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They totally still call you paranoid. Snowden unfortunately meant nothing to the general technology consumer mass. They're more than happy to defend tooth and n

• abvdasker 6y ago
  Look, my estimation of "general technology consumer mass" is incredibly low, but I promise you nearly every American adult knows who Edward Snowden is and probably has at least a vague idea of what he was trying to communicate. I agree that many — maybe even most — people don't understand the issue very well, but I think it did have a pretty large impact at the time and since.
  • kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
    They don't know who he is. American adults are uninformed about most issues and will just parrot what they're told to believe in. Mass media paints him as a bad person so that's his public image.
    • alexilliamson 6y ago
      N = 1 blah blah, but my Dad is a West Virginian factory worker who couldn't name one current Supreme Court Justice (including the one just appointed), but he has spoken positively about Snowden for years.
      • xkcd-sucks 6y ago
        Eh Appalachian labor has a history of being on right side of morals and the wrong side of force
      • AndrewBissell 6y ago
        Zero doubt that the common people of this country have much more affinity for Edward Snowden and anti-surveillance viewpoints than the psychos at the top running things.
  • boomboomsubban 6y ago
    >but I promise you nearly every American adult knows who Edward Snowden is and probably has at least a vague idea of what he was trying to communicate. I highly doubt this. In 2015, only 60% of Americans had some idea of who Snowden was, and only half of those had a positive opinion of him. I doubt this has improved over the past five years either. https://www.aclu.org/snowden-poll-results https://www.aclu.org/snowden-poll-results
    • kekebo 6y ago
      60% of Americans having some idea of the issues he raised is assumably a vast increase in awareness of the topic compared to the time before his leaks became public.
      • dunefox 6y ago
        > 60% of Americans having some idea of the issues he raised His comment says an idea of "who [Snowden] was", not of what he was trying to say.
    • LinuxBender 6y ago
      The best example of the Snowden fallout and the apathy around it was when John Oliver interviewed both Snowden and many people on the street. People on the street did not comprehend what NSA monitoring meant and did not care until John put it in terms they could understand. "So you are ok with the NSA seeing pictures and videos of your significant others junk you text (sext) back and forth?" "Oh, I would be furious if they were seeing that". That was how nearly every conversation went.
      • lern_too_spel 6y ago
        But that is not what the NSA monitoring meant. They do not get to see pictures of your SO's junk. They do know who you called and when but not tied to your name.
        • LinuxBender 6y ago
  • xnyan 6y ago
    >but I promise you nearly every American adult knows If the next thing you are going to say is not "The current President of the United States", then sadly you are extremely mistaken because that's the only political fact you can confidently say that all Americans know (and even then, it's not 100%). Source: A political science degree that I don't use, but this sad fact is well known.
  • NikolaeVarius 6y ago
    I dont think this is a given. Not a perfect source, but man this was depressing https://youtu.be/XEVlyP4_11M?t=422 https://youtu.be/XEVlyP4_11M?t=422
• beamatronic 6y ago
  You could say the same thing about early coronavirus victims. Nobody learned from them. Look where we are now.
• deleted 6y ago
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• logicallee 6y ago
  >They totally still call you paranoid. People really don't. You can search comments here or elsewhere, you really won't find anyone calling anyone else paranoid for suggesting the government is watching everyone, intercepting communications, listening in on conversations, whatever. Find me a single example of anyone doing so in the past 2 years without an immediate reply from someone else (i.e. somene other than the OP) saying "No. Sorry. Since snowden you don't get to call anyone paranoid for thinking the government is listening." In fact, quite the opposite I bet if you asked anyone with an Amazon Echo, "Do you think the government can listen to private conversations using an Amazon Echo" my guess is most people would say, "I don't know. If they really needed to, I guess?" Nobody would say, "Of course not. Don't be paranoid."
• deleted 6y ago
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• slg 6y ago
  It is a relatively common belief among non-technical people in my friend group that Facebook listens to everything you say within earshot of your phone and later displays ads to you based on what it hears. That belief still isn't enough to get those people to stop using Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. It isn't that people don't think they are being spied on. It is that people don't really care that they are being spied on. Snowden didn't fail to change things because people didn't believe him. He failed to change things because he didn't articulate a compelling enough reason for people to be fearful of what he revealed. If people reading this want to see this changed, we need to do a better job of showing the real world consequences of this lost privacy. Talking about theoretical concepts like lost freedom and privacy isn't enough. You need tangible examples of how people's lives are made worse by this spying.
  • darkerside 6y ago
    People now view going on the Internet as akin to going outside. Yes, other people can see you, and yes, you have limited expectations of privacy. No, it's not problematic that you have police keeping an eye on things. If you have a problem with that, and you never go outside without your "disguise" aka VPN, you are operating outside of social norms (and it's probably not helping anyway). This is not a valid judgement on any way. I just think some people may not realize the way others may perceive and think about this privacy dilemma.
    • Jon_Lowtek 6y ago
      I hear this "the internet is like outside, don't expect privacy" argument a lot from americans, who i think are taught some 18th century definition of privacy by their media, as in "in your private rooms" and not a 21st century definition as in "about your private data". If you go to the city there are no agents of third party marketing agencies keeping notes of your movement and what items you look at in the stores to profile you. Imagine going to the city and there is this trenchcoat and hat wearing private agent following you all day and you go into a store and see him handing the salesman a note and pointing at you, and then the sales guy comes over to you and says "good day - do you want to buy red things? and you are like "actually i am looking ..." and the agent is now uncomfortably leaning into you conversation, "... for green things". Sales says "sure this way, please" and the agent is writing "green!" in his notebook, circling it three times. That is what the internet is like today. And you look around and everyone has these agents following them, keeping notes. You ask someone about it they say "well most people don't even notice them" or "that is how things are" or "people shouldn't expect not to be spied on by private corporations". So you hurry home while from every side street more agents come and try to follow you until you have this horde on your track and you hasten into your door with a crowd outside holding up signs like "buy red things!" and "green thing is green!" - but you are now at home so you relax and walk through your hallway to your room and say "computer: play some licensed music" and guitar music starts playing and -shocker- there are agents in your living room, one sitting on your couch playing the guitar, one is standing in front of your bookshelf taking notes of its content and another one is looking through your fridge, then stares directly at you and holds a sign up: "buy food" The internet is nothing like outside.
• jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
  Nowadays the right wing nutbars are actually pro-government because they think that a large fascist government complete with secret police and massive surveillance will protect them from pedophile vampires. No I'm not joking. It's the same alex jones types who used to be all about neoliberalism and deregulation. The people who were afraid of "the chip" are now begging to be tagged because they think it will save them from human trafficking. That's what happens when Americans are trapped at home with nothing to do but go on facebook and youtube: they get indoctrinated into stupid christian deathcults.
• indigochill 6y ago
  John Oliver did an episode on surveillance where he actually interviewed Snowden as well as "people on the street". Although most had no idea who Snowden was, there was (among the people shown in his interviews - could have been selectively chosen) a heightened awareness of the surveillance state. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M
• EmilioMartinez 6y ago
  >They totally still call you paranoid Id' say it's weirder still. A lot of people are well aware, and some even spout the wildest speculations about data usage, but if you actually go beyond shallow comments and suggest action (preemptive, legislative, etc) you are often met with a general "well, you care too much" attitude. I get it, there's a lot of effort to be put in just to understand these matters, let alone remedy them.