Note By Antonia

So far we have been brainstorming about what privacy means to us in today's world. A world of liquid modernity, surveillance and increasing individualism hunted by social media; and the need to express this individuality through these social tools. From a post on Instagram till governmental facial recognition methods in the street to monitor people.

I did not pay much attention to what privacy meant until last year. I had a very nice Instagram where I post all my travels, my adventures living in different countries, my ideas and so on. However, in January 2018, starting my new life at uni, I wonder what would happen if I  just lived in the "real world" rather than partly online and partly offline. So I close down my Instagram. In this journey, I discovered many things, especially what privacy is and how important it became to who I am.

The lessons I learn from this "experiment" vary from personal discovering to political analysis of vigilance, all within the same neoliberal context.
For example, understanding that my political ideas were constantly shaped by the images I saw online and the overwhelming public opinion expressed in posts that seem harmless yet are a fair representation of the post-truth era.

Also, seeing how an online platform of individual self-expression can quickly transform into a tool of social empowerment; yet at the same time be an expression of social division in terms of race, class, gender, economic status,  and so on.

One of the things that amaze me the most is the constant need of approbation -that this society of competition (neoliberalism at its best)- pushes us to, by constantly exposing ourselves online and our privacy until the point it becomes dangerous.

But these connections are not evident for most of us. But they clearly show the vulnerability of life and the unconscious way we live it.

But as the purpose of this course states: how can we reinvent politics so that this issue is addressed by it.