Technology and democracy cannot coexist without privacy
Technology and democracy cannot coexist without privacy
Publish Date: 2026-03-01 04:14:00
Source Domain: www.pressherald.com
Stephanie Forbes is a student at the University of Maine School of Law in Portland.
Six years ago, I embarked on a journey to understand how technology affects society — for better and for worse — and what to do about it.
Today, I’m a law student searching to rediscover a sense of importance in my work in a world of growing polarization and disregard for both human rights and the rule of law.
Does privacy even matter? Upon a brief reflection, the resounding answer is louder than I previously thought.
George Orwell’s “1984” showed that without basic freedoms, people lose the ability to become human, thereby becoming robotic arms of the Party. Telescreens controlled the stream of information that the population had access to and collected information about dissidents in the process.
Orwell drew upon parallels to totalitarian, fascist regimes to warn about technology’s ability to strip away privacy and dehumanize society. The themes of “1984” have been oft explored as such, but I find the parallels to 2026 to be a starkly uncanny reminder of the importance of privacy.
One of the main goals in protecting the freedom of speech is the search for truth. However, as anyone who has interacted with a loved one on the other side of the political aisle recently will know, there are different realities of “truth” that exist in this country. Our voluntary engagement with online platforms creates confirmation biases by limiting exposure to different ideas and lived experiences — thus, shaping the way we think and perpetuating polarization. Instead of searching for the actual truth, we tend to seek to verify our truth.
This filtering process is data-driven. Big tech companies collect data about their users’ interactions online to guide their experiences and optimize them for future engagement — hence, why these platforms are often called “addictive.”
Apart from this, platforms like TikTok have…
