Interesting! The common thread in both your responses seems to lie in consideration of consequences. The contradiction between Dave's suggestion that pressure to conform might disappear when with strangers (which we see on the internet in spades) and Steve's (and the article's) idea that a particular _type_ of stranger might up regulate conformity can be resolved by considering the actor's estimate of the _consequences_ of their actions. Like this comment on the article's page:
bjdon99 commented:
Freedom to speak also comes with the freedom to listen. If you write something outrageous, you should be prepared for the consequences when others read it.
As before, perhaps different people (or demographics, or generations) will exhibit differences in the way they understand the consequences of their actions. If it's arbitrary Facebook yahoos who are surveilling me, then I simply don't care about the consequences. But if it's prospective employers who are surveilling me, then I do care. Likewise, if it's someone who is likely to throw me in jail for my actions, then I do care. So, it's not quite so clear to me that "mass surveillance" is in any way causative, in up or down regulation. The real question is "What does 'mass surveillance' mean to you?" On 03/29/2016 02:25 PM, Prof David West wrote:
Awareness of being observed by peers and your social group absolutely inhibits the expression of non-conforming behavior. Anyone who has lived in a small town – where everybody knows everybody else and where individual behavior is observed by so many others who can report that behavior to parents or friends —knows the forces that inhibit non-conforming behavior. [...] The real question is whether or not mass surveillance by the government has the same effect. I would really doubt it - despite the Washington Post report. I would expect to see similar kinds of self-censorship among "friends" in social media, but not among "strangers" in that same context. In fact I would expect that "strangers" would exhibit extreme non-conforming, antisocial, behavior.
On 03/29/2016 03:28 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
I think that Mass Surveillance (caps or not) is crafted (among other things) *to* silence many voices, but as you so aptly point out, it depends on our ability to be intimidated (if not specifically to "conform" as you suggest). [...] On the original topic, I know of many very well educated, well informed people (not unlike most of us on this list) who curb their speech in very awkward and strange ways out of fear that they are being "surveilled" and that one of their fairly benign yet counter-culture opinions or ideas will be held against them. I agree with the idea that our willingness to conform to the corruption (of any kind) contributes to the problem quite directly. Too many people respond to this idea as a form of "blame the victim" but I think it is much more than that.
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