That’s literally the point of the article?

The schismogenesis in the comments and downvotes here is wild: “dystopia is good when it hurts scumbags”—um, no, both can be bad??

So they were identified by a government agency or an entity acting within that scope?

So this is what all this "kiss cam at Coldplay concert" is about. Pretty dull stuff.

One thing to note with facial recognition and security cameras is that you can't put the genie back in the bottle.

Another thing is that there are legitimate uses for extensive surveillance (catching spies, assasins and collaborators when your country is being invaded). While this is a somewhat extreme example, there are legitimate use cases outside of war time too.

It's up to us as voters to elect governments that do not abuse surveillance technology.

It’s up to us as voters to elect governments that do not abuse surveillance technology.

Surveillance technology is only feedback.

There's also the regulator which uses that feedback. It's means of regulation are bots, properly formed news, law policies, and raw action. Probably even targeted murders.

That system together affects whom "we as voters" elect. Because we are too many to organize, while for regulation our numbers and diversity are actually favorable, to treat us all as one object.

Which means that electoral democracy is dead. Direct democracy with nationwide mandatory participation and rotational sortitioned filling of state roles requiring a working individual (like conscription where you can't refuse or it's a process requiring some proof of good reasons) may work.

To increase as much as possible the technical complexity of influencing a society like an object.

One can also (with reservations and limitations and very careful design) look at the Soviet system (one that really functioned in early 20s and late 80s).

The key is nationwide participation. Electing someone else to represent you is just too risky with such crowd control means as available today.

While the technology can be made public-controlled in the widest sense, so that not only a certain JD Vance could see where you are at every moment, but that you could see where he is as well. All state surveillance should be public. And there should be no state secrets.

So you accept the dystopian surveillance state because in this instance it has served your purpose.

Divide et impera.

This type of camera use at concerts or stadiums is decades.
Although I agree with you, the biggest concern are things like Nest cameras that film random people walking on the street. Or general government surveillance.

In the UK, some guy got arrested because he refused to show his face on a street surveillance camera on principle.

dystopian surveillance state

There I fixed it.

Go to reddit and stay there if you want to debase yourself with that obtuse nonsense. Otherwise grow up.

And blocked. Have a nice day.

The main problem I see here is that people still don't seem to understand what "public" means.

That applies to doing shit in public, but also posting shit publically.

If you do something in the open, expect that people will see it.

He was right actually. Like 100%.

See it, sure. But as a society we used to have an expectation of anonymity, for better or worse.

If there was a video of you dancing funny in public, maybe your friends would recognize you, but the whole world wouldn't know your identity and remember it forever.

Shit, my workplace couldn't even identify the people who walked in the front door and stole stuff and walked out. The police could see their faces clearly in the security footage, but they weren't from around here and no one knew who they were.

Society used to be like that.

See it, sure. But as a society we used to have an expectation of anonymity, for better or worse.

That's the case if you are some unimportant rando, yes.

But these two people we are talking about are very public figures due to their jobs, and they are compensated very well for this. As a public figure you can't have the expectation of anonymity. That just comes with the territory.

Every time JK Rowling lets out an anti-trans fart, the whole internet is up in arms. When my transphobe uncle does the same, nobody cares. Because one of them is a public figure and the other one is not.

You should be able to enjoy a concert without being put on display.

I don’t want my picture taken when I’m high as fuck and make out with strangers while partying.

Surveillance capitalism knows more about you than government agencies.

If you would read the article, you would understand the point you're missing.

No one recognized them because they were public figures. In this case it's not clear how they were recognized, but in the general sense, it is clear that social media will gleefully dox randos using technology like facial recognition. Attractive security guards, people dancing, etc. Just yesterday, someone took a picture of me at the pool just for walking with messy hair.

The point the article is making is that anybody can be made a public figure now, because of technology.

I have read the article, and I got your point before, and I still think that it's totally moot and besides the point.

If they had been two total randos, say Max the car repair man cheating with Mandy the receptionist, then nobody would have even tried to recognize them. Not with social media, not with facial recognition not with anything else.

And even if Peter, the coworker of Max and Mandy would have recognized them, he'd maybe have told their partners, or he might have made fun of them at work, but that's it. Because these people don't matter.

To get back to your example: Somebody took a picture of you. Ok. Now what? Did that picture go viral on social media? Did that picture make it into international news? No. Because you don't matter.

And you said it yourself:

Shit, my workplace couldn't even identify the people who walked in the front door and stole stuff and walked out. The police could see their faces clearly in the security footage, but they weren't from around here and no one knew who they were.

Lol you really think a CEO, of a billion dollar company no less, being recognized on camera is "emblematic" of anything.

Don't pretend they are like us.

Yes surveillance capitalism is ruining the society, but this is not it. Surprising bad take from 404media.

Facebook proved that well enough, the courts are supposed to be the remedy to that though.

They not like us