Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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Do you think that Edward Snowden is a hero? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 day ago by Anonymous_Leaker@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

52 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/48428963

I personally do, he actually risked his life to release information about the government spying on people. And there are for sure more advanced ways now. Even your phone is listening.

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[–] nucleative@lemmy.world 46 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

I think he had as much impact as anyone in his position could possibly have, if not way above average for a whistleblower.

The problem is that the public quickly turned on him, in no small part due to the PR strategy of those who DO have the power to change this. And most of the public shrugged and said what are we gonna do?

His contribution was proof that suspected domestic spying under the guise of homeland security was being widely misused. Which is a violation of YOUR constitutional rights. Of course anyone paying attention suspected it before, but he brought receipts. Many people think he should be in jail or worse because of this.

Unless he's lying, and I don't think he has been shown to lie, he did attempt to use proper channels. The media has historically been called the 4th branch of government for a reason - and ultimately that's where he turned.

The man effectively lost much of his freedom and the people he did it for were unable to take it any further.

[–] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 13 hours ago

We are learning as a species that public relations (messaging, propaganda, whatever) is effective, and when the ownership class can put trillions into controlling the masses, it works.

I'd like to think there's a counter for it, but the worker class seems to be willing to suffer a lot of misery so long as someone else is suffering more than they are.