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Am i the only one who thinks it's mindblowing that people use Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, etc. however now that Apple + Google release a tool to prevent thou

Am i the only one who thinks it's mindblowing that people use Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, etc. however now that Apple + Google release a tool to prevent thousands of people from dying in a pandemic they start thinking/complaining about the possible privacy implications? (without even having read the specs or knowing the details...)

mmcnl 7y ago
Most people probably uploaded their contact list to WhatsApp without thinking about it twice.
9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
It's more than reasonable to be suspicious of big tech companies, especially the ones residing in Silicon Valley. They haven't earned people's trust and that is the outcome. Just like you would be skeptical of Chinese communist party releasing app promising to help the world with covid19.
alyz 7y ago
This is dangerously close to Feinstein's "think of the children" argument. If people complain about EARN IT, they should investigate privacy implications of this "enhanced" tracking technology.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- cbsks 7y ago
  Yes, they should investigate. But they should investigate before reaching a conclusion.
- olliej 7y ago
  it's explicitly not a tracking technology.
RivieraKid 7y ago
Agreed. Majority of people have their location history, chats, emails, browsing history, etc. saved on the cloud. This Bluetooth tracker is a complete privacy nothingburger.
antpls 7y ago
1) Covid19 was largely dangerous for old people cumulatting other comorbidities, mostly retired people. 2) Old people don't move that much and don't meet that many other people. It leads me to believe that the proposed loss of privacy isn't the best way to fight a virus such as a flu
- dickjocke 7y ago
  1. It's old people AND people with comorbidities, which is a ton of people. 2. Lots of old people, which for Covid is about 65, still work full time jobs. Some of them fly every week. These aren't 95+ year olds. 3. I'm sure people of all ages think their life is very valuable, and very few people consider themselves candidates for sacrifice. Certainly not for privacy concerns. 4. 10x deadlier than the flu.
  - antpls 7y ago
    It could only work if everyone wear a phone. And then what's next? Forcing everyone by law to always wear a phone at all time? I would rather see new phone sensors that scan the air, the breath and the body for diseases than a new tracking technology. We could also develop new medicines, etc. Not tracking. Edit : we also don't have much knowledge about why the virus is more lethal for some people than others. We should focus effort at predicting who will be asymptomatic and who will develop complications, rather than trying to stop the virus from spreading by isolating people
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    1. It's old people AND people with comorbidities, which is a ton of people. Yep, and they should shelter in place. Nobody else should. 2. Lots of old people, which for Covid is about 65, still work full time jobs. Some of them fly every week. These aren't 95+ year olds. Yep, and they should shelter in place, because they're in a risk category. 3. I'm sure people of all ages think their life is very valuable, and very few people consider themselves candidates for sacrifice. Certainly not for privacy concerns. That's an unfortunate way of looking at this. The reality is everything we do in life involves risk. There's risk of harm in shutting down the economy, and there's risk of harm in opening the doors. The lifetime risk of death being involved in a car accident is 1%. The lifetime risk of dying of an opioid overdose is 2%. COVID is much lower than both. Locked inside domestic violence is up, alcoholism is up -- liquor stores are considered essential so alcoholics won't come in to hospital due to withdrawal. What we do know is if we lock things down, then one person flies in from a foreign country with the disease the whole thing starts over. Hiding inside is not a sustainable strategy. Which is why Sweden remains open for business. And you know what? They're doing just fine [1]. 4. 10x deadlier than the flu. It is not. We do not know how deadly it is, all we know is that of people who go to the hospital (implying that they're showing serious symptoms) between 0% and 9% of people, depending on their age and comorbidities, die. That's adverse selection sampling bias. Studies show there's huge, huge quantities of people who either show no symptoms at all (which is the thing that makes this disease a challenge) or exhibit mild flu-like symptoms. The numbers we're seeing are an upper-bound, by an order of magnitude. It's likely in line with the flu, although we should consider in line with the flu is bad -- it kills 650,000 people each and every year we've been alive. It's also much harder to immunize against the flu (19-60% effective) due to its propensity to mutate and the huge number of strains that show up each season, with different ones being dominant each year. On the other hand, COVID does not mutate -- or has not yet. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesasquith/2020/04/04/no-lockdowns-in-sweden-as-stockholm-remains-open-parks-and-open-air-museums-operating/#77737bef707a https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesasquith/2020/04/04/no-lock...
monksy 7y ago
People aren't being forcefully sharing their health status via FB, IG, etc. Imagine if Facebook published if you had an STD to your friends.
- SkyBelow 7y ago
  Given the number of deaths caused by STDs, it is perhaps justifiable for such data to be shared in the same fashion as one's Covid-19 status, assuming the sharing of the latter is justified.
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    COVID is unlikely dramatically more deadly than the flu, so the question is, if you're okay sharing your health data over COVID, why not the flu? It kills 650,000 people (60,000 Americans) every single year. The reality is widespread panic moments are when we lose our civil rights. Remember 9/11? That year more people died slipping and falling in the shower than died in the twin towers. More people died because they chose to drive short distances instead of flying than died in the twin towers. And we got the Patriot act and a trillion dollar war. Humans have a way of overreacting.
    - dmarchand90 7y ago
      I'm not sure where you get the source the covid19 is no deadlier than the flu as that seems to be thoroughly debunked at this point
      - arcticbull 7y ago
        It's worse, about 3.7X worse according to the latest data, with impact massively skewed towards the older (100X more lethal to them than to a 20-40 year old).
    - ModernMech 7y ago
      > It kills 650,000 people (60,000 Americans) every single year. That's over a ~6 month season. If you average that out it's 10k per month. We'll have 20k dead tomorrow from covid and it hasn't even peaked yet. This is with extreme lockdown measures implemented. How much worse would those numbers be if everyone was going about their business as usual the way they do the flu?
jhhh 7y ago
How many people complaining in this thread use or don't use Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin? Unless you actually know then it seems like you've contrived a group of hypothetical hypocrite 'complainers' to complain against.
- acqq 7y ago
  And Whatsapp. And how many people not having already their various metadata collected by Google and not having anything on the Apple servers?
- GekkePrutser 7y ago
  I only use LinkedIn and when I do, I use it in a container so it can't spread its cookies. LinkedIn is pretty mild anyway in contrary to anything Facebook with their tracking pixels. And unfortunately you can't really do without LinkedIn if you want a job in IT.
dntbnmpls 7y ago
> Am i the only one who thinks it's mindblowing that people use Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, etc. however now that Apple + Google release a tool to prevent thousands of people from dying in a pandemic they start thinking/complaining about the possible privacy implications? No. Where have you been? People complain about facebook, instagram, linkedin, etc all the time and encourage others to stop using it all the time. What is mindblowing is the amount of worship for Apple here and the amount of support this has. And preventing "thousands of people from dying" is no excuse for this because we know this has nothing to do with preventing deaths. The amount of love that Apple, Microsoft, etc has on every apple/microsoft thread is a tad bit suspect in my opinion. > (without even having read the specs or knowing the details...) Why would the specs or details matter? It's a matter of principle. "People might die" so we need to spy/monitor/track you is a very north korean mindset. But then again, they also use an existential fear ( US invasion ) to enforce complaince amongst their population.
sudosysgen 7y ago
I for one use neither Facebook Instagram not LinkedIn. The reason why I worry so much about privacy details is because it can be implemented in a way that respects privacy. If it doesn't, then that is highly suspicious and doubly unfortunate given the circumstances. But if it is implemented right then I will use it. And thankfully, it seems to be implemented right, so if that holds I will use it and try to convince other people to do so as well.

mmcnl 7y ago

Most people probably uploaded their contact list to WhatsApp without thinking about it twice.

9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago

It's more than reasonable to be suspicious of big tech companies, especially the ones residing in Silicon Valley. They haven't earned people's trust and that is the outcome. Just like you would be skeptical of Chinese communist party releasing app promising to help the world with covid19.

alyz 7y ago

This is dangerously close to Feinstein's "think of the children" argument. If people complain about EARN IT, they should investigate privacy implications of this "enhanced" tracking technology.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
cbsks 7y ago
Yes, they should investigate. But they should investigate before reaching a conclusion.
olliej 7y ago
it's explicitly not a tracking technology.

RivieraKid 7y ago

Agreed. Majority of people have their location history, chats, emails, browsing history, etc. saved on the cloud. This Bluetooth tracker is a complete privacy nothingburger.

antpls 7y ago

1) Covid19 was largely dangerous for old people cumulatting other comorbidities, mostly retired people. 2) Old people don't move that much and don't meet that many other people. It leads me to believe that the proposed loss of privacy isn't the best way to fight a virus such as a flu

dickjocke 7y ago
1. It's old people AND people with comorbidities, which is a ton of people. 2. Lots of old people, which for Covid is about 65, still work full time jobs. Some of them fly every week. These aren't 95+ year olds. 3. I'm sure people of all ages think their life is very valuable, and very few people consider themselves candidates for sacrifice. Certainly not for privacy concerns. 4. 10x deadlier than the flu.
- antpls 7y ago
  It could only work if everyone wear a phone. And then what's next? Forcing everyone by law to always wear a phone at all time? I would rather see new phone sensors that scan the air, the breath and the body for diseases than a new tracking technology. We could also develop new medicines, etc. Not tracking. Edit : we also don't have much knowledge about why the virus is more lethal for some people than others. We should focus effort at predicting who will be asymptomatic and who will develop complications, rather than trying to stop the virus from spreading by isolating people
- arcticbull 7y ago
  1. It's old people AND people with comorbidities, which is a ton of people. Yep, and they should shelter in place. Nobody else should. 2. Lots of old people, which for Covid is about 65, still work full time jobs. Some of them fly every week. These aren't 95+ year olds. Yep, and they should shelter in place, because they're in a risk category. 3. I'm sure people of all ages think their life is very valuable, and very few people consider themselves candidates for sacrifice. Certainly not for privacy concerns. That's an unfortunate way of looking at this. The reality is everything we do in life involves risk. There's risk of harm in shutting down the economy, and there's risk of harm in opening the doors. The lifetime risk of death being involved in a car accident is 1%. The lifetime risk of dying of an opioid overdose is 2%. COVID is much lower than both. Locked inside domestic violence is up, alcoholism is up -- liquor stores are considered essential so alcoholics won't come in to hospital due to withdrawal. What we do know is if we lock things down, then one person flies in from a foreign country with the disease the whole thing starts over. Hiding inside is not a sustainable strategy. Which is why Sweden remains open for business. And you know what? They're doing just fine [1]. 4. 10x deadlier than the flu. It is not. We do not know how deadly it is, all we know is that of people who go to the hospital (implying that they're showing serious symptoms) between 0% and 9% of people, depending on their age and comorbidities, die. That's adverse selection sampling bias. Studies show there's huge, huge quantities of people who either show no symptoms at all (which is the thing that makes this disease a challenge) or exhibit mild flu-like symptoms. The numbers we're seeing are an upper-bound, by an order of magnitude. It's likely in line with the flu, although we should consider in line with the flu is bad -- it kills 650,000 people each and every year we've been alive. It's also much harder to immunize against the flu (19-60% effective) due to its propensity to mutate and the huge number of strains that show up each season, with different ones being dominant each year. On the other hand, COVID does not mutate -- or has not yet. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesasquith/2020/04/04/no-lockdowns-in-sweden-as-stockholm-remains-open-parks-and-open-air-museums-operating/#77737bef707a https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesasquith/2020/04/04/no-lock...

monksy 7y ago

People aren't being forcefully sharing their health status via FB, IG, etc. Imagine if Facebook published if you had an STD to your friends.

SkyBelow 7y ago
Given the number of deaths caused by STDs, it is perhaps justifiable for such data to be shared in the same fashion as one's Covid-19 status, assuming the sharing of the latter is justified.
- arcticbull 7y ago
  COVID is unlikely dramatically more deadly than the flu, so the question is, if you're okay sharing your health data over COVID, why not the flu? It kills 650,000 people (60,000 Americans) every single year. The reality is widespread panic moments are when we lose our civil rights. Remember 9/11? That year more people died slipping and falling in the shower than died in the twin towers. More people died because they chose to drive short distances instead of flying than died in the twin towers. And we got the Patriot act and a trillion dollar war. Humans have a way of overreacting.
  - dmarchand90 7y ago
    I'm not sure where you get the source the covid19 is no deadlier than the flu as that seems to be thoroughly debunked at this point
    - arcticbull 7y ago
      It's worse, about 3.7X worse according to the latest data, with impact massively skewed towards the older (100X more lethal to them than to a 20-40 year old).
  - ModernMech 7y ago
    > It kills 650,000 people (60,000 Americans) every single year. That's over a ~6 month season. If you average that out it's 10k per month. We'll have 20k dead tomorrow from covid and it hasn't even peaked yet. This is with extreme lockdown measures implemented. How much worse would those numbers be if everyone was going about their business as usual the way they do the flu?

jhhh 7y ago

How many people complaining in this thread use or don't use Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin? Unless you actually know then it seems like you've contrived a group of hypothetical hypocrite 'complainers' to complain against.

acqq 7y ago
And Whatsapp. And how many people not having already their various metadata collected by Google and not having anything on the Apple servers?
GekkePrutser 7y ago
I only use LinkedIn and when I do, I use it in a container so it can't spread its cookies. LinkedIn is pretty mild anyway in contrary to anything Facebook with their tracking pixels. And unfortunately you can't really do without LinkedIn if you want a job in IT.

dntbnmpls 7y ago

> Am i the only one who thinks it's mindblowing that people use Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, etc. however now that Apple + Google release a tool to prevent thousands of people from dying in a pandemic they start thinking/complaining about the possible privacy implications? No. Where have you been? People complain about facebook, instagram, linkedin, etc all the time and encourage others to stop using it all the time. What is mindblowing is the amount of worship for Apple here and the amount of support this has. And preventing "thousands of people from dying" is no excuse for this because we know this has nothing to do with preventing deaths. The amount of love that Apple, Microsoft, etc has on every apple/microsoft thread is a tad bit suspect in my opinion. > (without even having read the specs or knowing the details...) Why would the specs or details matter? It's a matter of principle. "People might die" so we need to spy/monitor/track you is a very north korean mindset. But then again, they also use an existential fear ( US invasion ) to enforce complaince amongst their population.

sudosysgen 7y ago

I for one use neither Facebook Instagram not LinkedIn. The reason why I worry so much about privacy details is because it can be implemented in a way that respects privacy. If it doesn't, then that is highly suspicious and doubly unfortunate given the circumstances. But if it is implemented right then I will use it. And thankfully, it seems to be implemented right, so if that holds I will use it and try to convince other people to do so as well.