Democracy is a concept in constant dispute which is founded on the basis of its institutions. The strength and stability of democracy and its institutions depend on its validity in people s minds (Castells, 2018). Once the subjective link between what citizens think and want and the actions of those who represent them is broken the legitimacy of the system can be questioned. In the 1990s and the in first decade of the 2000s there was a confluence between the discussions on Global Civil Society and Global Governance that pointed in the direction of the expansion of democracy through the Global Civil Society. Conversely, here we propose to give a critical step using the discussion on Surveillance Capitalism. Thus, this work aims to contribute to the discussion on the crises of democracy, specifically challenging the idea that the role of global civil society leads necessarily to the expansion of democracy. We observe how aspects that were the basis for the global civil society utopia were put in check by the tension existing between the horizontality of the network-society and the policies of control and surveillance. In the face of this controversy, we explore how the workings of Civil Society have tensioned democracy in the 21st century. We also explore possibilities of action and limits imposed by the dissemination of Information and Communication Technologies whiting the context of Surveillance Capitalism.