I've been under surveillance since I was 15 mainly because people made money off of me saying funny stuff. I'm used to it after 17 years. Personal computing was a mistake.
Is surveillance risk chilling your online speech?
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Re: Is surveillance risk chilling your online speech?
#52I started feeling that way around the time ICE illegally broke, entered and ransacked a low-income housing building in Chicago, terrorizing residents regardless of citizenship or immigration status. Once I realized that fear of reprisal was preventing me from expressing how I felt about it online, I resolved instead to get louder and more strident in my public speech than I had been in years.
Looks like that episode was a building clearance for a developer.
Re: Is surveillance risk chilling your online speech?
#53Yes.
Re: Is surveillance risk chilling your online speech?
#54I'm in Australia, so we have a pretty open approach to online speech unless you're being really, really awful. Like really awful. OR. You want to say something about US oil and gas companies, or Israel. Those two things will get you scrutinised.
Or if you have to say anything about government's policies. Like covid lockdowns, for example.
Re: Is surveillance risk chilling your online speech?
#55Yes it is
Re: Is surveillance risk chilling your online speech?
#56Not exactly. I don't really have much interesting to say. I'm trying to use the internet less in general not because of surveillance, but because of overall enshittification. Reddit has become a normie platform at this point and there's no point using it. 4chan still allows free speech but truth is, I'm not an interesting person and nobody cares about my personal issues. There are quite a few intelligent people on HN but the culture here promotes staying on topic and being civil, which is good for productive debate, but not really fun.
Re: Is surveillance risk chilling your online speech?
#57I'm in Australia, so we have a pretty open approach to online speech unless you're being really, really awful. Like really awful. OR. You want to say something about US oil and gas companies, or Israel. Those two things will get you scrutinised.
Or if you have to say anything about government's policies. Like covid lockdowns, for example.
State by state, but that was massively blown out of proportion by the media. You were never at risk for saying boo about the lockdowns on social media.
But obviously if you tried to organise protests during lockdowns, that's a different kettle of fish.
But if you start making some big posts about Woodside etc, you can have AFP knocking at your door.
Re: Is surveillance risk chilling your online speech?
#58Not really, at least in the UK ( where "apparently" everyone is being jailed for free speech violations). I've moved to the position where I wouldn't post anything online that I wouldn't say in person, and I very rarely post anything work related.
Re: Is surveillance risk chilling your online speech?
#59I think as I've gotten older, the fear of expressing myself has increasingly turned into a sense of duty to do it anyway. The more people feel pressured into silence, the more important it seems not to be.
I came to say the same thing.
I think it's very important to show the true American spirit of telling those, who think they are out betters, to just go fuck off.
We're ALL Kings here in the USA.
Calling out bullshit, praising hard work and artistic expression, and enjoying life all need to be balanced.
Sharing things I've learned, the Beauty I've seen, and admitting my mistakes are core to the way I operate these days.
Re: Is surveillance risk chilling your online speech?
#60As someone who lives in the UK 100%.
There are things I don't say online anymore, not because I don't think they're correct, but because my opinion could be deemed offensive.
Whenever I say something I think could risk being seen as offensive, I tend to add a lot of footnotes explaining my reasoning for the things I'm saying and why I'm not trying to offend.
I also never share remotely offensive humour to friends over social media or messaging apps anymore, which used to be fun. Lots of people have been arrested for jokes so just not worth it tbh. Even if I don't think it's that offensive the law is too subjective to take the risk.