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I don't quite see much difference between Chinese government surveillance and US corporate surveillance at this stage. The power structures are different, but t

I don't quite see much difference between Chinese government surveillance and US corporate surveillance at this stage. The power structures are different, but the result is the same. Google knows everywhere I am and reads all my email.

devoply 7y ago
Google does not operate re-education camps which kill people now and then. Correct me if I am wrong. If I am, let's go liberate the people it's holding with the help of the US military.
- gibba999 7y ago
  You mean the one which (still) runs Gitmo? Or perhaps we should get our law enforcement to help out. But then who would we have to do the very important work of putting kids in cages on the border? I think you're making the mistake of viewing Google and the US military as autonomous entities. We have 7 billion people in the world. Organizational structures, whether governmental, corporate, or otherwise are abstractions generally designed to keep people happy, healthy, organized, and productive. Systems define how those abstractions interact. Most bad systemic behaviors come from those interactions. It makes sense to understand good and bad behavior on an individual level (e.g. an person who spends 3 years at Google and then moves on to Facebook for 6 months, finds it doesn't work out, and gets a job at Apple). It makes sense to understand how organizational structures interact to cause healthy behavior or oppressive behavior at an overall level. It usually makes very little sense to look at individual organizations without looking at the overall systems they operate in. At this point, Google seems to do a lot of bad in the world. That's not a criticism of Google the organization. It legally can't do otherwise. The CEO of Google has a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value, while the regulatory regime makes the behavior it's engaging in do exactly that. The trick is to fix the ecosystem around Google so it can do good. That's actually a place where Googlers and similar could do a lot of good, if they can get past the ego issues which lead to defensiveness like from the post like yours.
learc83 7y ago
The difference is that Google can't throw you into a camp without trial for what they discover.
- gibba999 7y ago
  I'm guessing you're a Googler (or similar) who missed the point. Privacy has value even without the threat of being thrown into a camp, and mass surveillance is a human rights violation even without that. But just to get facts straight: The US government can and does get data from Google through both instruments like national security letters and subpoenas. If it decides you're in need of prison: * There may be a trial before one gets thrown into a prison camp. That's true. The Justice System is relatively fair to anyone who can afford to spend $300,000 on lawyers without worrying about the cost. That's the top-1-percenter population. If you're a Googler, you're probably at the lower-end of this. * For most middle-class families, a criminal prosecution is guaranteed bankruptcy. Whether or not you defend yourself successfully depends on how quickly you run out of money. * For most lower-class families, the outcome is usually a plea bargain, where you do get thrown into a prison without trial. Before making comments like yours, you might want to read a book like "The New Jim Crow," and look up statistics on what your own power structures are doing (and specifically, both statistics on the number of people in prison and anecdotes for how they got there).
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

devoply 7y ago

Google does not operate re-education camps which kill people now and then. Correct me if I am wrong. If I am, let's go liberate the people it's holding with the help of the US military.

gibba999 7y ago
You mean the one which (still) runs Gitmo? Or perhaps we should get our law enforcement to help out. But then who would we have to do the very important work of putting kids in cages on the border? I think you're making the mistake of viewing Google and the US military as autonomous entities. We have 7 billion people in the world. Organizational structures, whether governmental, corporate, or otherwise are abstractions generally designed to keep people happy, healthy, organized, and productive. Systems define how those abstractions interact. Most bad systemic behaviors come from those interactions. It makes sense to understand good and bad behavior on an individual level (e.g. an person who spends 3 years at Google and then moves on to Facebook for 6 months, finds it doesn't work out, and gets a job at Apple). It makes sense to understand how organizational structures interact to cause healthy behavior or oppressive behavior at an overall level. It usually makes very little sense to look at individual organizations without looking at the overall systems they operate in. At this point, Google seems to do a lot of bad in the world. That's not a criticism of Google the organization. It legally can't do otherwise. The CEO of Google has a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value, while the regulatory regime makes the behavior it's engaging in do exactly that. The trick is to fix the ecosystem around Google so it can do good. That's actually a place where Googlers and similar could do a lot of good, if they can get past the ego issues which lead to defensiveness like from the post like yours.

learc83 7y ago

The difference is that Google can't throw you into a camp without trial for what they discover.

gibba999 7y ago
I'm guessing you're a Googler (or similar) who missed the point. Privacy has value even without the threat of being thrown into a camp, and mass surveillance is a human rights violation even without that. But just to get facts straight: The US government can and does get data from Google through both instruments like national security letters and subpoenas. If it decides you're in need of prison: * There may be a trial before one gets thrown into a prison camp. That's true. The Justice System is relatively fair to anyone who can afford to spend $300,000 on lawyers without worrying about the cost. That's the top-1-percenter population. If you're a Googler, you're probably at the lower-end of this. * For most middle-class families, a criminal prosecution is guaranteed bankruptcy. Whether or not you defend yourself successfully depends on how quickly you run out of money. * For most lower-class families, the outcome is usually a plea bargain, where you do get thrown into a prison without trial. Before making comments like yours, you might want to read a book like "The New Jim Crow," and look up statistics on what your own power structures are doing (and specifically, both statistics on the number of people in prison and anecdotes for how they got there).

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]