
'State of Surveillance' with Edward Snowden and Shane Smith [video] - bonefishgrill
https://news.vice.com/article/state-of-surveillance-with-edward-snowden-and-shane-smith
======
d33
I wonder what we could do to make Snowden heard more nowadays. I'm getting the
impression that the monumentum since the initial release of the information
about the NSA surveillance slowed down, though we not much of the problem was
solved yet...

~~~
nickpsecurity
One of his failures is that he didn't understand how things work. He's an
idealist and technical person. I was a technical person that dug my head into
how things work as well in terms of media and whistleblowing. Thing is, they
often don't.

The corporate media in the U.S. that dominates most coverage is about anything
that holds audiences' attention to get them to look at ads. That means more
noise and theatrics than signal. Their owners even benefit from the power
structure in the U.S. that financially and politically favors elites. Their
media organizations, if they play ball a bit, even get interviews with elites
in government or on boards of those in business. Finally, they maximize
attention span and engagement by creating echo-chambers where people see what
they want to see with minimal deviation.

Against this backdrop, it's no surprise change will rarely happen. There's a
pattern that emerges, though, where events make waves. There's a rise where
event spreads to many media outlets. They each modify their presentation to
reflect views of their target audience. Occasionally, if it threatens elite
status quo, they'll self-suppress it in favor of talking points that please
their viewers but are ultimately harmless. Much shouting happens, politicians
might introduce bills which might go somewhere (or get neutered), and
eventually the wave subsides to let next story and its wave flow in.
Interestingly, we often see lots of focus on sensationalist crap nobody can do
anything about during key moments like treaty negotiations or bills
eliminating citizen's rights that makes people miss those things.

Altogether, Snowden shouldn't have expected any effect in the U.S. in terms of
laws or change except a temporary reaction. He and others would've had to have
all the talking points mapped out with counterpoints and even alternatives
that various parties would compromise on. They'd have to drop it immediately
when the wave hits. Otherwise, Americans either wouldn't give a shit or would
look at things through the lens their media outlet presented them. That's the
majority.

You don't need to make him more heard. He's too weak in this area to be
effective anyway. There's groups like EFF and independent bloggers doing a
great job writing up the risks, showing alternatives, illustrating
ineffectiveness, exposing incompetence, and so on. Just promote them with
Snowden's work being cited as reference material and examples where it's most
effective. Whatever you do, though, needs to be written with laypeople in mind
to bring it to the level they care about.

John Oliver interview shows nicely Snowden's disconnect plus a fictional
programs that excellently brings the points home to laypeople. Need more stuff
like this.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M)

~~~
ashitlerferad
Sounds like the USA is covered by a manipulation machine that is impossible to
defeat.

~~~
nickpsecurity
Not impossible: just hard. They worked over time to consolidate and control as
many media outlets as possible. The Internet lets us try to counter that.
People would have to package the exposes and alternatives in ways existing
outlets would present them plus push them on alt news outlets for various
demographics that had established reliability. The altnews outlets are
important here as they won't censor stuff affecting elites.

It will take much time and money to build this up. For corporate media, you
have to be paying lots of ad revenue or generating plenty
ratings/entertainment for them to listen. So, just expensive and hard to
change things.

------
bonefishgrill
How accurate of a portrayal is this?

~~~
nickpsecurity
It's pretty accurate. Also, see the John Oliver interview I posted in the
comments. It's designed to appeal to less technical people plus get honest
reactions out of him. The two interviews together are pretty good.

------
nefitty
Just FYI, Vice has worked on advertising campaigns for Philip Morris. They
potentially targeted middle and low income countries where youths are more
vulnerable to these types of advertising. Since learning about Vice leveraging
its youth market knowledge for big tobacco, I've decided to stop clicking to
their content and related sites.
[http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/may/20/walt-disney-
vic...](http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/may/20/walt-disney-vice-media-
tobacco-ads-frozen)

