistani societies have started using social media in their routine life. The massive use of social media has given an opportunity to the security establishment of New Delhi to mislead the Pakistani people in various political, social, and economic affairs. Additionally, Indian fake social media accounts in different communication digital networks have been critically debating the sensitive aspects of Pakistani society. The primary focus of such media campaigns is linked to Indian strategic objectives. The information collected from various social media channels is an effective tool for New Delhi in the non-traditional domain, where the Indian security establishment can easily undermine Pakistan’s presence in regional and extra-regional affairs. In Pakistan, the focus of such campaigns is the civil military relations and their histrionic growth in the country. The Indian sponsored campaigns have started spreading inaccurate and manipulated information based on various fake data and inaccurate facts and figures, a modern warfare technique.

In the age of emerging globalization, modern warfare techniques are primarily linked to technological advancement in the cyber world. The process of globalization in the international system has pushed all the states towards a worldwide digital order under smartphone technologies’ widespread promotion. Parallel to the rising digital scenarios of the cyber world in the international system, the hostile attributes of different rival states have been transferred to cyberspace, where territorial borders matter less for states that are hostile. The reflection of such scenarios in the South Asian regional political order can be assessed in the Islamabad-New Delhi hostility. Apart from acquiring an improved defence structure based on nuclear weapons, both nations’ hostile attitude has dragged Islamabad and New Delhi into the world of digital realities. Thus, the digital world’s multi-layered security challenges portray a negative picture of the South Asian region where two nuclear powers have jumped into cyberspace.

The emerging role of social media platforms in digital values has become an undeniable reality of the international system. The people are also very active in expressing their positions on political, economic, and social developments in social media. People from different parts of the world living under different political administrations are also very much convinced on the rising role of social media accounts in their respective lives, where Twitter has become the most popular platform out of countless social media networks due to its worldwide promotion. In this way, the spread of Twitting trends across the globe has also been recognized as an effective warfare tool, through which different nations can mislead the opposite states with the help of specific inaccurate information. In other words, manipulating specific information and creating fabricated data based on political material are considered the most effective method of influencing the society of rival nations. A comprehensive study of such values reveals different dimensions of the South Asian regional security environment where both nuclear-weapon states actively intensify their rival patterns of bilateral interaction in the world of digital realities. In this way, the digital reflection of India-Pakistan strategic competition under the conception of Surveillance Capitalism has been recognized as an essential feature of South Asia’s regional security environment.

While living in a post Westphalian system of the modern state, Pakistan’s government cannot escape from the international system’s emerging globalized patterns. In the presence of forces of transnational values in the twenty-first century’s globalized international culture, the government of Pakistan must urgently update its conventional digital infrastructure. A comprehensive campaign is needed to counterbalance the wave of cybersecurity threats in the form of Surveillance Capitalism, because the rise of Zuboff’s ideas is intended to encircle the South Asian security environment with Indian leaders are determined to propagate various sensitive issues generally and the critical nature of civil-military relations particularly. For the effective management of rising levels of smartphone users under the shadows of social media networks, Islamabad is needed to regulate social media platforms’ challenging role, including Twitter accounts in the country.