7 ms·

Needing to wear gas masks outside sounds like a pretty bad, tangible harm caused by a lack of pollution regulation. Do you have any examples of similar tangibl

Needing to wear gas masks outside sounds like a pretty bad, tangible harm caused by a lack of pollution regulation. Do you have any examples of similar tangible harm caused by lack of regulation on data collection?

hotspot_one 2y ago
People in Texas facing murder charges for traveling to other states to get an abortion. People facing criminal charges for helping people in Texas learn about what options for managing their own reproductive health and bodies.
- mgraczyk 2y ago
  Do you have a link for the first one? I don't think that has happened (although it could under Texas law as I understand it) Is there an actual case where data described in the article was used for anything like what you're suggesting? The actual cases involve people reporting each other (a man reporting a woman he is dating for example). Sounds to me like blaming the acid rain on the acid detectors
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    >a man reporting a woman he is dating for example That sounds like a good reason for any women in Texas to avoid dating any men in Texas.
gaganyaan 2y ago
Targeted advertising dragging people down rabbit holes into extremism
- mgraczyk 2y ago
  Ads don't do that. Maybe you're thinking of organic posts, which are not ads? Or do you have examples of "extremist" ads? Having worked on this stuff, I can tell you that the data relevant to extremist rabbit holes is not what the FTC is talking about. Facebook learns enough from which posts you click on to know which extremist content to suggest (and then they intentionally do not suggest it)
  - llamaimperative 2y ago
    The necessity to engage people for the advertising business model to work does do this. People are naturally engaged by outraged, the algorithms “figure this out,” and systematically produce outrage. No ads, no existential need to arbitrarily increase engagement.
- t0bia_s 2y ago
  Consumerism makes society less conflict. This idea was implemented by propaganda in 30's by Edward Bernays. Propaganda was later changed to term public relations after connection with Nazism during WW2.
bitnasty 2y ago
Identity theft
- mgraczyk 2y ago
  Do you have any examples where the data was obtained from sources that collected it for ads? As I understand it, the sort of data that is collected for behavioral advertising isn't useful for identity theft and has not been used in that way. For identity theft you need things like names, addresses, SSN, W2 income, etc
aierou 2y ago
Many people fear that a corrupt or authoritarian regime might misuse data to cause harm. However, the reality is that such regimes tend to carry out harmful actions regardless of the data they collect. Data can make their efforts more efficient, but the real danger lies in the regime's intent, not necessarily the data itself.
- mgraczyk 2y ago
  Exactly, historical authoritarian states got by just fine by reading the mail and listening to conversations. You don't need to know which fragrance I bought last week to oppress me, and it wouldn't help anyway
  - monkaiju 2y ago
    But they broadly didnt actually get along just fine... Almost without exception they have falleb, commonly due to internal resistance. Making that internal resistabce harder via enhanced surveillance is the issue that could make future scenarios even worse.
    - mgraczyk 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - Tanoc 2y ago
        The most defined example would probably be Apartheid South Africa. Despite being in a weak position, having few resources, and dealing with constant losses, the ANC were so successful in harassing the National Party over three decades that the National Party finally ceded power in 1993. This was enabled by radio broadcasts, fast printing, and starting in the late 1970s digital espionage. Information and the spread of information was tightly controlled by the National Party, which is one of the three major reasons why it took so long and why slow erosion was the only viability rather than full immediate revolution.
      - singleshot_ 2y ago
vaindil 2y ago
I'm sick of needing to spend weeks researching which couch or mattress to buy because corporations will happily sell me a terrible couch for $3,000 that only cost them $50 to make. It'll fall apart in a year or two, conveniently after the warranty expires, but hey, their profits are going up so who cares about the buyer? I'm sick of events like the Boar's Head listeria outbreak killing 10 people happening with regularity now. Last year it was eye drops causing blindness. The companies don't care beyond the lawsuits they'll face, who cares if people die as long as their profits go up? I'm sick of oil companies lying about the environmental harms they cause. Their profits are going up, so why should they care about climate change or the tainted groundwater their fracking causes? I'm sick of seeing ads and billboards for corporations everywhere I go. I'm sick of being tracked because corporations can make x% more money with my data than they can without it. Installing uBlock Origin is easy, but we now have facial recognition systems with physical cameras in the real world. Can't do anything about those unless I just never leave my home. I'm sick of people defending this behavior by asking "what tangible harm have you experienced?". The tangible harm is that I'm fucking tired. I'm tired of living in a society that requires expending so much mental energy just to exist. I should be able to just trust (within reason, of course) that a $1,000 mattress will work for X years without needing to research whether the company is decent or known to be awful. I should be able to buy chocolate from the grocery store without needing to research whether the corporation (or any of its 24 parents and subsidiaries) used slave labor to produce it. I shouldn't need to worry about bottled water being stolen from aquifers by corporations that will simply move on after destroying the communities that depend on that water. I vote, because it's all I can do, but that accomplishes nothing because we're stuck in a two-party system that won't let me vote for a candidate far enough left to actually fix things. Instead we continue to maintain the status quo, because corporations have more money and political power than civilians. I'm well aware that this reads like an overdramatic manifesto. I'm just sick of everything feeling like it's getting worse all the time, and it seems pretty causally linked to the rise of corporations. Is it too much to ask that I be able to live without them invading _every single aspect of my life_? I don't think it is, but I think we're too far gone at this point for it to ever change.
- mgraczyk 2y ago
  [flagged]
Const-me 2y ago
> similar tangible harm caused by lack of regulation on data collection? There’s a spike in teenager suicides, girls in particular. The phenomenon is well researched, it correlates with popularity of social media among teenagers. I believe that’s causation not just correlation, because social media didn’t became popular everywhere at once, they did gradually for different countries/languages, the teenager suicides spike follows. Restricting data collection will fix that by dismantling the business model. Will be harder for tech companies to convert screen time into profits. Will even flip the motivation developing addictive apps: the more time users will spend there the more bandwidth they consume i.e. profits will turn into costs. Which is good for most people, except employees and stock owners of social media companies. P.S. Personally, I prefer more radical approach: total ban of advertisements on the internets. Many cities did it for billboards, I don’t see why we shouldn’t do the same online.
- mgraczyk 2y ago
  Banning online advertisements would essentially cripple small businesses in the US. Even local businesses today rely on online ads for foot traffic. Banning ads would send us back to the economy of the 1950s, where most profit accrues to a number of powerful corporations, and small manufacturers and creators have no market power. I used data and ran experiments to measure and mitigate teen well being and harm at Instagram. I was not on the team responsible for this, but I worked on organic ranking and was responsible for understanding and measuring the impact of these things. I can say with certainty nobody cares more about teen well being than Meta. It's their future, and the success Instagram over Snapchat is essentially completely due to better positive interventions for well being. We measured this carefully with RCTs and had more data than anyone on the planet. Overall Instagram is net good for the majority of teens across a wide variety of well being metrics, and net negative for a small percentage. Meta spends hundreds of millions trying to fix those latter, rarer cases.
  - Const-me 2y ago
    > where most profit accrues to a number of powerful corporations, and small manufacturers and creators have no market power You’re describing the status quo with online ads still legal. Amazon has 37.6% share of e-commerce; small manufacturers can’t compete. Google hosts 79% of videos viewed over the internets, and it abuses small creators really bad, with no ways to appeal or contact humans. One of the reasons how these corporations became that powerful was unrestricted and legal digital surveillance. Another reason, anti-monopoly regulators asleep at their job allowing big tech companies to easily acquire competitors (e.g. Google was competing with YouTube for a year or so with “Google Video” product, failed, then acquired the competitor). > net good for the majority of teens across a wide variety of well being metrics, and net negative for a small percentage Many researchers who don’t work for FB were warning for years. Couple years ago some of that internal research was leaked, here’s a copy-paste “Thirty-two percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse” https://archive.is/qBpaq#selection-915.1-915.113 https://archive.is/qBpaq#selection-915.1-915.113 I would not call 32% “a small percentage”. Another thing, “negative for just a small percentage” is a poor defense. Even if it’s indeed tiny, it still doesn’t mean the business model should be legal. Imagine a lottery where 0.1% people win $1M, 1% people win $10k, 10% people win $1k, 89.9% don’t win or lose anything, and 0.01% lose their life – don’t you think a business model like that should be illegal?

hotspot_one 2y ago

People in Texas facing murder charges for traveling to other states to get an abortion. People facing criminal charges for helping people in Texas learn about what options for managing their own reproductive health and bodies.

mgraczyk 2y ago
Do you have a link for the first one? I don't think that has happened (although it could under Texas law as I understand it) Is there an actual case where data described in the article was used for anything like what you're suggesting? The actual cases involve people reporting each other (a man reporting a woman he is dating for example). Sounds to me like blaming the acid rain on the acid detectors
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  >a man reporting a woman he is dating for example That sounds like a good reason for any women in Texas to avoid dating any men in Texas.

gaganyaan 2y ago

Targeted advertising dragging people down rabbit holes into extremism

mgraczyk 2y ago
Ads don't do that. Maybe you're thinking of organic posts, which are not ads? Or do you have examples of "extremist" ads? Having worked on this stuff, I can tell you that the data relevant to extremist rabbit holes is not what the FTC is talking about. Facebook learns enough from which posts you click on to know which extremist content to suggest (and then they intentionally do not suggest it)
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  The necessity to engage people for the advertising business model to work does do this. People are naturally engaged by outraged, the algorithms “figure this out,” and systematically produce outrage. No ads, no existential need to arbitrarily increase engagement.
t0bia_s 2y ago
Consumerism makes society less conflict. This idea was implemented by propaganda in 30's by Edward Bernays. Propaganda was later changed to term public relations after connection with Nazism during WW2.

bitnasty 2y ago

Identity theft

mgraczyk 2y ago
Do you have any examples where the data was obtained from sources that collected it for ads? As I understand it, the sort of data that is collected for behavioral advertising isn't useful for identity theft and has not been used in that way. For identity theft you need things like names, addresses, SSN, W2 income, etc

aierou 2y ago

Many people fear that a corrupt or authoritarian regime might misuse data to cause harm. However, the reality is that such regimes tend to carry out harmful actions regardless of the data they collect. Data can make their efforts more efficient, but the real danger lies in the regime's intent, not necessarily the data itself.

mgraczyk 2y ago
Exactly, historical authoritarian states got by just fine by reading the mail and listening to conversations. You don't need to know which fragrance I bought last week to oppress me, and it wouldn't help anyway
- monkaiju 2y ago
  But they broadly didnt actually get along just fine... Almost without exception they have falleb, commonly due to internal resistance. Making that internal resistabce harder via enhanced surveillance is the issue that could make future scenarios even worse.
  - mgraczyk 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - Tanoc 2y ago
      The most defined example would probably be Apartheid South Africa. Despite being in a weak position, having few resources, and dealing with constant losses, the ANC were so successful in harassing the National Party over three decades that the National Party finally ceded power in 1993. This was enabled by radio broadcasts, fast printing, and starting in the late 1970s digital espionage. Information and the spread of information was tightly controlled by the National Party, which is one of the three major reasons why it took so long and why slow erosion was the only viability rather than full immediate revolution.
    - singleshot_ 2y ago

vaindil 2y ago

I'm sick of needing to spend weeks researching which couch or mattress to buy because corporations will happily sell me a terrible couch for $3,000 that only cost them $50 to make. It'll fall apart in a year or two, conveniently after the warranty expires, but hey, their profits are going up so who cares about the buyer? I'm sick of events like the Boar's Head listeria outbreak killing 10 people happening with regularity now. Last year it was eye drops causing blindness. The companies don't care beyond the lawsuits they'll face, who cares if people die as long as their profits go up? I'm sick of oil companies lying about the environmental harms they cause. Their profits are going up, so why should they care about climate change or the tainted groundwater their fracking causes? I'm sick of seeing ads and billboards for corporations everywhere I go. I'm sick of being tracked because corporations can make x% more money with my data than they can without it. Installing uBlock Origin is easy, but we now have facial recognition systems with physical cameras in the real world. Can't do anything about those unless I just never leave my home. I'm sick of people defending this behavior by asking "what tangible harm have you experienced?". The tangible harm is that I'm fucking tired. I'm tired of living in a society that requires expending so much mental energy just to exist. I should be able to just trust (within reason, of course) that a $1,000 mattress will work for X years without needing to research whether the company is decent or known to be awful. I should be able to buy chocolate from the grocery store without needing to research whether the corporation (or any of its 24 parents and subsidiaries) used slave labor to produce it. I shouldn't need to worry about bottled water being stolen from aquifers by corporations that will simply move on after destroying the communities that depend on that water. I vote, because it's all I can do, but that accomplishes nothing because we're stuck in a two-party system that won't let me vote for a candidate far enough left to actually fix things. Instead we continue to maintain the status quo, because corporations have more money and political power than civilians. I'm well aware that this reads like an overdramatic manifesto. I'm just sick of everything feeling like it's getting worse all the time, and it seems pretty causally linked to the rise of corporations. Is it too much to ask that I be able to live without them invading _every single aspect of my life_? I don't think it is, but I think we're too far gone at this point for it to ever change.

mgraczyk 2y ago
[flagged]

Const-me 2y ago

> similar tangible harm caused by lack of regulation on data collection? There’s a spike in teenager suicides, girls in particular. The phenomenon is well researched, it correlates with popularity of social media among teenagers. I believe that’s causation not just correlation, because social media didn’t became popular everywhere at once, they did gradually for different countries/languages, the teenager suicides spike follows. Restricting data collection will fix that by dismantling the business model. Will be harder for tech companies to convert screen time into profits. Will even flip the motivation developing addictive apps: the more time users will spend there the more bandwidth they consume i.e. profits will turn into costs. Which is good for most people, except employees and stock owners of social media companies. P.S. Personally, I prefer more radical approach: total ban of advertisements on the internets. Many cities did it for billboards, I don’t see why we shouldn’t do the same online.

mgraczyk 2y ago
Banning online advertisements would essentially cripple small businesses in the US. Even local businesses today rely on online ads for foot traffic. Banning ads would send us back to the economy of the 1950s, where most profit accrues to a number of powerful corporations, and small manufacturers and creators have no market power. I used data and ran experiments to measure and mitigate teen well being and harm at Instagram. I was not on the team responsible for this, but I worked on organic ranking and was responsible for understanding and measuring the impact of these things. I can say with certainty nobody cares more about teen well being than Meta. It's their future, and the success Instagram over Snapchat is essentially completely due to better positive interventions for well being. We measured this carefully with RCTs and had more data than anyone on the planet. Overall Instagram is net good for the majority of teens across a wide variety of well being metrics, and net negative for a small percentage. Meta spends hundreds of millions trying to fix those latter, rarer cases.
- Const-me 2y ago
  > where most profit accrues to a number of powerful corporations, and small manufacturers and creators have no market power You’re describing the status quo with online ads still legal. Amazon has 37.6% share of e-commerce; small manufacturers can’t compete. Google hosts 79% of videos viewed over the internets, and it abuses small creators really bad, with no ways to appeal or contact humans. One of the reasons how these corporations became that powerful was unrestricted and legal digital surveillance. Another reason, anti-monopoly regulators asleep at their job allowing big tech companies to easily acquire competitors (e.g. Google was competing with YouTube for a year or so with “Google Video” product, failed, then acquired the competitor). > net good for the majority of teens across a wide variety of well being metrics, and net negative for a small percentage Many researchers who don’t work for FB were warning for years. Couple years ago some of that internal research was leaked, here’s a copy-paste “Thirty-two percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse” https://archive.is/qBpaq#selection-915.1-915.113 https://archive.is/qBpaq#selection-915.1-915.113 I would not call 32% “a small percentage”. Another thing, “negative for just a small percentage” is a poor defense. Even if it’s indeed tiny, it still doesn’t mean the business model should be legal. Imagine a lottery where 0.1% people win $1M, 1% people win $10k, 10% people win $1k, 89.9% don’t win or lose anything, and 0.01% lose their life – don’t you think a business model like that should be illegal?