Samsung's SmartTV Policy vs. Orwell's 1984
Last week, a Daily Beast reporter discovered a potentially concerting clause in Samsung’s SmartTV terms and conditions. The clause warned customers that Samsung might, you know, be spying on them, at all times, through the television’s microphone, intended to pick up voice commands.
READ: Samsung’s SmartTV Is ‘Spying’ on Your Personal Conversations
Now, in a clever twist, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Parker Higgins has pointed out that this clause has literary precedent. Behold its similarity to a passage from George Orwell’s 1984:
This has been a fertile few months for life imitating Orwell. Here is an image from a screen at the Mall of America, warning #BlackLivesMatter protestors to disperse. This tweet by Joseph Scrimshaw was retweeted more than 2,000 times.
America! What will our corporate overlords think of next?
