US government is using AI for unprecedented social media surveillance (www.newscientist.com)

submitted 6 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/65376751

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Under the Trump administration, multiple US government agencies are using AI and other tools to broadly track the social media of tourists and immigrants – and potentially to watch US citizens as well

It appears that the US federal government is investing more public funds in such tech tools, says Paromita Shah at Just Futures Law, an immigration advocacy non-profit in Washington DC. “We’re witnessing a real-time expansion of the use of social media monitoring technologies,” says Shah. “When you use social media monitoring to intimidate, harass, alienate, deport, incarcerate, arrest – when that becomes your standard to do those things – it’s antithetical to a lot of what democracy stands for.”

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[-] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago

I remember how horrified my mum was around 2005 when we started using social media because she thought that what we posted on it would get turned against us.

20 years later and she's not looking like such a paranoid old fruitcake.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

I have the feeling the same will happen with jobs and AI. "Nothing is really changing" right now, but people are always so short sighted. 15-20 years is about the time it takes for knowledge to become normalized and accepted.

For example, some scientists suggested dinosaurs had feathers and they had to argue the evidence for over a decade to get the theory outside of crazy territory; then, another decade for the public at large to accept and adopt the info.

Similar timelines for people ringing bells about plastic contamination, pollution, climate change, pretty much anything. We as a species are really good at embracing short term gains and really bad at considering long term consequences.

this post was submitted on 30 May 2025

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