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I never really understood the "dangers" of big corporations knowing you. What are they going to do, serve you better ads? I've thought the same for 20 years, an

I never really understood the "dangers" of big corporations knowing you. What are they going to do, serve you better ads? I've thought the same for 20 years, and so far I've been vindicated - there's no widespread personal harm in having an "open" internet persona vs using incognito all the time.

dento 4y ago
Mass scale political manipulation? See Brexit, for instance.
- lynx23 4y ago
  It appears democracy has changed fundamentally in the past few years. These days, whenever votes against your personal favourite, they have been manipulated. Its basically the same story on the left and on the right. Both claim the voting result could only have happened because the other side was tampering with poor voters.
- radu_floricica 4y ago
  Main problem with brexit was bubble. Even now, after so many years, you're saying that it's manipulation, simply because you don't personally know people who wanted it to happen. Who exist, I assure you. > What I mean is – well, take creationists. According to Gallup polls, about 46% of Americans are creationists. Not just in the sense of believing God helped guide evolution. I mean they think evolution is a vile atheist lie and God created humans exactly as they exist right now. That’s half the country. > And I don’t have a single one of those people in my social circle. It’s not because I’m deliberately avoiding them; I’m pretty live-and-let-live politically, I wouldn’t ostracize someone just for some weird beliefs. And yet, even though I probably know about a hundred fifty people, I am pretty confident that not one of them is creationist. Odds of this happening by chance? 1/2^150 = 1/10^45 = approximately the chance of picking a particular atom if you are randomly selecting among all the atoms on Earth. source: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin... ------- This being said, guarding my gps history like it's treasure does absolutely zilch to stop political manipulation, when you have stuff like corporate control over mainstream media and PR firms. See NYT's coverage of FTX, for a contemporary example. Or, well... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksb3KD6DfSI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksb3KD6DfSI
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    No one doubts Brexiteers exist; they won the referendum. How they came to that opinion is where the manipulation comes in.
    - radu_floricica 4y ago
      You're really saying that after reading the second half of my comment? Mainstream media is overwhelmingly progressive and not shy in being unsubtle, but somehow brexit did it all by being so freaking brilliant that it manipulated even more... somehow.
      - ceejayoz 4y ago
        We can pretend “mainstream media” in the UK doesn’t have things like The Sun in it if you like; no one asserts The Guardian was part of the Brexit full-court press. You do these things with social media bots, trolls, misinformation, etc. Brexit wasn’t brilliant. It was an empty slate people could project their worries on. That’s why actual implementation, where details mattered more than slogans, is where the difficulty lay.
        radu_floricica 4y ago
        You know, the attitude of "plebes are plebes, they should be protected and carefully told what to think so they don't to stupid things like Brexit" is very un-democratic. They had access to both sides' discourse. They voted. They made a choice. Instead of taking this information and learning from it, you're just blaming the very progressive-leaning social media. Oh, why am I even trying. It's ok, it was Big Corp, they're the ones to blame.
romanovcode 4y ago
Your personal data is of no value (unless you are of high-profile 0.01% of people). However, the data of your city, state, country, gender, race is very valuable because then, for example, companies/government/foreign actors can know exactly what is this town, state, country, gender, race is thinking about any given topic. This is enormous value and this is why companies like Cambridge Analytica are so profitable.
- HerrMonnezza 4y ago
  I agree, but how is this different from polls, fidelity programs at department stores, statistics on various topics, etc - all of which have existed for decades?
  - Liquix 4y ago
    It's different because department store fidelity programs weren't generating terabytes of raw data per day, feeding it into ML systems, correlating output against millions of other data points available for purchase, and then using the resulting insights to manipulate political affairs on a large scale.
- radu_floricica 4y ago
  I still see no problem with it. They're getting value, I'm getting value.
theclansman 4y ago
You make me feel like a weirdo for hating ads and not wanting to see any of them. And if they're specifically aimed at me and make me more likely to spend money, even worse. I get tempted and then I feel like an idiot for spending the money I worked for on balls shaving machines and flexible pants that look like jeans on the outside.
- radu_floricica 4y ago
  No, I totally get that. Well, not balls shaving machines, that's between you and the algorithm, I get that ads are a fight for your attention. But that's just a regular tradeoff, nothing huge.
kleene_op 4y ago
To me, people stating that they don't care about corporation having their data because they're just one person are equally as valid as those who think voting is useless because they're just one ballot. Those people then typically complain about election results or corporation bending them over, without ever questioning their own responsibility in the outcome.

dento 4y ago

Mass scale political manipulation? See Brexit, for instance.

lynx23 4y ago
It appears democracy has changed fundamentally in the past few years. These days, whenever votes against your personal favourite, they have been manipulated. Its basically the same story on the left and on the right. Both claim the voting result could only have happened because the other side was tampering with poor voters.
radu_floricica 4y ago
Main problem with brexit was bubble. Even now, after so many years, you're saying that it's manipulation, simply because you don't personally know people who wanted it to happen. Who exist, I assure you. > What I mean is – well, take creationists. According to Gallup polls, about 46% of Americans are creationists. Not just in the sense of believing God helped guide evolution. I mean they think evolution is a vile atheist lie and God created humans exactly as they exist right now. That’s half the country. > And I don’t have a single one of those people in my social circle. It’s not because I’m deliberately avoiding them; I’m pretty live-and-let-live politically, I wouldn’t ostracize someone just for some weird beliefs. And yet, even though I probably know about a hundred fifty people, I am pretty confident that not one of them is creationist. Odds of this happening by chance? 1/2^150 = 1/10^45 = approximately the chance of picking a particular atom if you are randomly selecting among all the atoms on Earth. source: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin... ------- This being said, guarding my gps history like it's treasure does absolutely zilch to stop political manipulation, when you have stuff like corporate control over mainstream media and PR firms. See NYT's coverage of FTX, for a contemporary example. Or, well... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksb3KD6DfSI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksb3KD6DfSI
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  No one doubts Brexiteers exist; they won the referendum. How they came to that opinion is where the manipulation comes in.
  - radu_floricica 4y ago
    You're really saying that after reading the second half of my comment? Mainstream media is overwhelmingly progressive and not shy in being unsubtle, but somehow brexit did it all by being so freaking brilliant that it manipulated even more... somehow.
    - ceejayoz 4y ago
      We can pretend “mainstream media” in the UK doesn’t have things like The Sun in it if you like; no one asserts The Guardian was part of the Brexit full-court press. You do these things with social media bots, trolls, misinformation, etc. Brexit wasn’t brilliant. It was an empty slate people could project their worries on. That’s why actual implementation, where details mattered more than slogans, is where the difficulty lay.
      - radu_floricica 4y ago
        You know, the attitude of "plebes are plebes, they should be protected and carefully told what to think so they don't to stupid things like Brexit" is very un-democratic. They had access to both sides' discourse. They voted. They made a choice. Instead of taking this information and learning from it, you're just blaming the very progressive-leaning social media. Oh, why am I even trying. It's ok, it was Big Corp, they're the ones to blame.

romanovcode 4y ago

Your personal data is of no value (unless you are of high-profile 0.01% of people). However, the data of your city, state, country, gender, race is very valuable because then, for example, companies/government/foreign actors can know exactly what is this town, state, country, gender, race is thinking about any given topic. This is enormous value and this is why companies like Cambridge Analytica are so profitable.

HerrMonnezza 4y ago
I agree, but how is this different from polls, fidelity programs at department stores, statistics on various topics, etc - all of which have existed for decades?
- Liquix 4y ago
  It's different because department store fidelity programs weren't generating terabytes of raw data per day, feeding it into ML systems, correlating output against millions of other data points available for purchase, and then using the resulting insights to manipulate political affairs on a large scale.
radu_floricica 4y ago
I still see no problem with it. They're getting value, I'm getting value.

theclansman 4y ago

You make me feel like a weirdo for hating ads and not wanting to see any of them. And if they're specifically aimed at me and make me more likely to spend money, even worse. I get tempted and then I feel like an idiot for spending the money I worked for on balls shaving machines and flexible pants that look like jeans on the outside.

radu_floricica 4y ago
No, I totally get that. Well, not balls shaving machines, that's between you and the algorithm, I get that ads are a fight for your attention. But that's just a regular tradeoff, nothing huge.

kleene_op 4y ago

To me, people stating that they don't care about corporation having their data because they're just one person are equally as valid as those who think voting is useless because they're just one ballot. Those people then typically complain about election results or corporation bending them over, without ever questioning their own responsibility in the outcome.