Not really. I'm in the same boat: I'm an independent who likes to get an omnivorous information diet, but I've regularly avoided looking into certain things I'm curious about because I know there will be a record of it and a bunch of data sellers providing a misleading snapshot of who I am and what I believe. What did Richelieu say? "Give me seven words spoken by an honest man and I'll find something in them to hang him?" In today's surveillance society it's intelligent to limit your footprint, which is exactly the chilling effect free speech and free society advocates are worried about. (Glenn Greenwald's "No Place to Hide" is a great read on the topic.)

I pretty much stopped caring - in a post-snowden world where we found out that merely visiting a linux forum gets you on a list[1] I figure I'm already on a good good chunk of them.

That and a curiosity about the world and history (particularly the cold war) means just the stuff I look at on wikipedia would look awful out of context.

[1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/nsa-targets-linux-journal-as-e...

That's the problem when you lower the floor with dragnets, you drown in your own noise.

Yeah that's one approach, you can just choose not to care. I'm sure I'm also on Linux lists and crap like that, but that doesn't mean I want to end up on a bunch of other ones. Particularly with the vehemence in American politics today, I don't want either side putting me on one of their enemies lists just because some site I signed up to check out got hacked and all of the user info got dumped. Seems easier to just check out, live my life, and try to be kind to the people in the real world around me. If I want a political discussion I'll go chat with some of my friends.

Do not think about dragnets as dragnets. Do think about them as a searchable storage of facts usable for future persecution.

Look at any authoritarian regime. Once they decide that a particular person has to be destroyed, they dig through their entire history to compile a dossier of Evil Things that person has said and done. You need searchable history for that, though. Or a lot of manpower. But databases are better for that purpose.

Similarly, if you can show that (unwanted person) said the N-word in 2004, you can probably get them destroyed today i the U.S. The hit piece just writes itself.

I think it’s not just the NSA’s list that the poster is worried about- they are worried about being associated with violent nut jobs by polite society, and getting canceled.

How successful do you think a background check service for tech startups would be that gives you a percentage rating of how racist,homophobic,etc. an applicant is.

Could pivot to an “auto-cancel” saas if you will. You could even cancel people in bulk.

Jokes aside I’m sure there would be appetite for such a thing. Under the guise of “employee safety”.

And one of the first lists to check would be Parler.

Not the original poster but, it seems pretty direct to me: everything we do online is logged somewhere online, for most practical purposes forever, and that’s the surveillance they are worried about.

I’m really worried about this and I think it’s going to be a massive problem in the next few decades if trends continue. Especially because society’s views on what is acceptable changes with each generation. What we say today may be perfectly acceptable now, but can be considered hateful or [xyz]-phobic in the future.

I try to tread carefully but even still, everything I have ever posted can be taken wildly out of context and used against me by some activist in the future.

This. People seem to forget how much has the Overton Window shifted over last 4 years, or 10.

In a 2008 interview, Obama said he wasn't in favor of gay marriage. Today, that would be cancelable offense for a random liberal person, and retroactivity is a thing in that culture. Brendan Eich was forced to resign in 2014 over an anti-gay-marriage donation from the same year of 2008.

The difference being Obama came around on the issue and, as far as I've seen, Brendan did not.

That difference has no bearing on Obama not being cancelled in 2008 and Eich being cancelled in 2014.

Not in 2008 but in 2014 yes it does. I don't disagree with the Overton Window moving. Obama informed us of his change of thought in 2012 [0] (still later than I would have liked). Eich never did that even in 2014 when he was called out for it.

I understand and respect that people's views can change and I'm more than willing to allow them to change their positions. Eich never changed, that is why he was "canceled". Also it's important to note this wasn't just an internet "mob" that "canceled" him, people who worked under him didn't want him in that position and spoke out about it.

[0] https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2012/may/11/barack-oba...

So, in 2008, it was acceptable by the public to take 4 years to change your mind, but in 2014, that was no longer acceptable.

As long as I understand what you're saying.

I think the real difference is that when Obama said it in 2008, no one actually believed him.

Absolutely. E.g., looking at porn with a verified account. Just about everything has a database table of everything that an account has viewed which allows someone the opportunity to be judgey.

Fortunately, I am not a public figure.

Maybe, but I see what they mean. The real life analog is just social/cultural pressure which is usually relatively local and personalized.

Online and with the general risk that your entire diary gets opened up - folks are cautious about their actions with that in mind. Also I think it’s that the judges are not local/personal entities. So they are difficult to reason with or explain context.

How can you dispute we live in a surveillance society?

Everything we do or say, everywhere we go, is being tracked somewhere, unless you are extremely vigilant. And even if you are extremely vigilant, I'm sure you will slip up somewhere along the line.

Everyone makes fun of China’s “social score” system. But we are already there...except we privatized it. Permanent bans across all social media.

Not op, but i think the dispute is that its tied to the comment not that it exists.