Comment on Police Unmask Millions of Surveillance Targets Because of Flock Redaction Error
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 2 weeks agoEnabling a surveillance state is not amoral.
Comment on Police Unmask Millions of Surveillance Targets Because of Flock Redaction Error
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 2 weeks agoEnabling a surveillance state is not amoral.
InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Your phrasing seems to imply I said it was, but I never said that.
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 2 weeks ago
The technology enables the surveillance state. Therefore the technology is not amoral.
JollyG@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
If you are in a discussion about the development and deployment of technology to facilitate a surveillance state, then saying “technology is neutral” is the least interesting thing you could possibly say on the subject.
In a completely abstract, disconnected-from-society-and-current-events sense it is correct to say technology is amoral. But we live in a world where surveillance technology is developed to make it easier for corporations and the state to invade the privacy of individuals. We live in a world where legal rights are being eroded by the use of this technology. We live in a world where this technology is profitable because it helps organizations violate individual rights. If you live in the US, as I do, then you live in a world where federal law enforcement agencies have become completely contemptuous of the law and are literally abducting innocent people off the street. They use the technology under discussion here to help them do that.
That a piece of tech might potentially be used for a not-immoral purpose is completely irrelevant to how it is actually being used in the real world.
InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
And that is what we need to focus our messaging on. The evil people and institutions enabling this as those are permanent. Tech comes and goes (and should not be anthropomized). Focusing on the tech just means in institution looks for another path. Focusing on the institution is to block the at the source.
JollyG@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
“Technology is neutral” is a bromide engineers use to avoid thinking about how their work impacts people. If you are an engineer working for flock or a similar company, you are harming people. You are doing harm through the technology you help to develop.
The massive surveillance systems that currently exist were built by engineers who advanced technology for that purpose. The scale and totality of the resulting surveillance states are simply not possible without the tech. The closest alternatives are stasi-like systems that are nowhere near as vast or continuous. In the actual world the actual tech is immoral. Because it was created for immoral purposes and because it is used for immoral purposes.