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I feel like the “Nobody cares” line was clearly wrong a while ago, and now it just smacks of desperation. Clearly people care, a lot, and while you can try to d
by domevent 9y ago
I feel like the “Nobody cares” line was clearly wrong a while ago, and now it just smacks of desperation. Clearly people care, a lot, and while you can try to denigrate or dismiss them in a number of ways, or play games of tu quoque with “Obama did it” the cat is out of bag. Maybe it took an association with Trump to kick the media out of bed on this issue, but now it really does have a life of its own. The Boz memo, articles like the one we’re commemting on, do not thrill people. As the steady drip feed of FB scandal continues it also promotes discussion about the merits of the platform.
In my opinion though, the biggest change is that saying, “FB is spying on you, and manipulating you” no longer gets you weird looks and sighs from most people these days. The narrative of FB as a kind of tentacled monster also fits into a larger narrative of big tech run amok that has been gaining traction. Uber killing that woman, Tesla’s autopilot fatality, YouTube and Google banning what a huge portion of the internet considers reasonable content, is starting to annoy and scare people.
Dismiss their concerns and fear at your own peril. People, and societies at large always have breaking points, and there’s nothing worse than being dragged to the guillotine screaming, “But we’ve been fucking you peasants over for years, why now?!” It’s now because there is always a straw that breaks the camel’s back. Trump, CA, may just be a straw, but you have to see it in the full context of a greatly overburdened camel.
- austincheney 9y ago> Clearly people care Some people claim to care. There is a difference between words and actions. Privacy isn't something that can be gifted. It is only something that can be given away. If people really did care they wouldn't give it away so freely. The decisions people make determines their actual level of care.
- domevent 9y agoOr they care, but don’t really understand, and now with something concrete they both care and understand. Well have to wait and see, but the weakness of your argument (restating your thesis not being much of one) strikes me as obvious.
- austincheney 9y agoWhat non-technical users minimally understand is these three steps: 1. They submit data to Facebook and identify relationships 2. Magic 3. Facebook makes lots of money If that is the case my personal position is to happily void my privacy and submit data to Facebook if they paid me for it. I don't see any reason for me to volunteer my personal data away for free when there exists some commercial value for it. If Facebook were a non-profit organization void of advertising then I would likely think about this much differently. This is also why I believe many users supposedly claim to care but really don't, because they are so quick to give their data away for free. There is no prerequisite understanding of technology or privacy to fully grasp this concept.
- learnstats2 9y agoI work with a political group that campaigns on privacy issues. Guess where they organise online.