i can't seem to help it, especially in this intro to sociology class. am i being short sighted for clearly displaying familiarity with, and affection for, marx? like..what happens to these discussion posts, and our papers for that matter? where do they go? do the capitalists get them?
This is part of the ideological filter system that reproduces the PMC and their outlook. Of course if you argue too much with a prof who leans too far right he can fuck up your shit, but in general professors will just give you a worse grade if they think you're going out of bounds on the prompt. They will say that you're "not thinking like a sociologist/historian/whatever" and few if any of their colleagues would disagree with them. If that happens often enough they won't support you for professional jobs, and you can drop into work that requires less ideological discipline and thus allows less creativity on the job.
As for the electronic surveillance aspect, it's probably no worse or better than any other corporate web thing.
Edit: maybe less relevant for sociology than other fields (law for fucking sure) now that I'm reading other comments, but still