Fear can make people do terrible things, like tracking people and infringing on citizens rights in the name of national security. Fear also makes people more susceptible to suggestion making it one of the most exploitable human emotions. China was the first to encounter the corona pandemic so china is also the model for how to deal with the virus.

China uses a variety of tactics to control its society of over a billion people these include the worlds largest Internet censorship program dubbed “The Great Firewall of China”, an AI centered facial recognition program, and a mandatory social credit system that can affect a persons way of life by limiting travel based on a poor social score. All this data is collected to assess a person’s loyalty to china and the novel coronavirus provides justification to expand on these controversial activities around the globe.

Countries like hungry are also using this crisis to expand surveillance, hungry passed a bill that allows their Prime Minister to rule by decree. 23 other countries have implemented “contact tracing apps” allowing countries to keep record of person’s social relationships. In Hong Kong people are forced to wear wristbands that alert authorities if a person leaves their place of quarantine. In all the world powers are noticing this is a chance to rein in control over their citizens and so far we have been compliant.

Article: https://dgrnewsservice.org/civilization/repression/rise-of-coronavirus-surveillance/

Image: https://theday.co.uk/stories/1984-at-70-still-relevant-says-orwell-s-son