4 ms·

I'm much more concerned about executive accountability than I am about individual employee accountability at a company with as much political power as, say, Goo

by wrsh07 7y ago

I'm much more concerned about executive accountability than I am about individual employee accountability at a company with as much political power as, say, Google. Unions are a way of balancing executive power. (I don't think they're a panacea though! All I hope for in this case is that it is able to improve the lives and working conditions of Google's cafeteria workers)

motohagiography 7y ago
There are at least 10x the number of employees to executives who have access to your email contents and browsing history. Using the worst %3 of individuals as a baseline, the executives are the people you have the very least to worry about.
- jjeaff 7y ago
  Access to individual personal data is only one small point of power. Billions of dollars for lobbying and the ability to set policy and make sweeping changes is a much larger power.
  - motohagiography 7y ago
    Elections at all levels are won and lost on candidate email dumps and internet activity. Blackmail always works better than lobbying, and this is what protecting the worst actors will enable.
- wrsh07 7y ago
  If you somehow don't think there will be accountability for an individual employee who misuses PII, we are living in two very different worlds. You must understand that even a single employee doing this is such a breech of brand trust that Google would deal with it swiftly. OTOH, it is quite clear to me that Google executives are allowed to make virtually unchecked and wide-reaching decisions that impact many and have negative consequences. A simple, unambiguous example is "the YouTube recommendation algorithm is bad for kids and seems to cause their exploitation" [1] To be very clear: executives have the power to change the recommendation engine. To demonetize children's YouTube videos. They choose to be wreckless specifically out of greed. [1] https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-internet-c39c471271d2 https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-in...

by wrsh07 7y ago

motohagiography 7y ago

There are at least 10x the number of employees to executives who have access to your email contents and browsing history. Using the worst %3 of individuals as a baseline, the executives are the people you have the very least to worry about.

jjeaff 7y ago
Access to individual personal data is only one small point of power. Billions of dollars for lobbying and the ability to set policy and make sweeping changes is a much larger power.
- motohagiography 7y ago
  Elections at all levels are won and lost on candidate email dumps and internet activity. Blackmail always works better than lobbying, and this is what protecting the worst actors will enable.
wrsh07 7y ago
If you somehow don't think there will be accountability for an individual employee who misuses PII, we are living in two very different worlds. You must understand that even a single employee doing this is such a breech of brand trust that Google would deal with it swiftly. OTOH, it is quite clear to me that Google executives are allowed to make virtually unchecked and wide-reaching decisions that impact many and have negative consequences. A simple, unambiguous example is "the YouTube recommendation algorithm is bad for kids and seems to cause their exploitation" [1] To be very clear: executives have the power to change the recommendation engine. To demonetize children's YouTube videos. They choose to be wreckless specifically out of greed. [1] https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-internet-c39c471271d2 https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-in...