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I'd rather have the ability to filter what I don't like in my feeds, but having the government do this is totalitarian. Who knows what they will search for, I l

I'd rather have the ability to filter what I don't like in my feeds, but having the government do this is totalitarian. Who knows what they will search for, I lived under communism for 15 years, thank you, don't want back to the reign of terror.

iakov 5y ago
It's not even about your feeds. It's about your private messages. Crazy stuff, Gestapo and KGB wouldn't even dream of this level of surveillance of ordinary citizens.
- heavenlyblue 5y ago
  > Crazy stuff, Gestapo and KGB wouldn't even dream of this level of surveillance of ordinary citizens. They were doing that exact thing to selected citizens. So did FBI for alleged communists. Bugging apartments, planting their own spies, opening up private letters, etc.
  - PontifexMinimus 5y ago
    > They were doing that exact thing to selected citizens But they couldn't do it to everyone. Now with computers they can. You might think 1984 was written as a warning, but the powers that be see it as an instruction manual.
  - rhn_mk1 5y ago
    > selected citizens Yup, they wouldn't even dream about that magnitude.
  - buran77 5y ago
    Scale makes a whole lot of difference. Even the Stasi, the KGB, or the FBI had to restrict such monitoring to the small fraction of the population they actually suspected. Now they don't only suspect everyone, they also have the tools to monitor everyone. It's the difference between being able to point a gun at a few inconvenient people, and being able to point it at everybody, all the time. Eventually the temptation presented by this kind of power and control over people will intersect with some Erdogan or Lukashenko type with the finger on the trigger.
    - intricatedetail 5y ago
      What makes you think people proposing this aren't on level (or even above) with Erdogan or Lukashenko? At this point they are just better at maintaining a good image. I don't believe you can have good intentions and still want to introduce such level of mass surveillance.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - int_19h 5y ago
        I think that quite a few people in power who are pushing for this kind of stuff genuinely believe that their intentions are good, and that targeting child porn / terrorism / ... makes it justifiable. But that makes it worse, not better - those who believe in their ideology with such zeal are more likely to push it through to the extremes, no matter what.
    - PontifexMinimus 5y ago
      If Erdogan isn't doing this already, he certainly has plans to. As do Putin, Xi, and a load of others. Welcome to our Brave New World.
      - marcodiego 5y ago
        Thanks to how big IT companies have tighter ties to developed countries, I wouldn't consider only these governments. Remember the list of companies who participated in PRISM were mostly (only) US-based.
      - oleganza 5y ago
        :eyeroll: Why is it always "them" vs "us"? NSA/CIA are doing probably a better job at global surveillance of everything and everyone, simply based on resources available to them. Every powerful enough government spies on the largest scale they can, because just letting someone else to spy on you and not spy yourself (if you can) would be infinitely foolish. Even at local scale. If citizens could find a way to hold their president on short leash, such president would be more likely to listen to the citizens. But citizens don't have such powers, only presidents do, so they only have to listen to each other.
- walrus01 5y ago
  If modern day tech had been available to the stasi they absolutely would have used it. They were already beginning to collect hair samples from people in the late 1980s in anticipation of widespread DNA testing being available 5, 10, 15 years down the road.
  - mod50ack 5y ago
    I think the Chinese government in the present day (for example) provides us with a good idea of what the Stasi would be doing today.
    - nix23 5y ago
      And we try to re-implement it because it works...for the government ;)
ricardobayes 5y ago
The possibility of the EU becoming a totalitarian power is without foundation.
- ddaalluu1 5y ago
  That is a very naive opinion

iakov 5y ago

It's not even about your feeds. It's about your private messages. Crazy stuff, Gestapo and KGB wouldn't even dream of this level of surveillance of ordinary citizens.

heavenlyblue 5y ago
> Crazy stuff, Gestapo and KGB wouldn't even dream of this level of surveillance of ordinary citizens. They were doing that exact thing to selected citizens. So did FBI for alleged communists. Bugging apartments, planting their own spies, opening up private letters, etc.
- PontifexMinimus 5y ago
  > They were doing that exact thing to selected citizens But they couldn't do it to everyone. Now with computers they can. You might think 1984 was written as a warning, but the powers that be see it as an instruction manual.
- rhn_mk1 5y ago
  > selected citizens Yup, they wouldn't even dream about that magnitude.
- buran77 5y ago
  Scale makes a whole lot of difference. Even the Stasi, the KGB, or the FBI had to restrict such monitoring to the small fraction of the population they actually suspected. Now they don't only suspect everyone, they also have the tools to monitor everyone. It's the difference between being able to point a gun at a few inconvenient people, and being able to point it at everybody, all the time. Eventually the temptation presented by this kind of power and control over people will intersect with some Erdogan or Lukashenko type with the finger on the trigger.
  - intricatedetail 5y ago
    What makes you think people proposing this aren't on level (or even above) with Erdogan or Lukashenko? At this point they are just better at maintaining a good image. I don't believe you can have good intentions and still want to introduce such level of mass surveillance.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - int_19h 5y ago
      I think that quite a few people in power who are pushing for this kind of stuff genuinely believe that their intentions are good, and that targeting child porn / terrorism / ... makes it justifiable. But that makes it worse, not better - those who believe in their ideology with such zeal are more likely to push it through to the extremes, no matter what.
  - PontifexMinimus 5y ago
    If Erdogan isn't doing this already, he certainly has plans to. As do Putin, Xi, and a load of others. Welcome to our Brave New World.
    - marcodiego 5y ago
      Thanks to how big IT companies have tighter ties to developed countries, I wouldn't consider only these governments. Remember the list of companies who participated in PRISM were mostly (only) US-based.
    - oleganza 5y ago
      :eyeroll: Why is it always "them" vs "us"? NSA/CIA are doing probably a better job at global surveillance of everything and everyone, simply based on resources available to them. Every powerful enough government spies on the largest scale they can, because just letting someone else to spy on you and not spy yourself (if you can) would be infinitely foolish. Even at local scale. If citizens could find a way to hold their president on short leash, such president would be more likely to listen to the citizens. But citizens don't have such powers, only presidents do, so they only have to listen to each other.
walrus01 5y ago
If modern day tech had been available to the stasi they absolutely would have used it. They were already beginning to collect hair samples from people in the late 1980s in anticipation of widespread DNA testing being available 5, 10, 15 years down the road.
- mod50ack 5y ago
  I think the Chinese government in the present day (for example) provides us with a good idea of what the Stasi would be doing today.
  - nix23 5y ago
    And we try to re-implement it because it works...for the government ;)

ricardobayes 5y ago

The possibility of the EU becoming a totalitarian power is without foundation.

ddaalluu1 5y ago
That is a very naive opinion