[ardy42]

> I wonder if this will lead to people in the west wearing surgical masks during flu season like people do in Asia.

Normalizing masks will also help fight facial recognition. IIRC, the Chinese systems have trouble with people who are wearing a surgical mask and sunglasses. No attention-grabbing dazzle makeup required.

[saturday14]

Until the government bans masks in public places in the interest of, you know "public safety" once the covid-19 crisis blows over.

It sucks that we even need to think about wearing masks to escape facial recognition.

[thomascgalvin]

Wearing a mask in public is already illegal in many places[1].

It's been illegal in New York since 1845, due to some kind of violent conflict between landlords and tenant farmers. Some laws were targeted at the KKK, and newer laws were targeted at Occupy and Anonymous folks wearing Guy Fawkes masks.

This article[2] has a more complete list of state laws against masks, and where they've been overturned.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-mask_law#United_States

[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/countries-states-where-prote...

[ardy42]

> Until the government bans masks in public places in the interest of, you know "public safety" once the covid-19 crisis blows over.

That's overly fatalistic. China hasn't banned them for that reason, and they're way more interested in that rationale than any government you're likely talking about.

> It sucks that we even need to think about wearing masks to escape facial recognition.

Avoiding facial recognition isn't just about avoiding the government facial recognition.

[lonelappde]

China has a comprehensive surveillance state that has fallbacks for cases when masks are not available.

[kalium-xyz]

They just make you take the mask off to identify yourself when relevant, I had to do this the other day while identifying myself for an immigration officer.

[pmoriarty]

"Until the government bans masks in public places in the interest of, you know "public safety""

The government did this long ago, as a reaction to the KKK wearing masks to intimidate their victims and hide their identity.

So it's actually already against the law to wear masks in public in many places in the US.

I've never heard of this law being enforced in modern times, however.

[lonelappde]

The situation is a lot more nuanced than that.

I challenge you to find an example of a blanket ban on all masks, that doesn't rely on other factors like threatening violence, rallying, intent to hide identity, or a respresenting specific gang design/color.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-mask_law

[pubstik]

'Intent to hide identity' sounds like a human right, criminalized. Unless asked by an officer, and even then in limited circumstances do I have to identify myself.

[ThrowAway83774]

The only effective resistance is being in control of information dissemination to the masses.

Otherwise you will be marginalized and the masses will be "educated" by the mass media about how evil and troublesome "you people are."

Ensuring diversity in information dissemination is absolutely key to shooting down these proposals which harm personal freedom.

[mathieuh]

I live in Northern Ireland, and until very recently, if I saw a person with a mask on I immediately assumed they were up to no good.