cross-posted from: https://libretechni.ca/post/715575

There are many manifestations of this way of thinking that people must conform to behaviour, methods and styles that differ from that of bots and criminals. For example:

• Countless websites falsely accuse me of being a robot based on whatever faulty logic is making poor assumptions. I cannot access publications of laws or my own credit history because Cloudflare benefits financially from crude and cheap access decisions.
• The Tor community is collectively targetted for opaque adverse treatment despite a vast majority of Tor users being non-criminal.
• Countless email servers falsely refuse my mail server on the crude basis of having a residential IP address - mandating that I conform by hiring a 3rd party relay service which then becomes an additional MitM.
• A landlord’s email system accepted my email but then silently directed it to a spam quarantine that the landlord never reviews. When a dispute errupted, the landlord claimed it was my fault he did not get my msgs. My fault, as if I have control over his mail server (which signalled to me the msg was delivered).
• Creditors refuse cash payments under the faulty premise that cash is used by criminals and thus non-criminals must change their lifestyle & give up using cash in order to support the faulty logic used in targetting criminals.
• Public libraries have removed or disabled ethernet ports (or neglect to install them) based on the faulty logic that cybercriminals use ethernet and legit users only use Wi-Fi.
• This nutter believes humans should not use emoji because he thinks bots use emoji and he would like his crude AI detector to work.
• We cannot buy lye in enough bulk to make our own biodiesel and bar soap from waste oil because lye is also used by meth labs.
• Asylum seekers cannot cross a national border because they are presumed criminal.

All these scenarios represent different manifestations of the same oppressive paradigm: that it is okay to control people’s innocuous behaviour in order to support the convenience of a simplified and unsophisticated distinction from nefarious actors.

From a human rights standpoint, the result is a form of oppression that violates:

• autonomy
• self-determinism
• privacy
• consumer protection
• the right to a presumption of innocence

What do we call this?

• “Collective punishment” is somewhat fitting because a whole demographic of people are punitively targetted. But unlike the traditional meaning, it’s not a response to a particular incident. It’s more like a preemtive strike.
• “Collateral damage” is somewhat fitting because innocent people are damaged by the oppression. OTOH, collateral damage implies the victims are comrades aligned with the aggressors. But in reality the victims do not necessarily agree with the mission that causes the sloppy assault. I do not necessarily consider myself on the same team as the oppressors.

Neither are quite right. We need a term to express “pusher of forced lifestyle comformity to assist lazy baddy finders”.