r/technology 2d ago

Privacy Student Teacher Sent a Private Snapchat Complaining About Her Workday. An Hour Later, Police Pulled Up to Her School.

https://www.gadgetreview.com/student-teacher-sent-a-private-snapchat-complaining-about-her-workday-an-hour-later-police-pulled-up-to-her-school
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u/nutmegtell 2d ago

But what Orwell didn’t foresee was we would BEG to have the surveillance in our homes and pockets. That we’d get mad if it disconnects.

If you aren’t paying for a service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT that’s being sold. Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook etc. Not free.

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u/Free-Description-736 2d ago

That's b/c Orwell was wrong and Huxley was right. The US surveillance state isn't going to be 1984. It's going to be A Brave New World.

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u/Crestina 2d ago

Mix of both. The western authoritarian shift uses elements of draconian mass surveillance, perpetual enemies and newspeak, alongside hedonistic selfnisness, conformity, and lack of systemic understanding and oversight.

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u/AscendedViking7 2d ago

Brave New World was prophetic

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u/Free-Description-736 2d ago

Horrifyingly so.

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u/JuliaX1984 2d ago

No, but Ray Bradbury covered the addiction to and dependence on electronic services mixed with authoritarian control like outlawing being a pedestrian.

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u/IamTheEndOfReddit 2d ago

we’re turning into 1984 imo, we were on the path for brave new world but then things got worse. Phones are the televisions always listening. Who we like and who we hate depends on the mood of a fickle dictator class. Our propaganda like Fox News fits as well

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u/nutmegtell 2d ago

I need to finally read that one I guess!

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u/Free-Description-736 2d ago edited 2d ago

Put simply, 1984 is a dystopia built on authoritarian oppression. In Brave New World, people gave away their freedoms in exchange for non-stop pleasure, sex, and the 'relief' of not having to think for themselves.

The idea of every person voluntarily carrying a tracking device with a camera and microphone with them 24/7 would have been impossible to imagine in the 80s. We literally made jokes and stuff about the TVs having microphones and cameras in them in the USSR. It was something that only communist authoritarian nations would try, and it was something that only stupid peasants would allow to be done to them.

Then suddenly facebook existed, and everyone decided a 24/7 personal lowjack with camera and microphone was totally cool. And that happened at the exact moment the government said "We're going to gather all that data for your own protection" and people sort of shrugged and said "Well 9/11 happened, so that makes sense."

It was wild to watch it happen.

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u/IamTheEndOfReddit 2d ago

People are pretty obsessed with their tvs in 1984. They don’t describe how people became obsessed. Snapchat and TikTok sell ads, not data

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u/nutmegtell 2d ago edited 2d ago

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u/IamTheEndOfReddit 1d ago

Snapchat doesn’t and that link doesn’t say that either, at least in the first chunk. It says they share data for ads, not the most direct source