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"Too many of those acquiring our data want it for nefarious purposes: to betray our secrets to insurance companies, employers, and governments; to sell us thing

"Too many of those acquiring our data want it for nefarious purposes: to betray our secrets to insurance companies, employers, and governments; to sell us things it’s not in our interest to buy; to pit us against each other in an effort to destroy our society from the inside; to disinform us and hijack our democracies. The surveillance society has transformed citizens into users and data subjects. Enough is enough. Those who have violated our right to privacy have abused our trust, and it’s time to pull the plug on their source of power—our data." That's a decent quote, not really anything new for most of us around here, but I think that hits on quite a few points in just one paragraph. I think this post is part of her book on Privacy? It's always funny to read stuff like this when it's on a site that shows almost 50 things blocked between Privacy Badger and uBlockO. I know it's out of the author's hands, but I wonder how she feels about being on a site that's part of the problem she's writing about. "The internet is primarily funded by the collection, analysis, and trade of data—the data economy."

aww_dang 6y ago
>to sell us things it’s not in our interest to buy; to pit us against each other in an effort to destroy our society from the inside; to disinform us and hijack our democracies. I liked the bit about data collection, the rest seems a little out there. Who says what is in our interest to buy? If people are not interested, they don't buy. Pit us against each other? Destroy 'our' society? What about individuals going their own way? Must we stay together and agree? Who gets to decide what is disinformation? Again, must we agree? Predictably, the next words are about democracy. The entire premise of democracy rests upon voters being able to consume and digest information on their own. If the author doesn't trust voters that far, then why trust them to vote on our lives and property?
- AlexandrB 6y ago
  > If people are not interested, they don't buy. Unless they're convinced by persistent-enough marketing[1]. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/how-an-ad-campaign-invented-the-diamond-engagement-ring/385376/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/ho...
- scotu 6y ago
  > If people are not interested, they don't buy if people don't want to be abused, they won't stay near abusers? I think we are beyond the point where we need to recognize that psycology is a weapon and even knowing how it works won't make you immune to it
  - godelski 6y ago
    > even knowing how it works won't make you immune to it People that say "oh ads don't affect me" have always confused me and reminded me of a line > The greatest lie the devil ever made was convincing everyone that he doesn't exist.
    - thegeomaster 6y ago
      I don't know. I freely admit to being in this camp, but the ads that I get on the Internet (when I do get them) are so irrelevant that I'm almost never tempted to click on them. But I'm also from a society that's traditionally been far less consumeristic than the West. (Although we're slowly getting there, yay!) I'm often dumbfounded when I read anecdotes on here and other forums about the stupid shit Americans buy. Not casting a value judgment or anything, just reporting how it feels from over here.
      - godelski 6y ago
        So I think there's a lot more nuance to this than is accurately being conveyed here. I can make a decent guess by two important factors to your post and a third supposition. 1) you specify ads on the internet (this is actually important because it specifically refers to your digital footprints) 2) you say you're not in the West and suggest a smaller developing country. I don't think it is unlikely then that you aren't as well tracked around the web. 3) more speculation, but judging by you being on HN and saying "when I do get them" I'm guessing you use ad blockers or have some privacy preserving features that help. This also reduces your digital footprint and irrelevant ads would be a marker of success of these products instead of irrelevance of ads (if 3 doesn't apply to you, I know it is applying to some here and they aren't thinking about it this way). But I guess some things to look out for. There are far more than just "you might be interested in this product" type of ads. There are political ads, public awareness ads, moral campaigns/religious ads. There are ads that aren't intended to get you to buy a product but rather to be satisfied with your purchase (see coke). There are ads that are used to sell prestige and status associated with a brand (see cars and watches). There's native advertising[0] which often goes unnoticed and is a frequent guest on HN. The tricky things of ads is that they come in a wide variety of flavors but people think "coke" is the only kind of soda. It is also a cat and mouse game. Old Spice created their ridiculous ads (called anti-advertising) to stand out because saturation of one type took over. Native advertising has been growing over the last decade and taken prominence in the space and the entire intent of native advertising is to be an ad without the reader/viewer knowing that they are watching an ad. Sure, maybe they don't affect you. But how sure can you be? Especially with the knowledge of native advertising. But let's assume they do not work on you. Does it matter if they work on others? It would be an absurd notion to suggest that they don't. With hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on ads per year (by single companies!) it would be a bit odd for them to be throwing this money down the drain. It would be a bit odd for politicians to do this as well. And once you accept the notion that political ads are a thing I think you have to accept that ads can persuade people to do things beyond buying a product. Carnegie and Rockafeller both used advertising to increase their public image in the early 20th century. It would be odd for people to spend so much money on something that isn't effective. Edit: I wanted to give a good example. If you watch "The Boys" on Amazon Prime (great show) you can see how Starfire's memes are all in fact a part of a marketing scheme and about brand awareness. This would be a version of native advertising, and one we've seen quite frequently, especially around political campaigns. But I don't think these types of memes even register as ads in most peoples' minds. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_advertising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_advertising
- godelski 6y ago
  This is a strange perspective to me because then that would mean that ads are only about awareness of a product. But you have to convince someone to buy your product. Not only that, but there's much more to advertising than goods. We have advertisements for political campaigns that try to persuade voters, pubic service announcements that try to persuade people to take certain actions, religious marketing, prescription ads that tell you to ask your doctor, etc. Ads have never been about awareness but persuasion. This is even more clear when you investigate why Coke has ads or car commercials. Coke already has the market. They advertise to make you feel like you're choice was good, and you to feel good. Car companies advertise to build prestige and years later when you buy a car you have brand prestige. It's never been about awareness, it's about selling you an idea as much as it is selling you a product.
  - vorpalhex 6y ago
    This distinction doesn't seem to stand up under scrutiny. "Shop at XYZ Pharmacy! Our prices are 5% lower than our competitors!" That's an ad, it's persuasive, but it's also about awareness. There doesn't seem to be any moral issue with it. Even if I replace our theoretical 5% savings with a picture of a scantily clad woman, or a group of young and happening business people, that's still persuasion - but we haven't suddenly created some moral harm.
    - godelski 6y ago
      How about recent political ads: Vote for X! Y is going to destroy America! <insert imagery of America being destroyed under Y> A political ad is substantially more than awareness (which I'm not denying as being a part, I'm saying it is a small part). But this ad, like most, are there to convince you. It is still an ad. This isn't to say that there aren't awareness based ads. There's also shitty ads run by first year film students. But these aren't what people are being bombarded with on prime time TV, in Times Square, or on popular websites. This isn't a mathematical proof where a single counter example discredits an entire thesis, because we aren't working in absolutes here. Acting like it does is arguing in bad faith. For what it is worth, the examples I gave for Coke and car commercials are taught in first year marketing courses as well as psychology courses.
- 29083011397778 6y ago
  > Pit us against each other? Destroy 'our' society? What about individuals going their own way? Must we stay together and agree? Politics without compromise doesn't sound like a democracy, or a healthy society in general.
- earwaxauditor 6y ago
  del
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - deathgrips 6y ago
    >Whatever democracy we have depends on how well organized the general population is against elite political factions If the people making up the democracy are too naïve and uneducated to defend against external and internal threats then democracy will fail. Reality is that which happens regardless of your political beliefs.
    - medicineman 6y ago
      Welcome to Athens, Thucydides.
  - CaptArmchair 6y ago
    The premise is based on a social contract. It's based on consenting and supporting a shared set of morals, values, and fundamental ideas that define how a nation is organized, and which rights and obligations its citizens have and are bound to. This is formally enshrined in a constitution. Why support such a framework? Because you trust that it will provide affordances towards personal security, liberty, well being, happiness,... and so on. Such a framework only works if enough people back it. This is what requires collective trust. You trust that your neighbours support the same basic principles and are willing to back and defend them when push comes to shove. Democracies tend to fall apart when people stop supporting these basic principles, and start distrusting others. This typically tends to happen in times of crisis when the foundational principles no longer are perceived as adhered to by other members of society. That perception can be real or false. Real as in an economic crisis causing millions to lose their home without receiving relief from the state they back. False as in being goaded or manipulated into believing that those foundational principles no longer are adhered to by large fractions of society. The latter typically happens by playing at strong emotions, and ignorance. A good example is how populists leverage polarization. You define an out-group, you attack that out-group and you describe them as not adhering to the foundational principles that govern the state. The twist is to use rhetoric that gradually shifts the goal posts that define those foundational principles. Each step of the way, you keep building and retaining consent as you refine your ideas. Down the line, populists win when they succeed in transforming that consent into legitimate authority. > Whatever democracy we have depends on how well organized the general population Any democratic society is self organizing. This creates a paradox, then. That is, it organizes itself by popular vote. And this includes, paradoxically, the potential to organize itself towards disbanding the very principles that govern it's democratic organization. This is why a lawful democracy can only survive if enough people are willing to band together and keep defending its very ideas and notions. Regardless of their present personal predicament.
- sixothree 6y ago
  > If people are not interested, they don't buy. That is an immensely naive statement. I'll take a very small stab at why. It's not advertisements people pay for. It's the behavior manipulation. Calls to action and being able to change the way people act.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
saurik 6y ago
I personally feel like the issue is endemic: the complaint isn't about a few bad apples, but that the entire Internet is effectively funded and operated by this stuff. The core problem is an incentive structure in a game that requires government to solve as it is a public goods problem. I thereby see people complaining about the issue from a website that does the same things being complained about as an example of how deep the issue is... it isn't at all strange, nor does it to detract from the concept: if anything, I feel like it furthers the argument.
- idlewords 6y ago
  The point of the "bad apples" metaphor is that it corrupts everything.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    And that's why it doesn't apply here. The point of that metaphor is predictive - "do something about these bad apples, lest they spoil the bunch". But the Web is already spoiled, covered with three layers of fungus and home to countless maggots. The time to spot and remove the "bad apples" was in the 1990s. At this point, the Web needs to be thoroughly disinfected, or torched and done anew.
- cthor 6y ago
  It's not as though it's some herculean task to get your writing hosted somewhere without ads and trackers. VPS providers with 1-button WordPress installs are dirt cheap. Netlify and GH pages are free. It's slightly easier to post stuff on something like lithub (or Facebook, Medium, etc.), but then how much does one really care about this if the excuse is that doing something about it is a minor inconvenience? People want their cake and to eat it to. They want don't just want to get read. They wanna get paid for it. Too bad the marginal value of any particular writer is about the same as it costs for hosting them. Zero. So we all get barraged with endless crap because fools still think writing essays online is a serious career path. (The serious career path here is making middle brow YouTube video essays. Still questionable, but at least you might get paid.)
- njarboe 6y ago
greenie_beans 6y ago
Yeah, LitHub is definitely a place of promotion more than it is a good literary publication. If you’re reading something on that site then you’re most likely being sold a book. They were created and are ran by publishers and publishing insiders. But that’s not to say they don’t publish good writing. So it’s probably an excerpt from her books (as seen from the “via Bantam Books” at the top of the page).
1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago
"The internet is primarily funded by the collection, analysis, and trade of data-the data economy." s/internet/www/ The internet is a medium. Interconnected ASNs. Cables, switches, routers, etc. It's hardware. Whereas the above statement -- which sounds very much like a media-ready soundbite from another author, Shoshana Zuboff -- presumes that a medium is synonymous with whatever it is used for, e.g., a www filled with "content" created as bait in order to lure consumers whereupon "content providers" can then surveil, collect data, process and commercialise it. If the internet, the medium over which our bits travel, is funded by collection, analysis and trade of data, then why are we paying ISPs? Who is paying the costs of sending all this data to those who will analyze and commercialise it. Consumers are funding those transfer costs.
- phone8675309 6y ago
  Socialized costs, privatized profits, same as it ever was.
- Animats 6y ago
  Then why are we paying ISPs? Users pay for the Internet. Advertising pays for the Web.
ruined 6y ago
there is no other space available from which one could speak. surveillance capitalism is a totalizing world system. https://thenib.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/mister-gotcha-4-9faefa-1-768x545.jpg https://thenib.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/mister-gotcha-...

aww_dang 6y ago

>to sell us things it’s not in our interest to buy; to pit us against each other in an effort to destroy our society from the inside; to disinform us and hijack our democracies. I liked the bit about data collection, the rest seems a little out there. Who says what is in our interest to buy? If people are not interested, they don't buy. Pit us against each other? Destroy 'our' society? What about individuals going their own way? Must we stay together and agree? Who gets to decide what is disinformation? Again, must we agree? Predictably, the next words are about democracy. The entire premise of democracy rests upon voters being able to consume and digest information on their own. If the author doesn't trust voters that far, then why trust them to vote on our lives and property?

AlexandrB 6y ago
> If people are not interested, they don't buy. Unless they're convinced by persistent-enough marketing[1]. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/how-an-ad-campaign-invented-the-diamond-engagement-ring/385376/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/ho...
scotu 6y ago
> If people are not interested, they don't buy if people don't want to be abused, they won't stay near abusers? I think we are beyond the point where we need to recognize that psycology is a weapon and even knowing how it works won't make you immune to it
- godelski 6y ago
  > even knowing how it works won't make you immune to it People that say "oh ads don't affect me" have always confused me and reminded me of a line > The greatest lie the devil ever made was convincing everyone that he doesn't exist.
  - thegeomaster 6y ago
    I don't know. I freely admit to being in this camp, but the ads that I get on the Internet (when I do get them) are so irrelevant that I'm almost never tempted to click on them. But I'm also from a society that's traditionally been far less consumeristic than the West. (Although we're slowly getting there, yay!) I'm often dumbfounded when I read anecdotes on here and other forums about the stupid shit Americans buy. Not casting a value judgment or anything, just reporting how it feels from over here.
    - godelski 6y ago
      So I think there's a lot more nuance to this than is accurately being conveyed here. I can make a decent guess by two important factors to your post and a third supposition. 1) you specify ads on the internet (this is actually important because it specifically refers to your digital footprints) 2) you say you're not in the West and suggest a smaller developing country. I don't think it is unlikely then that you aren't as well tracked around the web. 3) more speculation, but judging by you being on HN and saying "when I do get them" I'm guessing you use ad blockers or have some privacy preserving features that help. This also reduces your digital footprint and irrelevant ads would be a marker of success of these products instead of irrelevance of ads (if 3 doesn't apply to you, I know it is applying to some here and they aren't thinking about it this way). But I guess some things to look out for. There are far more than just "you might be interested in this product" type of ads. There are political ads, public awareness ads, moral campaigns/religious ads. There are ads that aren't intended to get you to buy a product but rather to be satisfied with your purchase (see coke). There are ads that are used to sell prestige and status associated with a brand (see cars and watches). There's native advertising[0] which often goes unnoticed and is a frequent guest on HN. The tricky things of ads is that they come in a wide variety of flavors but people think "coke" is the only kind of soda. It is also a cat and mouse game. Old Spice created their ridiculous ads (called anti-advertising) to stand out because saturation of one type took over. Native advertising has been growing over the last decade and taken prominence in the space and the entire intent of native advertising is to be an ad without the reader/viewer knowing that they are watching an ad. Sure, maybe they don't affect you. But how sure can you be? Especially with the knowledge of native advertising. But let's assume they do not work on you. Does it matter if they work on others? It would be an absurd notion to suggest that they don't. With hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on ads per year (by single companies!) it would be a bit odd for them to be throwing this money down the drain. It would be a bit odd for politicians to do this as well. And once you accept the notion that political ads are a thing I think you have to accept that ads can persuade people to do things beyond buying a product. Carnegie and Rockafeller both used advertising to increase their public image in the early 20th century. It would be odd for people to spend so much money on something that isn't effective. Edit: I wanted to give a good example. If you watch "The Boys" on Amazon Prime (great show) you can see how Starfire's memes are all in fact a part of a marketing scheme and about brand awareness. This would be a version of native advertising, and one we've seen quite frequently, especially around political campaigns. But I don't think these types of memes even register as ads in most peoples' minds. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_advertising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_advertising
godelski 6y ago
This is a strange perspective to me because then that would mean that ads are only about awareness of a product. But you have to convince someone to buy your product. Not only that, but there's much more to advertising than goods. We have advertisements for political campaigns that try to persuade voters, pubic service announcements that try to persuade people to take certain actions, religious marketing, prescription ads that tell you to ask your doctor, etc. Ads have never been about awareness but persuasion. This is even more clear when you investigate why Coke has ads or car commercials. Coke already has the market. They advertise to make you feel like you're choice was good, and you to feel good. Car companies advertise to build prestige and years later when you buy a car you have brand prestige. It's never been about awareness, it's about selling you an idea as much as it is selling you a product.
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  This distinction doesn't seem to stand up under scrutiny. "Shop at XYZ Pharmacy! Our prices are 5% lower than our competitors!" That's an ad, it's persuasive, but it's also about awareness. There doesn't seem to be any moral issue with it. Even if I replace our theoretical 5% savings with a picture of a scantily clad woman, or a group of young and happening business people, that's still persuasion - but we haven't suddenly created some moral harm.
  - godelski 6y ago
    How about recent political ads: Vote for X! Y is going to destroy America! <insert imagery of America being destroyed under Y> A political ad is substantially more than awareness (which I'm not denying as being a part, I'm saying it is a small part). But this ad, like most, are there to convince you. It is still an ad. This isn't to say that there aren't awareness based ads. There's also shitty ads run by first year film students. But these aren't what people are being bombarded with on prime time TV, in Times Square, or on popular websites. This isn't a mathematical proof where a single counter example discredits an entire thesis, because we aren't working in absolutes here. Acting like it does is arguing in bad faith. For what it is worth, the examples I gave for Coke and car commercials are taught in first year marketing courses as well as psychology courses.
29083011397778 6y ago
> Pit us against each other? Destroy 'our' society? What about individuals going their own way? Must we stay together and agree? Politics without compromise doesn't sound like a democracy, or a healthy society in general.
earwaxauditor 6y ago
del
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- deathgrips 6y ago
  >Whatever democracy we have depends on how well organized the general population is against elite political factions If the people making up the democracy are too naïve and uneducated to defend against external and internal threats then democracy will fail. Reality is that which happens regardless of your political beliefs.
  - medicineman 6y ago
    Welcome to Athens, Thucydides.
- CaptArmchair 6y ago
  The premise is based on a social contract. It's based on consenting and supporting a shared set of morals, values, and fundamental ideas that define how a nation is organized, and which rights and obligations its citizens have and are bound to. This is formally enshrined in a constitution. Why support such a framework? Because you trust that it will provide affordances towards personal security, liberty, well being, happiness,... and so on. Such a framework only works if enough people back it. This is what requires collective trust. You trust that your neighbours support the same basic principles and are willing to back and defend them when push comes to shove. Democracies tend to fall apart when people stop supporting these basic principles, and start distrusting others. This typically tends to happen in times of crisis when the foundational principles no longer are perceived as adhered to by other members of society. That perception can be real or false. Real as in an economic crisis causing millions to lose their home without receiving relief from the state they back. False as in being goaded or manipulated into believing that those foundational principles no longer are adhered to by large fractions of society. The latter typically happens by playing at strong emotions, and ignorance. A good example is how populists leverage polarization. You define an out-group, you attack that out-group and you describe them as not adhering to the foundational principles that govern the state. The twist is to use rhetoric that gradually shifts the goal posts that define those foundational principles. Each step of the way, you keep building and retaining consent as you refine your ideas. Down the line, populists win when they succeed in transforming that consent into legitimate authority. > Whatever democracy we have depends on how well organized the general population Any democratic society is self organizing. This creates a paradox, then. That is, it organizes itself by popular vote. And this includes, paradoxically, the potential to organize itself towards disbanding the very principles that govern it's democratic organization. This is why a lawful democracy can only survive if enough people are willing to band together and keep defending its very ideas and notions. Regardless of their present personal predicament.
sixothree 6y ago
> If people are not interested, they don't buy. That is an immensely naive statement. I'll take a very small stab at why. It's not advertisements people pay for. It's the behavior manipulation. Calls to action and being able to change the way people act.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

saurik 6y ago

I personally feel like the issue is endemic: the complaint isn't about a few bad apples, but that the entire Internet is effectively funded and operated by this stuff. The core problem is an incentive structure in a game that requires government to solve as it is a public goods problem. I thereby see people complaining about the issue from a website that does the same things being complained about as an example of how deep the issue is... it isn't at all strange, nor does it to detract from the concept: if anything, I feel like it furthers the argument.

idlewords 6y ago
The point of the "bad apples" metaphor is that it corrupts everything.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  And that's why it doesn't apply here. The point of that metaphor is predictive - "do something about these bad apples, lest they spoil the bunch". But the Web is already spoiled, covered with three layers of fungus and home to countless maggots. The time to spot and remove the "bad apples" was in the 1990s. At this point, the Web needs to be thoroughly disinfected, or torched and done anew.
cthor 6y ago
It's not as though it's some herculean task to get your writing hosted somewhere without ads and trackers. VPS providers with 1-button WordPress installs are dirt cheap. Netlify and GH pages are free. It's slightly easier to post stuff on something like lithub (or Facebook, Medium, etc.), but then how much does one really care about this if the excuse is that doing something about it is a minor inconvenience? People want their cake and to eat it to. They want don't just want to get read. They wanna get paid for it. Too bad the marginal value of any particular writer is about the same as it costs for hosting them. Zero. So we all get barraged with endless crap because fools still think writing essays online is a serious career path. (The serious career path here is making middle brow YouTube video essays. Still questionable, but at least you might get paid.)
njarboe 6y ago

greenie_beans 6y ago

Yeah, LitHub is definitely a place of promotion more than it is a good literary publication. If you’re reading something on that site then you’re most likely being sold a book. They were created and are ran by publishers and publishing insiders. But that’s not to say they don’t publish good writing. So it’s probably an excerpt from her books (as seen from the “via Bantam Books” at the top of the page).

1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago

"The internet is primarily funded by the collection, analysis, and trade of data-the data economy." s/internet/www/ The internet is a medium. Interconnected ASNs. Cables, switches, routers, etc. It's hardware. Whereas the above statement -- which sounds very much like a media-ready soundbite from another author, Shoshana Zuboff -- presumes that a medium is synonymous with whatever it is used for, e.g., a www filled with "content" created as bait in order to lure consumers whereupon "content providers" can then surveil, collect data, process and commercialise it. If the internet, the medium over which our bits travel, is funded by collection, analysis and trade of data, then why are we paying ISPs? Who is paying the costs of sending all this data to those who will analyze and commercialise it. Consumers are funding those transfer costs.

phone8675309 6y ago
Socialized costs, privatized profits, same as it ever was.
Animats 6y ago
Then why are we paying ISPs? Users pay for the Internet. Advertising pays for the Web.

ruined 6y ago

there is no other space available from which one could speak. surveillance capitalism is a totalizing world system. https://thenib.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/mister-gotcha-4-9faefa-1-768x545.jpg https://thenib.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/mister-gotcha-...