The really interesting part of this article for me is the list of “mental tactics” Chinese people are using to distance themselves/cope with surveillance. I have heard every single one of those used by Westerners, some of them extremely frequently. Westerners often seem to believe that they are somehow immune to the type of mass surveillance you see in authoritarian states like China, but this suggests to me that we are actually extremely susceptible to it ourselves. The mindset already exists and we are already making those mental exceptions for civil liberties infringements in the name of “security” (government surveillance) or convenience (company surveillance). The only difference is our governments have not yet taken surveillance to the same extremes or, if they have, are less transparent about how they’re doing it, so there is still a misguided belief that the same thing cannot happen where we live.

not like the west isnt doing it too, but that gives me the creeps about china too.

Honestly the censorship and single narrative is way more concerning

The surveillance is somewhat less pervasive where I live, but the methods for selling people on the idea that it’s acceptable, inevitable, and for our own good are much the same the world over.

almost every participant brought up the “lack of moral quality” of their fellow citizens, whom they said behaved like children with little moral sense.

In the context of this shame-inducing narrative, surveillance is framed as a welcome solution to enforce the rules by punishing violators and getting people to behave better. According to the participants, moral shortcomings are responsible for the “century of humiliations” that China has experienced since the Opium Wars and the Japanese invasions; according to this discourse, “civilizing” the population will enable China to gain the international recognition it so ardently desires.

What a fucking victim blaming asshole you have to be to suggest we need dragnet surveillance everywhere because there was an epidemic of opium addiction

Digital surveillance is omnipresent in the west. Apparently nobody cares.

Remember that you need an id to get a phone number in most countries. And how hot big IT is for your phone number. Aside from UKUSA and NSA programs doing way more.

The coping tactics are almost the same here, if you’re not a privacy nut.

Not to say it’s as bad as in China, especially here it’s for money (though not for me) and against terrorism. But the definition of terrorism can quickly change with someone like trump in power.

Remember when Elon wanted to make twitter into a super-app? Back then? In the past?