5 ms·

Very well put together article. I don't see why this is in "opinion," considering how factual all the points are. Banning facial recognition doesn't even banni

by netcan 7y ago

Very well put together article. I don't see why this is in "opinion," considering how factual all the points are. Banning facial recognition doesn't even banning facial recognition. Anything uploaded to FB/Google/Etc goes through software analysis including facial recognition. Anything publicly posted is crawled and the same thing happens. Even hipster polaroids can later be digitised and analysed. You need to prevent photography, to prevent identification. Whatever bans are imposed will not be on facial recognition, they'll be on specific use-cases: police, concert security, etc. That might be good, but it isn't a ban. My instinct is to say "tech illiterate politicians," but I suspect it's worse. Our political culture just can't really deal with the nuance and ambiguity. If it can't be sloganized to under 5 words, we can't even discuss it.

sseveran 7y ago
I agree it will probably be use case based, but maybe not. It could be that at least one state bans using software to recognize faces. I believe San Francisco had to amend its facial recognition ban to allow the use of iPhones. I also think a lot of people calling for a ban have not really thought through what would be banned. Do we ban models trained with triplet loss over any biometric data? Is it just specific entities that are banned from using it? Is it ok for Apple to build me an album of pictures of my wife and I? How do we define face recognition? This is an incredibly complex and nuanced topic and it seems like many people discussing it just wave their hands without considering what the ramifications of any overly broad definition might lead to. https://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-amended-its-facial-recognition-ban-2019-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-amended-its-fa...
- netcan 7y ago
  What I meant was not that the wording of the ban will be limited to certain use-cases, but that the outcome would be... regardless of wording. Even if they do generally "ban using software to recognize faces," the difference will be symbolic. If cameras are being used, facial recognition is probably happening... if not in real time than later. Yo
Freak_NL 7y ago
> Very well put together article. I don't see why this is in "opinion," considering how factual all the points are. The opinion section of a newspaper is where one (someone not working for the newspaper) can submit opinion pieces for publication. Opinion pieces like this one espouse a particular idea or standpoint; in this case the plea for banning not just facial recognition, but to broaden the scope of privacy laws addressing the problem of overreaching surveillance. Opinion pieces in respected newspapers form an influential part of the public debate, and tend to be read by policy makers and politicians as well.
- mistersquid 7y ago
  I agree with your points and with Schneier's position that surveillance is problematic, not facial recognition in particular. Schneier's article is published as an opinion in part due to editorial convention but also because his expert opinion is that opposing facial recognition will not pragmatically curtail surveillance. On a deeper level, Schneier's point presumes that surveillance is a problem, which is an opinion and is the tacit foundation of Scheneir's article. Hence, the article is editorially categorized, correctly in my opinion, in the opinion column.
ieooe93jd 7y ago
Throwaway to avoid stigma of what I’m about to say: It’s worse. This site is a good example. It’s rules limit the noise like you get on Reddit which makes it easy to see without automated counting. Commentary here is often of the “if you disagree with what I see as a fundamental truth, and contextualize, even though it’s a subjective political opinion, well tldr: downvote.” The group think here is insane. Protectionism of the ideas that we believe prop up our individual identity are not allowed to be challenged. And I’ve not peddled conspiracy. Just that my work and agency shouldn’t be bent to the whim of elites. It’s not “tech illiterate politicians”. It’s society addicted to shallow consumerism. Being addicted to novelty and such is fine, there’s something to be said for that versus war, right? But this site really doesn’t defend that. It defends social norms that denigrate the masses. That put tons of effort into crap. That’s by design. Propaganda research went from military to university and was integrated into advertising, marketing, and journalism. That’s not a derpy state idea. It’s plainly recorded in official records. Every generation ends and we don’t plan for that. We knew fighting to cling to their rules. While we’re fetishizing their push for quarterly gains, we’re enabling the continued march down the path we’re on. Gather supplies, coordinate with neighbors, and online to pick a Monday and stay home. Even a visible enough sustained effort that direction, I feel, would create a ripple that lights a fire under politicians butts. But let’s discuss fixing tech debt problems the insane grind creates, avoiding burnout it creates, how to get one more todo app of ridiculously shallow value out there, or fetishize Paul Graham’s request for a start up to build a reminder app that helps him send email? Like ffs be creative, Paul. Such low effort amateur ideas from the anointed ones. It’s almost disgusting.
- ieooe93jd 7y ago
  If you can’t share your agreement with my position in 5 words, downvote Filter bubbles were not invented by tech corp. We evolved it to stay focused on individual success at survival
  - jriri93 7y ago
    Oh an fwiw the political system can’t get the nuance because it purposefully pushed free speech and debate out of Congress into the real world. Plausible deniability. They’re just a bought vote. Read what the Founders intended. Free speech, vigorous debate in the official political realm is what they were protecting. It was pushed onto the masses to debate markets. You want a political system that gets the nuance, make them discuss it all day instead of market gains and protectionism for old schemes. All they debate is the flow of paid speech. Bribery of the masses to work for it and how we must pay them back for that work. Wait, what? It’s wrapped in jargon to obfuscate the shit deal. Decades ago we passed laws against contracting people who can’t read for a similar reason: it’s manipulative to say ones very abstract model is just right. Yes the combination and division of quantities is correct. What quantities are you measuring? How are you weighting them? So the rich get richer clearly and tighten control of our agency. The political machinery is off limits to free speech. Boring as it is CSPAN will teach you that in a day. It’s boring on purpose, to keep us interested in the “real action” on cable news talk shows. Someone like AOC comes around and brings nuanced debate back to the political world itself and she’s a demon. And I don’t post for you all but for Internet posterity, search engines, etc. most of you all, like myself make bank off it. Talking to a wall here. Information warfare is all over.
ska 7y ago
> I don't see why this is in "opinion," considering how factual all the points are. "Opinion" indicates how it was published and fact-checked, who did what; it's not a comment on how likely it is to be in error. These pieces tend to come from outside the day-to-day operation of the paper.
- jessriedel 7y ago
  The "opinion" label also denotes that the writer does not need to pretend to be neutral. More concerning is netcan's suggestion that if something is just a collection of facts then it must be neutral...
  - ska 7y ago
    True.
A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
This. From presidential debates to people regurgitating talking points doing random conversations. I genuinely do not know what the solution here is, but the sooner we move away from advertising in politics, the sooner we might get somewhere.

by netcan 7y ago

sseveran 7y ago

I agree it will probably be use case based, but maybe not. It could be that at least one state bans using software to recognize faces. I believe San Francisco had to amend its facial recognition ban to allow the use of iPhones. I also think a lot of people calling for a ban have not really thought through what would be banned. Do we ban models trained with triplet loss over any biometric data? Is it just specific entities that are banned from using it? Is it ok for Apple to build me an album of pictures of my wife and I? How do we define face recognition? This is an incredibly complex and nuanced topic and it seems like many people discussing it just wave their hands without considering what the ramifications of any overly broad definition might lead to. https://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-amended-its-facial-recognition-ban-2019-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-amended-its-fa...

netcan 7y ago
What I meant was not that the wording of the ban will be limited to certain use-cases, but that the outcome would be... regardless of wording. Even if they do generally "ban using software to recognize faces," the difference will be symbolic. If cameras are being used, facial recognition is probably happening... if not in real time than later. Yo

Freak_NL 7y ago

> Very well put together article. I don't see why this is in "opinion," considering how factual all the points are. The opinion section of a newspaper is where one (someone not working for the newspaper) can submit opinion pieces for publication. Opinion pieces like this one espouse a particular idea or standpoint; in this case the plea for banning not just facial recognition, but to broaden the scope of privacy laws addressing the problem of overreaching surveillance. Opinion pieces in respected newspapers form an influential part of the public debate, and tend to be read by policy makers and politicians as well.

mistersquid 7y ago
I agree with your points and with Schneier's position that surveillance is problematic, not facial recognition in particular. Schneier's article is published as an opinion in part due to editorial convention but also because his expert opinion is that opposing facial recognition will not pragmatically curtail surveillance. On a deeper level, Schneier's point presumes that surveillance is a problem, which is an opinion and is the tacit foundation of Scheneir's article. Hence, the article is editorially categorized, correctly in my opinion, in the opinion column.

ieooe93jd 7y ago

Throwaway to avoid stigma of what I’m about to say: It’s worse. This site is a good example. It’s rules limit the noise like you get on Reddit which makes it easy to see without automated counting. Commentary here is often of the “if you disagree with what I see as a fundamental truth, and contextualize, even though it’s a subjective political opinion, well tldr: downvote.” The group think here is insane. Protectionism of the ideas that we believe prop up our individual identity are not allowed to be challenged. And I’ve not peddled conspiracy. Just that my work and agency shouldn’t be bent to the whim of elites. It’s not “tech illiterate politicians”. It’s society addicted to shallow consumerism. Being addicted to novelty and such is fine, there’s something to be said for that versus war, right? But this site really doesn’t defend that. It defends social norms that denigrate the masses. That put tons of effort into crap. That’s by design. Propaganda research went from military to university and was integrated into advertising, marketing, and journalism. That’s not a derpy state idea. It’s plainly recorded in official records. Every generation ends and we don’t plan for that. We knew fighting to cling to their rules. While we’re fetishizing their push for quarterly gains, we’re enabling the continued march down the path we’re on. Gather supplies, coordinate with neighbors, and online to pick a Monday and stay home. Even a visible enough sustained effort that direction, I feel, would create a ripple that lights a fire under politicians butts. But let’s discuss fixing tech debt problems the insane grind creates, avoiding burnout it creates, how to get one more todo app of ridiculously shallow value out there, or fetishize Paul Graham’s request for a start up to build a reminder app that helps him send email? Like ffs be creative, Paul. Such low effort amateur ideas from the anointed ones. It’s almost disgusting.

ieooe93jd 7y ago
If you can’t share your agreement with my position in 5 words, downvote Filter bubbles were not invented by tech corp. We evolved it to stay focused on individual success at survival
- jriri93 7y ago
  Oh an fwiw the political system can’t get the nuance because it purposefully pushed free speech and debate out of Congress into the real world. Plausible deniability. They’re just a bought vote. Read what the Founders intended. Free speech, vigorous debate in the official political realm is what they were protecting. It was pushed onto the masses to debate markets. You want a political system that gets the nuance, make them discuss it all day instead of market gains and protectionism for old schemes. All they debate is the flow of paid speech. Bribery of the masses to work for it and how we must pay them back for that work. Wait, what? It’s wrapped in jargon to obfuscate the shit deal. Decades ago we passed laws against contracting people who can’t read for a similar reason: it’s manipulative to say ones very abstract model is just right. Yes the combination and division of quantities is correct. What quantities are you measuring? How are you weighting them? So the rich get richer clearly and tighten control of our agency. The political machinery is off limits to free speech. Boring as it is CSPAN will teach you that in a day. It’s boring on purpose, to keep us interested in the “real action” on cable news talk shows. Someone like AOC comes around and brings nuanced debate back to the political world itself and she’s a demon. And I don’t post for you all but for Internet posterity, search engines, etc. most of you all, like myself make bank off it. Talking to a wall here. Information warfare is all over.

ska 7y ago

> I don't see why this is in "opinion," considering how factual all the points are. "Opinion" indicates how it was published and fact-checked, who did what; it's not a comment on how likely it is to be in error. These pieces tend to come from outside the day-to-day operation of the paper.

jessriedel 7y ago
The "opinion" label also denotes that the writer does not need to pretend to be neutral. More concerning is netcan's suggestion that if something is just a collection of facts then it must be neutral...
- ska 7y ago
  True.

A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago

This. From presidential debates to people regurgitating talking points doing random conversations. I genuinely do not know what the solution here is, but the sooner we move away from advertising in politics, the sooner we might get somewhere.