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Chinese citizen would be living under
Correction: Chinese citizens already living under a surveillance state. UK and now US and also many other countries is merely learning from the best(worst). Mandatory age verification for socmed and game? China already have that years ago. ISP level blocking? Great Firewall of China is there from the beginning.
End to end encryption chats are banned in China btw. China is living in this complete dystopia already and the only reason we don’t hear it because China is very good at hiding this. The great firewall is as much to contain Chinese inside as it is to repel others.
The US was spying on all backbone data 20 years ago. The US has no need to block websites because it has a big enough propaganda network to control the narrative on those websites, and there is less incentive to propping up the US tech industry by blocking competition like there is with the Chinese tech industry.
The surveillance state is not just in the US. China and the UK love that shit too. Pretty much any government with the money and will for it is doing it for the benefit of a digital panopticon.
Funny how this surveillance never correlates with any happiness or safety metrics. It’s almost like it’s not there to improve society but to control it or something 🤔
Did you cry hard enough when the orange man died?
It isn’t just a surveillance state, they are 100% building a behavior prediction algorithm state.
Season 3 of Westworld seems to be a bit more realistic than I had initially thought.
The US government already started pre-crime policing. No future tense about it, full on dystopia is already here.
If a man is guilty for what goes on in his mind
Then give me the electric chair for all my future crimes
John Oliver just did an episode on Police Surveillance Technology. It’s sad and scary stuff.
He also mentioned Atlas of Surveillance, a website to check what’s going on in your area.
For decades people have been warming about inverted totalitarianism… where private companies do the heavy lifting in controlling and surveillance or the population. Very few listened. Now that we are approaching complete sacrifice of your privacy to these companies, people are finally waking up. But it may be too late.
reason #(big number) to not go to the US
Capitalists are constantly telling on themselves.
This isn’t a capitalism problem. It’s an authoritarianism problem. The only thing about this that relates to capitalism is that it’s a private company setting up the cameras instead of the state doing it.
Capitalism is pretty inherently authoritarian. The boss calls the shots.
That’s a gross over simplification that ignores the influence of the insurance industry shifting the baseline of public surveillance and crony capitalism that infects our municipalities.
Capitalists have been trying to build the panopticon since the first factories.
Yes, that’s how it’s implemented under capitalism.
States further into their authoritarianism don’t need to bother with middle men and cutouts and shit.
They just put up the cameras.
“Decentralize the mass surveillance!” cries the anarcho-libertarian. “Big Government is monopolizing all the cameras! We should let the market decide who gets spied on!”
This is absolutely a capitalism problem. It’s what happens when you let corporations do whatever without consequences as long as they can afford the bribes and in turn get contacts on taxpayer money.
True, but I could also see an authoritarian “communist” government doing all the same surveillance bullshit.
So, while it’s a capitalism problem this time, I don’t think it’s a capitalism-exclusive problem. It really is, at its root, an authoritarianism problem. This time, you’ve got capitalist authoritarianism, but next time maybe a different flavor.
You can’t get rid of authoritarianism the same way you can’t get rid of stupid. Some portion of the population will always be the bottom of the bell curve.
What you can do, however, is redirect it into something positive. For example, Japanese social structures are pretty fuckin’ authoritarian. Most people wouldn’t even dream of littering.
You can’t get rid of authoritarianism the same way you can’t get rid of stupid.
True, but you can get rid of hierarchical authority itself, leaving the authoritarians nothing to work with. Ask your local anarchist how.
China already has this sort of system completely built out.
But is the technology developed by the state or are they contracting it out to a private company?
How does that matter?
Both are fucking horrible.
But also, China does both. In 2023 they had over 700 million cameras tracking people.
Authoritarianism means very little, it’s such a broad term that doesn’t localise the origin of repression. Instead of considering the root of the problem here, which is capitalism/private property, you look at a feature or a phenomenon.
Meh, there’s some smart people that have come up with a pretty clear understanding of authoritarianism.
https://theauthoritarians.org/
But your conclusion is also partly correct, the authoritarian personality is not inherently bad, they must first be weaponized.
I didn’t say anything about the authoritarian personality and I don’t really care that some people have figured out something they view as being integral to comprehending society. Honestly, I find life under the systems people like Fromm consider least authoritarian, think Sweden in the 70s, to still be be very brutal towards the masses.
But you know what, I believe your conclusion is also party correct. People with an “authoritarian” streak can be used to guard a worker’s movement.
That’s how they get away with it too. Worst constitutional loophole ever.
Kill the authoritarians. Only way.
The same thing is happening/has already happened in China, the government there can find you and black bag you anywhere at any time. Ask Naomi Wu.
Russia basically is this already.
Europe is also trying to go there with the repeated attempts to pass chat control and age restrictions on internet access.
In the US, capitalism is the tool the authoritarians are using to accomplish their goals, and it is absolutely enabling the spread of the surveillance state. Capitalism itself is not the motivation for the surveillance state, it’s just being used by the authoritarians. If we’re going to put a stop to this kind of behavior, we have to get the targets right. Flock and the other companies like them are a symptom of the larger problem.
Ask Naomi Wu.
To my knowledge, Naomi Wu was never “black bagged”. She’s still selling stuff on cybernightmarket. She’s just done posting politics.
But to compare the grief Wu got (and, from what I read forever ago, it was as much other terminally online types screaming at her as any state intervention) with Leqaa Kordia or Mahmoud Khalil both of whom absolutely were “black bagged” in the literal sense? Wu was not indefinitely detained in a prison camp or threatened with torture unless she “voluntarily self-deported”, at least as far as I could find.
Russia basically is this already.
Russia is so much more, as they’ve weaponized their prison population into military conscripts.
Really not looking forward to the day I’m arrested by an ICE agent who is, himself, wearing a bomb collar.
Capitalism itself is not the motivation for the surveillance state
The surveillance state is a vital tool of private industry when executives fear a proletariat insurrection. It is a necessary precondition to prevent insurrection.
Russia is so much more, as they’ve weaponized their prison population into military conscripts.
It’s even more than that. Russia has weaponized their entire civilian population. It’s straight up nazi-level shit where you’re either Z or you’re a traitor. This is what American maga salivates about - complete and utter obedience through surveillance, legal and cultural bullying.
To my knowledge, Naomi Wu was never “black bagged”. She’s still selling stuff on cybernightmarket. She’s just done posting politics.
She disappeared from western social media, where she was very active before. Her latest post on twitter was chilling, I just hope she and her partner are ok.
Every flock employee should still be communally murdered like the end of ‘sympathy for lady vengeance’ though.
…including, like, the custodian?
You’re not going to win over undecided people by advocating for unreasonable, indiscriminate violence, you’re just going to give the opposition ammunition for calling you an extremist.
It would be far more productive to support groups like the EFF and ACLU in lobbying for legislation to prevent such abusive technology. Also get involved in your local town/county politics to advocate against the installation of such things. The absolute last thing the sick fuckers running companies like Flock want is for people to organize against them. Don’t push people away, encourage them to join.
Sorry I’m not interested in your equivocating bullshit.
Who’s still undecided on clock? Who doesn’t burn with hare for anyone who’d install one of these? Fucking your Nazi coddling bullshit. Guilty is guilty.
lobbying for legislation to stop
The thing the local government in question already told them to stop. They will continue or they will be killed. Or I guess like a carrington event or something, but barring that they will continue or they will be kille
Cut it with your divisive fetishism of systems that have already proven useless for keeping us sage, and caused the problem in the first place. Pick a side.
Cut it with your divisive fetishism
Pick a side.
Right… I’m the one being divisive, by saying that we should organize and work together. Hilarious.
systems that have already proven useless
The thing doing the most damage to Flock right now is the negative public opinion pushing counties and townships to cancel contracts. Those “useless” systems are actively responding to the demands of their citizens, and Flock cameras are being removed in many jurisdictions. The way you hurt a capitalist enterprise is to take away its money (loss of contracts).
So, how about you “pick a side” and join in with the effort that is actually producing results?
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/09/flock-cameras-backlash-cancellations-01026242
https://banflockcameras.com/tracker/
Take Action
We don’t have to accept this future. You can:
Stay informed about local meetings: ALPR.watch provides a calendar and map of upcoming public meetings with agenda items related to Flock and other surveillance systems. You can sign up for email alerts when meetings near you are scheduled.
Contact your local officials and demand transparency and oversight of surveillance programs. (See 5 Calls)
Support organizations like the ACLU and the EFF who challenge mass surveillance in the courts and legislatures.
Start conversations with neighbors and community groups about the risks of systems like Flock.
Share this website and make your community aware.
Always thought it was weird that they would scoff at their “social credit score” system. Emphasis on “social”. As if that was the fucked up part.
It amazes me that the western propaganda keeps talking about a Chinese social credit system that is an extension of existing social rankings and ratings in China which have existed for millennia, but no one blinks an eye to this American credit system that is horrendous. The Chinese system is mainly in place for business, not so much the individual, like in the US.
The US credit system is a way to make the poor, poorer with insane interest rates that are illegal in other parts of the world. The matrix for the credit system is unclear as it is managed by private companies. The whole thing is insane, but no let’s point at evil China where the system has no impact on normal people, unlike in the US.
except china ALSO has a credit system, exactly the same one we do in the west but with a nice topping of authoritarian dystopian government inputs. yay!
I don’t think China really has a social credit score do they? It was an abandoned pilot
We weren’t jokingly saying the Chinese are living under it, though.
Yeah because you were stupid and gullible. :)
The problem is that state agents can use surveillance tech or surveillance services with no regulatory review on how this technology interacts with the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, what is specifically supposed to protect Americans from this sort of stuff.
This is partly due to the presumption of regularity, the assumption by courts that law enforcement follows rules, even when we know they historically do not. (And DHS is even worse).
It’s a separate problem that private companies can also buy this data. They shouldn’t have the right to surveil Americans for private purposes any more than the state does.
Also be aware that some districts that are ending their contracts with Flock Safety are quietly switching over to other ALPR services such as Axon. Don’t let your district get away with it.
There is somewhere between 60% and 90% of Americans who think at least one party in government, or Israel rulership that, hates them. In China, that is well under 10%. Both are extreme surveillance states. In China, you can plug a charger for your ebike on the street, and no one will steal it. Its used for genuine property protection instead of CIA Man persecution.
So the “Chinese were living under” line misses the point of what surveillance is used for. US decline needs desperate regime oppression to perpetuate itself from the threat of the people it hates, but who may/have the democratic power to escape the clockwork orange propaganda feed.
And no one will steal it
Too bad someone will steal you before you can get back to the bike if you have the wrong political sticker on the bike :/
Stop using their services. Call a taxi.
taxis are worst service though.
The other day, I saw the first Waymo van in Sacramento.
If I saw the Waymo van, then it saw me, and Waymo infamously shares all its scanning data with law enforcement.
I wasn’t doing anything illegal, but that doesn’t really matter in the states. Crime here is not about what you did, but who you are. And it’s becoming also about what you think.
You don’t think they are the same? Seriously?
Yellow cab doesn’t have dash cam last time I was in one in MYC a couple years ago.
Some do. That’s an idiotic take of why a taxi over an Uber. You don’t think that if Uber didn’t exist that cabs wouldn’t add cameras? Just Google the number of companies that have already added cameras to them.
China was the testbed. All of them are doing the same thing
China was no testbed. Stop deluding yourself. No surveillance even close to this happened in China…
It’d still be a testbed if US just followed that inspiration and surpassed it
As the future becomes less certain and less secure due to climate change and capitalist overextension, basically every major government is looking for ways to efficiently control their populace through technology. Arguably the countries with the strongest totalitarian tools would be the most suited to weather that long-term catastrophe.
Can’t riot about access to food if everyone who so much as says an idle word in their own home is put on a “reeducation” pathway.
Palestine is the testing grounds for surveillance, drones, weaponry, and testing how public opinion will be around a crisis & genocide. Now they’re planning to test it upon their own citizens once they finish moving/genociding immigrants.
China has been proposing its surveillance model to other countries through their new silk roads (or whatever the name is)
This is almost certainly pulled out of your ass
You could have checked by yourself but instead chose to say this? You come of as lazy, insulting and ignorant, and for what? Beats me. Tankie maybe?
Edit: tankie. I took the time to find links, for nothing. Tankies are the plague of Lemmy
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/31/world/china-surveillance-solomon-islands-trump-nepal.html
https://www.csis.org/analysis/how-civil-society-exposes-human-rights-risks-digital-silk-road
Why yes, the reputable NY times and American think tank. You’re brainwashed and stupid – American in other words
Belt and road
Not a China fan, but at least I can travel to China without getting arrested.
thats not true, you still can if they suspect you of anything, and that can be anything.
That’s only true if you only do and say things online that China approves of.
China has secret police, and has for decades.
ICE is Trump’s attempt at creating a secret police.
Source?
None because the police are secret
I hope you realize how stupid that sounds
Look, I said that I can travel to China without getting arrested. That is a fact. I can’t say the same about the USA. If they knew I was coming to the states they would also know what I’ve posted and liked with 90% certainty, and believe me, they don’t want someone who’s been this deep into “anti-capitalism” as me entering the country. The United States government has more than enough reasons to go full stick instead of carrot when we consider its failing economy and the rebirth of social movements.
I know what I can expect in China, I know that they won’t arrest someone because they once posted a picture of a yellow umbrella or liked a John Oliver video. That is too much of a hassle and China is currently liberalising, just like Kuwait and Qatar. Plans about opening the great firewall up have been floated again and again, and authorities are seriously considering doing that.
Plus you’re are completely, and I hope I don’t sound too much like a stereotypical ML – which I am not despite being on lemmy.ml – ignoring the CIA and DHS. Two, as it were, secret federal agencies with powers that go well beyond what the FBI or ATF can do. These have existed for decades. States simply have secret polices.
I’m one of the people who always says that Lenin was a fucking monster, and that no authoritarian can ever be communist. Which includes China.
I’m 100% sure that if I ever found myself going to China, I’d be arrested for calling Xi a fascist poo bear playing pretend at communism.
I’m also quite certain that come November Trump will start working up to arresting people for things said online. I’m sure I’ll be at risk for calling him a pedo and posting this link; https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/10/6/1578544/-The-Untold-Story-of-Trump-Model-Management-A-Daily-Kos-Exclusive-Part-1
Please stop this narrative. Western Marxists/communists and their purity posturing is exhausting. Say what you will of the CPC but it is a party that has taken China from backwater country to world leader within 60-70 years. Do you want China to instead be “democratic” the way the US is?
ICE are just brownshirts, you’re thinking of the CIA and FBI.
Nope. Proud Boys are the brown shirts. Non-governmental paramilitary fighters.
FBI was an actual law enforcement organization, but has been gutted.
The CIA isn’t a boogie man inside the US. They’ve fucked up enough times that very few people respect them. Also they don’t really do domestic spying.
No, the NSA is the one who does domestic spying.
And finally ICE, an agency that is 100% filled with diehard Trump supporters. They’re already abducting innocent people off the street and vanishing them. Masked thugs working for the state vanishing people without warrants is sort of the basic definition of secret police.
ICE? You seem to be forgetting at least the NSA.
Didn’t forget them, they’re not sending masked thugs to vanish people from the street.
The NSA is a spy org, but not full of Trump loyalists.
Trump is focusing on ICE, because it is full of specifically Trump loyalists.
