When the Snowden leaks dropped last year, some feared that the reveal widespread state surveillance would be followed by a clamping down on transparency efforts. A new Pew Research poll suggests that the effect is more in line with Kafka than Orwell, however: the threat of ubiquitous surveillance may have resulted in a self-imposed cooling effect on online discussion.
According to report, which is based on a survey of nearly 2,000 Americans' willingness to discuss the surveillance state on- and offline, 86 percent of Americans reported being "very" or "somewhat" willing to discuss NSA-related issues in offline scenarios, but only 42 percent of social media users were willing to discuss it online.
Moreover, of the 14 percent of Americans unwilling to discuss Snowden or the NSA, virtually none—0.3 percent—said they would turn to social media as an alternative to face-to-face discussion.