PROTOCOL ACTIVE. INCOMING CALL: UNIT 1379. ENCRYPTION: LEVEL 4.
YOU ARE BEING FORECAST
World News (Daily Decode) · 30 October, from the digest of 26 to 29. A weather forecaster looks at the clouds and says where it will rain. This week it turned out that people can be read the same way. From their posts. From their letters. From their faces. And this forecast is not built for tomorrow. It is built for years ahead.
LOUD
EU · Eunews, Euronews.
They say: on 27 October the European Commission proposed a new mandate for the border agency Frontex. The standing corps will grow to 30,000 people, with 17,000 more in reserve; the budget rises to 11.8 billion euros from today's 6. A new centre will monitor publicly available social media; according to Euronews, the unit is «tasked with monitoring social media to prevent large-scale movements». Commission Executive Vice President Henna Virkkunen: «these tools significantly improve early warning, preparedness, and crisis forecasting». Eunews
Decoding 1379: weather is forecast from clouds. People are now forecast from their posts. A person has not gone anywhere yet, and his movement has already been counted from what he wrote. Why: a border that knows about the crowd before the crowd does no longer stands in one place. It stands in your feed.
They used to forecast the weather. Now they forecast you.
THE TURN
Britain, 9 October 1940 · one hundred and twenty thousand letters.
They say: Ministry of Information, Home Intelligence division, the weekly report on public morale for 30 September to 9 October 1940. The table of sources has 24 rows: information officers in 13 regions, postal censorship (more than 120,000 letters), police reports, Mass Observation, W.H. Smith bookstalls, cinema managers, Citizens' Advice Bureaux. Behind each report, one to two thousand conversations. Every topic is marked with the number of mentions in square brackets. Ministry of Information, 1940
Decoding 1379: in 1940, to learn what the country thought, they read its letters and listened in on the cinema queue. One hundred and twenty thousand letters a week, by hand. Today people write their letters themselves, in the open, by the million, and a machine reads them. Why: in Scene 3.0 morale was measured to hold a war together. In Scene 3.02 it is measured all the time, so that nothing happens before it is permitted.
Then they read letters in secret. Now we write them ourselves, in the open.
THE INTERMEDIARY
Space and mobility · Euronews.
They say: under the same proposal Frontex will be able to return people from one country outside the EU to another country outside the EU, and help authorities, for example in North Africa, return people before they reach Europe. The first «return hub» in a third country is expected in 2027. An EU official: «The more people you return before [they reach Europe], the less you have to return after». Josephine Solanki, Transnational Institute: «It's a deportation agency, increasingly operating far away from the actual border of the EU». Euronews
Decoding 1379: the border has moved a thousand kilometres away from itself. They return those who have not yet arrived. Why: yesterday people were moved through open doors. Today they are stopped where nobody has seen them yet. The person is a piece on the board again: decisions move him there and back, and he is the last to know.
They return those who have not yet arrived.
EXCHANGE
Money and credit · Rathbones, Moneyfacts.
They say: on 28 October Chancellor John Healey presented the budget. Tax rates on savings income rise by another 2 points from 6 April 2027, by 4 together with last year's budget: the basic rate becomes 24%. Income tax thresholds are frozen until 5 April 2031. By the tax authority's estimate, 3.8 million people will pay more on their savings. In return, this winter 20 million households get 100 pounds each towards energy. Rathbones
Decoding 1379: one hundred pounds for one winter. Thresholds frozen for five years. Wages rise, the threshold stands still, and a person drives himself into the next tax band without a single new law. Why: this is a forecast too, only on your money. It has been written up to 2031, and they already know how much you will hand over.
One hundred pounds for the winter. A threshold for five years.
MEANING
Screen and narrative · Eunews.
They say: EU home affairs commissioner Magnus Brunner on the new Frontex mandate: the measures will «enable us to decide who we want in the Union and who we don't»; the Commission must «regain control», «despite return rates of 33 per cent». The word «deportation» does not appear in his sentences. The word «return» does. Eunews
Decoding 1379: «return» sounds like a parcel sent back. «Regain control» sounds as if someone had stolen it. The words are chosen so that a decision about a person sounds like logistics. Why: logistics is not debated. It is optimised.
A person is not deported. He is returned, like a parcel.
COERCION
Law and norm · Biometric Update.
They say: on 29 October the British regulator Ofcom, at a minister's request, published for Parliament a «rapid assessment of highly effective age assurance at 16» for the law banning social media under 16. There are four «highly effective» ways to prove you are 16: a selfie matched against an ID document, a bank check, a reusable digital ID, and facial age estimation. About 150,000 Britons aged 16 to 17 have no ID document. A Yoti representative: «almost all UK adults will easily pass the age check in approximately one second». Biometric Update
Decoding 1379: to keep a child out, everyone will have to be checked. An adult passes in one second. And in that second the system receives his face. Why: a ban for children makes the check normal for adults. The law is written about sixteen year olds, and everyone hands over a face.
A ban for children. A face from adults.
A FORECAST ON PEOPLE
One week. The European border will read social media to know about people's movements before they move. Britain in 1940 read one hundred and twenty thousand other people's letters a week to know the mood of the country. Now we write the letters ourselves, in the open, and pass the face check in one second. Tax thresholds are frozen until 2031: the forecast on our money has already been written. A weather forecaster knows a forecast does not change the weather. But this forecast changes people, because things are built to match it. One question is left: if you have already been forecast, who decides where you go?