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The cognitive dissonance is in the voters and users. Even right here on HN, where most people understand the issue, you'll see conversations and arguments in f

The cognitive dissonance is in the voters and users. Even right here on HN, where most people understand the issue, you'll see conversations and arguments in favor of letting companies vacuum up as much data and user info as they want (without consent or opt-in), while also saying it should be illegal for the government to collect the same data without a warrant. In practice, the corporations and government have found the best of both worlds: https://www.wired.com/story/fbi-purchase-location-data-wray-senate/ https://www.wired.com/story/fbi-purchase-location-data-wray-... Profit for the corporation, legal user data for the government.

spacemadness 2y ago
HN is filled with folks that wrote the code in question, or want to create similar products. And they hate to have it pointed out that these tools may cause harm so they thrash around and make excuses and point fingers. A tale as old as this site.
- mrmetanoia 2y ago
  I often have to remind myself who hosts this board and that I am hanging out on a site for successful and aspiring techno-robber-barons.
  - sabbaticaldev 2y ago
    > I am hanging out on a site for successful and aspiring techno-robber-barons. that’s how we first arrive here (all of us). Time pass tho and most around fail then we become proper people capable of reasoning
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
    Complete with egotistical and ironic appropriation of the word hacker.
  - singleshot_ 2y ago
    Explaining that modern technology is user-hostile and destructive to the society is nowhere else more on-topic than Paul Graham’s ego blog. While it might be true to say the site is “for” robber barons, There are a lot more users here than the ones you described.
itronitron 2y ago
And in Europe, everyone and their dog uses WhatsApp
- ale42 2y ago
  Not everyone but almost... and it's the same in other places (was already the case in Buenos Aires when I went there a few years ago). And of course when you tell people that there are better alternatives, many of them don't want "another app"... (but then they install one full of trackers to hope get some kind of prize at the local supermarket).
BeetleB 2y ago
Anti-disclaimer: I'm not one of those folks. However, that's not at all a cognitive dissonance. Fundamentally, there's a difference between governments and private companies, and it is fairly basic to have different rules for them. The government cannot impinge on free speech, but almost all companies do. The government cannot restrict religion, but to some extent, companies can. Etc. Of course, in this case, it's understandable to argue that neither side should have that much data without consent. But it's also totally understandable to allow only the private company to do so.
- jlarocco 2y ago
  There is fundamentally a difference between corporations and the government, but it's still a cognitive dissonance. These aren't the laws of physics - we chose to have different rules for the government and corporations in this case. There are plenty of cases where the same rules apply to both the government and corporations.
doctorpangloss 2y ago
There isn’t a single intellectually honest harm associated with the majority of app telemetry and for almost all ad data collection. Like go ahead and name one. Once you say some vague demographic and bodily autonomy stuff: you know, if you’re going to invoke “voters,” I’ve got bad news for you. Some kinds of hate are popular. So you can’t pick and choose what popular stuff is good or what popular stuff is bad. It has to be by some objective criteria. Anyway, I disagree with your assessment of the popular position anyway. I don’t think there is really that much cognitive dissonance among voters at all. People are sort of right to not care. The FTC’s position is really unpopular, when framed in the intellectually honest way as it is in the EU, “here is the price of the web service if you opt out of ads and targeting.” You also have to decide if ad prices should go up or down, and think deeply: do you want a world where ad inventory is expensive? It is an escape valve for very powerful networks. Your favorite political causes like reducing fossil fuel use and bodily autonomy benefit from paid traffic all the same as selling junk. The young beloved members of Congress innovate in paid Meta campaign traffic. And maybe you run a startup or work for one, and you want to compete against the vast portfolio of products the network owners now sell. There’s a little bit of a chance with paid traffic but none if you expect to play by organic content creation rules: it’s the same thing, but you are transferring money via meaningless labor of making viral content instead of focusing on your cause or business. And anyway, TikTok could always choose to not show your video for any reason. The intellectual framework against ad telemetry is really, really weak. The FTC saying it doesn’t change that.
- arminiusreturns 2y ago
  The intelligence agencies literally use ad data to do "targeted killing" what are you even talking about? Ex-NSA Chief: 'We Kill People Based on Metadata'...
  - doctorpangloss 2y ago
    Can you define a harm suffered by the people that the FTC represents? What about the EU beneficiaries of the GDPR? This is sincere, it is meant to advance to a real and interesting conversation.
neuralRiot 2y ago
>The cognitive dissonance is in the voters and users. People really need to learn to say “NO” even if that means an inconvenience “Your personal information might be shared with our business partners for metrics and a customer tailored experience” no thanks, “what is your phone number? so I can give you 10% discount” no thanks, “cash or credit?” Cash, thanks, “login with google/ apple/ blood sample” no thanks

spacemadness 2y ago

HN is filled with folks that wrote the code in question, or want to create similar products. And they hate to have it pointed out that these tools may cause harm so they thrash around and make excuses and point fingers. A tale as old as this site.

mrmetanoia 2y ago
I often have to remind myself who hosts this board and that I am hanging out on a site for successful and aspiring techno-robber-barons.
- sabbaticaldev 2y ago
  > I am hanging out on a site for successful and aspiring techno-robber-barons. that’s how we first arrive here (all of us). Time pass tho and most around fail then we become proper people capable of reasoning
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
  Complete with egotistical and ironic appropriation of the word hacker.
- singleshot_ 2y ago
  Explaining that modern technology is user-hostile and destructive to the society is nowhere else more on-topic than Paul Graham’s ego blog. While it might be true to say the site is “for” robber barons, There are a lot more users here than the ones you described.

itronitron 2y ago

And in Europe, everyone and their dog uses WhatsApp

ale42 2y ago
Not everyone but almost... and it's the same in other places (was already the case in Buenos Aires when I went there a few years ago). And of course when you tell people that there are better alternatives, many of them don't want "another app"... (but then they install one full of trackers to hope get some kind of prize at the local supermarket).

BeetleB 2y ago

Anti-disclaimer: I'm not one of those folks. However, that's not at all a cognitive dissonance. Fundamentally, there's a difference between governments and private companies, and it is fairly basic to have different rules for them. The government cannot impinge on free speech, but almost all companies do. The government cannot restrict religion, but to some extent, companies can. Etc. Of course, in this case, it's understandable to argue that neither side should have that much data without consent. But it's also totally understandable to allow only the private company to do so.

jlarocco 2y ago
There is fundamentally a difference between corporations and the government, but it's still a cognitive dissonance. These aren't the laws of physics - we chose to have different rules for the government and corporations in this case. There are plenty of cases where the same rules apply to both the government and corporations.

doctorpangloss 2y ago

There isn’t a single intellectually honest harm associated with the majority of app telemetry and for almost all ad data collection. Like go ahead and name one. Once you say some vague demographic and bodily autonomy stuff: you know, if you’re going to invoke “voters,” I’ve got bad news for you. Some kinds of hate are popular. So you can’t pick and choose what popular stuff is good or what popular stuff is bad. It has to be by some objective criteria. Anyway, I disagree with your assessment of the popular position anyway. I don’t think there is really that much cognitive dissonance among voters at all. People are sort of right to not care. The FTC’s position is really unpopular, when framed in the intellectually honest way as it is in the EU, “here is the price of the web service if you opt out of ads and targeting.” You also have to decide if ad prices should go up or down, and think deeply: do you want a world where ad inventory is expensive? It is an escape valve for very powerful networks. Your favorite political causes like reducing fossil fuel use and bodily autonomy benefit from paid traffic all the same as selling junk. The young beloved members of Congress innovate in paid Meta campaign traffic. And maybe you run a startup or work for one, and you want to compete against the vast portfolio of products the network owners now sell. There’s a little bit of a chance with paid traffic but none if you expect to play by organic content creation rules: it’s the same thing, but you are transferring money via meaningless labor of making viral content instead of focusing on your cause or business. And anyway, TikTok could always choose to not show your video for any reason. The intellectual framework against ad telemetry is really, really weak. The FTC saying it doesn’t change that.

arminiusreturns 2y ago
The intelligence agencies literally use ad data to do "targeted killing" what are you even talking about? Ex-NSA Chief: 'We Kill People Based on Metadata'...
- doctorpangloss 2y ago
  Can you define a harm suffered by the people that the FTC represents? What about the EU beneficiaries of the GDPR? This is sincere, it is meant to advance to a real and interesting conversation.

neuralRiot 2y ago

>The cognitive dissonance is in the voters and users. People really need to learn to say “NO” even if that means an inconvenience “Your personal information might be shared with our business partners for metrics and a customer tailored experience” no thanks, “what is your phone number? so I can give you 10% discount” no thanks, “cash or credit?” Cash, thanks, “login with google/ apple/ blood sample” no thanks