Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

www.washingtonpost.com...

I just read this article and it made me think a little. In a different post here titled "We are Stuff They Dont Want You to Know", the members of this group are asked if they ever feel the presence of being watched and feel scared about delving into certain topics, etc.

I think everyone here knows that it is possible, maybe probable that certain people are watching this site and probably most social media and other websites.

The article made me wonder if I knowingly censor myself while posting here and other places.

Then, even worse...am I getting placed on a list somewhere due to posting here or other places.

A bigger implication could be made that free speech is being hindered by the government, by way of fear. Some countries flat out don't allow free speech, but by proxy of having technologically advanced groups of three letter agencies, are certain Western governments (I self-censored myself) hindering free speech?

In conclusion, I do think about what I post online, but sometimes I don't care if anyone is watching. I do question myself later sometimes and wonder if I made a mistake . After all, they are studying this now, so there must be a reason people are censoring themselves online.

Thoughts from members on your own experiences and opinions are welcomed...

The “spiral of silence” is a well-researched phenomenon in which people suppress unpopular opinions to fit in and avoid social isolation. It has been looked at in the context of social media and the echo-chamber effect, in which we tailor our opinions to fit the online activity of our Facebook and Twitter friends. But this study adds a new layer by explicitly examining how government surveillance affects self-censorship.

Yeah, dangerous thing. An atmosphere of self censorship. Worse, people are reluctant to even discuss it. As though the topic itself will bring even more surveillance.

Well I hope they ARE listening. Cause they sure don't seem to hear me any other way. I mean we should be so lucky, that some minor functionary will find what we say important enough to pass it up to someone who actually makes decisions.


I hope that they are listening to me!
Cause I got # to say.
And they damn sure don't seem to be getting the message any other way.


Mike Grouchy










Old World Order







[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/afda8c7d5b01.png[/atsimg]
New World Order

Very interesting. Wanted to point out that the ones who feel they have "nothing to hide", are the ones that are hiding their minority opinions.

“So many people I've talked with say they don't care about online surveillance because they don't break any laws and don't have anything to hide. And I find these rationales deeply troubling,” she said.

She said that participants who shared the “nothing to hide” belief, those who tended to support mass surveillance as necessary for national security, were the most likely to silence their minority opinions.

From the OP source.

a reply to: dreamingawake

I ██████████, █ ██ █████ █████ have █ ████ ██████, ████████ █

███'█ ████ ██ ██████ ██ nothing. █ ██ ████████ ██████ █████ ████████

███ ██████ to █ ████ █ ███████ . █████ ███, ████ ███ ████████ ███

███, ██ █████ ████ ██ █ ██████ ██████ ███ hide ██████████ ██████.

a reply to: gator2001

Idk about other members but i say pretty much what i want here,and i don't have the time to post on other sites.If there's anything i would keep quiet about its because the subject is of a metaphysical/esoteric nature and i don't want to particularly discuss it with anyone except my husband or my best friend.In general i never censor what i want to say-last time i checked it was still legal to have opinions,what are they gonna do?

a reply to: AttitudeProblem
Oooooo, classic comment there. ROFL

@OP.
The current system only makes the weak self-censor themselves.

The entire 500 million elite have not realized yet that they are giving demons the exact excuse, with which to drag them all to hell screaming.

This big-brother regime is making the elite sign their death sentences to hell for eternity. The elite, secret societies, NWO military are so clueless they have not even noticed it yet.

a reply to: Rapha

Then I am one of the weak

I self censor all the time because I REALLY can't be bothered with all the hassle ( mainly from family members) not because of surveillance.

Most people don't want to know what really goes on - as long as they can watch crap on TV, buy the latest tech crap, latest fashions etc then that is all they care about.

originally posted by: AttitudeProblem
a reply to: dreamingawake

I ██████████, █ ██ █████ █████ have █ ████ ██████, ████████ █

███'█ ████ ██ ██████ ██ nothing. █ ██ ████████ ██████ █████ ████████

███ ██████ to █ ████ █ ███████ . █████ ███, ████ ███ ████████ ███

███, ██ █████ ████ ██ █ ██████ ██████ ███ hide ██████████ ██████.

Be careful with this poster...

Obviously when connecting a few dots there is a subliminal message.



"I have to hide"

Change that to perceived minority opinions.

It's very dangerous to have non PC views. People are no longer respectful to people with different opinions.

There's a small range of "allowed" opinions. Vary outside those and you will have difficulty finding jobs and will automatically lose credibility in most situations.

I hear people at work make fun of conspiracy theorists - I just silently sit at my desk.

originally posted by: gator2001

In conclusion, I do think about what I post online, but sometimes I don't care if anyone is watching. I do question myself later sometimes and wonder if I made a mistake

.

Exactly this!

That is what i do, sometimes i get almost really angry about some stuff, so that i don´t care about "our protectors" collecting data.

I don´t know if i am just a lunatic tinfoil hat, but after more than 25 years of interests in politics and society, history, intelligence agencies, in conjunction with "conspiracy theories", i am sure that every single internet access is observed.

Because, if you are interested in all that, sooner or later you will come to the first false flags, government foulplays and that stuff. Conspiracy "Theories" that became truth.

And i have personal experience with such agencies, even if i never mentioned it by myself. But my grandfather, he died when i was 4 years old, worked for a german intelligence agency. Later i was told he was working at the "Verfassungsschutz", but "only as a typist"... And when i was 16 or 17, i was told by my parents that we have been observed for a long time.

Because my mother married my dad, who was coming from former yugoslavia. In the 1970´s, cold war and all that stuff, and yugoslavia was a "red star state" at this time. It never was a problem that he was "muslim", as his passport stated, but only his passport. As mine says i am catholic, but i never was, never believed in any idols, fairytails, as my parents. I just wanted to mention that at this time muslim people had no problems because of their religion, that started at 9/11.

My parents asked me if i never mentioned that i had been followed when i rode my bmx bike. They could show me where and how exactly, over years, three different cars observed us, where they exactly were parked, which type of cars it was. They were parked around 150-250m from our house. on a public parking lot, where only people park that want to take a walk into the nearby forest. And it was a small town, everybody knew everyone, and everybodies cars, for sure.

Next thing, why should my parents fool me with such a stuff? They waited to tell me that till i was grown a bit, to not shock me maybe. But when they knew they could tell it to me, they did. I mean, i saw my dead garndfathers Verfassungsschutz badge a thousand times, his ID too. So he worked there for sure. Plus the anti-communism thing at this time, no reason not to believe anything of this. And as a kid or teen, you have other things in your head than to watch out for eventually followers you don´t know about.

So, to be honest, i really don´t know if they maybe even today have an eye on me, after my father is dead now for a couple of years, if the observation ever ended. Why they observed us that long and hard, only because of my grandfathers job? I don`t know what maybe my dad did in his former life in yugoslavia. I only know that he was at the military for three years, and he hated everything that had to do with the military after that. Not more. We never had the best relationship, so i didn`t talk much with him about such things. One of my biggset mistakes in my life, i guess.

Then i had a buddy that was a computerfreak, and he was one of the first who had internet. I almost lived at his house, he even had a own network with two computers at that time, so we could play online together(not that much games at this time xD). So i learned from the beginning what the web is and how to handle it. I never activated anything in the web with my real name, there are no photos of me, no videos, there is no facebook or any "social" media account nothing. I never used e-mails as more than to activate any memberships like on ATS, for example. Everything with fantasy names. Never did online banking or anything with sensitive data on the web. I don´t even have a bank account(yes, that works without problems, but isn´t that comfortable...)

StartPaged(google, without that spying) my real name, nothing. But i am sure too, that all that does nothing to secure me, since i had to activate my internet access with my real name. So somebody knows everything about me, which pages, forums i visit for example, even only that might be enough. But i am sure that somehow every piece of data is collected, data from citizens that have only 1% chance to be interesting for BigBrother. And that can be everyone...

So yes, sometimes i don´t really say what i think on the web, don´t link friends to special pages, don´t even visit some pages. But i need to stop that, even if it is not good for people in the future, who knows? That data collecting mania reminds me to the behaviour of J Edgar Hoover, who had dossiers about everyone that could be dangerous for his power, collected everything about everyone. So, if he wanted something, he invited those people, opened a drawer and gave those people the dossiers about themselves to read, problem solved for Edgar...

I guess exactly this happens nowadays, but worldwide, in an unthinkable scale.
Maybe self-censouring is a kind of self defense, but that can´t be the solution. It must be the other way around, there must be words like Allahu Akbar, Bomb, Terrorism, Conspiracy Theory, Revolution, Eat The Rich, Attack, Snowden, Chemicals, Mass Surveillance, "IS", etc, in every post, in every by people sended e-mail, in every comment, so that the Utah Data Center will blow up itself!

originally posted by: johnb
Then I am one of the weak

I self censor all the time because I REALLY can't be bothered with all the hassle ( mainly from family members) not because of surveillance.

Most people don't want to know what really goes on - as long as they can watch crap on TV, buy the latest tech crap, latest fashions etc then that is all they care about.

If you received a PM from a (assumed) NSA agent ordering you to leave ATS, would you ?

One day, when the SHTF, those family members will be begging you for guidance. Being silent now, is going to keep them in the dark.

If NKorea does drop a EMP nuke, what will the zombies of today do when their precious flat-screens die ? Answer: They will depend upon people like you for basic survival.

The whole Donald Trump thing has ruined this discussion too. First and foremost, some things that are important to address for housekeeping reasons:

- "PC" and "Minority opinion" are not the same thing, although they may have some Venn overlaps here and there.
- Being "PC", as a thing, is stupid
- All that was originally trying to be achieved was to stop calling people names in the public arena. It should not be ok for people to watch comedy where other people are called various derogatory epithets for the sake of comedy. If this conjures up Chappelle....you need to go back several years further to get what im talking about. Maybe look at The Unknown Comic. Not racist by any stretch...but there are plenty of jokes that make you uncomfortable. (ETA: not against freedom of speech....only pointing out that ridiculing others should not be considered socially acceptable. If you want to denigrate people, feel free. And ill feel free to think you a turd.)

There is a thread about an Atlanta college where students are "in pain" because of a "chalking" of the words "Trump 2016". Their response is typical social justice warrior nonsense. Which, if im being honest, is par for the course among the adult children in high schools and college campuses.

But it bleeds into our daily culture, mostly because high school and college campuses are what leads pop culture (they drink the deepest from the trough, and spend the most freely, so media is targeted at them more often than not).




RE: the OP....i agree completely. Even worse, "surveillance" is done by people, too. You have 10000 eyes on every post.

I absolutely self censor. Mostly because I think in analogies and metaphors that can often be completely inappropriate for public consumprtion.

It depends on what is being said. Venting for example.

However, I speak up frequently and if its recorded GOOD, then the asshat zero's, not hero's will know, we're awake and we are ready to see them in jail for their criminal mismanagement of our planet and there are consequences, the IOU's are mounting for their crimes against me and every other person on this planet.

People should instead see illegal and unlawful surviellance and a direct opportunity to let the criminals know we are aware they need jail, we denounce and renounce all their bs, their poisons, their radiation, their lack of truth, their laws, their banks, their prices, their monopolies, their criminal activities, their wars, their murder of children, their burka's and abuse oppression of women, PERIOD!

So, crowds should see a camera and VENT LOUDLY looking directly into it!

Stop being sheeps man, be the righteous Equal and Free, Serve and Protect angels that you really really are inside. Big Light Workers that have forgotten who you are and what your real duty is, to free this planet.

And then people should meet with their elected local minions, and let them know the world they want ASAP, because anything else is slavery and criminal and they're not willing to wait.

a reply to: gator2001

So commen sense prevails again.

Next step is to ensure that people can only use their real identity online in order to ensure everyone follows the script.

As someone who frequently criticizes -- and even attacks -- federal government and its critters, I am well aware that "they" are listening and watching. I have no doubt that I am on at least one list -- and if I'm not, then I'm doing something wrong. I have no delusions that "they" don't already know who I am, where I live, etc.

Their mass surveillance doesn't serve to silence me... it motivates me. Sunshine is the best disinfectant.

a reply to: gator2001

I do not censor myself, except to make my posts terms and conditions compliant.

Aside from that, if I wish to proclaim my truth, I shall, regardless of any consequence which might stem from it. My view of things is this:

If tyrants wish to muffle my voice, or still my heart in my chest, then let them come...and may God have mercy upon them, because I will not.