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Make spying on people illegal, even when a computer does it to billions of people rather than one creep doing it to one person. If you have to collect info abou

Make spying on people illegal, even when a computer does it to billions of people rather than one creep doing it to one person. If you have to collect info about people to provide a product or service, make it strictly illegal to transfer or sell that info or anything derived from it. Don't like it, get into another business. No one's making you collect people's info. Yes, this should apply to e.g. credit card companies, not just big tech. This'd need some fine points hammered out (don't laws always?) but it's not that crazy. Do something to make platforms responsible when their "algorithms" promote something. Not just hosting it, but when they promote it. Don't like it? Don't curate, then, or have a human do it so you're sure nothing you're deliberately promoting is shitty enough to land you on the wrong end of a lawsuit. "But how will tech companies show every visitor a totally different home page of content they're promoting (but in no way responsible for), and how will Youtube find a way to recommend Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan videos next to every damn thing? How will tech companies make every part of their 'experience' algorithmically-selected, personalized recommendations of content they farmed from randos?" They won't, they won't, and... they won't. You're welcome. Make data leaks so cripplingly expensive that no company would dare hoard personal data it didn't absolutely need to get by. Force the quasi-official credit reporting agencies not to be so shitty. In particular, "freezes" should be free and should be the default, alerts for activity should be free, and access to one's own info should be on demand at any time, not once per year per agency. Or just outlaw the bastards completely, IDGAF. I dunno, lots of things we could do to make the current personal data free-for-all less hellish.

smolder 5y ago
> This'd need some fine points hammered out (don't laws always?) but it's not that crazy. It sounds like you're suggesting GDPR style regulation. They're still figuring out how to enforce that but generally I support it. Too much money is against it to get anything passed in the US, though. Another problem is that the US government seems to like when the tech sector gobbles up data on people. It gives them new powers for social control.

smolder 5y ago

> This'd need some fine points hammered out (don't laws always?) but it's not that crazy. It sounds like you're suggesting GDPR style regulation. They're still figuring out how to enforce that but generally I support it. Too much money is against it to get anything passed in the US, though. Another problem is that the US government seems to like when the tech sector gobbles up data on people. It gives them new powers for social control.