The decline of social freedoms in times of pandemic: ¿a necessary turning point or the path of no return?

Abstract

The governments of the world, inspired by the strategies of supervision and social immobility created by Chinese authoritarianism, under the pretext of combating the pandemic, have implemented technological tools such as geolocation, facial recognition and manipulation of Big Data, among others, which has strengthened the abuse of individual freedoms.  The present research was carried out under a qualitative approach with a documentary review methodology of narrative type, nourished by primary and secondary sources of information. The design was a cross-sectional study conducted in the year 2020 with a non-experimental level. The objective of this work was to know the current state of social freedoms at a global level as a consequence of the application of control strategies and social immobility in the fight against the Covid-19 virus. It was found a downward trend in the index of social freedoms in the world -both in countries with authoritarian governments as well as in those called democratic- in the 2 years prior to the pandemic, being 2020, the year of the beginning of the pandemic, when violations intensified the most. Among the main conclusions is that there is a sustained fall in the index of civil liberties at the international level, regardless of the political definition of government and the degree of development of the country. While social control and authoritarianism are part of Asian culture, in democratic countries, citizens have surrendered social freedoms in the name of protection and security from contagion.