Do you doubt that the various spying programs of the US government, specifically the NSA, has made the people paranoid? Let's clear it up today.
Jonathon Penney, of the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, analyzed Wikipedia's traffic and found that visits to entries related to terrorist groups dropped by 30% after its revelations Edward Snowden about the NSA's spying on citizens' online activity.
In his study, 'Chilling Effects: Online Surveillance and Wikipedia Use', Penney appears to be checking monthly Wikipedia page hits for 48 topics the US Department of Homeland Security said it monitors on social media. These pages include tags such as: 'Al Qaeda', 'terror', 'weapons grade', 'Abu Sayyaf', 'Iran', 'extremism', 'Nigeria' and jihad.
The researcher discovered that 16 months prior to Snowden's revelations had specific 3.000.000 articles about a month's visits. In the post-Snowden era, visits fell sharply to 2 million in the first post-first revelation interval, and stabilized at just under 2,5 million 14 months later.
Penney's research highlights that government wiretapping programs discourage legitimate excercise civil rights from the threat of legal sanctions. In this case, at search information to find out what is happening around the world.
Penney concluded:
If people are afraid to be informed about important news and other important events, or from doing a simple search on the Internet about the issues of law, security and public order, such as "terrorism", the results will also have serious effects on public opinion. class and the public meeting on the specific issue. With people potentially held in fear that prevents these basic acts collectionof information, they will be less informed, and the wider processes of democratic consultation will be weakened.
His investigation could help a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of the non-profit organization Wikipedia against the NSA and the Ministry of Justice. The lawsuit claims that US services have violated the fourth amendment through mass surveillance programs.
