Alternative Christmas Message - 4OD [UK]
channel4.comTranscript:
Hi, and Merry Christmas. I'm honored to have the chance to speak with you and your family this year.
Recently, we learned that our governments, working in concert, have created a system of worldwide mass surveillance, watching everything we do.
Great Britain's George Orwell warned us of the danger of this kind of information. The types of collection in the book -- microphones and video cameras, TVs that watch us -- are nothing compared to what we have available today. We have sensors in our pockets that track us everywhere we go.
Think about what this means for the privacy of the average person. A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. They'll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves -- an unrecorded, unanalyzed thought. And that's a problem, because privacy matters. Privacy is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to be.
The conversation occurring today will determine the amount of trust we can place both in the technology that surrounds us and the government that regulates it. Together, we can find a better balance. End mass surveillance. And remind the government that if it really wants to know how we feel, asking is always cheaper than spying.
For everyone out there listening, thank you, and Merry Christmas.
> A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. They'll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves -- an unrecorded, unanalyzed thought.
This is hyperbole and also it's just not true in any real sense. We can still have private moments and we can certainly still have "unrecorded, unanalyzed thoughts".
I really wish Snowden wouldn't overstate the current state of affairs, the facts alone are enough.
He's also describing a cultural shift. While it may be hyperbolic, I think there's some truth to the notion that the Facebook generation thinks in terms of being public by default, possibly without even being aware of it, because it's so trivial for information to leak out into the world unless you jump through a lot of hoops to prevent it. There are fewer and fewer "secret gardens" left to children.
I'd be very curious to hear from a millennial (or younger) on the subject; anyone Snowden's age or older is probably too far removed from the next generation to assess it well.
Born in the 1980s, not sure if that makes me a millenial.
The sentiment is incomplete. Privacy exists, but private from whom? The younger generations still have a reasonable expectation of privacy against their parents. But probably much less of one against Facebook, Google, or the government.
Public by default also doesn't imply a total lack of privacy. Younger people overshare all the time on social networks, but there's still an (unreasonable) expectation that these things are quasi-private. Think of it as talking loudly in a mall with your friends. Yes, anyone can overhear. But no one actually expects anyone to care or pay attention to your conversation.
EDIT: Should also point out that millenials and other generations are not homogeneous groups. I imagine that white upper middle-class Christians would likely have different expectations of privacy in America than someone who is black, poor, and Muslim.
If you consider that most teenagers carry around their smartphone with them all the time, those moments are no longer guaranteed to be private.
When those devices were invented that allowed parents to GPS-track their children, they were quickly subverted: the kids would go to a friend's house, leave the device there, and then go where they really wanted to go.
If you actually premeditate a private moment, it's fully possible to make it so.
And then the parent calls the phone and the kid doesn't answer.
What Snowden said still isn't true though is it?
My kids have privacy.
You believe that you and your kids have privacy.
True. You can never say for sure if your kids have privacy or not. Most kids these days don't have any notion of what privacy is, given the kind of content they are sharing on Facebook and other social networking websites.
I was with the In-Laws the other day, and overheard the following conversation between my Father-in-law and his son:
Father: "Where were you the other night?"
Son: "<name of street>"
Father: "No you weren't. Don't forget you have a car tracker to give you cheaper insurance, which I'm paying for. That means I can log on any time I like and see exactly where you were."
The NSA is already getting into our brains via self-censoring, which has seen a dramatic rise in the last few years as reported by journalists and others.
I felt that too. I doubt that the NSA have a tap in place between the two halves of my brain. Until that happens I can have private thoughts.
I was hoping for a little bit more. Certainly he could have said more. By being overly concise he overstated things, this was not good.
I know he does not think he 'matters' (it is the story that 'matters'), however, it would have been good to hear from him how well things are going and how he is going to spend time this Christmas (presumably not at his mum and dad's place).
Your private thoughts aren't private if they can gain enough information about your personality from your public thoughts.
That’s a non-sequitur. Public thoughts + personality != private thoughts.
You can have private thoughts, but good luck communicating them to someone else without the possibility of it being recorded. It's a valid concern for the future as brain to computer interfaces are going to become more common. Scientists have managed to extract images of what people are imagining from their brains already.
I'm not sure it's as much hyperbole as you think. One of the statements by Ebon Moglen's recent talk that stayed with me is something like "In every country where people spend a long time online, Google already knows how you're going to vote."
Imagine the sort of things the government could get by mashing together our electronic signals, all of which you might want to keep private:
1. Who you will most likely vote for
2. Where you have been at all times.
3 Who you spoke to on the phone, text message and bulletin boards.
4. Your sexual orientation, shared trauma, or mental problems.
5. Your sexual kinks and porn preferences.
6. Your religion.
7. Your medical history (and from 23andMe, your DNA)
8. What films you watch, music you like and books you read (and from ebooks, for how long you spent doing so).
9. Who you met physically (if both are carrying tracking phones).
10. Everything you bought via paypal, credit cards or bank transactions.
11. Your credit history, savings history and financial proclivities.
12. Your possessions that are recorded, such as houses, cars.
13. Every country you visit abroad. Every plane ticket and use of your passport (including photo and fingerprints).
14. Your complete criminal record.
15. And already coming to the youth of today: cheaper insurance via car tracking = how you drive, how fast, cornering speed, where you go and where you stay.
16. Your genealogical data if given to any family tree site.
17. The names and all the data above for your friends and family, their friends, and so on, in a great big network.
Is that a loss of privacy? I'd say so.
It's a huge amount of data they have access to if unrestrained: all your opinions on bulletin boards, web searches, sites visited, physical locations visited, friend networks, phone conversations, face on cameras and photos via recognition, Medical records, library records, travel records, TV records, financial records, email, photographs, videos - and in future people will be using the internet and things like smart phones more, not less.
And of course this isn't even including the more extreme stuff they can do but probably only do rarely, such as watching you through your smart TV, computer or phone, listening to everything you say through your phone even when it isn't on, etc.
Heck, even searching google for types of recipe you enjoy might reveal you're Jewish when cross-referenced with things like friend networks and location. From an EU data protection (and last century's history) point of view, there is a lot to be concerned about.
Hm, when does a private thought become a provable reality?
I press play and get "You are using 'incognito mode' in your browser. Please open a normal browser window to view 4oD". Amazing.
Didn't get that far, because it insists on having Flash installed, even when spoofing User Agent as an iPad.
>2014
Whoa. Why are they requiring that? Tell me this isn't the next trend.
4OD want to install some stuff for content management.
Chrome needs he setting: Privacy [Content Settings] Protected Content
turned on, if it isn't already.Some content services use machine identifiers to uniquely identify you for the purposes of authorizing access to protected content. [x] Allow identifiers for protected content (computer restart may be required)
It's not playing for me. Most news sites seem heavily dependant on loads of 3rd party javascript that gets blocked by Ghostery, so I loaded up an incognito window, same thing, just spins forever at the loading screen.
EDIT: Found a mirror on a not-shit site http://vimeo.com/82666985
Thank you. I had the same problem.
You can also get the video file using the youtube_dl script:
youtube-dl 'http://vimeo.com/82666985'
Perhaps it's worth updating the title to mention that this was delivered by Edward Snowden.
Sorry that is against the rules
I know he has very few places to run to, but putting out a message about the dangerous overreach of state surveillance as he sits in Russia takes away some of the gusto for me.
It's worth noting that this was broadcast at the same time as the traditional Christmas day speech pre-recorded and delivered by the Queen. Channel 4 has a history of doing things a little differently, and this certainly piqued my interests today.
No, the queen's speech was broadcast at 3pm (BBC1, ITV). Channel 4's alternative message was at 4.15pm. They have broadcast alternate messages at the same time before, like when the Simpsons did it - just not this year.
Snowden is so smart: He knows how to avoid media oversaturation.
I bet every year now he'll put out nothing more than a couple 2 minute videos, and give one major nytimes interview.
In this way, every word that he says will get a helluva lot of attention... even a decade from now.
Yeah I found the video shocking too ...
Saying "Happy Christmas" is just wrong man!
Maybe it is where you are, but here in the UK, saying Happy Holidays sounds really awful, and Happy (or Merry) Christmas is standard.
LOL - can't believe this got down voted.
Note to self: add the <sarcasm> tag next time :).
Happy present day guys :) ...