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Do you think it should be illegal for a manufacturer to implement features in their product that attempt to detect and prevent usage of the product that is dang
by tshaddox 5y ago
Do you think it should be illegal for a manufacturer to implement features in their product that attempt to detect and prevent usage of the product that is dangerous or harmful to the user or others? Should products with batteries be allowed to detect when the battery is being damaged and deactivate in order to prevent excessive heat or fire? Or is there something specific about tampering with a camera indicator light that you feel is deserving of legal protection for the end user?
- newbie789 5y agoI can’t speak for the person you’re responding to, but I personally do find a large difference between the risk of fire/explosion and the visibility of an LED. Furthermore I do in fact think that the distinction is big enough to justify legal protection to the end user on the basis that one can burn your house down (and can happen by accident with no user intervention) and the other cannot. Personally I think words like “harm” have concrete meaning outside of language specifically crafted by marketers in order to make awful products more palatable.
- tshaddox 5y agoDo you think it’s controversial whether secretly recording images of someone can sometimes constitute harm? To me, it’s quite clearly the case, so I hadn’t considered the need to present an argument that undisclosed video recording can constitute harm.
- kelnos 5y agoSometimes, yes. But always? No, certainly not. There are perfectly good reasons to want to record someone without their knowledge (e.g. recording law enforcement officers while they are in public). I'm reminded of how phones sold in Japan have a fake shutter sound on their camera apps that you can't disable. Yes, there's a good reason for it (preventing creeps from quietly taking upskirt photos of women on subways), but it also removes the ability to take silent photos for legitimate reasons. But in the general sense, I do find this new Facebook product to be gross and creepy, far worse than Google Glass. And frankly I think a recording light, which will easily become washed out and invisible in sunlight, is a pretty poor attempt at helping maintain the privacy of random people.
- newbie789 5y agoCan user behavior be controversial? Absolutely. An exploding battery is not, to my knowledge, “controversial” in that we’ve all agreed that fire is unwanted behavior. This is why I’ve found issue with your battery analogy. I do not believe there is a meaningful equivalence there.
- PostThisTooFast 5y agoNice strawman.
- bambax 5y ago> Do you think it should be illegal for a manufacturer to implement features in their product that attempt to detect and prevent usage of the product that is dangerous or harmful to the user or others? Yes. I use knives for cooking. I could use them for butchering my neighbors but that would be none of the knives' manufacturers business. Not just knives. Anything can be used in a dangerous or harmful way. You can suffocate someone with a pillow. So this line of reasoning leads to any company having the right (or maybe the duty?) to monitor us.
- tshaddox 5y agoSome knives intended for cooking have features deliberately intended to make them less suitable for stabbing people. Do you oppose this practice, or the legality of this practice?
- gknoy 5y agoI've never ever heard of this. Can you elaborate? I hesitate to say "citation needed" but this seems like an extraordinary claim.
- tshaddox 5y agohttps://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cutlery-firm-makes-blunt-knives-to-stop-stabbings-7kfnbm56c https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cutlery-firm-makes-blunt-... They’re not particularly popular as far as I can tell, but my point only relies on the concept itself as another example of manufacturers implementing features to attempt to influence how the product can be used.