4 ms·

We have a fundamental disagreement. I don't agree that ad personalization and data collection is similar (in any way) to selling addictive drugs and substances

• lrvick 4y ago
  I take issue with you trying to downplay these issues in a way that reads a lot like victim blaming. Surveillance capitalism literally exploits human dopamine responses to make almost everyone spend more hours of their lives scrolling on these platforms than they want to or would be if there was no profit motive. It -is- an addictive drug system. We have endless examples of adtech fueling the need to create ever more addictive platforms that we have tremendous evidence are a major component in the compromised mental health of millions, promoting anti-covid conspiracies, automatically putting malleable personalities into hate group filter bubbles, swaying elections, increasing suicide rates, etc etc. Also it even helps nicotine companies connect with new customers. Smoking rates have been dropping and not everyone smokes anymore. Surveillance capitalism products however currently addict -billions- of people. These companies literally sell behavior changes as a service to the highest bidder causing harm to nearly every sector of our society. You are right that surveillance capitalism is not the same Big Tobacco. It is so much worse. It empowers big tobacco, big pharma, scams, casinos, hate groups, climate change denialism, and election manipulators to be maximally successful. I frankly do not know how anyone that works for companies like Facebook, Tiktok, Twitter, or Google live with themselves.