Tacit social experimentation with digital technologies during the Covid-19 crisis.

Publisher: Kluwer Academic Pubishers Country of Publication: Netherlands NLM ID: 9805378 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1573-0980 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 13867415 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Theor Med Bioeth Subsets: MEDLINE

Original Publication: Dordrecht ; Boston : Kluwer Academic Pubishers, c1998-

COVID-19*/prevention & control ; COVID-19*/epidemiology ; Digital Technology* ; Telemedicine*/ethics ; SARS-CoV-2*; Humans ; Pandemics/ethics ; Politics

In the management of the Covid 19 crisis, digital technologies were used in a major way. This article defends the hypothesis that these technologies took the form of a "tacit social experimentation". This article justifies this concept in three levels. The first part uses this concept to qualify the form of biopolitics that was implemented to manage the crisis. Digital technologies were used to discipline the population and, literally speaking, as instruments of knowledge of the population. Uncertainty forced experts to make preliminary observations and act to produce knowledge. Second, this article shows that the use of digital technologies during the crisis was experimental in a second sense. By promoting telemedicine within a more flexible legal framework, the authorities authorised an experimental use of telemedicine without knowledge or control of its side effects. Finally, the article defends the use of the concept of "tacit social experimentation" for ethical and political purposes. For indeed, understanding the experiments carried out during the crisis begs the question of the involvement of the participants and their democratic steering.
(© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.)

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Keywords: Covid-19; Digital health; Ethics; Experimentation; Telemedicine

Date Created: 20240524 Date Completed: 20240611 Latest Revision: 20240611

20240612

10.1007/s11017-024-09669-z

38789701