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And I don't generally post things publicly to allow an anonymous authority figure to compare every one of my statements against some hidden criteria of "accepta

And I don't generally post things publicly to allow an anonymous authority figure to compare every one of my statements against some hidden criteria of "acceptability", one which is highly likely to be skewed toward preserving the power of the person implementing it. "A member of the public ends up reading it" is reductionist. The two are more or less technically interchangeable due to the cheapness of digital monitoring, but if you think that's all that matters you're completely missing the point: the issue that you're ignoring is how this is done systematically and with a particular intent. It is not like overhearing a conversation in the park, it like is hiding in the bushes with a tape recorder. Total observation is socially and politically horrifying, but authoritarians like to take advantage of the fact that we never previously codified norms against it because it was resource prohibitive until the advent of computing.

treis 7y ago
>It is not like overhearing a conversation in the park, it like is hiding in the bushes with a tape recorder. It's not like that because people have a reasonable expectation that what they say in a conversation will only be heard by those in that conversation. Tweeting is the real life equivalent of standing on the table and shouting something with a bullhorn. There's no expectation of privacy there. >Total observation is socially and politically horrifying It's not "total observation". It's observation of things they explicitly choice to make public.
- homonculus1 7y ago
  Once again, there are degrees. When addressing an open audience there is an expectation to be heard by other human beings in a social context; but neither is this an invitation to have one's thoughts algorithmically scraped and profiled and flagged for assessment by a bureaucrat somewhere. Please try to consider this in relation to the goals of natural interpersonal communication, and not under the assumption that everything legal is proper.

treis 7y ago

>It is not like overhearing a conversation in the park, it like is hiding in the bushes with a tape recorder. It's not like that because people have a reasonable expectation that what they say in a conversation will only be heard by those in that conversation. Tweeting is the real life equivalent of standing on the table and shouting something with a bullhorn. There's no expectation of privacy there. >Total observation is socially and politically horrifying It's not "total observation". It's observation of things they explicitly choice to make public.

homonculus1 7y ago
Once again, there are degrees. When addressing an open audience there is an expectation to be heard by other human beings in a social context; but neither is this an invitation to have one's thoughts algorithmically scraped and profiled and flagged for assessment by a bureaucrat somewhere. Please try to consider this in relation to the goals of natural interpersonal communication, and not under the assumption that everything legal is proper.