I'm puzzled how people who didn't care about Snowden are suddenly very upset about Flock. I'm glad they finally decided the 4A is important.

My take is that the difference is simply down to visibility, and by extension broader understanding, of the issue:

- Cameras film me and my family and neighbors everywhere in daily life => Obviously an issue

- Something about secret agencies maybe (?) reading along my messages => “I’ve got nothing to hide in there anyway”

Optics and zeitgeist.

The Snowden leaks had too much of an abstract bogeyman. PRISM couldn't inspire critical mass outrage because, at the time, Big Tech was still genuinely useful and, besides, the Big Tech involved could be sidestepped with some inconvenience. Flock is neither directly useful nor avoidable unless you resolve to never leave your house.

Metadata tracking is, again, too abstract of a concept, too much a statistical what-if. Compare that with Flock which tracks your very countenance.

Most importantly IMO, Flock has a physical manifestation on which people can direct their anger. There is a "frontend" to actively subvert as opposed to a mere "backend" to avoid.

I'm not. The same people who seemingly magically cared about Flock overnight will move onto something else within the year. There's always something new to be outraged over, Flock is just the flavor of the week.

The Snowden situation is more complicated to explain. For flock you just show a Benn Jordan video showcasing the camera recording kids and people are likely to understand the problem. It’s also visible, in the real world, whenever you go around and see those cameras

(Benn Jordan has been so good at publicizing the flock issue, I would highly recommend to check his Patreon, his technical work over the years is really impressive)

Lots of people cared, it just wasn’t actionable. The situation with flock has avenues for change in town hall meetings or even good ol fashioned vandalism.

Dragnet surveillance by the CIA was a bit harder to oppose.

It is more concrete now. For example the footage that was released about the Kirk shooter showed that you are filmed everywhere, including in residential areas.

People are beginning to understand.

Is that the case? It seems to me that the people who cared about Snowden are basically the same people who care about Flock. Most of the people I know who didn't like Snowden also don't seem to care about Snowden. I do find it interesting / strange that conservatives (of which I am somewhat) don't care about Snowden or Flock. To me, the things Snowden revealed, and the crap Flock is doing are completely incompatible with the way I think government should function. But, maybe I'm more libertarian than conservative.

My theory is generational and knowledge shifts, namely that now we're seeing the first substantial cohort of non-techies with a decent understanding of tech culture and politics. This is also why we see a lot more anti-AI and anti tech CEO sentiment among the young than the old in defiance of our previously held assumptions.

This is about the right time for the children, nieces, and nephews of the first and second big generations of post-Web software engineers, IT workers, etc. to be getting old enough to become a political force. There's been an explosion of tech workers since the mid-90s, and that means an explosion of people related to them as well. The kids who watched their parents be stacked ranked at Amazon, saw the difference in how MS treated contractors and employees, listened to their corporate IT parents talk about how hostile MS is, etc. all learned that the big tech companies are not anyone's friend even if the specifics of the tech go over their heads. And while the workers themselves might keep their heads down and be quiet in public for the sake of their careers, their kids and relatives are less constrained.

And they can talk to each other and find that it's a common sentiment. Since they don't necessarily have technical careers or hobbies, they're also able to export this sentiment to a wider variety of people through overlapping hobbies and interests (e.g. the IT guy at a school in suburban Ohio has a kid who's a theatre nerd, and the kid is good at communicating their anti big tech position to this 'new' group of people).

The distribution of knowledge about how tech companies operate is shifting and diffusing into channels and communities it didn't before.

Observation of your body feels more intrusive than observation of your text.

if you cannot see how your violent ex boyfriend stalking you with cameras is profoundly different than the federal government knowing who you call, then you are a liar.

also, snowden is a traitor. putin's stooge