Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/03/28/mass-surveillance-silences-minority-opinions-according-to-study/A new study shows that knowledge of government surveillance causes people to self-censor their dissenting opinions online. The research offers a sobering look at the oft-touted "democratizing" effect of social media and Internet access that bolsters minority opinion.
The study, published in Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, studied the effects of subtle reminders of mass surveillance on its subjects. The majority of participants reacted by suppressing opinions that they perceived to be in the minority. This research illustrates the silencing effect of participants’ dissenting opinions in the wake of widespread knowledge of government surveillance, as revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013.
The “spiral of silence†is a well-researched phenomenon in which people suppress unpopular opinions to fit in and avoid social isolation. It has been looked at in the context of social media and the echo-chamber effect, in which we tailor our opinions to fit the online activity of our Facebook and Twitter friends. But this study adds a new layer by explicitly examining how government surveillance affects self-censorship.
The Internet, especially social media and news commenting sites are echo chambers.
Some of them comments are stupid.
Up by the Big Lake
6:28 PM CDT
Gothic fantasy on your part. The single largest threat to free speech comes from the GOP, be it labor unions, contraception, sex education, creationism, christian prosletyzing to captive audiences of prisoners and students, non Christian religious expression suppression (seriously? patrol Muslim neighborhoods?), forcing doctors to either verbalize medically inaccurate and false information as well as criminalizing discussing certain medical issues. If you're a true believer in the First Amendment, you'd cheer the ACLU, but neocons hate the ACLU. Do you? What's truly disturbing is that you feel private entities should be forced to carry or publish your opinions rather than delete, edit, etc.
Proof?
Up by the Big Lake
6:38 PM CDT
Those conservative groups so 'picked on' were attempting to use tax free status to affect elections and fund party specific activities. As for US worker protection bills, I'll bet you hate unions and now here you sit wondering how on earth employers can unilaterally impose all sorts of nonsense, including finding out if your wife is using contraceptives.
Proof? You get it from Communist news sources?
