6 ms·

> There's no way to defeat these companies What about working to elect representatives who will pass privacy legislation?

by mch82 10y ago

Lev1a 10y ago
Problem with that being: If they're not corrupt(-ed) before entering office, they most certainly will be through lobbying (aka "generous donations") once they enter office. Exceptions to this rule are certainly rare and seem to only surface ahead of elections and vanish -again- as soon as they are elected.
- simonh 10y ago
  And yet this law did get passed in the first place.
- kazagistar 10y ago
  Correct. Everything can be solved with more layers of abstaction though. Elect people who will reform lobbying and campaign finance (even if it takes an amendment), eliminate gerrymandering, and fix the other beyond broken parts of the political process. Then maybe we can consider policy. If even that proves impossible, well, then I guess it would have to come down to violent revolution.
  - polotics 10y ago
    Nope, violent revolution produces worse regimes than what they replace. Emigrate instead.
- forvelin 10y ago
  Lobbying is a serious US problem and sounds absolutely corrupt from European POV, it just makes us more desperate.
  - _pmf_ 10y ago
    > Lobbying is a serious US problem and sounds absolutely corrupt from European POV, it just makes us more desperate. German here. Absolutely believe there's virtually no difference in that regard. Lobbyists write law proposals that end up being the verbatim law.
- tzs 10y ago
  That's provably false. If it were true there would be very little difference between the votes of the major political parties on most important issues except around election time. Yet on most major issues there are significant consistent vote differences between Democrats in general and Republicans in general regardless of the nearness of elections.
- TYPE_FASTER 10y ago
  This would be true if the vote for this bill were not so close.
ori_b 10y ago
That helps solve the privacy problem. It doesn't solve the walled garden, monetized, commercial web outcompeting smaller hobbyists who usually have less slick but far deeper or more interesting content. I remember that in the late 90s through early 2000s, I would regularly see personal sites pop up on my searches through the web, but I'm finding less and less non-commercial content. Either all the search results want to sell me something, or they're optimized to make money off of my clicks.
- DaiPlusPlus 10y ago
  > I would regularly see personal sites pop up on my searches through the web, but I'm finding less and less non-commercial content. That's because personal homepages have died off, to be replaced with better replacements - not because Disney and TimeWarner have paid Google to rank their results higher. For example, Wikipedia (and Wikia) have replaced personal museum websites for all kinds of esoteric information - ditto fansites. For "Prof. Smith's computer science examples webpage" we have GitHub; Reddit has replaced "Links" pages and Webrings, and Google itself has rendered curated directory sites completely obsolete. The only thing on Geocities and Angelfire/Tripod that Facebook has replaced are those insufferable "The Baker Family Homepage" websites.
  - ori_b 10y ago
    > That's because personal homepages have died off, to be replaced with better replacements Is it really a replacement if it's private and stuck in some walled garden? I don't care about the platform used, I care about the surfacing and availability of non-commercial content.
    - DaiPlusPlus 10y ago
      Why do you consider Wikipedia a private walled garden? Arguably it's freer and less commercial than older personal home pages because of the mandatory copyleft license.
      - 10y ago
adfm 10y ago
Here's a tally for S.J.Res 34 with profile links to each representative: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/115-2017/h202 https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/115-2017/h202 Plenty of dots in there to scape, connect, visualize, and disseminate for anyone looking for a fun way to let off some steam. A big shout out to the reps on both sides of the aisle that had the guts to stand for what's right. And anyone reading this should take a minute to check the list to see how their rep voted and take action. The easiest thing to do is call your rep and let them know how you feel about their vote (good or bad), but it's even more affective if you share the link with your friends and family outside of your area. Explain to them why this is a bad idea and point out how their representative voted (good or bad) and make a date to check back with them before the next election.

> There's no way to defeat these companies What about working to elect representatives who will pass privacy legislation?

by mch82 10y ago

> There's no way to defeat these companies What about working to elect representatives who will pass privacy legislation?

Lev1a 10y ago

Problem with that being: If they're not corrupt(-ed) before entering office, they most certainly will be through lobbying (aka "generous donations") once they enter office. Exceptions to this rule are certainly rare and seem to only surface ahead of elections and vanish -again- as soon as they are elected.

simonh 10y ago
And yet this law did get passed in the first place.
kazagistar 10y ago
Correct. Everything can be solved with more layers of abstaction though. Elect people who will reform lobbying and campaign finance (even if it takes an amendment), eliminate gerrymandering, and fix the other beyond broken parts of the political process. Then maybe we can consider policy. If even that proves impossible, well, then I guess it would have to come down to violent revolution.
- polotics 10y ago
  Nope, violent revolution produces worse regimes than what they replace. Emigrate instead.
forvelin 10y ago
Lobbying is a serious US problem and sounds absolutely corrupt from European POV, it just makes us more desperate.
- _pmf_ 10y ago
  > Lobbying is a serious US problem and sounds absolutely corrupt from European POV, it just makes us more desperate. German here. Absolutely believe there's virtually no difference in that regard. Lobbyists write law proposals that end up being the verbatim law.
tzs 10y ago
That's provably false. If it were true there would be very little difference between the votes of the major political parties on most important issues except around election time. Yet on most major issues there are significant consistent vote differences between Democrats in general and Republicans in general regardless of the nearness of elections.
TYPE_FASTER 10y ago
This would be true if the vote for this bill were not so close.

ori_b 10y ago

That helps solve the privacy problem. It doesn't solve the walled garden, monetized, commercial web outcompeting smaller hobbyists who usually have less slick but far deeper or more interesting content. I remember that in the late 90s through early 2000s, I would regularly see personal sites pop up on my searches through the web, but I'm finding less and less non-commercial content. Either all the search results want to sell me something, or they're optimized to make money off of my clicks.

DaiPlusPlus 10y ago
> I would regularly see personal sites pop up on my searches through the web, but I'm finding less and less non-commercial content. That's because personal homepages have died off, to be replaced with better replacements - not because Disney and TimeWarner have paid Google to rank their results higher. For example, Wikipedia (and Wikia) have replaced personal museum websites for all kinds of esoteric information - ditto fansites. For "Prof. Smith's computer science examples webpage" we have GitHub; Reddit has replaced "Links" pages and Webrings, and Google itself has rendered curated directory sites completely obsolete. The only thing on Geocities and Angelfire/Tripod that Facebook has replaced are those insufferable "The Baker Family Homepage" websites.
- ori_b 10y ago
  > That's because personal homepages have died off, to be replaced with better replacements Is it really a replacement if it's private and stuck in some walled garden? I don't care about the platform used, I care about the surfacing and availability of non-commercial content.
  - DaiPlusPlus 10y ago
    Why do you consider Wikipedia a private walled garden? Arguably it's freer and less commercial than older personal home pages because of the mandatory copyleft license.
    - 10y ago

adfm 10y ago

Here's a tally for S.J.Res 34 with profile links to each representative: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/115-2017/h202 https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/115-2017/h202 Plenty of dots in there to scape, connect, visualize, and disseminate for anyone looking for a fun way to let off some steam. A big shout out to the reps on both sides of the aisle that had the guts to stand for what's right. And anyone reading this should take a minute to check the list to see how their rep voted and take action. The easiest thing to do is call your rep and let them know how you feel about their vote (good or bad), but it's even more affective if you share the link with your friends and family outside of your area. Explain to them why this is a bad idea and point out how their representative voted (good or bad) and make a date to check back with them before the next election.