The Black Mirror: How Many Friends Have You Made Today?

It’s four in the morning in London. A house sits on a secluded street in the center of the city. A dog can be heard barking in the distance, but the air is still and virtually silent. A couple lies in bed, covered in the shadows of the early morning. Suddenly, a vibration. The house remains still. Then, the shrill of a ringing telephone. The man stumbles awake and answers the call; his urgent whispers fill the room. He leaves the room in a hurry, leaving his wife in the dark.

This man is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He has been awoken due to the act of terrorism thathas occurred overnight: an anonymous terrorist has kidnapped Princess Susannah, a beloved member of the Royal Family. And the only way she will be returned safely? The Prime Minister must have sex with a pig on national television.

And thus begins the disturbing first episode of the three-part television series Black Mirror. The series focuses on numerous different characters and storylines, but the overarching theme remains the same: what could happen if we abuse the advantages of technology? When asked to describe the idea behind his three-part television series, Charlie Brooker begins with a question: “If technology is a drug – and it does feel like a drug – then what, precisely, are the side-effects?” The series “taps into our contemporary unease about our modern world” with an undertone of what he calls “techno-paranoia.” Each episode takes place in a different reality in our future, explains Brooker, “…but they're all about the way we live now – and the way we might be living in 10 minutes' time if we're clumsy.”

At first, the concept of the series seems clever, though a tad ridiculous; after all, there is absolutely no possible way that something as disgusting and offensive as the situation in the first episode of Black Mirror could ever occur, right? It just could never, ever happen. Maybe somewhere, far off into the distant future…the thing is, the reality in which Black Mirror takes place could, in fact, be tomorrow. There are no flying cars, no teleportation devices. The primary weapons the terrorist uses are all too familiar to us: Twitter, YouTube, and other well-known social media websites. Although the Prime Minister’s team works hard to contain the story, the news spreads around the world in seconds when someone uploads the kidnap video of the princess to YouTube. Crumbling under the pressure that this worldwide knowledge causes, the Prime Minister goes through with the demand, shocking the world.

The scariest aspect of Black Mirror is not the gruesome stories or alarming characters, but, as a review from the UK based paper Metro puts it, “[The episode] may have been funny, full of razor-sharp satire and with one of TV's silliest, basest stunts at its centre, but it was also one of the scariest things you're likely to have seen this year, mostly because you could recognize the horrid, familiar truth in it.”

Because teenagers nowadays are generally familiar and comfortable with the Internet and social media, one might wonder what their thoughts are on this controversial topic. When asked in an informal poll if they had ever thought of the possibility of Internet or various other technologic devices being used as a weapon, such as in a terroristic act, all seven participants expressed some sort of shock at the question, followed by some variation of, “I have never once thought of something like that.” One contributor said, “I had never really considered the idea, but now that I’m thinking about it, it seems like a very likely situation. Unfortunately, the recent advances in technology have made communication such an easy thing that planning a terrorist act could be very plausible. This is frightening because after what happened on 9/11, everyone became super suspicious and worried about terrorists, who knows what would happen if something like that happened again.” Though the younger generation is known to be the most adept at using technology, the majority of teens appear to have never considered the possibility that it could be used against us.

Though it appears that the majority of the younger generation had never considered this sort of situation, the reality is that it is very, well, real. Technology presents seemingly endless possibilities, and various terrorism groups have already tested its capabilities. In the 2008 Mumbai attacks, for example, where terrorists coordinated eleven shooting and bombing attacks across the whole of Mumbai, the attackers used a wide variety of commercial technology including Blackberries, GPS navigators, and even Twitter. The Courier Mail reports that the group used Blackberries and Twitter “to monitor international reaction to the atrocities, and to check on the police response via the Internet.”

An article on the website Read Writer Web asks the question: “Technology and Terrorism: Are we being too naïve?” The article references a terroristic plot, which targeted the JFK international airport in New York. According to the reports on CNN.com, the terrorists had used Google Earth to obtain access to aerial photos of the airport. If these plots can be easily aided by a simple tool such as Google Earth, what else could possibly be used against us?

It seems as though the idea of "techno-paranoia," as introduced by Charlie Brooker with Black Mirror, is already very present in modern society. Because the younger generation is so used to seeing technology in a “fun” and “cool” light, the primary source of this “techno-paranoia” seems to stem from the older, more critical generations. No, I do not mean the kind of paranoia that your 85-year-old grandmother experiences when she reads an article that states that if someone uses their cell phone at a gas station, they will explode in a huge ball of fire. It’s the kind of paranoia that has spawned hundreds of websites dedicated to the research of terrorists using technology. The website Terrorism Files is dedicated to the extensive detailing of every terroristic act; it is managed by the general public. While the reliability of the information on this website is unclear, the very idea of a site dedicated to the documentation of terroristic activities is evidence enough that the general population is frightened by this relatively new “genre” of terrorism. The website explains that “[terrorists] embrace [technology] for several reasons: it improves communication and aids organization, allows members to coordinate quickly with large numbers of followers, and provides a platform for propaganda. The Internet also allows terrorists to reach a wide audience of potential donors and recruits who may be located over a large geographic area.” The website creators obviously disapprove of the way this situation is being handled, stating, “The appeal of such tools may increase as news media continue to sensationalize hacking.” Techno-paranoia is thriving and, apparently, with good reason.

On the other hand, others hold a completely different view on this situation much differently; perhaps it depends on how comfortable one is with technology. In response to the report that terrorists had used Google Earth in one of their plots, Bruce Schneier, BT’s chief security technology officer, wrote an article for The Guardian encouraging everyone to look at the information from a different angle. He argues that although it is always shocking to be reminded that our own “infrastructure” can be used against us, it is nothing new. He explains, “Criminals have used telephones and mobile phones since they were invented. Drug smugglers use airplanes and boats, radios and satellite phones. Bank robbers have long used cars and motorcycles as getaway vehicles, and horses before then.” Schneier makes the point that if we suddenly banned everything that terrorists used in their attacks, we would only be harming ourselves. The terrorists used Google Earth, but they also probably drank bottled water, ate at fast food restaurants, and shopped for clothing online. Schneier says, “Society survives all of this because the good uses of infrastructure far outweigh the bad uses, even though the good uses are - by and large - small and pedestrian and the bad uses are rare and spectacular.”

As if this topic of technology and terrorism wasn’t complicated enough, there’s another layer to it: new technology is constantly being created to help with the fight against terrorism. According to an article in 2007 from the Daily Mail, the former Home Secretary of the UK described the new technology as “a practical example of how we are developing a more strategic and integrated response to the threat. Science and innovation will be critical in driving forward these changes and delivering new counter-terrorism capabilities.”

Whether you support the rapid advances in technology or not, it is clear that they play an enormous role in the world of terrorism today and will in the future. As Charlie Brooker said, technology has the possibility to help us and harm us in the future. The results could be as horrifying as the events depicted in Black Mirror, especially “if we're clumsy.” The important thing is to learn as much as possible about the subject in order to obtain a greater understanding of what is happening in our world. The more we know, the better we can understand both the risks and dangers of becoming too immersed into the world of advanced technology.