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It's a weird blind spot a lot of people have. As if a government agency whose budget depends on a perception of ever-bigger threats will be more reluctant to vi

It's a weird blind spot a lot of people have. As if a government agency whose budget depends on a perception of ever-bigger threats will be more reluctant to violate people's privacy than Facebook is, or a government agency run by a single political party will report the news more evenhandedly than Fox News does. Large bureaucracies don't magically become trustworthy just because you painted a flag on their side.

cowpig 11y ago
> a government agency whose budget depends on a perception of ever-bigger threats will be more reluctant to violate people's privacy than Facebook What makes you think that a public ISP/whatever would rely on 'ever-bigger threats' for budget? As far as actual examples, I'm pretty confident in saying that some of the organizations that produce the highest-quality media content are publicly funded. NPR or the BBC are two examples that pop into my head.
- jlarocco 11y ago
  > As far as actual examples, I'm pretty confident in saying that some of the organizations that produce the highest-quality media content are publicly funded. NPR or the BBC are two examples that pop into my head. That's a poor argument because it's simply your opinion and you're not giving any evidence to show your opinion is more valuable or more correct than anybody else's. I can claim the Criterion Collection represents the highest-quality media content ever released, and it's just as valid an opinion as yours.
  - RobertKerans 11y ago
    That's not really your opinion though, it's you publically restating one of the explicit aims of Criterion.
- 13thLetter 11y ago
  > What makes you think that a public ISP/whatever would rely on 'ever-bigger threats' for budget? Perhaps I was unclear. Facebook will violate your privacy to sell ads. The government agency will violate your privacy to justify its budget. In both cases your privacy is violated, with the additional point that you can't quit using the government agency and if you get in their grill too much they can have you killed. > As far as actual examples, I'm pretty confident in saying that some of the organizations that produce the highest-quality media content are publicly funded. NPR or the BBC are two examples that pop into my head. They're very high-quality, and they also generally represent a single minority point of view in their societies. The two qualities are not mutually exclusive.
te_chris 11y ago
This is so naive. Organisations are as resilient as the way they were designed. Look at public broadcasting across the world: govts in Europe and other places successfully run critical state media.

cowpig 11y ago

> a government agency whose budget depends on a perception of ever-bigger threats will be more reluctant to violate people's privacy than Facebook What makes you think that a public ISP/whatever would rely on 'ever-bigger threats' for budget? As far as actual examples, I'm pretty confident in saying that some of the organizations that produce the highest-quality media content are publicly funded. NPR or the BBC are two examples that pop into my head.

jlarocco 11y ago
> As far as actual examples, I'm pretty confident in saying that some of the organizations that produce the highest-quality media content are publicly funded. NPR or the BBC are two examples that pop into my head. That's a poor argument because it's simply your opinion and you're not giving any evidence to show your opinion is more valuable or more correct than anybody else's. I can claim the Criterion Collection represents the highest-quality media content ever released, and it's just as valid an opinion as yours.
- RobertKerans 11y ago
  That's not really your opinion though, it's you publically restating one of the explicit aims of Criterion.
13thLetter 11y ago
> What makes you think that a public ISP/whatever would rely on 'ever-bigger threats' for budget? Perhaps I was unclear. Facebook will violate your privacy to sell ads. The government agency will violate your privacy to justify its budget. In both cases your privacy is violated, with the additional point that you can't quit using the government agency and if you get in their grill too much they can have you killed. > As far as actual examples, I'm pretty confident in saying that some of the organizations that produce the highest-quality media content are publicly funded. NPR or the BBC are two examples that pop into my head. They're very high-quality, and they also generally represent a single minority point of view in their societies. The two qualities are not mutually exclusive.

te_chris 11y ago

This is so naive. Organisations are as resilient as the way they were designed. Look at public broadcasting across the world: govts in Europe and other places successfully run critical state media.