Slashdot Mirror
Mass Surveillance Silences Minority Opinions: Study
Reader sittingnut writes: According to a study by Elizabeth Stoycheff from Wayne State University -- which was also referred to in the Washington Post, "knowing one is subject to surveillance and accepting such surveillance as necessary, act as moderating agents in the relationship between one's perceived climate of opinion and willingness to voice opinions online." In other words, knowledge of government surveillance causes people to self-censor their dissenting opinions online. This study adds to the well-researched phenomenon known as "spiral of silence", of people suppressing unpopular opinions to fit in by explicitly examining how government surveillance affects self-censorship. Participants who claimed they don't break any laws and don't have anything to hide and tended to support mass surveillance as necessary for national security, were the most likely to silence their minority opinions.
Nevermind the NSA, I think slashdot's moderation system probably does a better job at suppressing minority opinions. Or at least, I've had a lot of posts of mine modded flamebait or trolling for i.e. being critical of Bernie Sanders, even though there was no trolling or flaming going on. Likewise I've avoided painting what is IMO a realistic picture of what a Sanders administration would look like (the Francois Hollande government in France) because I know it will just get buried.
But what is implicit in your statement that it makes people "think twice" before having an opinion? It is that they should be compelled by the threat of retaliation in the real world for what their opinion is. There is no purpose to requiring someone share their real name except to hang the threat over them that if they post something another human finds distasteful, they might be found in the real world and made to pay for it. And as we all know, it doesn't take much for someone in the internet to become unhinged. Something more or less innocuous could cause some whackjob to show up at your house.
It stifles the free exchange of ideas, and it's only intended to stifle the free exchange of ideas. There's no other purpose.
This is why I will never post in the comment section of anything that requires your name. You don't even need to be doing anything wrong for someone to become unhinged and start doxxing you or something.