Flutterby™! : Something to hide

Washington Post: The Switch: Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study.

The study is Under Surveillance: Examining Facebook’s Spiral of Silence Effects in the Wake of NSA Internet Monitoring (PDF).

Normatively, these results provide important considerations for policymakers as they seek to renew, revise, and draft additional provisions that continue to allow bulk online data collection and mass surveillance practices. Interestingly, the participants in this study who were the most susceptible to conformist behavior were those who supported these controversial surveillance policies. These individuals expressed that surveillance was necessary for maintaining national security and they have nothing to hide. However, when these individuals perceive they are being monitored, they readily conform their behavior—expressing opinions when they are in the majority, and suppressing them when they’re not. Similar to Dinev et al.’s (2008) results, those holding the dominant opinion eagerly volunteered their ideas (over 6 on a 7-point scale), but the “nothing to hide” group seemed to experience some degree of dissonance when their views were in the minority, as they were inclined to “hide” them.