> I guess I was approaching that question from a different angle where "wrong kind of association" was from the perspective of Big Brother. So I probably made an incorrect assumption about what the parent comment intended.

I agree with you that there probably is an element of this in the parent comment. Linking your "Cell phone at a protest" to you is probably going to be at the behest of the government.

What the implications of social media and "big tech" are in our society is definitely a conversation worth having. It's just a shame that it's often only brought up in order to distract or deflect attention from bad behaviour. The conversation would be much more productive if it happened at a time when people weren't so inflamed by the issue of the day.