In 2017 it became known that the “smart” TVs of the American company Vizio were sending information to the manufacturer about which channels were being watched on them. Although the data could not be associated with a specific name, the very idea that household appliances can spy is, to put it mildly, disturbing. Such a practice is certainly not an exception; it just happened that information about this particular company leaked. This case can serve as a model for forming an understanding of the so-called Internet of Things (IoT), which is already entering our everyday lives.

The idea behind it is that all existing devices should be connected to the network and transmit data through it, while countless new gadgets, sensors, and devices are created to do the same. Thus, the individual’s life will be maximally exposed. All “smart” devices will in fact spy on people and transmit data to IT companies, which could make it public. Through a smart watch, for example, corporations could know your body temperature and blood pressure at any given moment—say, when you are on a date, having sex, when your boss assigns you an unpleasant task, or when you are chasing a new Pokémon. These data could be shared with anyone—your boss, for instance. In fact, with absolutely anyone, even your spouse, especially if there is something you would prefer to hide. “Accidental” data leaks can always happen, through some unsuspected channels, after a series of coincidences…

There will be no place where the individual can hide. There will be no personal space or secrets. The individual will be open to “browsing” by anyone. The possibilities are endless.

What kind of society will we live in then? A strictly totalitarian and dogmatic one, where a person’s luck, fate, and life depend on the whims of corporations or some “Superbrain”? Or a free and liberal one, tolerant of personal life and human peculiarities, where no one’s “dirty laundry” makes an impression anymore? In my view, the first option is far too exhausting for humans, while the second is closer to human nature. Everyone needs personal space—and if technologies destroy it, the finger-pointer will realize that they, too, can be pointed at. And since self-censorship is exhausting—twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week—the development of a culture of tolerance and acceptance of people as they are is more likely than the emergence of total self-censorship, control, and self-control.

Mass manipulation is nothing new. It existed long before the internet era and is part of the age-old drive to control human behavior.

Today, thanks to scientific progress, such manipulations are more effective and insidious than ever. The internet—and the digital world in general—is controlled by a few monopolists who act as intermediaries between the individual and virtual reality. Their next target is reality itself, with control achieved through the gradual blurring of boundaries between it and virtual reality, via the so-called Internet of Things, where all people and objects are connected to the internet through countless sensors.

But even today, as dispatchers of information flows and controllers of processes online, IT giants are already steering humanity toward a techno-totalitarian society in which freedom and individuality have no designated place.

Still, when collective consciousness becomes aware of an existing danger, it adapts—as it always has throughout history. And then, in step with awareness, solutions will gradually begin to emerge from the fog, one by one. In response to current trends, a need will likely arise for a form of social organization united around the values of freedom, self-determination, and democracy—one that helps ensure that the individual in contemporary reality remains more conscious, strong, and resilient in the face of encroachments on their very essence.