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Imagine if someone like Hitler came to power again and decided to exterminate people of certain ethnicity or political interests. He or she could just order or
by varispeed 6y ago
Imagine if someone like Hitler came to power again and decided to exterminate people of certain ethnicity or political interests. He or she could just order or seize a data dump from all those companies and have everyone ready to be rounded up. During the WWII Germans would seize church records and censuses from government buildings to easily find people to arrest and dispose of.
Today he or she would have an app for that...
- renewiltord 6y agoOh yeah, he'd totally do that, not just look at the Census responses that require you to answer race per address.
- varispeed 6y agoYou could tell someone's ethnicity from their surname with great accuracy. Not that they particularly cared who will go to a camp...
- rightbyte 6y agoA state can always gather info like that if it wants to via physical force so A rise to power would have no obvoius advantage today I believe. The new thing is slimy multinationals like Facebook and worse doing it with almost no responsibility or insight what so ever.
- joncrane 6y agoI think "the next Hitler" would in fact use this data to come to power, much less use it to retain power.
- tehjoker 6y agoI think just as likely, governments use this information to try to elicit responses to various stimuli. They treat voters as consumers and consumers as animals that they can train to react via various kinds of repetition and rewards. More granular data allows them to be more precise in these marketing and behavioral manipulation methods.