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> Google provides useful products, and in exchange we might be targeted with annoying ads. Big whoop. Until now. Enter a cage willingly, with barely any compla

> Google provides useful products, and in exchange we might be targeted with annoying ads. Big whoop. Until now. Enter a cage willingly, with barely any complaint, for minor convenience, then cry when you're taken to the slaughterhouse. It's sad that despite all the warnings, people are so myopic and apathetic that it takes something this big and obvious to make them react. And despite this, they remain willfully blind to other threats, that are smart enough to stay below the threshold: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/censorship-by-algorithm-does-far https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/censorship-by-algori... > Four ways to build civil rights into Google products A laughable chapter of the article, void of any actually effective suggestions, such as compelling Google properties to stop blocking the Tor network (duckduckgo and yandex allow Tor), or using free software that is actually under the user's control. The problem is that would give users actual power and autonomy. But what the authors really want is for Google and other corporations to keep acting as internet police, but only enforcing rules they agree with, and not any others. That's why they want to build "civil rights" into products, and not "user freedom". That's why they get comments from an establishment Harvard professor, and not the FSF.

titzer 4y ago
This sounds a little like the incremental addiction to fossil fuels the world has developed. It's "the market" and "blame consumers" when we know damn well that consumers don't choose fuel sources and consumers didn't grease the palms of legislators and regulators for more than a century.
- AinderS 4y ago
  You make a good point. I can see how my post could be interpreted as blaming regular consumers for the mess we're in. And while consumer apathy and ignorance disgust me, you are correct, journalists and media that are supposed to be guiding us should shoulder the majority of the blame. I would blame Google, but that's like blaming the fox for killing the hens, instead of whoever left a hole in the hen house. Edit: See my other comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32126390 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32126390) about this analogy "excusing" Google/the fox.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    Journalism bears some responsibility (insofar as it’s become addicted to cheap social media traffic and digital ad revenue), but I think the context doesn’t justify disproportionate blame. In particular: social media companies understood, very early on, that they could use their position to squeeze traditional media by cutting into its advertising. It was a classic industrial takeover, including the incumbent’s mockery of the newcomer until it was too late. They probably deserve some blame for not seeing how the wind was blowing, and reacting accordingly. But I would place more blame on digital ad markets and all of the perverse incentives associated with them, all of which originate somewhere in the grimy junction between VCs and traditional advertising.
  - mewse 4y ago
    But the journalists too are just following the incentives that are provided to them. Don’t they deserve some of that “but that’s like blaming the fox for killing the hens, instead of whoever left a hole in the hen house” blanket pardon you’re handing out, here?
    - AinderS 4y ago
      > blanket pardon Oh that wasn't a pardon. Maybe the fox analogy was poorly chosen, since foxes are cute and have their place in the ecosystem. I should have said Google is like cancer, and media are the negligent doctor that takes too long to send you to therapy.
  - tremon 4y ago
    instead of whoever left a hole in the hen house The entire world is full of holes, and always has been. We shouldn't be lauding the foxes that use every hole they find. Unethical activities should be called out, not downplayed and dismissed.
  - morelisp 4y ago
    In your analogy, whatever happens to the lazy farmhand, the fox also still gets shot.
  - titzer 4y ago
- grog454 4y ago
  > we know damn well that consumers don't choose fuel sources That's not entirely true. Where I live people have a choice of energy provider which includes much more costly "100% renewable" options. Guess how popular that choice is.
  - eropple 4y ago
    You don’t say where you live, but in the United States, in addition to ‘titzer correctly says, these “100% renewable” providers that are piggybacking on the established providers’ grids are mostly a flavor of adjustable-rate scam.
  - titzer 4y ago
    > people have a choice of energy provider I don't know where you live, so it's impossible to say what you actually mean. But if you are referring to the choices for electric power, these are almost certainly new developments that have been forced by legislation mandating giving consumers a choice, which is only a small walkback of the past century of promotion and even subsidizing energy producers that use fossil fuels. Energy production is a deeply non-free market. Even in recent times with the rise of solar, it's often the case where it's illegal (or sometimes merely inconvenient or uneconomical) to sell power back to the grid.
muzani 4y ago
It's more akin to pollution than slaughter. Most of the people selling their privacy are not significantly harmed by it. It's a group downstream that get it worst.
sofixa 4y ago
> Enter a cage willingly, with barely any complaint, for minor convenience, then cry when you're taken to the slaughterhouse I don't think it's fair to characterise Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube and plenty other Google "products" (Pay, Music, Android, Android TV, Android Auto, Calendar, Podcasts, etc.) as "minor convenience". Some of them were literal game changers, and some still are (YouTube, Google Maps, even if they're finally starting to get decent competition). Similarly, characterising Google's knowledge about one's habits and interests for the purpose of serving ads (that are also, at least sometimes, more interesting for the user) as "entering a cage" is hyperbolic to say the least. Yes, having a corporation know you very well for monetisation is bad, but it's not a cage from which you're going to be slaughtered. And even today, many people would prefer, if they even have the choice, to have free access to Maps, Gmail, YouTube and all the rest instead of paying 5-20 $/€/£ each/month, or having to buy into Apple's expensive walled garden and its own massive issues and fleecing.
- AinderS 4y ago
  > "entering a cage" is hyperbolic to say the least. Until you do something forbidden, such as get an abortion, and hyperbole becomes literal truth as you're sent to prison.
  - School-Cotton 4y ago
    Has anyone in the world ever been sent to prison for getting an abortion based on Google location data? Or is this all still hypothetical? (Seriously curious)
    - AinderS 4y ago
      I don't know, but I don't see this as a problem that is specific to Google or abortion. China can serve as a cautionary example of where surveillance leads.
      - School-Cotton 4y ago
        True, fair point.
thallamus 4y ago
We’d all be a hell of a lot better off if your camp didn’t casually and routinely believe that failure to contact FSF or advocate for Tor is evidence of a conspiracy against computing. I swear free software people have a really great idea and philosophy and absolute garbage ideas of how to promote the idea and convince disagreeing viewpoints. We badly need to start coming around to the seemingly-crazy understanding that there’s a huge middle ground between where you are and would prefer us to be, and unfettered, apocalyptic corporate exploitation dooming us all. It’s tiring to live this Sith existence that free software people push: “with us or conspiring against.” And we all know it’s RMS who sets that tone and has inspired all of you to religious battle. The problem is you’re showing up to battle with civilians most of the time, including here, in this thread, right now. You mention nearby that you didn’t mean for this post to come off as blaming the consumer. That’s weird, because typically when I’m blaming someone for something, I use adjectives like “myopic”, “apathetic”, and “willful” to describe their behavior that I find disagreeable. Your entire post is blaming the very people you’re trying to convince; when called on it, you quickly rush in with oh no, not blaming the consumer, and not even blaming Google (!?). > That’s why they get comments from an establishment Harvard professor, and not the FSF. How do you think this conversation goes? Is it something like this? “The people are dangerously close to understanding true freedom. We cannot have that and we must convince them that Google policing is in their best interest. If we call FSF that’s what they’re going to tell us, so we absolutely can’t do that. Let’s call the safe option at Harvard.” Because (former investigative journalist here) it isn’t. The conversation you’re annoyed about actually goes like this: “The last five hundred times we tried the FSF we got lectured about why our computing choices suck and we make bad decisions about using computers. Let’s go to a person we’ve worked with before who is able to break this down in a way that I, and my readers, will understand. Bonus: I don’t have to Google why forgetting ‘GNU/‘ in the last article destroyed my comment section.” It’s so weird and depressing because everybody in free software is brilliant, for the most part, but just can’t see how alienating and frustrating this kind of thing is for the majority of people who aren’t them.
- fartcannon 4y ago
  You kind of have a baby/bathwater situation, eh? You'd throw the baby out just because the bathwater has a lot of evangelists you personally find unpleasant to communicate with. Doesn't seem to matter that they're fighting for _your rights_ just that you don't like them. I guess your post directly leads to OP's post in that sense, because my first thought after reading yours was, "you reap what you sow" which is more or less what OP wrote. So maybe we'd be a hell of a lot better off without your attitude?
mschuster91 4y ago
> It's sad that despite all the warnings, people are so myopic and apathetic that it takes something this big and obvious to make them react. The problem is, the very same data that anti-abortion fundamentalists or the police in the pointless "war on drugs" use against the population are what makes many services possible or usable in the first place. A real-time traffic map only works with a large number of devices transmitting location and movement data that are then evaluated to detect a traffic jam. An app to help fertility or contraception only works with people entering very detailed data about their periods. Cell phones only work by having the phone register at each cell during roaming around. Boycotting Google or deleting your period app is a stopgap solution - the real fix is we all need to get the right to privacy enshrined in our Constitutions, Basic Laws (the German equivalent) and international treaties, in a way that matches the reality that our phones and computers are direct extensions of our minds. We don't allow police to use brain reading (=polygraphs) as evidence in court, so tell me, why the fuck should we allow police to use digital representations of our brains? Oh, and we all have to literally fight for the separation of church and state that basically all Western nations have in their constitutions to be actual reality. Fuck churches, fuck religion - the immense amount of influence both have on politics is completely unhealthy.
- ekianjo 4y ago
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    Everyone should be free to believe in whatever the fuck they want. All I want is churches or any other form of religion completely banned from political consideration.
    - trelane 4y ago
      > Everyone should be free to believe in whatever the fuck they want > All I want is churches or any other form of religion completely banned from political consideration. That's rather an astounding amount of irony right there.
andrewclunn 4y ago
Purchasing and search history suggest that you had a pregnancy magically disappear in a red state? Buy a book that is critical of Islam in a Middle Eastern country? Search for the long term health risks of giving minors hormone therapy in Canada? Congratulations, the ad services have now flagged you for possible wrong think / criminal investigation. Hope not having to print out Map Quest directions was worth it.
goodpoint 4y ago
> It's sad that despite all the warnings, people are so myopic and apathetic that it takes something this big and obvious to make them react. This is what governments and NGOs are for. Individual initiative is not enough to address systemic issues like pollution, or food/car/airline/workplace safety for example. You can't just blame the average person for not running their own mailserver, growing their on food etc. Surveillance capitalism is now a political problem like monopolies/oligopolies creating pollution and so on
- AinderS 4y ago
  > Individual initiative is not enough to address systemic issues I couldn't agree more. But before we can have the software equivalent of a food safety agency, people have to stop shrugging off food poisoning with "they probably deserved it".
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
afavour 4y ago
> It's sad that despite all the warnings, people are so myopic Which warnings? I ask the question earnestly. As a developer with a clear sense of how the internet is structured, what browsers are and are not capable of doing etc I know the warnings myself. But for the population at large? I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything that’s explained the consequences of pervasive advertising infrastructure to non tech inclined folks, much less something placed somewhere that people will actually see it. Until recently people simply were not aware that personally identifiable location data was gathered on them to the extent that you’d be able to detect a visit to an abortion clinic. Or that period tracking apps are sending data in a way that can be later bought on a free market and tied to personal identification. This is a failure of regulation, education and a media beholden to tech giants. I think we in the tech industry have some reflection to do as well. We understand the implications better than most yet many of us dutifully completed our work tickets to add tracking pixels to every page of the company site. We can’t do that then turn around and say “what, you mean you didn’t know that a Facebook Like button tracks every web page you look at even if you don’t click on it?!” and expect to be taken seriously. Placing the blame at the feet of individuals that aren’t equipped to understand is a mistake, IMO.
- Jerrrry 4y ago
  >Until recently people simply were not aware that personally identifiable location data was gathered on them to the extent that you’d be able to detect a visit to an abortion clinic. Or that period tracking apps are sending data in a way that can be later bought on a free market and tied to personal identification. They were aware. It just wasn't until these moments that it affected them personally, and they started to care.
  - shapefrog 4y ago
    >Until recently people simply were not aware that personally identifiable location data was gathered on them to the extent that you’d be able to detect a visit to an abortion clinic. Or that period tracking apps are sending data in a way that can be later bought on a free market and tied to personal identification. "People" were utterly certain that their phones and computers were listening to every conversation they had, then big tech was advertising the products that they thought about back at them. But the location tracking software they have enabled to find their phone/keys/bag/friend couldnt possibly be used to see where their phone/keys/bag/friend is ...
btilly 4y ago
The fact that Google collects information that can be subpoenaed is NOT the top risk here. Not even close. It is the fact that if you search for anything abortion related, the top search results are dominated by fake abortion clinics. Who far outnumber real ones. A woman won't know that it is fake until after she has provided them with all of the information that she shouldn't have. And since they AREN'T licensed medical facilities, they have no requirement to keep her data private. For example in Texas they can immediately turn her information over to law enforcement to collect the reward for turning in someone who is trying to get an abortion. If Google can figure out which clinics are fake and get them off their site (including not letting them advertise), that would do a LOT to help.
- titzer 4y ago
  > For example in Texas they can immediately turn her information over to law enforcement to collect the reward for turning in someone who is trying to get an abortion. It is frankly insane to me that the ones claiming the highest moral ground created a vigilante system driven by ruining people's lives when they are at their most vulnerable.
  - shapefrog 4y ago
    Imagine for a second if you replaced "Texas" with "North Korea" what the very people who support this would say.
- BiteCode_dev 4y ago
  The craziest to me is that this is legal. From the EU perspective, the USA seems to be going into a madness spiral.
rightbyte 4y ago
> It's sad that despite all the warnings, people are so myopic and apathetic that it takes something this big and obvious to make them react. I took years before I realized Google was spying on me and following me around on different sites. I did get no warnings, until I realized what they were doing and visited sites that warned about it. It is just in the recent years "big tech" spying is a thing in the mainstream after like a decade of free reign. An ordinary person received warnings like 15 years after they made their Gmail or Facebook account.
andrepd 4y ago
> It's sad that despite all the warnings, people are so myopic and apathetic 99% of people I interact with have absolutely NO idea of the ramifications of the apps and services they use. Their understanding of technology ends at "click app icon and scroll". I think that (probably because you're in tech) you seriously overestimate the degree to which the vast majority of people can be said to have given "informed consent". Hell, even among my friends with PhDs and whatnot a majority does not understand.
mancerayder 4y ago
> The problem is that would give users actual power and autonomy. But what the authors really want is for Google and other corporations to keep acting as internet police, but only enforcing rules they agree with, and not any others. That's why they want to build "civil rights" into products, and not "user freedom". That's why they get comments from an establishment Harvard professor, and not the FSF. There's a strong authoritarian zeitgeist built into the identity politics proposals of papers like the WP. It's been like this for years - stories about "hate online" and "what are corporations going to do about it." Proposals around racial justice always end up with laws to compel something from someone. The goals might be benign, but they should follow principles that we've already agreed by consensus as a society / culture rather than via compulsion and radical 'rethinks'. The obsession of the last few years with regulating 'misinformation' and 'hate' online should be a big red flag here.
josephcsible 4y ago
> But what the authors really want is for Google and other corporations to keep acting as internet police, but only enforcing rules they agree with, and not any others. This brings to mind a useful test: Consider a hypothetical, in which instead of a majority-Republican-appointed Supreme Court allowing states to ban abortions, a majority-Democrat-appointed Supreme Court allowed states to ban guns. If you'd want Google to continue collecting data on people visiting gun stores and machine shops in that case, then don't pretend privacy is why you want them to stop doing the same thing in this case.

titzer 4y ago

This sounds a little like the incremental addiction to fossil fuels the world has developed. It's "the market" and "blame consumers" when we know damn well that consumers don't choose fuel sources and consumers didn't grease the palms of legislators and regulators for more than a century.

AinderS 4y ago
You make a good point. I can see how my post could be interpreted as blaming regular consumers for the mess we're in. And while consumer apathy and ignorance disgust me, you are correct, journalists and media that are supposed to be guiding us should shoulder the majority of the blame. I would blame Google, but that's like blaming the fox for killing the hens, instead of whoever left a hole in the hen house. Edit: See my other comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32126390 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32126390) about this analogy "excusing" Google/the fox.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  Journalism bears some responsibility (insofar as it’s become addicted to cheap social media traffic and digital ad revenue), but I think the context doesn’t justify disproportionate blame. In particular: social media companies understood, very early on, that they could use their position to squeeze traditional media by cutting into its advertising. It was a classic industrial takeover, including the incumbent’s mockery of the newcomer until it was too late. They probably deserve some blame for not seeing how the wind was blowing, and reacting accordingly. But I would place more blame on digital ad markets and all of the perverse incentives associated with them, all of which originate somewhere in the grimy junction between VCs and traditional advertising.
- mewse 4y ago
  But the journalists too are just following the incentives that are provided to them. Don’t they deserve some of that “but that’s like blaming the fox for killing the hens, instead of whoever left a hole in the hen house” blanket pardon you’re handing out, here?
  - AinderS 4y ago
    > blanket pardon Oh that wasn't a pardon. Maybe the fox analogy was poorly chosen, since foxes are cute and have their place in the ecosystem. I should have said Google is like cancer, and media are the negligent doctor that takes too long to send you to therapy.
- tremon 4y ago
  instead of whoever left a hole in the hen house The entire world is full of holes, and always has been. We shouldn't be lauding the foxes that use every hole they find. Unethical activities should be called out, not downplayed and dismissed.
- morelisp 4y ago
  In your analogy, whatever happens to the lazy farmhand, the fox also still gets shot.
- titzer 4y ago
grog454 4y ago
> we know damn well that consumers don't choose fuel sources That's not entirely true. Where I live people have a choice of energy provider which includes much more costly "100% renewable" options. Guess how popular that choice is.
- eropple 4y ago
  You don’t say where you live, but in the United States, in addition to ‘titzer correctly says, these “100% renewable” providers that are piggybacking on the established providers’ grids are mostly a flavor of adjustable-rate scam.
- titzer 4y ago
  > people have a choice of energy provider I don't know where you live, so it's impossible to say what you actually mean. But if you are referring to the choices for electric power, these are almost certainly new developments that have been forced by legislation mandating giving consumers a choice, which is only a small walkback of the past century of promotion and even subsidizing energy producers that use fossil fuels. Energy production is a deeply non-free market. Even in recent times with the rise of solar, it's often the case where it's illegal (or sometimes merely inconvenient or uneconomical) to sell power back to the grid.

muzani 4y ago

It's more akin to pollution than slaughter. Most of the people selling their privacy are not significantly harmed by it. It's a group downstream that get it worst.

sofixa 4y ago

> Enter a cage willingly, with barely any complaint, for minor convenience, then cry when you're taken to the slaughterhouse I don't think it's fair to characterise Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube and plenty other Google "products" (Pay, Music, Android, Android TV, Android Auto, Calendar, Podcasts, etc.) as "minor convenience". Some of them were literal game changers, and some still are (YouTube, Google Maps, even if they're finally starting to get decent competition). Similarly, characterising Google's knowledge about one's habits and interests for the purpose of serving ads (that are also, at least sometimes, more interesting for the user) as "entering a cage" is hyperbolic to say the least. Yes, having a corporation know you very well for monetisation is bad, but it's not a cage from which you're going to be slaughtered. And even today, many people would prefer, if they even have the choice, to have free access to Maps, Gmail, YouTube and all the rest instead of paying 5-20 $/€/£ each/month, or having to buy into Apple's expensive walled garden and its own massive issues and fleecing.

AinderS 4y ago
> "entering a cage" is hyperbolic to say the least. Until you do something forbidden, such as get an abortion, and hyperbole becomes literal truth as you're sent to prison.
- School-Cotton 4y ago
  Has anyone in the world ever been sent to prison for getting an abortion based on Google location data? Or is this all still hypothetical? (Seriously curious)
  - AinderS 4y ago
    I don't know, but I don't see this as a problem that is specific to Google or abortion. China can serve as a cautionary example of where surveillance leads.
    - School-Cotton 4y ago
      True, fair point.

thallamus 4y ago

We’d all be a hell of a lot better off if your camp didn’t casually and routinely believe that failure to contact FSF or advocate for Tor is evidence of a conspiracy against computing. I swear free software people have a really great idea and philosophy and absolute garbage ideas of how to promote the idea and convince disagreeing viewpoints. We badly need to start coming around to the seemingly-crazy understanding that there’s a huge middle ground between where you are and would prefer us to be, and unfettered, apocalyptic corporate exploitation dooming us all. It’s tiring to live this Sith existence that free software people push: “with us or conspiring against.” And we all know it’s RMS who sets that tone and has inspired all of you to religious battle. The problem is you’re showing up to battle with civilians most of the time, including here, in this thread, right now. You mention nearby that you didn’t mean for this post to come off as blaming the consumer. That’s weird, because typically when I’m blaming someone for something, I use adjectives like “myopic”, “apathetic”, and “willful” to describe their behavior that I find disagreeable. Your entire post is blaming the very people you’re trying to convince; when called on it, you quickly rush in with oh no, not blaming the consumer, and not even blaming Google (!?). > That’s why they get comments from an establishment Harvard professor, and not the FSF. How do you think this conversation goes? Is it something like this? “The people are dangerously close to understanding true freedom. We cannot have that and we must convince them that Google policing is in their best interest. If we call FSF that’s what they’re going to tell us, so we absolutely can’t do that. Let’s call the safe option at Harvard.” Because (former investigative journalist here) it isn’t. The conversation you’re annoyed about actually goes like this: “The last five hundred times we tried the FSF we got lectured about why our computing choices suck and we make bad decisions about using computers. Let’s go to a person we’ve worked with before who is able to break this down in a way that I, and my readers, will understand. Bonus: I don’t have to Google why forgetting ‘GNU/‘ in the last article destroyed my comment section.” It’s so weird and depressing because everybody in free software is brilliant, for the most part, but just can’t see how alienating and frustrating this kind of thing is for the majority of people who aren’t them.

fartcannon 4y ago
You kind of have a baby/bathwater situation, eh? You'd throw the baby out just because the bathwater has a lot of evangelists you personally find unpleasant to communicate with. Doesn't seem to matter that they're fighting for _your rights_ just that you don't like them. I guess your post directly leads to OP's post in that sense, because my first thought after reading yours was, "you reap what you sow" which is more or less what OP wrote. So maybe we'd be a hell of a lot better off without your attitude?

mschuster91 4y ago

> It's sad that despite all the warnings, people are so myopic and apathetic that it takes something this big and obvious to make them react. The problem is, the very same data that anti-abortion fundamentalists or the police in the pointless "war on drugs" use against the population are what makes many services possible or usable in the first place. A real-time traffic map only works with a large number of devices transmitting location and movement data that are then evaluated to detect a traffic jam. An app to help fertility or contraception only works with people entering very detailed data about their periods. Cell phones only work by having the phone register at each cell during roaming around. Boycotting Google or deleting your period app is a stopgap solution - the real fix is we all need to get the right to privacy enshrined in our Constitutions, Basic Laws (the German equivalent) and international treaties, in a way that matches the reality that our phones and computers are direct extensions of our minds. We don't allow police to use brain reading (=polygraphs) as evidence in court, so tell me, why the fuck should we allow police to use digital representations of our brains? Oh, and we all have to literally fight for the separation of church and state that basically all Western nations have in their constitutions to be actual reality. Fuck churches, fuck religion - the immense amount of influence both have on politics is completely unhealthy.

ekianjo 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- mschuster91 4y ago
  Everyone should be free to believe in whatever the fuck they want. All I want is churches or any other form of religion completely banned from political consideration.
  - trelane 4y ago
    > Everyone should be free to believe in whatever the fuck they want > All I want is churches or any other form of religion completely banned from political consideration. That's rather an astounding amount of irony right there.

andrewclunn 4y ago

Purchasing and search history suggest that you had a pregnancy magically disappear in a red state? Buy a book that is critical of Islam in a Middle Eastern country? Search for the long term health risks of giving minors hormone therapy in Canada? Congratulations, the ad services have now flagged you for possible wrong think / criminal investigation. Hope not having to print out Map Quest directions was worth it.

goodpoint 4y ago

> It's sad that despite all the warnings, people are so myopic and apathetic that it takes something this big and obvious to make them react. This is what governments and NGOs are for. Individual initiative is not enough to address systemic issues like pollution, or food/car/airline/workplace safety for example. You can't just blame the average person for not running their own mailserver, growing their on food etc. Surveillance capitalism is now a political problem like monopolies/oligopolies creating pollution and so on

AinderS 4y ago
> Individual initiative is not enough to address systemic issues I couldn't agree more. But before we can have the software equivalent of a food safety agency, people have to stop shrugging off food poisoning with "they probably deserved it".

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

afavour 4y ago

> It's sad that despite all the warnings, people are so myopic Which warnings? I ask the question earnestly. As a developer with a clear sense of how the internet is structured, what browsers are and are not capable of doing etc I know the warnings myself. But for the population at large? I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything that’s explained the consequences of pervasive advertising infrastructure to non tech inclined folks, much less something placed somewhere that people will actually see it. Until recently people simply were not aware that personally identifiable location data was gathered on them to the extent that you’d be able to detect a visit to an abortion clinic. Or that period tracking apps are sending data in a way that can be later bought on a free market and tied to personal identification. This is a failure of regulation, education and a media beholden to tech giants. I think we in the tech industry have some reflection to do as well. We understand the implications better than most yet many of us dutifully completed our work tickets to add tracking pixels to every page of the company site. We can’t do that then turn around and say “what, you mean you didn’t know that a Facebook Like button tracks every web page you look at even if you don’t click on it?!” and expect to be taken seriously. Placing the blame at the feet of individuals that aren’t equipped to understand is a mistake, IMO.

Jerrrry 4y ago
>Until recently people simply were not aware that personally identifiable location data was gathered on them to the extent that you’d be able to detect a visit to an abortion clinic. Or that period tracking apps are sending data in a way that can be later bought on a free market and tied to personal identification. They were aware. It just wasn't until these moments that it affected them personally, and they started to care.
- shapefrog 4y ago
  >Until recently people simply were not aware that personally identifiable location data was gathered on them to the extent that you’d be able to detect a visit to an abortion clinic. Or that period tracking apps are sending data in a way that can be later bought on a free market and tied to personal identification. "People" were utterly certain that their phones and computers were listening to every conversation they had, then big tech was advertising the products that they thought about back at them. But the location tracking software they have enabled to find their phone/keys/bag/friend couldnt possibly be used to see where their phone/keys/bag/friend is ...

btilly 4y ago

The fact that Google collects information that can be subpoenaed is NOT the top risk here. Not even close. It is the fact that if you search for anything abortion related, the top search results are dominated by fake abortion clinics. Who far outnumber real ones. A woman won't know that it is fake until after she has provided them with all of the information that she shouldn't have. And since they AREN'T licensed medical facilities, they have no requirement to keep her data private. For example in Texas they can immediately turn her information over to law enforcement to collect the reward for turning in someone who is trying to get an abortion. If Google can figure out which clinics are fake and get them off their site (including not letting them advertise), that would do a LOT to help.

titzer 4y ago
> For example in Texas they can immediately turn her information over to law enforcement to collect the reward for turning in someone who is trying to get an abortion. It is frankly insane to me that the ones claiming the highest moral ground created a vigilante system driven by ruining people's lives when they are at their most vulnerable.
- shapefrog 4y ago
  Imagine for a second if you replaced "Texas" with "North Korea" what the very people who support this would say.
BiteCode_dev 4y ago
The craziest to me is that this is legal. From the EU perspective, the USA seems to be going into a madness spiral.

rightbyte 4y ago

> It's sad that despite all the warnings, people are so myopic and apathetic that it takes something this big and obvious to make them react. I took years before I realized Google was spying on me and following me around on different sites. I did get no warnings, until I realized what they were doing and visited sites that warned about it. It is just in the recent years "big tech" spying is a thing in the mainstream after like a decade of free reign. An ordinary person received warnings like 15 years after they made their Gmail or Facebook account.

andrepd 4y ago

> It's sad that despite all the warnings, people are so myopic and apathetic 99% of people I interact with have absolutely NO idea of the ramifications of the apps and services they use. Their understanding of technology ends at "click app icon and scroll". I think that (probably because you're in tech) you seriously overestimate the degree to which the vast majority of people can be said to have given "informed consent". Hell, even among my friends with PhDs and whatnot a majority does not understand.

mancerayder 4y ago

> The problem is that would give users actual power and autonomy. But what the authors really want is for Google and other corporations to keep acting as internet police, but only enforcing rules they agree with, and not any others. That's why they want to build "civil rights" into products, and not "user freedom". That's why they get comments from an establishment Harvard professor, and not the FSF. There's a strong authoritarian zeitgeist built into the identity politics proposals of papers like the WP. It's been like this for years - stories about "hate online" and "what are corporations going to do about it." Proposals around racial justice always end up with laws to compel something from someone. The goals might be benign, but they should follow principles that we've already agreed by consensus as a society / culture rather than via compulsion and radical 'rethinks'. The obsession of the last few years with regulating 'misinformation' and 'hate' online should be a big red flag here.

josephcsible 4y ago

> But what the authors really want is for Google and other corporations to keep acting as internet police, but only enforcing rules they agree with, and not any others. This brings to mind a useful test: Consider a hypothetical, in which instead of a majority-Republican-appointed Supreme Court allowing states to ban abortions, a majority-Democrat-appointed Supreme Court allowed states to ban guns. If you'd want Google to continue collecting data on people visiting gun stores and machine shops in that case, then don't pretend privacy is why you want them to stop doing the same thing in this case.