Thread

How we learned to stop worrying and love campus surveillance

269 points · 139 comments · cdrnsf

Grombobulous · 1790375209 · focus · HN ↗
I keep wondering if there’s some kind of positive correlation between prestige of an institution and level of immaturity and fragility of their employees.
Look, I’m not trying to be pro-surveillance state or whatever, but in what universe is a handful of cameras (less than 10 per building) in a publicly accessible space on a private university unusual or alarming?
I thought every university had this, but I guess I’m now learning that my university wasn’t prestigious enough to be exempted from reality.
My high school also had cameras. Isn’t that rather typical?
Keep in mind that pretty much 100% of schools this size have assaults take place every single year on school grounds, in a country where school shootings happen on a literal weekly basis.
Speaking of the supposed cost waste of these cameras: I would be surprised the university can get reasonably priced insurance without them.
Edit: this comment has picked up a lot of attention. I encourage those who are disagreeing with me to go directly to the university’s FAQ on the subject that is linked in the article. They directly state that this surveillance system isn’t new, it merely has some new cameras added to the existing system, audio isn’t recorded, facial recognition isn’t used, AI isn’t used, budget from other programs wasn’t sacrificed to add cameras, and data is stored inside an MIT data center. That’s one reason why I hold skepticism about the objectivity of the authors. I thought the authors were not very generous to the school’s willingness to clarify, and based on that FAQ a lot of accusations/assumptions in the article and discussion seem to be false.
<a href="https://evpt.mit.edu/campus-security-cameras-frequently-asked-questions" rel="nofollow">https://evpt.mit.edu/campus-security-cameras-frequently-aske...
1. yosamino · 1790375872 · focus · HN ↗
  > Look, I’m not trying to be pro-surveillance state or whatever, but
  ... but why do you then go on making all pro-surveillance state arguments ?
  1. ajkjk · 1790376401 · focus · HN ↗
    Man I wish HN commenters could be bothered to even attempt to read each other charitably instead of this crap
    kelnos · 1790376867 · focus · HN ↗
    Not sure there's a more charitable read on "I don't want to be pro-surveillance, but [bunch of reasons why I think this is fine and that surveillance should be and has been normalized]".
    ajkjk · 1790377245 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes there is. That's the point of the comment. They made their points seriously and people should engage with them seriously. Instead of this reductive tribalism: "oo you expressed doubt about whether this is really bad, you must be One Of Them". Well they actually doubt it. Now what? Does trying to shame them out of doubting it change their mind? Of course not. Either someone engages with their questions and convinces them to agree or they stay on the fence. Trying to shame people out of discussion by pointing out how they're acting like the Wrong People is anti-intellectual and disrespectful and ignorant. Not to mention completely ineffective.
    kelnos · 1790379835 · focus · HN ↗
    Fair point; you're absolutely right.
    However, I did follow up with a direct reply before making the comment you're replying to, so... I literally did "engage with their questions".
    ajkjk · 1790380921 · focus · HN ↗
    (to be clear, this thread is not in reply to your comment. There is some overlap though)

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