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As much as this turns my stomach, this is neither new nor unexpected, and honestly this is fairly benign to many of the things that companies do such as precisi
by freedomben 3y ago
As much as this turns my stomach, this is neither new nor unexpected, and honestly this is fairly benign to many of the things that companies do such as precision location tracking throughout the building, using company-issued phones, and using normal security surveillance to monitor "watercooler" talk and things like that.
We had our chance to push back against company surveillance well over a decade ago, and nobody except privacy advocates like me seemed to give a shit. Some very close friends actually told (after the company for "saftey reasons" started using RFID tracking to track our movements throughout the building using our ID cards) that I was being "paranoid" by suggesting that at some point it would be openly surveiling employee activities like bathroom breaks, watercooler conversation, etc.
Please don't misunderstand, I'm not saying that it's too late, that we've lost, and that we get what we deserve (although such might be true), but I am pessimistic that we could ever reverse this at this late stage point. The cancer has long metastasized and buried itself deeply into every nook and cranny.
I don't know if it will work, but this is what I think we should do:
1. Refuse to work at companies that do the most invasive surveillance. This means a lot more of your options are gonna be to work for yourself or for a startup.
2. Spread the word in conversations and stuff (when appropriate. Don't be obnoxious and shove people's face in it cause that won't serve any purpose except alienating them). Seek to educate and inform, not to evangelize or argue (though such things do have their place, but use discretion).
3. Shame the companies who do surveillance. I'm not saying be obnoxious or in-your-face about it because that won't do anything other than make you an asshole, but it's absolutely worth bringing it up in a reasonable, fact-based way when appropriate. I've told recruiters that I won't work for <big tech co> because of this.
4. Live your values and try not to do business with these companies, though such can be hard when many have near-monopoly status or a hard-to-avoid position. A full boycott is admirable, but you gotta live your life too. Just try to continually re-evaluate alternatives and vote with your $.
Anticipating someone dismissing me as an "r/antiwork" person (yes, people on the internet and even Hacker News do routinely make ridiculous assumptions about people based on zero knowledge other than one comment they just read), I actually think ignoring this helps the antiwork people by giving them valid points about the abuse. If you don't think they're right, then you should be very much on my side here because if nothing happens, they will eventually be right.
- earthwalker99 3y agoWhat could anyone do about it? Workers rights have never been won without a militant organized labor force. "Advocate" for your pet interests all you want, but you aren't accomplishing anything for anyone else unless you're organizing, and "privacy" is frankly a terrible cause to organize around and you seem to already realize that. Focus on wages, time off, and improving peoples everyday working conditions, and you will eventually get your chance to address privacy. That's just the reality of the exploitative system we live under.
- freedomben 3y agoThanks, your comment is interesting. Just want to clarify on something as we might have different definitions/understanding. > Workers rights have never been won without a militant organized labor force. Just in the past few years, many companies have started giving generous paternal/maternal leave policies. Which militant organization brought that change about? Or would you not consider that to be workers rights? If the latter, can you give me some examples of what you consider to be workers rights so we can be on the same page?
- earthwalker99 3y ago>Just in the past few years, many companies have started giving generous paternal/maternal leave policies. Try passing these paternity leave policies as a law and see which side those companies are on then. You will quickly get a taste of reality. Capital loves to perform generosity when they retain the power to stop at a moment's notice and lay everybody off with no cause. The 40 hour work week was won with nothing less than years of backbreaking struggle and 4 innocent lives lost at the hands of the mitary assigned to break the strike. US workers have not won any universal workers rights in living memory. The decimation of labor unions and the CIO in the McCarthy era put an abrupt end to that. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullman_Strike https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullman_Strike
- pjlegato 3y ago> Try passing these paternity leave policies as a law These policies have been the law for many years in the United States, both at the federal level and (additionally and seperately) at the state level in nearly all states: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave_in_the_United_States#Current_legislation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave_in_the_United_S...