The Stats of Statism: The Chilling Effect Of Mass Surveillance Quantified

There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. but at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You have to live - did live, from habit that became instinct - in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.

George Orwell, 1984

There has been much talk about the chilling effect of mass surveillance. The problem isn't that anyone is actively watching everyone. The problem is that algorithms and search tools are doing the watching, meaning everything eventually receives some level of scrutiny if it's deemed suspicious by the filters.

The Stats of Statism: The Chilling Effect Of Mass Surveillance Quantified 5NB4kgL

The Stats of Statism: The Chilling Effect Of Mass Surveillance Quantified 5NB4kgL

It's been mostly talk, though. Anecdotal evidence passed on by journalists, security researchers and others whose interests might clash with what the US government has deemed acceptable. Now, there's data. A study by Jonathon W. Penney shows searches for certain subject matter have declined in response to the NSA leaks. Penney cites earlier studies of Google traffic that showed a statistically significant decline of 5% in searches involving terms people might believe would be flagged as suspicious by mass surveillance software. He also notes that the dip was short-lived, corresponding roughly to the initial Snowden leaks before resuming at their normal pace after a few months.

Penney instead focuses on Wikipedia, a site a large percentage of the population uses for research. It also offers far more comprehensive data to researchers than an examination of Google Trends provides.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160429/07512934314/chilling-effect-mass-surveillance-quantified.shtml

The Stats of Statism: The Chilling Effect Of Mass Surveillance Quantified

The Stats of Statism: The Chilling Effect Of Mass Surveillance Quantified

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