Just because a product has a plausibly deniable use case doesn’t really mean that it’s not functionally political.
If someone creates a super invasive surveillance system and initially uses it for a seemingly benign purpose, that doesn’t mean the intention all along wasn’t more nefarious, especially if the system was practically irresistible for power structures and it’s use directly lead to authoritarianism. Like giving someone their first hit for free.
In a case like that, I would discount the benign use as a red herring, and say that the software is functionally political.
The intention can be fascist, sure, but that doesn’t mean the solution is fascist.
For example, I think it’s pretty clear that Lemmy was designed by tankies to create a safe space for tankies (why would the instances the main devs maintain be overly protective of China and Russia if it weren’t?), but that doesn’t make Lemmy “tankie,” it’s a software project that can be used by fascists, tankies, commies, anarchists, statists, etc, because it’s just a software program.
Likewise, a surveillance system can be used by a fascist government, private company to protect company secrets, government agency like the Pentagon for internal use, or even private individuals to ID who is at the door. It’s only fascist of it’s used to further fascist goals, like identifying minorities or protestors. But then, it’s still not the software that’s fascist, but the whole system, meaning how people use it and the policies in place.
The chance of a given piece of software being “fascist” is incredibly low, since it would need to act in a fascist way and only a fascist way, or only be useful for fascist ends. Like the fascist LLM example I gave, or a training simulator that is hard-coded to only present fascist ideology.
Like the fascist LLM example I gave, or a training simulator that is hard-coded to only present fascist ideology.
Right. That’s what we’re talking about.
But I think the bar is a little lower. I think it’s enough to be primarily useful for (eg) fascist goals. If it happens to have minor non-fascist uses, I don’t think that materially changes anything.
I don’t think that Lemmy is primarily useful for furthering tankie goals.
I think that privacy invading surveillance systems are primarily useful for furthering authoritarian goals, by intention or not. There are some nice alternative uses, but I think that the use case of primary importance is in service to authoritarianism, which makes it authoritarian software.
I think that privacy invading surveillance systems are primarily useful for furthering authoritarian goals, by intention or not.
And I disagree. I think this all started when we allowed things like traffic light cameras, speed cameras, and toll cameras to automatically bill based on license plate. I don’t think most would consider those to be “primarily useful for furthering authoritarian goals,” they’re merely there for routine law enforcement with specific goals.
Flock cameras are basically that same exact system, but instead of only being used when something tangible is triggered (red light, radar, or toll booth motion sensor), they passively collect information. Flock is a private company that sells its surveillance services to cities (and private orgs) to assist with tracking down license plates or alerting when there’s a gunshot detection. This is allegedly legal because you don’t have any expectation of privacy when you’re in public (hence why Ring doorbells are legal), and private companies don’t have to follow the same rules as law enforcement. I personally don’t think Flock’s founders are fascist, they seem to genuinely want to help reduce crime. I worked for a similar company that mostly did perimeter security (i.e. generally only operated on private property), and the founder was absolutely not fascist, but they did want to help reduce crime.
I personally don’t consider either of those systems fascist by nature, but they can be used to achieve fascist goals. Tracking burglars across neighborhoods doesn’t sound especially fascist to me, but tracking protestors certainly does. These are very dangerous technologies that can easily be used for fascist purposes, so I think we shouldn’t allow them to be used at all, not because they are fascist, but because they can easily be used for fascist ends just by changing conventions around its use.
I don’t think we need to label a system as authoritarian or fascist to oppose them, we just need to point out how easily they can be misused.
So this is why I’m trying to avoid using the term fascist, because it means something specific but nobody can really agree what that thing is. For the purposes of this discussion, I’d prefer to say “authoritarian”.
I wouldn’t call traffic cameras invasive because they’re only at (some) intersections. But it’s still kind of borderline.
A private citizen recording people in public and the government doing so are fundamentally different. I think that having the government subcontract away that responsibility to maintain privacy is an abdication of that responsibility and is an intentional act to move towards authoritarian on the part of the govt. Now if the private company intends to help the government do that, is immaterial; that is the only major use case for their product, so it is functionally a tool with an authoritarian purpose.
Is it such a dichotomy in reality? No.
But we need to be exceptionally careful when we see these gray areas
I’m trying to avoid using the term fascist, because it means something specific but nobody can really agree what that thing is. For the purposes of this discussion, I’d prefer to say “authoritarian”
It’s more that people probably know what it means, but choose to misuse it to smear their political enemies, and then other people who don’t know what it means repeat it.
Here’s a clear definition in case you or anyone else that reads this isn’t clear on it (or pick your favorite dictionary, it’ll be similar):
A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, a capitalist economy subject to stringent governmental controls, violent suppression of the opposition, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.
Is a network of cameras with facial recognition fascist according to that definition? No. Is it useful to people pushing for such a government? Yes. Is it useful to other authoritarian systems of government? Yes. Is it useful to non-authoritarian systems of government and non-government entities, including private citizens? Also yes.
I wouldn’t call traffic cameras invasive because they’re only at (some) intersections.
What if they’re at every intersection, stop signs included?
If the only thing that turns something into an authoritarian system is scale, then it’s not the system that’s authoritarian, but the way they’re used that is authoritarian.
I oppose red light cameras not because they’re authoritarian in and of themselves, but because they can be used by authoritarians to screw people. I oppose Ring doorbells not because they’re authoritarian, but because the corporation has control and can hand that data over to authoritarians without consent from the owner (or be compelled by authoritarians).
“Authoritarian” is an adjective that describes people, governments, or policies, not inanimate objects or software systems.
A private citizen recording people in public and the government doing so are fundamentally different
Exactly! The capability to record the public isn’t authoritarian, the government policy of recording the public is authoritarian.
This may sound like a pedantic point, but I think it’s an important one. If cameras are authoritarian, then ban cameras and the problem goes away right? The government will just use radar, track financial transactions, or something else entirely, and you have the same problem.
The real problem isn’t cameras or facial recognition, but that the government tracks people. To solve that problem, we shouldn’t ban the various ways the government can track people, we should ban the government from tracking people. Don’t b regulate the tools, regulate the people using the tools.
I mostly agree with you, so we’re probably not really doing much in this discussion. I’m trying not to be pedantic, but as my name will tell you, I find that to be a challenge lol.
I agree wrt how to regulate.
If disallow the govt from broad indiscriminate surveillance and disallow the govt from circumventing that rule by subcontracting it to private entities, then these companies and products that perform the mass surveillance would naturally become unprofitable and collapse. I would argue that such a product would be by its nature political, because it’s only practical use case was the furtherance of a political goal.
Cameras aren’t political, but the use of cameras for mass govt-level surveillance is political.
To me where it gets tricky is when private entities grow to government-sized proportions, and begin to use these same tools for similar purposes. I think that is also a problem, but it becomes harder to frame it.
Just because a product has a plausibly deniable use case doesn’t really mean that it’s not functionally political.
If someone creates a super invasive surveillance system and initially uses it for a seemingly benign purpose, that doesn’t mean the intention all along wasn’t more nefarious, especially if the system was practically irresistible for power structures and it’s use directly lead to authoritarianism. Like giving someone their first hit for free.
In a case like that, I would discount the benign use as a red herring, and say that the software is functionally political.
The intention can be fascist, sure, but that doesn’t mean the solution is fascist.
For example, I think it’s pretty clear that Lemmy was designed by tankies to create a safe space for tankies (why would the instances the main devs maintain be overly protective of China and Russia if it weren’t?), but that doesn’t make Lemmy “tankie,” it’s a software project that can be used by fascists, tankies, commies, anarchists, statists, etc, because it’s just a software program.
Likewise, a surveillance system can be used by a fascist government, private company to protect company secrets, government agency like the Pentagon for internal use, or even private individuals to ID who is at the door. It’s only fascist of it’s used to further fascist goals, like identifying minorities or protestors. But then, it’s still not the software that’s fascist, but the whole system, meaning how people use it and the policies in place.
The chance of a given piece of software being “fascist” is incredibly low, since it would need to act in a fascist way and only a fascist way, or only be useful for fascist ends. Like the fascist LLM example I gave, or a training simulator that is hard-coded to only present fascist ideology.
Right. That’s what we’re talking about.
But I think the bar is a little lower. I think it’s enough to be primarily useful for (eg) fascist goals. If it happens to have minor non-fascist uses, I don’t think that materially changes anything.
I don’t think that Lemmy is primarily useful for furthering tankie goals.
I think that privacy invading surveillance systems are primarily useful for furthering authoritarian goals, by intention or not. There are some nice alternative uses, but I think that the use case of primary importance is in service to authoritarianism, which makes it authoritarian software.
And I disagree. I think this all started when we allowed things like traffic light cameras, speed cameras, and toll cameras to automatically bill based on license plate. I don’t think most would consider those to be “primarily useful for furthering authoritarian goals,” they’re merely there for routine law enforcement with specific goals.
Flock cameras are basically that same exact system, but instead of only being used when something tangible is triggered (red light, radar, or toll booth motion sensor), they passively collect information. Flock is a private company that sells its surveillance services to cities (and private orgs) to assist with tracking down license plates or alerting when there’s a gunshot detection. This is allegedly legal because you don’t have any expectation of privacy when you’re in public (hence why Ring doorbells are legal), and private companies don’t have to follow the same rules as law enforcement. I personally don’t think Flock’s founders are fascist, they seem to genuinely want to help reduce crime. I worked for a similar company that mostly did perimeter security (i.e. generally only operated on private property), and the founder was absolutely not fascist, but they did want to help reduce crime.
I personally don’t consider either of those systems fascist by nature, but they can be used to achieve fascist goals. Tracking burglars across neighborhoods doesn’t sound especially fascist to me, but tracking protestors certainly does. These are very dangerous technologies that can easily be used for fascist purposes, so I think we shouldn’t allow them to be used at all, not because they are fascist, but because they can easily be used for fascist ends just by changing conventions around its use.
I don’t think we need to label a system as authoritarian or fascist to oppose them, we just need to point out how easily they can be misused.
So this is why I’m trying to avoid using the term fascist, because it means something specific but nobody can really agree what that thing is. For the purposes of this discussion, I’d prefer to say “authoritarian”.
I wouldn’t call traffic cameras invasive because they’re only at (some) intersections. But it’s still kind of borderline.
A private citizen recording people in public and the government doing so are fundamentally different. I think that having the government subcontract away that responsibility to maintain privacy is an abdication of that responsibility and is an intentional act to move towards authoritarian on the part of the govt. Now if the private company intends to help the government do that, is immaterial; that is the only major use case for their product, so it is functionally a tool with an authoritarian purpose.
Is it such a dichotomy in reality? No.
But we need to be exceptionally careful when we see these gray areas
It’s more that people probably know what it means, but choose to misuse it to smear their political enemies, and then other people who don’t know what it means repeat it.
Here’s a clear definition in case you or anyone else that reads this isn’t clear on it (or pick your favorite dictionary, it’ll be similar):
Is a network of cameras with facial recognition fascist according to that definition? No. Is it useful to people pushing for such a government? Yes. Is it useful to other authoritarian systems of government? Yes. Is it useful to non-authoritarian systems of government and non-government entities, including private citizens? Also yes.
What if they’re at every intersection, stop signs included?
If the only thing that turns something into an authoritarian system is scale, then it’s not the system that’s authoritarian, but the way they’re used that is authoritarian.
I oppose red light cameras not because they’re authoritarian in and of themselves, but because they can be used by authoritarians to screw people. I oppose Ring doorbells not because they’re authoritarian, but because the corporation has control and can hand that data over to authoritarians without consent from the owner (or be compelled by authoritarians).
“Authoritarian” is an adjective that describes people, governments, or policies, not inanimate objects or software systems.
Exactly! The capability to record the public isn’t authoritarian, the government policy of recording the public is authoritarian.
This may sound like a pedantic point, but I think it’s an important one. If cameras are authoritarian, then ban cameras and the problem goes away right? The government will just use radar, track financial transactions, or something else entirely, and you have the same problem.
The real problem isn’t cameras or facial recognition, but that the government tracks people. To solve that problem, we shouldn’t ban the various ways the government can track people, we should ban the government from tracking people. Don’t b regulate the tools, regulate the people using the tools.
I mostly agree with you, so we’re probably not really doing much in this discussion. I’m trying not to be pedantic, but as my name will tell you, I find that to be a challenge lol.
I agree wrt how to regulate.
If disallow the govt from broad indiscriminate surveillance and disallow the govt from circumventing that rule by subcontracting it to private entities, then these companies and products that perform the mass surveillance would naturally become unprofitable and collapse. I would argue that such a product would be by its nature political, because it’s only practical use case was the furtherance of a political goal.
Cameras aren’t political, but the use of cameras for mass govt-level surveillance is political.
To me where it gets tricky is when private entities grow to government-sized proportions, and begin to use these same tools for similar purposes. I think that is also a problem, but it becomes harder to frame it.