Trailer: The circle as reality?

The Circle is a sci-fi thriller that follows a story of a young woman (Emma Watson). The woman is hired by the so-called internet company The Circle. The Circle is specialised in linking the personal information of customers. Consider emails, social media data, banking and sale information. It is an era of ultimate transparency and far-reaching civilization. People think they have nothing to hide. Everyone has a complete online identity that companies like The Circle make use of. A future perspective that seems not even that strange and certainly not that far away. The Circle as a book draws a very realistic world for the near future.  

Dutch people; unconsciously incompetent

It seems that the vast majority of the Dutch population is totally unaware and incapable in terms of data, technology and privacy. Unconscious of the trace of data we leave every day behind. Unconscious of the amount of sensors available in our mobile phones and the rising devices that continuously listen to us. Every act on our mobile phones we actually fill out a questionnaire which is about our personal lives and preferences. The world is getting more transparent every day, but the questions is in whose favor it is? Are we really creating a ‘power to the people’ world with the aid of technology? It seems right that our circles of interest and information are shrinking because of technology and learning algorithms. The smart software is getting to know us better and better. Our own ideas are not getting confirmed which causes that we continue to believe in our own truths. The result is that we increasingly drop out of traditional institutions. Trust reduces to a minimum in a world in which the media has fallen for superficiality and speed of reporting.

The Circle is not a future perspective

The Circle gives a frightening picture of contemporary thinking in which personal data is managed and monitored by an organization. A film under the banner of science fiction. But is it science fiction? Our environment is becoming smarter. The prediction of 2022 is that half a billion devices are monitoring us constantly. The Circle believes that privacy is theft. Everything must be divisible. Google makes a similar statement. They claimed that privacy in the near future is the most anti-social well that exists. Can we make any comparison here? The employees at The Circle also have ultimate transparency in their work. Everything is accessible for everyone, even personal performance. We recognise these developments more and more in organizations. We work under a glass bell jar. The Circle talks about the so-called Participation Rank - or PartiRank. What you share also gives you participation in society. A good idea because we quickly discover who the beneficiaries are in our society. This is what we will fastly think. But The Circle will prove you that it can also go radically wrong.

The Circle can be compared with a combination of Facebook, Google and Twitter. With a so-called TruYou Circle account, all your other accounts are superfluous; everyone has one account, one identity, one password and one payment. In the world of The Circle there is a choice between privacy and convenience. These people flock to convenience. Just like contemporary world.

The Circle is seen as a new version of George Orwell’s in 1984. In 1984, Big Brother keeps an eye on us. The Circle continues and we just share everything online. Well, we still see a lot of similar elements with our contemporary world. The time that The Circle will be viewed massively, we hope that it raises more awareness about the superficiality of today’s new and so-called social media. Wondering how this movie will sink in our Dutch society