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I have offered to loan my copy of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff to friends and family, and no one has taken me up on it. The most I have
by mark_l_watson 6y ago
I have offered to loan my copy of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff to friends and family, and no one has taken me up on it. The most I have been able to do is to get a few of them to use Firefox containers.
I consider this a major problem that needs to be fixed, like the division in US society between left and right, income inequality, and corporate control of both political parties.
Shoshana Zuboff does a brilliant job of documenting the bad effects of collecting all digital information in our lives and the use of that data in ways that are against our interests.
I use Google and Facebook, but only to buy things from them, like Oculus Quest, Play books, music, and movies.
I don’t mind paying for services, and I don’t mind them using data on what I have directly purchased from them. I will fight all other forms of data collection.
- chiefalchemist 6y agoI also recommend Dragnet Nation. https://www.amazon.com/Dragnet-Nation-Security-Relentless-Surveillance/dp/B01LTHXKEU https://www.amazon.com/Dragnet-Nation-Security-Relentless-Su... I read Chaos Monkeys around the same time. It's not a deep dive on privacy but it gives you a great sense of FB's priorities, culture, and so on. https://www.amazon.com/Chaos-Monkeys-Obscene-Fortune-Failure-ebook/dp/B019MMUAAQ https://www.amazon.com/Chaos-Monkeys-Obscene-Fortune-Failure...
- zeroonetwothree 6y agoChaos Monkeys is a highly skewed take from someone that barely worked at FB. Its primary objective is not to inform with facts.
- chiefalchemist 6y agoTrue. None the less, the section about tracking people across devices is factual.
- megaman821 6y agoI don't think I understand your reasoning. Your friends and family enjoy free Google search, Google Maps, Facebook, etc and are ambivalent to privacy concerns. You, personally, don't mind paying for services or avoiding them entirely. I assume by fixed, you mean the government should pass a law that reflects your position on the matter, even though by your own account it is the minority position.
- mark_l_watson 6y agoYes, you understood me correctly: I would like my country to implement European Union type privacy laws. I am not in a minority position in my family and friends circle, rather, I am the only one willing to put effort into it. Everyone says that they would like privacy protections, but the tech requirements for protecting themselves is more effort than they are willing to take. If we could poll the population of the EU, I would expect the same: they want privacy but don't want to personally jump through tech hoops to get it.
- xkcd-sucks 6y agoTo be fair, Zuboff's writing is painfully dense academic Theory. I'm very interested in the subject and the book, but unable to read a full chapter in bed without falling asleep.
- rbultje 6y agoI fully agree with you. I did finish the book, but it took forever. Some of my friends did not finish the book, but instead read shorter versions by the author, for example: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/opinion/sunday/surveillance-capitalism.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/opinion/sunday/surveillan...