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Comment by injidup | Hacker News Reader

What one posts on public social media sites is public. Is this surveillance?

Yes. It’s data collected from public sources of information but it is surveillance.

It may be legal, it may be public information, but this is a government collecting information on its citizens: government surveillance.

Consider the effects:

> Government monitoring of social media can work to people’s detriment in at least four ways: (1) wrongly implicating an individual or group in criminal behavior based on their activity on social media; (2) misinterpreting the meaning of social media activity, sometimes with severe consequences; (3) suppressing people’s willingness to talk or connect openly online; and (4) invading individuals’ privacy.

Now if you’re cool with those effects, rock on. I’m not keen.

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/soci...

Dunno... If I followed you around while in public and recording everything you said and did, in public, is that surveillance?

It is very much legal, and law enforcement don't need a warrant to do so.

I think by sheer definition it would be surveillance though.

Right, but it's also creepy and intimidating. Many things are legal but odious. The question isn't whether the government broke the law, it's how heinous their behaviour is.

I don't think legal is always the line when considering what's right, or particularly in this case whether it's surveillance.

Is installing a CCTV camera to record a public park surveillance? Yes of course, it is clearly and unambiguously labeled as such.

Surveillance is orthogonal to whether the subject is in public or in private.

You know, I think this sounds like a horrible overreach by the UK government, but your point is at least worth considering. This isn't reading emails or tapping phone calls, this is public info.

Is there a public list of UK teachers I can use to conduct my own dragnet surveillance of dissidents? If not, surely combining both private and public information on people to track dissent is an overreach.

I think it counts as surveillance when it's published material, but surveillance of public material does not seem so troublesome to me.

For ex. if these teachers had instead published their complaints in old-fashioned letters-to-the-editor in print newspapers, I don't think anyone would be complaining that the government reads the newspapers. You could still complain about the chilling of dissent and the waste of resources.

But, posting publicly to social media is almost exactly like a letter to the editor. You send your message to a company, the company reviews it, and then usually publishes it publicly for all to see.

I would not feel "chilled" if someone (an employer, government, or whoever) trawled through my HN posts and made some kind of judgment or took action over what I post. I would expect it. It's public after all. I certainly moderate what I say here knowing this (maybe that's the chilling effect you mention?)

> I certainly moderate what I say here knowing this (maybe that's the chilling effect you mention?)

Yeah that is the chilling effect.

Yes, it's likely there are some things that are better to be "chilled". For instance if you were advocating for violence against public figures.

But imagine the day your credit rating gets dinged because you post online that you disagree with some new tax reform bill being proposed. This happens because the agency managing your credit score is also lobbying for this tax reform.

Or you criticize a government official online and the police show up at your door, which is something that absolutely has happened throughout history.

The fact they are watching your social media isn't the problem. It's how they can (and eventually probably will) abuse that surveillance. Or whoever replaces them next time there is an election.

Just the watching is indeed a problem. It makes me feel violated. Whether or not I have something to hide, or might get a knock on the door, is a completely separate point.

I don't love the fact that everything is being watched and analyzed, but it's actions taken based on that data gathering that I'm worried about

Of course we understand that the only reason to watch and analyze all of this data is to be able to take actions based on it

I am definitely in favor of preventing the gathering to guarantee preventing the actions. No one should trust that data is being collected without any intention of using it.

I'd definitely feel chilled, because what I post here isn't under my meatspace identity. I don't think they should have a right to pass judgement over something I'm doing under a pseudonym that can't be attached to me easily

Well sure, but what if you throw in the possibility of mistaken identity?

Might not be too chilling.. as long as they get the right person. Best hope other Ryan just parties it up a bit and nothing more sinister if you want to become a teacher.

I think it's more like installing listening posts in every pub than it is like reading letters to the editor. The web is a public space, yes, but unless I'm specifically attaching my identity to my statements then they are casual interactions and not "published" in the way a letter to the editor is.

I think we can and should differentiate between what we say in casual conversation and way we state as a declaration of our public opinion to which we purposefully attach our name.

If it is targeted, tracked, stored and analyzed it is surveillance.

Don't forget 'acted on'.

They're using this data to make sure people who criticise them can't acquire influence.

And it's all in secret, short of canny SAR's.

People can question if this is technically surveillance, but in context, that question is basically misdirection.

Collecting and judging everything is. It's legal sure - perhaps because it's new that it can be done at scale (aside from the old East Germany). And it's because it's new that it's a question now worth asking. I mean it was always done for political reasons. See CIA / FBI dossiers (and harassement) of people they didn't like. Again not at scale and not of everyone before even any reason to not like anyone.

Are surveillance cameras really surveilling?

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