Delivering a lecture at Bahria Town University on the instrumentalization of digital technologies by private companies, Dr Sanaullah Abbasi provided a critical lens on the economic logic dictating the flow of information in digital spheres. Using the term ‘surveillance capitalism’, he lamented on how the capitalistic drive for accumulation has turned human experience into a raw material processed into behavioral data. These objectives have created an apparatus of surveillance and an unprecedented centralization of information that is now being used to control political discourse and instrumentalize digital technologies to sustain authoritarian tendencies. Lastly, he encouraged students to reevaluate the rational models underpinning digital governance while demanding greater accountability and democratic oversight.