4 ms·

What large groups do you speak of?

moate 7y ago
People who's businesses have been disrupted by Amazon's "not a monopoly" and "totally legal" business practices. People who've had their person information disseminated across social media platforms. People who've had their financial data taken from companies with sub-standard protections in place. People who had their children's data vacuumed up by Youtube and then sold to advertisers. Print media itself who has seen platform after platform erode their ability to stay in business. People who feel that providing platforms to groups they feel are fundamentally damaging to society should not be allowed. People who fear that these companies collect and maintain advanced and comprehensive databases of the general population's interests and behaviors "for advertising purposes" but that those databases could be used by bad actors to perform damage to society. Would you like me to go on?
Ozumandias 7y ago
If you are working in tech and can't think of anyone that big tech has spurned, you need to think about how it's changed the lives of most Americans in the past two decades. Cab drivers: Uber. Small businesses: Amazon. Marketing: Instagram. Hospitality: AirBnB. Restaurateurs: Yelp. Teachers: Moodle/Blackboard. Journalists: Facebook. Really can't think of anyone who might appreciate an anti-tech message? These professions have been forced to abide by the new rules that tech has enabled. You can't intervene into people's lives massively and not expect them to push back.
- dnissley 7y ago
  I'm not saying I can't think of anyone that's been harmed by tech -- there's obviously plenty of those just as with any big business or sector of the economy. I'm taking issue with the idea that there is a large group of people that has unilaterally been harmed by tech that isn't defined as "the people that have been harmed by tech". A counterexample might be "people harmed by car accidents" -- there are a lot of those too, year after year, yet we don't see a column dedicated to anti-automobile narratives popping up in the nytimes. I'd hazard a guess that it's because car accidents affect only a small portion of all groups (or just very small groups) no matter how you slice them -- unless you slice the entire population into two sets of "people harmed by car accidents" and that set's compliment. Not only that, but unlike with car accidents we would all have a very difficult time agreeing what constitutes the group of "people harmed by tech". Some pro-privacy advocate might want to include all people on the ad-sponsored internet in that group. You apparently want to include taxi drivers and journalists. These are some very strange bedfellows that can only be cobbled together in the most tenuous way using a narrative that scapegoats tech companies in general. Addressing push back about specific changes made by specific companies from specific groups? I've got no problem with that. Cover it all day. Grouping all of these issues into one big narrative and pointing a mob of angry pitchfork bearing people at it telling them that these companies are the source of all your problems? Yikes, that seems like it could go really really badly!

People who's businesses have been disrupted by Amazon's "not a monopoly" and "totally legal" business practices. People who've had their person information disseminated across social media platforms. People who've had their financial data taken from companies with sub-standard protections in place. People who had their children's data vacuumed up by Youtube and then sold to advertisers. Print media itself who has seen platform after platform erode their ability to stay in business. People who feel that providing platforms to groups they feel are fundamentally damaging to society should not be allowed. People who fear that these companies collect and maintain advanced and comprehensive databases of the general population's interests and behaviors "for advertising purposes" but that those databases could be used by bad actors to perform damage to society. Would you like me to go on?

Ozumandias 7y ago

If you are working in tech and can't think of anyone that big tech has spurned, you need to think about how it's changed the lives of most Americans in the past two decades. Cab drivers: Uber. Small businesses: Amazon. Marketing: Instagram. Hospitality: AirBnB. Restaurateurs: Yelp. Teachers: Moodle/Blackboard. Journalists: Facebook. Really can't think of anyone who might appreciate an anti-tech message? These professions have been forced to abide by the new rules that tech has enabled. You can't intervene into people's lives massively and not expect them to push back.

dnissley 7y ago
I'm not saying I can't think of anyone that's been harmed by tech -- there's obviously plenty of those just as with any big business or sector of the economy. I'm taking issue with the idea that there is a large group of people that has unilaterally been harmed by tech that isn't defined as "the people that have been harmed by tech". A counterexample might be "people harmed by car accidents" -- there are a lot of those too, year after year, yet we don't see a column dedicated to anti-automobile narratives popping up in the nytimes. I'd hazard a guess that it's because car accidents affect only a small portion of all groups (or just very small groups) no matter how you slice them -- unless you slice the entire population into two sets of "people harmed by car accidents" and that set's compliment. Not only that, but unlike with car accidents we would all have a very difficult time agreeing what constitutes the group of "people harmed by tech". Some pro-privacy advocate might want to include all people on the ad-sponsored internet in that group. You apparently want to include taxi drivers and journalists. These are some very strange bedfellows that can only be cobbled together in the most tenuous way using a narrative that scapegoats tech companies in general. Addressing push back about specific changes made by specific companies from specific groups? I've got no problem with that. Cover it all day. Grouping all of these issues into one big narrative and pointing a mob of angry pitchfork bearing people at it telling them that these companies are the source of all your problems? Yikes, that seems like it could go really really badly!