6 ms·

I'm gunna defend the otherside here. As a recent post on HN pointed out, when Google Maps happened people were outraged that you could look into their yards. Sa

I'm gunna defend the otherside here. As a recent post on HN pointed out, when Google Maps happened people were outraged that you could look into their yards. Same thing with Street-View. Zuckerburg just understands that we're moving into a post-privacy world and they're really pushing the envelope here. For example I think people were outraged by Graph Search, but I think if they were to have released it in 2 years it would have been received differently. People were at first creeped out by Google Now and Amazon Echo, but now most people don't mind. The thing they should worry about is pushing the envelope too far and too fast. I think for-instance WeChat would have totally destroy Facebook if it weren't for its Chinese-gov't tentacles. It has a much saner privacy model where you only see things from your friends ( not to mention it has a much simpler and nicer interface )

halflings 11y ago
What does `post-privacy world` even mean? Who decided that that's where we're going and there's no alternative?
- kifler 11y ago
  I think the assertion is that Joe Public doesn't really care about his/her privacy anymore provided they consent to it's initial release. It seems to me that over a billion people are fine giving their privacy over to Twitter/Facebook/Instagram/<insert other company> but not necessarily the Government (of any country).
  - rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
    What happens when people's contemporary attitude regarding privacy and government is applied to corporations? Silicon Valley is in a perception bubble: people won't likely be happy with privacy invasions forever.
  - ZenoArrow 11y ago
    > "I think the assertion is that Joe Public doesn't really care about his/her privacy anymore provided they consent to it's initial release." People do care about it, they just don't think about it that often, or only think about people seeing their tamest online behaviour. Here's one recent example of where a privacy policy did capture the public's attention: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/snapchats-new-scary-privacy-policy-has-left-users-outraged-2015-10-29 http://www.marketwatch.com/story/snapchats-new-scary-privacy...
    - chimeracoder 11y ago
      > People do care about it, they just don't think about it that often, or only think about people seeing their tamest online behaviour. There's also a big difference between not caring and caring, but feeling powerless to actually do anything about it. For any of these larger privacy issues, most people are powerless to make significant changes. I can't prevent Google from driving its Street View cars by my house. I can't prevent Facebook from making shadow profiles about me. I can't prevent the NSA from conducting mass surveillance, etc.
  - ionised 11y ago
    I'll reiterate a point I believe to be true. I don't think it's a case of the public not really caring about their privacy, I think it's a case of them not fully understandind exactly what data is collected on them and how it can be used nefariously by companies and by their government. We in the tech field tend to have an above average knowledge of these things but Joe Public is very ignorant of it. I believe if people knew exactly what was being collected and how profiles of their entire lives, their thoughts, their actions and their potential thoughts and actions, they would be a lot less happy about it. The problem is educating people who probably already have enough shit to think about in their own lives and convincing them that this isn't all conspiracy theory. It's a monumental task.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Progress of technology decided. If you hurry up, you may start putting some social/legal fences but understand that privacy is becoming mostly about what one shouldn't do, and not about what one can't do.
- smacktoward 11y ago
  It means that someone who wants to make money off your private information has decided that they are entitled to it.
- velik_m 11y ago
  It means a world where privacy is reserved only for the rich and the powerful.
rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
All of technology's history has recurring themes of distrust. The first Kodak cameras inspired mobs of angry Luddites who smashed people's cameras, especially if people are taking photos of them. Would you mind terribly if someone snapped a shot of you on their phone without asking? It's for reasons like these that the Japanese government mandates phones sold there make a shutter click sound whenever a photo is taken. So yes, we do get used to things, generally, but there will always be activities people find off-putting, or creepy. However, and this could kill Facebook in enough time, people can go "backwards" as much as they can go what the tech industry considers "forward." It could simply come to be that people, enabled by technology that easily encrypts their communication and obscures their actions, get sick of being watched all the time and prefer social networking sites or means of communication that explicitly do not track their users. Right now the global perception of trust is declining in nearly every major institution, and in the eyes of many who do not live in code, Silicon Valley is just one more group of rich elites who claim to make the world a better place but in practice make it more rushed, monitored, and unpleasant, thanks to lauded businesses that sell people's data right back to them. I'm reminded of the scene in Fight Club when they loot a liposuction clinic to make soap: "Selling those rich women's fat asses back to them."
- mc32 11y ago
  Japan requires the shutter snap sound as a way to combat a specific kind of unlawful photograph. Specifically upskirt and peephole surreptitious photographs, not to combat photographs of strangers, etc. It addresses a specific problem in their (and in others) society. Of course that doesn't stop the harcore ones who build homemade cams into their shoes, or people sabotaging the speaker - but if stops most garden variety ones.
- Splines 11y ago
  > Right now the global perception of trust is declining in nearly every major institution, and in the eyes of many who do not live in code, Silicon Valley is just one more group of rich elites I'd argue that people who are not intimately familiar with the tech world see the tech as just a set of products that does things for them, with the additional filter of the mainstream media and their friends/family on top of it. Most people don't know what kind of data is being gathered about them, and they don't care about the implications of that data. To be fair, it is a difficult thing to conceptualize and quantify. Facebook provides a great service to connect with friends and family. The question is - what's the price?
backtoyoujim 11y ago
Why is conflating these two issues defending the other side?
rfrank 11y ago
> we're moving into a post-privacy world We will never live in a post privacy world. I'm so fucking sick of seeing people say garbage like that.
- jinst8gmi 11y ago
  Exactly. It's as if some are just wishing privacy away as an inconvenience getting in the way of tracking us for advertising revenue. So what does a post privacy world look like? Should we do away with curtains in our bedrooms? Should we remove the doors from public restrooms?

halflings 11y ago

What does `post-privacy world` even mean? Who decided that that's where we're going and there's no alternative?

kifler 11y ago
I think the assertion is that Joe Public doesn't really care about his/her privacy anymore provided they consent to it's initial release. It seems to me that over a billion people are fine giving their privacy over to Twitter/Facebook/Instagram/<insert other company> but not necessarily the Government (of any country).
- rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
  What happens when people's contemporary attitude regarding privacy and government is applied to corporations? Silicon Valley is in a perception bubble: people won't likely be happy with privacy invasions forever.
- ZenoArrow 11y ago
  > "I think the assertion is that Joe Public doesn't really care about his/her privacy anymore provided they consent to it's initial release." People do care about it, they just don't think about it that often, or only think about people seeing their tamest online behaviour. Here's one recent example of where a privacy policy did capture the public's attention: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/snapchats-new-scary-privacy-policy-has-left-users-outraged-2015-10-29 http://www.marketwatch.com/story/snapchats-new-scary-privacy...
  - chimeracoder 11y ago
    > People do care about it, they just don't think about it that often, or only think about people seeing their tamest online behaviour. There's also a big difference between not caring and caring, but feeling powerless to actually do anything about it. For any of these larger privacy issues, most people are powerless to make significant changes. I can't prevent Google from driving its Street View cars by my house. I can't prevent Facebook from making shadow profiles about me. I can't prevent the NSA from conducting mass surveillance, etc.
- ionised 11y ago
  I'll reiterate a point I believe to be true. I don't think it's a case of the public not really caring about their privacy, I think it's a case of them not fully understandind exactly what data is collected on them and how it can be used nefariously by companies and by their government. We in the tech field tend to have an above average knowledge of these things but Joe Public is very ignorant of it. I believe if people knew exactly what was being collected and how profiles of their entire lives, their thoughts, their actions and their potential thoughts and actions, they would be a lot less happy about it. The problem is educating people who probably already have enough shit to think about in their own lives and convincing them that this isn't all conspiracy theory. It's a monumental task.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
Progress of technology decided. If you hurry up, you may start putting some social/legal fences but understand that privacy is becoming mostly about what one shouldn't do, and not about what one can't do.
smacktoward 11y ago
It means that someone who wants to make money off your private information has decided that they are entitled to it.
velik_m 11y ago
It means a world where privacy is reserved only for the rich and the powerful.

rm_-rf_slash 11y ago

All of technology's history has recurring themes of distrust. The first Kodak cameras inspired mobs of angry Luddites who smashed people's cameras, especially if people are taking photos of them. Would you mind terribly if someone snapped a shot of you on their phone without asking? It's for reasons like these that the Japanese government mandates phones sold there make a shutter click sound whenever a photo is taken. So yes, we do get used to things, generally, but there will always be activities people find off-putting, or creepy. However, and this could kill Facebook in enough time, people can go "backwards" as much as they can go what the tech industry considers "forward." It could simply come to be that people, enabled by technology that easily encrypts their communication and obscures their actions, get sick of being watched all the time and prefer social networking sites or means of communication that explicitly do not track their users. Right now the global perception of trust is declining in nearly every major institution, and in the eyes of many who do not live in code, Silicon Valley is just one more group of rich elites who claim to make the world a better place but in practice make it more rushed, monitored, and unpleasant, thanks to lauded businesses that sell people's data right back to them. I'm reminded of the scene in Fight Club when they loot a liposuction clinic to make soap: "Selling those rich women's fat asses back to them."

mc32 11y ago
Japan requires the shutter snap sound as a way to combat a specific kind of unlawful photograph. Specifically upskirt and peephole surreptitious photographs, not to combat photographs of strangers, etc. It addresses a specific problem in their (and in others) society. Of course that doesn't stop the harcore ones who build homemade cams into their shoes, or people sabotaging the speaker - but if stops most garden variety ones.
Splines 11y ago
> Right now the global perception of trust is declining in nearly every major institution, and in the eyes of many who do not live in code, Silicon Valley is just one more group of rich elites I'd argue that people who are not intimately familiar with the tech world see the tech as just a set of products that does things for them, with the additional filter of the mainstream media and their friends/family on top of it. Most people don't know what kind of data is being gathered about them, and they don't care about the implications of that data. To be fair, it is a difficult thing to conceptualize and quantify. Facebook provides a great service to connect with friends and family. The question is - what's the price?

backtoyoujim 11y ago

Why is conflating these two issues defending the other side?

rfrank 11y ago

> we're moving into a post-privacy world We will never live in a post privacy world. I'm so fucking sick of seeing people say garbage like that.

jinst8gmi 11y ago
Exactly. It's as if some are just wishing privacy away as an inconvenience getting in the way of tracking us for advertising revenue. So what does a post privacy world look like? Should we do away with curtains in our bedrooms? Should we remove the doors from public restrooms?