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I see this idea thrown around a lot. Random browsing, random posts/comments, etc. I'm not convinced that anyone collecting your data cares about how accurate it

I see this idea thrown around a lot. Random browsing, random posts/comments, etc. I'm not convinced that anyone collecting your data cares about how accurate it is, and it's clear that the people using that data against you don't care all that much either. Maybe if you could find a way to fill their logs with the kinds of data that actually matter (fake your precise GPS location, fake contacts/friends/relatives with detailed fake histories and fake contacts of their own, fake credit card statements showing fake purchase history, etc) it might be more worthwhile, but you'd still be taking a chance because ultimately your life is going to be changed because of what ends up in the logs being collected. You could get turned down for a job because your fake bot was a little too interested in drug/alcohol related websites, or maybe you'll be charged more or denied healthcare coverage because your bot made it appear that you were living an unhealthy lifestyle. The fake location data you sent might get you arrested by police if you were one of only a few people logged within a 2 mile radius of a crime. You can't break down the system by messing with the specifics in your dossier. The system will process your data (the real and the false) just fine and keep right on running. Real or fake, that data will follow you for the rest of your life and it will be all be used against you any time someone thinks it might benefit them to do so.

wahnfrieden 4y ago
the point is not individual solutions for these world-scale problems. the point is collective action (or steps toward collective action), to change the "meta". to make tracking more expensive and meaningless at scale, etc. we can sit around for apple to subvert it (as ppl often celebrate here), except that they're doing the subverting itself subversively: they're pleasing the masses with privacy improvements (chiefly as a competitive edge - it's profitable for their model), while leaving critical options opt-in so that the result is most people stay uneducated and leave enough tracking on to reap partners and the economy huge returns over the last 15 years off ad tracking that end of the day happened on apple's platforms. these kind of solutions make us feel like the capitalists are caring for us in their competition and pacify us, particularly the ones savvy enough to be happy about these privacy options and otherwise savvy enough to have organized people against it if they hadn't felt it was solved for them.
- autoexec 4y ago
  > to change the "meta". to make tracking more expensive and meaningless at scale, etc. The point is that the cost of tracking stays unchanged no matter what the data you feed it says. It's also just as meaningful in that it will still be collected, sold, used against you and will still have very real impacts on your life. The contents of your data will not and does not impact the machine or its functioning at all. All that matters is that there is data to collect and to leverage against you. You're right we can't trust companies to save us here. The only solution to this is strong regulation with oversight and teeth. Until we get that, we can only do what little we can to limit the amount of data we give up and increase awareness of what's happening and how it harms us all.
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago
    it's a good option, there are more radical options and it seems a bit capitalist realist to promote regulation as the only option available
    - autoexec 4y ago
      I'm open to alternatives, even radical ones, but I'm not sure how many of those would be practical. Storming the offices of facebook and burning data centers to the ground seem pretty radical, but are unlikely to be effective. Throwing CEOs in prison seems radical, and I'm all for it, but only after they violate laws that were put into effect which would criminalize their actions.
      - wahnfrieden 4y ago
        you might be interested to learn from mark fisher's capitalist realism concept
        wahnfrieden 4y ago
        or if you’re less interested in that concept and would rather see demonstrations of alternatives (and post agriculture, in societies with much higher than dunbar’s number nonsense), graeber/wengrow’s dawn of everything is a mind-altering read that collects modern anthro/archaeological evidence

wahnfrieden 4y ago

the point is not individual solutions for these world-scale problems. the point is collective action (or steps toward collective action), to change the "meta". to make tracking more expensive and meaningless at scale, etc. we can sit around for apple to subvert it (as ppl often celebrate here), except that they're doing the subverting itself subversively: they're pleasing the masses with privacy improvements (chiefly as a competitive edge - it's profitable for their model), while leaving critical options opt-in so that the result is most people stay uneducated and leave enough tracking on to reap partners and the economy huge returns over the last 15 years off ad tracking that end of the day happened on apple's platforms. these kind of solutions make us feel like the capitalists are caring for us in their competition and pacify us, particularly the ones savvy enough to be happy about these privacy options and otherwise savvy enough to have organized people against it if they hadn't felt it was solved for them.

autoexec 4y ago
> to change the "meta". to make tracking more expensive and meaningless at scale, etc. The point is that the cost of tracking stays unchanged no matter what the data you feed it says. It's also just as meaningful in that it will still be collected, sold, used against you and will still have very real impacts on your life. The contents of your data will not and does not impact the machine or its functioning at all. All that matters is that there is data to collect and to leverage against you. You're right we can't trust companies to save us here. The only solution to this is strong regulation with oversight and teeth. Until we get that, we can only do what little we can to limit the amount of data we give up and increase awareness of what's happening and how it harms us all.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  it's a good option, there are more radical options and it seems a bit capitalist realist to promote regulation as the only option available
  - autoexec 4y ago
    I'm open to alternatives, even radical ones, but I'm not sure how many of those would be practical. Storming the offices of facebook and burning data centers to the ground seem pretty radical, but are unlikely to be effective. Throwing CEOs in prison seems radical, and I'm all for it, but only after they violate laws that were put into effect which would criminalize their actions.
    - wahnfrieden 4y ago
      you might be interested to learn from mark fisher's capitalist realism concept
      - wahnfrieden 4y ago
        or if you’re less interested in that concept and would rather see demonstrations of alternatives (and post agriculture, in societies with much higher than dunbar’s number nonsense), graeber/wengrow’s dawn of everything is a mind-altering read that collects modern anthro/archaeological evidence