'Chilling Effect' of Mass Surveillance Is Silencing Dissent Online, Study Says (vice.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a Motherboard article: Research suggests that widespread awareness of mass surveillance could undermine democracy by making citizens fearful of voicing dissenting opinions in public. A paper published in Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, the flagship peer-reviewed journal of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), found that "the government's online surveillance programs may threaten the disclosure of minority views and contribute to the reinforcement of majority opinion." The NSA's "ability to surreptitiously monitor the online activities of U.S. citizens may make online opinion climates especially chilly" and "can contribute to the silencing of minority views that provide the bedrock of democratic discourse," the researcher found.

Comments

Re:Obama is a muslim

[Anonymous Coward]

He is a democrat, what else would you expect?

Just what [redacted] was [redacted]

[gachunt]

Exactly.

[redacted] needs to understand that [redacted] and [redacted] are threatening our [redacted].

These are sobering findings.

Without the use of [redacted] and [redacted] to [redacted] for the [redacted] of [redacted], then [redacted] is certainly [redacted] to [redacted].

Re:I think it's the fear of future career-kills

[Anonymous Coward]

YOURE FIRED!

Re:They already do.

[Nethead]

So you're saying it's a Trump rally.