6 ms·

It is a relatively common belief among non-technical people in my friend group that Facebook listens to everything you say within earshot of your phone and late

by slg 6y ago

It is a relatively common belief among non-technical people in my friend group that Facebook listens to everything you say within earshot of your phone and later displays ads to you based on what it hears. That belief still isn't enough to get those people to stop using Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. It isn't that people don't think they are being spied on. It is that people don't really care that they are being spied on. Snowden didn't fail to change things because people didn't believe him. He failed to change things because he didn't articulate a compelling enough reason for people to be fearful of what he revealed. If people reading this want to see this changed, we need to do a better job of showing the real world consequences of this lost privacy. Talking about theoretical concepts like lost freedom and privacy isn't enough. You need tangible examples of how people's lives are made worse by this spying.

darkerside 6y ago
People now view going on the Internet as akin to going outside. Yes, other people can see you, and yes, you have limited expectations of privacy. No, it's not problematic that you have police keeping an eye on things. If you have a problem with that, and you never go outside without your "disguise" aka VPN, you are operating outside of social norms (and it's probably not helping anyway). This is not a valid judgement on any way. I just think some people may not realize the way others may perceive and think about this privacy dilemma.
- Jon_Lowtek 6y ago
  I hear this "the internet is like outside, don't expect privacy" argument a lot from americans, who i think are taught some 18th century definition of privacy by their media, as in "in your private rooms" and not a 21st century definition as in "about your private data". If you go to the city there are no agents of third party marketing agencies keeping notes of your movement and what items you look at in the stores to profile you. Imagine going to the city and there is this trenchcoat and hat wearing private agent following you all day and you go into a store and see him handing the salesman a note and pointing at you, and then the sales guy comes over to you and says "good day - do you want to buy red things? and you are like "actually i am looking ..." and the agent is now uncomfortably leaning into you conversation, "... for green things". Sales says "sure this way, please" and the agent is writing "green!" in his notebook, circling it three times. That is what the internet is like today. And you look around and everyone has these agents following them, keeping notes. You ask someone about it they say "well most people don't even notice them" or "that is how things are" or "people shouldn't expect not to be spied on by private corporations". So you hurry home while from every side street more agents come and try to follow you until you have this horde on your track and you hasten into your door with a crowd outside holding up signs like "buy red things!" and "green thing is green!" - but you are now at home so you relax and walk through your hallway to your room and say "computer: play some licensed music" and guitar music starts playing and -shocker- there are agents in your living room, one sitting on your couch playing the guitar, one is standing in front of your bookshelf taking notes of its content and another one is looking through your fridge, then stares directly at you and holds a sign up: "buy food" The internet is nothing like outside.
  - PeterisP 6y ago
    A couple decades back when internet was a bit younger, there was a quite popular metaphor of the Global Village, shrinking the world and connecting people. However, that focused only on the positive aspects, but as time has gone on, I think that this has materialized in quite a literal way. Currently most of us are used to the pseudo-anonymity of big cities, where people technically can know a lot stuff about us (because it happens in 'public' space, as you describe) but they overwhelmingly don't, because the vast majority of them are strangers who don't care. The new digital environment, on the other hand, is quite a lot like a small village. The grocer can make effective suggestions for your food because they remember every purchase you ever made, they will know your consumption habits better than Amazon or anyone else in the modern world. They will know if you're expecting guests tonight just because of your purchases (and might gossip about that), and in that case they'll point you towards their cousin who's selling wine across the street. They will know if you're eating something that their other cousin, the local doctor, has said that you should avoid, and might refuse to sell you that. The local lender (whether a banker or just a wealthy farmer who's a loan shark) does not need to 'profile' you - they know your dealings and your character, they'll know even if you've been stingy in giving back borrowed things as a teenager. If you buy condoms, the pharmacist will likely know with whom you're planning to use them. The contents of your bookshelf, as in your example? The village knows about that, people have been to your house, if there's anything unusual, word will get around - and if people have not been to your house, you've kept your privacy and the village does not know you, then you'll be treated as an untrustworthy weirdo with maximum prejudice; because keeping private is just not How Things Are Done Around Here. If your political opinions or religious views or sexual preferences don't fit what the village expects, good luck mentioning about it - their condemnation will be much more fierce than any Twitter mob. So in that aspect, it's not something new, the level of privacy is slowly becoming as low as it was historically when we lived in much smaller communities. We have had some centuries of urban pseudo-anonymity, but it's fading now. It has been just a temporary reprieve, when you could move from a literal village to a big city, get lost in the crowd and be free and anonymous. It was difficult to do in ancient times, and it might be difficult to do again in the future.
    - darkerside 6y ago
inopinatus 6y ago
You suggest this is impossible; but I still remember that time I asked Alexa what colours the Lotus Elise was available in. For the next few weeks, whenever I went out, I'd see at least one Lotus parked on the street or at the mall or driving by.
- bdamm 6y ago
  Similar to my experience of surveying vacuum cleaners on Amazon, then going to get lunch at Whole Foods where a clerk appeared suddenly at the checkout I was at to vacuum up a non-existent mess, with one of the models Amazon had offered up. The ratio of profit to sales cost on a high-end vacuum might be similar to a Lotus Elise. Or maybe it's just confirmation bias.
  - inopinatus 6y ago
    If this phenomenon isn't already a PKD short then it could be a SCP entry.
    - h2odragon 6y ago
      There's only about 5,000 "real" people on the planet. The rest are unconscious echoes. Thus the weird pressure and "Truman show" feeling those people face.
      - anonymousiam 6y ago
        None of us are "real". We are all living in a simulation.
        jl2718 6y ago
        This seems more probable. My viewers would have tuned out long ago.
        trevyn 6y ago
        Even more edgy: None of us are "real", and it is not a simulation. (To be pedantic, it doesn't matter if it's a simulation or not. The important part is that we are not what we think we are.)
exceptione 6y ago
> It isn't that people don't think they are being spied on. > It is that people don't really care that they are being > spied on. Well, my experience is that people care but don't have an idea on how they could change that. They feel powerless, have no idea what to do, and they are apathic. They accept their shackles like they deserve it. They know they are abused but since they are human, they use coping mechanisms to continue using apps they believe are actually not so nice for them. Of course they have thoughts like "actually, my picture is not private anymore", but for their sanity of mind they carry on because of network effects/ease of use/etc. They choose to push those thoughts off, as they are outside of their control. To us, it might sound like they just don't care. That's wrong! At least, that is what I conclude after talking with non-techies about this stuff. I am sure you can sell privacy as a big plus, but you need to deal with above aspects as well.
Spooky23 6y ago
He failed to change things because he was a spy, with the objective of sowing chaos.
EthanHeilman 6y ago
>Snowden didn't fail to change things because people didn't believe him. He failed to change things because he didn't articulate a compelling enough reason for people to be fearful of what he revealed. People feel that they are powerless to change this state of affairs and they are correct. Snowden told people it was happening, most people felt it was bad, but what they going to do? Stop using the internet? Elect someone that will shut down domestic surveillance? Throw away your phone? You might as well tell people to go live in a cave, eat lichen for food and lick the walls for water. People given no other option will accept what options remain. This even includes the option of facing certain death.
spinny 6y ago
About a year ago i wanted to get a used car. Did a few searches, including facebook marketplace. did the purchase not long after that. a little over a year later and i'm still getting ads from facebook

by slg 6y ago

darkerside 6y ago

People now view going on the Internet as akin to going outside. Yes, other people can see you, and yes, you have limited expectations of privacy. No, it's not problematic that you have police keeping an eye on things. If you have a problem with that, and you never go outside without your "disguise" aka VPN, you are operating outside of social norms (and it's probably not helping anyway). This is not a valid judgement on any way. I just think some people may not realize the way others may perceive and think about this privacy dilemma.

Jon_Lowtek 6y ago
I hear this "the internet is like outside, don't expect privacy" argument a lot from americans, who i think are taught some 18th century definition of privacy by their media, as in "in your private rooms" and not a 21st century definition as in "about your private data". If you go to the city there are no agents of third party marketing agencies keeping notes of your movement and what items you look at in the stores to profile you. Imagine going to the city and there is this trenchcoat and hat wearing private agent following you all day and you go into a store and see him handing the salesman a note and pointing at you, and then the sales guy comes over to you and says "good day - do you want to buy red things? and you are like "actually i am looking ..." and the agent is now uncomfortably leaning into you conversation, "... for green things". Sales says "sure this way, please" and the agent is writing "green!" in his notebook, circling it three times. That is what the internet is like today. And you look around and everyone has these agents following them, keeping notes. You ask someone about it they say "well most people don't even notice them" or "that is how things are" or "people shouldn't expect not to be spied on by private corporations". So you hurry home while from every side street more agents come and try to follow you until you have this horde on your track and you hasten into your door with a crowd outside holding up signs like "buy red things!" and "green thing is green!" - but you are now at home so you relax and walk through your hallway to your room and say "computer: play some licensed music" and guitar music starts playing and -shocker- there are agents in your living room, one sitting on your couch playing the guitar, one is standing in front of your bookshelf taking notes of its content and another one is looking through your fridge, then stares directly at you and holds a sign up: "buy food" The internet is nothing like outside.
- PeterisP 6y ago
  A couple decades back when internet was a bit younger, there was a quite popular metaphor of the Global Village, shrinking the world and connecting people. However, that focused only on the positive aspects, but as time has gone on, I think that this has materialized in quite a literal way. Currently most of us are used to the pseudo-anonymity of big cities, where people technically can know a lot stuff about us (because it happens in 'public' space, as you describe) but they overwhelmingly don't, because the vast majority of them are strangers who don't care. The new digital environment, on the other hand, is quite a lot like a small village. The grocer can make effective suggestions for your food because they remember every purchase you ever made, they will know your consumption habits better than Amazon or anyone else in the modern world. They will know if you're expecting guests tonight just because of your purchases (and might gossip about that), and in that case they'll point you towards their cousin who's selling wine across the street. They will know if you're eating something that their other cousin, the local doctor, has said that you should avoid, and might refuse to sell you that. The local lender (whether a banker or just a wealthy farmer who's a loan shark) does not need to 'profile' you - they know your dealings and your character, they'll know even if you've been stingy in giving back borrowed things as a teenager. If you buy condoms, the pharmacist will likely know with whom you're planning to use them. The contents of your bookshelf, as in your example? The village knows about that, people have been to your house, if there's anything unusual, word will get around - and if people have not been to your house, you've kept your privacy and the village does not know you, then you'll be treated as an untrustworthy weirdo with maximum prejudice; because keeping private is just not How Things Are Done Around Here. If your political opinions or religious views or sexual preferences don't fit what the village expects, good luck mentioning about it - their condemnation will be much more fierce than any Twitter mob. So in that aspect, it's not something new, the level of privacy is slowly becoming as low as it was historically when we lived in much smaller communities. We have had some centuries of urban pseudo-anonymity, but it's fading now. It has been just a temporary reprieve, when you could move from a literal village to a big city, get lost in the crowd and be free and anonymous. It was difficult to do in ancient times, and it might be difficult to do again in the future.
  - darkerside 6y ago

inopinatus 6y ago

You suggest this is impossible; but I still remember that time I asked Alexa what colours the Lotus Elise was available in. For the next few weeks, whenever I went out, I'd see at least one Lotus parked on the street or at the mall or driving by.

bdamm 6y ago
Similar to my experience of surveying vacuum cleaners on Amazon, then going to get lunch at Whole Foods where a clerk appeared suddenly at the checkout I was at to vacuum up a non-existent mess, with one of the models Amazon had offered up. The ratio of profit to sales cost on a high-end vacuum might be similar to a Lotus Elise. Or maybe it's just confirmation bias.
- inopinatus 6y ago
  If this phenomenon isn't already a PKD short then it could be a SCP entry.
  - h2odragon 6y ago
    There's only about 5,000 "real" people on the planet. The rest are unconscious echoes. Thus the weird pressure and "Truman show" feeling those people face.
    - anonymousiam 6y ago
      None of us are "real". We are all living in a simulation.
      - jl2718 6y ago
        This seems more probable. My viewers would have tuned out long ago.
      - trevyn 6y ago
        Even more edgy: None of us are "real", and it is not a simulation. (To be pedantic, it doesn't matter if it's a simulation or not. The important part is that we are not what we think we are.)

exceptione 6y ago

> It isn't that people don't think they are being spied on. > It is that people don't really care that they are being > spied on. Well, my experience is that people care but don't have an idea on how they could change that. They feel powerless, have no idea what to do, and they are apathic. They accept their shackles like they deserve it. They know they are abused but since they are human, they use coping mechanisms to continue using apps they believe are actually not so nice for them. Of course they have thoughts like "actually, my picture is not private anymore", but for their sanity of mind they carry on because of network effects/ease of use/etc. They choose to push those thoughts off, as they are outside of their control. To us, it might sound like they just don't care. That's wrong! At least, that is what I conclude after talking with non-techies about this stuff. I am sure you can sell privacy as a big plus, but you need to deal with above aspects as well.

Spooky23 6y ago

He failed to change things because he was a spy, with the objective of sowing chaos.

EthanHeilman 6y ago

>Snowden didn't fail to change things because people didn't believe him. He failed to change things because he didn't articulate a compelling enough reason for people to be fearful of what he revealed. People feel that they are powerless to change this state of affairs and they are correct. Snowden told people it was happening, most people felt it was bad, but what they going to do? Stop using the internet? Elect someone that will shut down domestic surveillance? Throw away your phone? You might as well tell people to go live in a cave, eat lichen for food and lick the walls for water. People given no other option will accept what options remain. This even includes the option of facing certain death.

spinny 6y ago

About a year ago i wanted to get a used car. Did a few searches, including facebook marketplace. did the purchase not long after that. a little over a year later and i'm still getting ads from facebook