Surveillance & Monitoring

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Surveillance is often the starting point

Surveillance is often the first layer of repression.

For many writers, their work is not only read — it is watched. Their online activity, communications, friendships, travel, meetings, and networks may be monitored over long periods of time. This builds a detailed picture of what they write, who they speak to, how they work, and where pressure might be applied.

But surveillance is not passive. It is not simply the collection of information. It is a method of control.

When people know, or even suspect, that they are being watched, it changes how they behave. They may avoid certain words, withdraw from conversations, stop attending events, or become afraid of placing others at risk. Surveillance stokes fear, caution, and mistrust. It can make writers feel that danger is not only coming from the state, but from the spaces and relationships around them.

In some countries, this monitoring is systematic and built into the infrastructure itself. Internet service providers may be controlled or closely monitored by the state. Platforms used for communication and everyday life can be designed in ways that allow access to messages, contacts, call records, location data, and activity.

In China, widely used platforms such as WeChat — along with emerging “everything apps” that combine messaging, payments, services, and identity — create environments where communication, financial activity, and social interaction are closely tied together and more easily monitored. In Iran, a heavily filtered internet and sophisticated blocking systems restrict access to global platforms, pushing users towards systems that are easier to observe and control.

Iran has also moved towards a system in which unauthorised VPNs are banned or disrupted, while licensed or state-approved forms of access may be permitted for selected users. This creates a dangerous inversion: tools that appear to provide access to the open internet may also make users more identifiable and easier to monitor. Even where HTTPS protects the content of a connection, the surrounding data — who connects, when, from where, and to which services — can still be revealing.

This kind of surveillance may appear technical, but it often depends on very ordinary human pressure. People may be coerced into reporting on others, sharing messages from private community groups, identifying who attended a meeting, or passing on information about who someone speaks to. In this way, surveillance does not only watch communities from the outside. It can enter communities themselves, damaging trust from within.

Beyond borders

Leaving these environments does not always bring an end to monitoring.

Writers living in exile may still be targeted through digital surveillance that operates across borders. In some cases, this involves advanced spyware tools capable of accessing messages, files, microphones, cameras, and devices remotely — as seen in well-documented cases involving tools such as Pegasus.

In other cases, the methods are less sophisticated but still effective. Spyware can be installed through social engineering, often by exploiting trust. A link may be sent by someone who appears familiar. A device may be handled by someone inside a community. A compromised account may be used to approach others. Once installed, these tools can provide ongoing access to communications, personal data, and networks.

Surveillance can also be carried out through diaspora communities themselves. Messages from private groups may be copied and shared. Photos from events may be used to identify participants. People may report on who attended a meeting, who spoke to whom, or who is becoming active in political, literary, or human rights work. This does not require advanced technology. It only requires fear, coercion, loyalty, money, or pressure on family members inside the country of origin.

Even ordinary communication with family can become part of this system. Calls, messaging apps, and platforms used to stay in touch with relatives inside repressive states may be monitored or designed in ways that make monitoring easier. For exiled writers, this creates a painful dilemma: the need to remain connected to family can also expose them to surveillance, pressure, or emotional blackmail.

At the same time, open digital environments can be used for monitoring. Social media platforms, public profiles, event pages, online archives, and comment threads can be systematically collected and analysed to map networks, track activity, identify relationships, and find opportunities for intimidation or pressure.

Tools of Surveillance & Monitoring

Social Media Monitoring

Surveillance / Monitoring

Social Media Monitoring

How public posts, comments, tags, live streams, and visible networks can be watched, recorded, and used to pressure writers, journalists, activists, and exiled critics.

Personal Information Gathering and Doxxing

Surveillance / Monitoring

Personal Information Gathering and Doxxing

How personal details can be collected, connected, exposed, or threatened to make writers, journalists, activists, and exiled critics feel reachable and vulnerable.

Impact

Surveillance, in this sense, is not a single act but an ongoing condition.

It shapes behaviour over time. It influences what is written, how it is shared, who people trust, and what feels possible to say. It can turn ordinary communication into a source of anxiety. It can make people afraid not only for themselves, but for their families, friends, translators, publishers, colleagues, and readers.

This is why surveillance should be understood as a form of repression in itself. It does not need to end in arrest, violence, or prosecution to be effective. Its power lies in anticipation: the fear that something said today may be used tomorrow.

For writers, this can produce silence long before a censor appears. It can make exile feel unsafe, fragment communities, and force people to carry the habits of repression into supposedly free spaces.

Sources and further reading