11 ms·

This is why the roles of the major players in society (government, monopolies) need to be circumscribed. Large organizations will always try to grow in size an

This is why the roles of the major players in society (government, monopolies) need to be circumscribed. Large organizations will always try to grow in size and power. We need some sort of human right for digital privacy to make this sort of thing illegal.

delichon 2y ago
> This is why the roles of the major players in society (government, monopolies) need to be circumscribed ... We need some sort of human right for digital privacy to make this sort of thing illegal The entities that need to be circumscribed need to enforce a law that circumscribes themselves? Those incentives do not seem to align to form a stable structure.
- FredPret 2y ago
  The only way is to have a broad-based idea among the people about exactly what is allowed for a government and a big business. There's a strong and widespread expectation among many that it's morally imperative for them to be able to elect their own government. So any moves by the government to limit this will be met by fierce resistance. If a similar idea existed about privacy, these sneaky moves wouldn't be feasible and would leave a bad taste in the mouths even of the perpetrators. Unfortunately, many among us are of the "But I've got nothing to hide" persuasion.
  - Wytwwww 2y ago
    > widespread expectation among many that it's morally imperative for them to be able to elect their own government. So any moves by the government to limit this will be met by fierce resistance. That's not really true as far as it comes to the EU though? The EU parliament has always been a joke with limited power (both because of structural reasons and because most of it's members are clueless and extremely easy to influence) and besides that the EU population has no way to exert any direct influence on EU policies (they could do that through the council but they'd have prioritize the EU over domestic issues when voting in national elections which will never happen)
    - nine_k 2y ago
      In the same vein, EU does not have an idea of sanctity of free speech. Various forms of censorship exist in various EU members, all for apparently good causes.
      - consumer451 2y ago
        Neither does any country if you look closely enough, all for apparently good reasons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_Uni...
- ang_cire 2y ago
  That's why you need to always ensure authority rests with individuals, or the ability to secure against unjust authority. The second your only recourse against authority is to politely ask it not to do something bad to you (maybe, for instance, on a piece of paper with multiple choice questions), you have no real autonomy.
Wytwwww 2y ago
Tell that to the people cheering the EU "sticking it" to the megacorporations like Apple. Not that those policies were bad on their own but we shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking that the bureaucrats in Brussels ever cared about anything else than exerting their power and control over anything they can touch... The administrative budget of the EU should be cut by 3-4x times and the money should be spent on something more useful because clearly they are out of control and have nothing better to do. While we're at turning Belgium into something like DC and disenfranchising their government/people living there wouldn't be the worst idea since they clearly have been co-opted into propagating this nonsense.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- lovethevoid 2y ago
  You can be against these changes without immediately bending over for megacorps.
  - Wytwwww 2y ago
    Certainly. Although megacorps at least still have some incentives to compete with each other and therefore try to appease the consumers. Unfortunately the EU does not.
    - lovethevoid 2y ago
      There isn’t much incentive for them to compete. They have demonstrated numerous times they would gladly work together and not compete openly if it were entirely legal. Non compete clauses are an example of this. Additionally, as we’ve seen with asbestos & lead use in personal care and beauty products after it was demonstrated to be horribly toxic, many corporations would gladly even kill their own customers as long as they got paid first. That is to say, megacorps have way too much power and access and this must be globally curtailed. To achieve such a goal the EU cannot be going forward with these changes that put more power into the hands of megacorps who will have no problem complying, as they do in China.
cjbgkagh 2y ago
Free speech absolutists like myself got run over culturally with hate speech laws so for anyone continuing on the fight I wish you the best of luck.
- FredPret 2y ago
  We learnt the value of free speech the hard way, and very slowly. Now we need to keep extending such notions to the rapidly increasing frontiers that new tech is exposing. Hopefully with more tech-savvy generations gradually taking power, this will happen without too many painful lessons.
  - Wytwwww 2y ago
    > We learnt the value of free speech the hard way, and very slowly Did we though? Unfortunately outside the US and a handful of other places free speech doesn't seem to be valued that much, often it's even viewed as a threat (and I'm not talking about authoritarian regimes). It's a double-edged sword to be fair, enabling misinformation and chaos.
    - squigz 2y ago
      > Unfortunately outside the US and a handful of other places free speech doesn't seem to be valued that much, often it's even viewed as a threat Can you convince me of this? Because it's not my impression.
      - throwawayfear 2y ago
        Canada and the EU certainly don’t care about free speech.
        squigz 2y ago
        That comment is not doing a good job of convincing me.
ziggy_star 2y ago
[dead]
- squigz 2y ago
  It's remarkable to you that calls for violence get flagged?
  - ziggy_star 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - squigz 2y ago
      I'm not sure why it matters who you're quoting. Feel free to make a more substantive point. I vouched for it myself, by the way.
      - ziggy_star 2y ago
        [flagged]
        slater 2y ago
        To quote dang from the last time: "you're posting too many low quality comments, especially unsubstantive comments and/or flamebait"
        squigz 2y ago
        To be fair, I'm the only who we know for certain interpreted your comment in the way I did, and I vouched/unflagged it. Who knows why anyone else would flag it?
        tonynator 2y ago
        Because they disagree with it and want it hidden. That is the entire point of the flagging system, to hide opinions the flaggers disagree with from those too oblivious to turn on showdead.
seydor 2y ago
> We need some sort of human right for digital privacy to make this sort of thing illegal. That's how you get another level of super-government, i.e. one more tyrant in the chain Historically the circle breaks only with revolution and violence . Maybe checks and balances would work as a system, but the EU has neither
- squigz 2y ago
  > Historically the circle breaks only with revolution and violence . This sort of rhetoric is dangerous. > Maybe checks and balances would work as a system It does seem to be working well in America.
  - hanniabu 2y ago
    > This sort of rhetoric is dangerous. For governments. > It does seem to be working well in America. They say ignorance is bliss.
    - squigz 2y ago
      > For governments. Ahh yes, because only government officials die in war. > They say ignorance is bliss. Who's ignorant?
  - realce 2y ago
    > This sort of rhetoric is dangerous How?
    - squigz 2y ago
      Because it implies the only way forward is with violence, a premise I thoroughly reject.
      - realce 2y ago
        It states that historically government oppression has resulted in revolution and violence. It doesn't imply its the only way, but it's certainly a human trope repeated countless times in history, and it will occur again. Could provide an constructive alternative viewpoint instead of calling plain facts of history "dangerous" or "rhetoric" as if acknowledgement of history is dangerous?
diego_sandoval 2y ago
Circumscribed by whom? The government is notoriously bad at stopping itself from abusing power.
chgs 2y ago
The largest organisations are the trillion dollar ones we interact with every day, not the eu or even the German or us governments .
- onlyrealcuzzo 2y ago
  The US Government spending is an order of magnitude bigger than the largest private companies in the world... WalMart is the largest private spender in the world at around ~$400B per year. The US Federal Government alone spends >$400B per month... That doesn't even include state and local governments which basically doubles that.
  - hot_gril 2y ago
    That and I can choose not to directly do business with a company without having to upend my entire life. Also none of them have armies. Not that I'm a libertarian or something, just gotta remember that the big nations are very clearly more powerful than corporations.
    - YurgenJurgensen 2y ago
      >That and I can choose not to directly do business with a company without having to upend my entire life. I could easily see a self-employed Google user who decided to cut all ties with Google basically having to build a new life from scratch.
      - hot_gril 2y ago
        It'd mean directing people to a new email address, downloading stuff out of Drive, and maybe not advertising via Google. That doesn't seem like a lot. If your job is YouTube content creation, you'd need a new job, but you also had to make specific choices to end up there.
- School-Cotton 2y ago
  The German government can put you in prison. The US government can do that, and additionally can even kill you.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
t0bia_s 2y ago
What about letting people to learn about privacy in digital world in first place? Regulations take individual responsibility and create feeling of something is solved by government. But no one knows what exactly, how is it done and most important... Why.
adrianmsmith 2y ago
> We need some sort of human right for digital privacy to make this sort of thing illegal. This already exists in the EU, the EU charter of Fundamental Rights https://fra.europa.eu/en/eu-charter/article/7-respect-private-and-family-life#:~:text=Everyone%20has%20the%20right%20to,family%20life%2C%20home%20and%20communications https://fra.europa.eu/en/eu-charter/article/7-respect-privat.... states "Everyone has the right to respect for his or her private and family life, home and communications", however it seems to have been ignored.

delichon 2y ago

> This is why the roles of the major players in society (government, monopolies) need to be circumscribed ... We need some sort of human right for digital privacy to make this sort of thing illegal The entities that need to be circumscribed need to enforce a law that circumscribes themselves? Those incentives do not seem to align to form a stable structure.

FredPret 2y ago
The only way is to have a broad-based idea among the people about exactly what is allowed for a government and a big business. There's a strong and widespread expectation among many that it's morally imperative for them to be able to elect their own government. So any moves by the government to limit this will be met by fierce resistance. If a similar idea existed about privacy, these sneaky moves wouldn't be feasible and would leave a bad taste in the mouths even of the perpetrators. Unfortunately, many among us are of the "But I've got nothing to hide" persuasion.
- Wytwwww 2y ago
  > widespread expectation among many that it's morally imperative for them to be able to elect their own government. So any moves by the government to limit this will be met by fierce resistance. That's not really true as far as it comes to the EU though? The EU parliament has always been a joke with limited power (both because of structural reasons and because most of it's members are clueless and extremely easy to influence) and besides that the EU population has no way to exert any direct influence on EU policies (they could do that through the council but they'd have prioritize the EU over domestic issues when voting in national elections which will never happen)
  - nine_k 2y ago
    In the same vein, EU does not have an idea of sanctity of free speech. Various forms of censorship exist in various EU members, all for apparently good causes.
    - consumer451 2y ago
      Neither does any country if you look closely enough, all for apparently good reasons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_Uni...
ang_cire 2y ago
That's why you need to always ensure authority rests with individuals, or the ability to secure against unjust authority. The second your only recourse against authority is to politely ask it not to do something bad to you (maybe, for instance, on a piece of paper with multiple choice questions), you have no real autonomy.

Wytwwww 2y ago

Tell that to the people cheering the EU "sticking it" to the megacorporations like Apple. Not that those policies were bad on their own but we shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking that the bureaucrats in Brussels ever cared about anything else than exerting their power and control over anything they can touch... The administrative budget of the EU should be cut by 3-4x times and the money should be spent on something more useful because clearly they are out of control and have nothing better to do. While we're at turning Belgium into something like DC and disenfranchising their government/people living there wouldn't be the worst idea since they clearly have been co-opted into propagating this nonsense.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
lovethevoid 2y ago
You can be against these changes without immediately bending over for megacorps.
- Wytwwww 2y ago
  Certainly. Although megacorps at least still have some incentives to compete with each other and therefore try to appease the consumers. Unfortunately the EU does not.
  - lovethevoid 2y ago
    There isn’t much incentive for them to compete. They have demonstrated numerous times they would gladly work together and not compete openly if it were entirely legal. Non compete clauses are an example of this. Additionally, as we’ve seen with asbestos & lead use in personal care and beauty products after it was demonstrated to be horribly toxic, many corporations would gladly even kill their own customers as long as they got paid first. That is to say, megacorps have way too much power and access and this must be globally curtailed. To achieve such a goal the EU cannot be going forward with these changes that put more power into the hands of megacorps who will have no problem complying, as they do in China.

cjbgkagh 2y ago

Free speech absolutists like myself got run over culturally with hate speech laws so for anyone continuing on the fight I wish you the best of luck.

FredPret 2y ago
We learnt the value of free speech the hard way, and very slowly. Now we need to keep extending such notions to the rapidly increasing frontiers that new tech is exposing. Hopefully with more tech-savvy generations gradually taking power, this will happen without too many painful lessons.
- Wytwwww 2y ago
  > We learnt the value of free speech the hard way, and very slowly Did we though? Unfortunately outside the US and a handful of other places free speech doesn't seem to be valued that much, often it's even viewed as a threat (and I'm not talking about authoritarian regimes). It's a double-edged sword to be fair, enabling misinformation and chaos.
  - squigz 2y ago
    > Unfortunately outside the US and a handful of other places free speech doesn't seem to be valued that much, often it's even viewed as a threat Can you convince me of this? Because it's not my impression.
    - throwawayfear 2y ago
      Canada and the EU certainly don’t care about free speech.
      - squigz 2y ago
        That comment is not doing a good job of convincing me.

ziggy_star 2y ago

[dead]

squigz 2y ago
It's remarkable to you that calls for violence get flagged?
- ziggy_star 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - squigz 2y ago
    I'm not sure why it matters who you're quoting. Feel free to make a more substantive point. I vouched for it myself, by the way.
    - ziggy_star 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - slater 2y ago
        To quote dang from the last time: "you're posting too many low quality comments, especially unsubstantive comments and/or flamebait"
      - squigz 2y ago
        To be fair, I'm the only who we know for certain interpreted your comment in the way I did, and I vouched/unflagged it. Who knows why anyone else would flag it?
        tonynator 2y ago
        Because they disagree with it and want it hidden. That is the entire point of the flagging system, to hide opinions the flaggers disagree with from those too oblivious to turn on showdead.

seydor 2y ago

> We need some sort of human right for digital privacy to make this sort of thing illegal. That's how you get another level of super-government, i.e. one more tyrant in the chain Historically the circle breaks only with revolution and violence . Maybe checks and balances would work as a system, but the EU has neither

squigz 2y ago
> Historically the circle breaks only with revolution and violence . This sort of rhetoric is dangerous. > Maybe checks and balances would work as a system It does seem to be working well in America.
- hanniabu 2y ago
  > This sort of rhetoric is dangerous. For governments. > It does seem to be working well in America. They say ignorance is bliss.
  - squigz 2y ago
    > For governments. Ahh yes, because only government officials die in war. > They say ignorance is bliss. Who's ignorant?
- realce 2y ago
  > This sort of rhetoric is dangerous How?
  - squigz 2y ago
    Because it implies the only way forward is with violence, a premise I thoroughly reject.
    - realce 2y ago
      It states that historically government oppression has resulted in revolution and violence. It doesn't imply its the only way, but it's certainly a human trope repeated countless times in history, and it will occur again. Could provide an constructive alternative viewpoint instead of calling plain facts of history "dangerous" or "rhetoric" as if acknowledgement of history is dangerous?

diego_sandoval 2y ago

Circumscribed by whom? The government is notoriously bad at stopping itself from abusing power.

chgs 2y ago

The largest organisations are the trillion dollar ones we interact with every day, not the eu or even the German or us governments .

onlyrealcuzzo 2y ago
The US Government spending is an order of magnitude bigger than the largest private companies in the world... WalMart is the largest private spender in the world at around ~$400B per year. The US Federal Government alone spends >$400B per month... That doesn't even include state and local governments which basically doubles that.
- hot_gril 2y ago
  That and I can choose not to directly do business with a company without having to upend my entire life. Also none of them have armies. Not that I'm a libertarian or something, just gotta remember that the big nations are very clearly more powerful than corporations.
  - YurgenJurgensen 2y ago
    >That and I can choose not to directly do business with a company without having to upend my entire life. I could easily see a self-employed Google user who decided to cut all ties with Google basically having to build a new life from scratch.
    - hot_gril 2y ago
      It'd mean directing people to a new email address, downloading stuff out of Drive, and maybe not advertising via Google. That doesn't seem like a lot. If your job is YouTube content creation, you'd need a new job, but you also had to make specific choices to end up there.
School-Cotton 2y ago
The German government can put you in prison. The US government can do that, and additionally can even kill you.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

t0bia_s 2y ago

What about letting people to learn about privacy in digital world in first place? Regulations take individual responsibility and create feeling of something is solved by government. But no one knows what exactly, how is it done and most important... Why.

adrianmsmith 2y ago

> We need some sort of human right for digital privacy to make this sort of thing illegal. This already exists in the EU, the EU charter of Fundamental Rights https://fra.europa.eu/en/eu-charter/article/7-respect-private-and-family-life#:~:text=Everyone%20has%20the%20right%20to,family%20life%2C%20home%20and%20communications https://fra.europa.eu/en/eu-charter/article/7-respect-privat.... states "Everyone has the right to respect for his or her private and family life, home and communications", however it seems to have been ignored.