The frozen water people are going to surveil social media to see if anything bad is being said about them.
Surveillance is not new at all, particularly of activist and organizers, but the scope and reach of it has changed because of AI. Algorithms can and do scrape social media to determine sentiment. I’ve covered AI sentiment analysis extensively in past posts, including its dangers and flaws, steeped in racism, sexism, ableism and oppression.
The frozen water people are monitoring past, present, and future social media activity to identify and report people.
Let’s talk about some of this language because this is where they try to push the boundaries and blur some of the lines.
A threat is generally defined as an expression of intent to harm, or cause damage to, someone or something. When you think about it, so many things can fall under this.
There are verbal, written, physical, and online threats. In this case, the frozen water people are thinking about online specifically.
On top of this, some threats are illegal, but some are not. An example of a threat that is not illegal could be something like, “I’m going to eat all of your cookies if you don’t arrive by 7pm.”
Within illegal threats, there are death, bodily harm, public figures, and property threats. The intent, perception, and the context also matter.
Even in courts, there is a lot of ambiguity and blurriness around these different categories and types.
There is also a line that is being blurred between threats and free speech.
Because of oppression and how power works in this world, what frequently happens is two people can make the same exact statement, but one person’s statement will be regarded as a threat while the other’s will be regarded as free speech.
This isn’t just about the frozen water people, but also every arena, because right now this administration is attacking everyone.
One of the most powerful things that can be helpful to know when navigating all of this is to not function out of fear. And also, be aware that there is a lot of ambiguity that can be put on different statements that are made online.
There are many different ways to get your point across. I believe in us.
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