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That box is already open. Respectfully your comment kinda reads like you assume tech is some new untouched frontier unexploited and ripe for the picking. We’re

by dcow 5y ago

That box is already open. Respectfully your comment kinda reads like you assume tech is some new untouched frontier unexploited and ripe for the picking. We’re way past that and we must decide as a society how we want to navigate a world of global software services and immense data collection. Doctorow has always been against government central control of information. I suspect he’s against any overly large centralized information control regime because it has the same practical impact to people’s everyday lives. It’s not weird to see him (or anyone) call for “regulation” when the regulation being asked for pertains to enforcing we as a society retain certain rights with respect to how we interact with our world. That’s the whole point… don’t get distracted on some “govt control vs no control” axis. Nobody is asking the govt to tell you how to run your business, they’re just asking that we make it illegal to abuse users in the way Facebook has by permabanning the developer of a genuinely socially good tool that is obviously not spam for the insane “it automates user interactions” blanket reason. My password manager automates user interactions… GTFO FB. Also laws aren’t regulation. You can make something illegal without imposing back-pressure on every new venture in the space it pertains to.

sangnoir 5y ago
> Nobody is asking the govt to tell you how to run your business, they’re just asking that we make it illegal to abuse users in the way Facebook has by permabanning the developer of a genuinely socially good tool that is obviously not spam for the insane “it automates user interactions” blanket reason. I don't know if it's cognitive dissonance, or some other phenomenon at play, but it seems to me like people in tech are unwilling to accept that the problems are systemic. Having a roster of mustache-twirling villains is convenient fiction, and having those companies punished/broken apart and calling it a day is doing something, but that doesn't prevent a different company from doing the same thing in a year. There is a tension between wanting the government to do something - but not wanting it to do too much (lest it affects our stock options, or make our jobs harder? I don't know)
- dcow 5y ago
  I mean I think the “I’m a private company I am not bound by tue constitution” is a little dated. Companies effectively run the world and practically have a lot of power over individuals. There is essentially zero difference between a large company impinging on shared liberties and the government. Maybe we should start by applying a broader set of protections to citizens in order to start addressing the systemic issues?
  - sangnoir 5y ago
    We're in agreement - and the protections have to be broad indeed to bar specific activities, regardless of which company partake in them (current, or future). Targeting individual companies will lead to an endless game of snail-paced whack-a-mole

by dcow 5y ago

sangnoir 5y ago

> Nobody is asking the govt to tell you how to run your business, they’re just asking that we make it illegal to abuse users in the way Facebook has by permabanning the developer of a genuinely socially good tool that is obviously not spam for the insane “it automates user interactions” blanket reason. I don't know if it's cognitive dissonance, or some other phenomenon at play, but it seems to me like people in tech are unwilling to accept that the problems are systemic. Having a roster of mustache-twirling villains is convenient fiction, and having those companies punished/broken apart and calling it a day is doing something, but that doesn't prevent a different company from doing the same thing in a year. There is a tension between wanting the government to do something - but not wanting it to do too much (lest it affects our stock options, or make our jobs harder? I don't know)

dcow 5y ago
I mean I think the “I’m a private company I am not bound by tue constitution” is a little dated. Companies effectively run the world and practically have a lot of power over individuals. There is essentially zero difference between a large company impinging on shared liberties and the government. Maybe we should start by applying a broader set of protections to citizens in order to start addressing the systemic issues?
- sangnoir 5y ago
  We're in agreement - and the protections have to be broad indeed to bar specific activities, regardless of which company partake in them (current, or future). Targeting individual companies will lead to an endless game of snail-paced whack-a-mole