4 ms·

Because the ability to scale up a bunch of officers sitting around writing down literally everything they see is limited in comparison. It can only be so invasi

Because the ability to scale up a bunch of officers sitting around writing down literally everything they see is limited in comparison. It can only be so invasive and “always-on” everywhere. Throwing up a few dozen flock cameras costs a fraction of that and scales incredibly quickly.

jameshart 2mo ago
It is a curious ‘small government’ instinct that wants government capabilities to be restricted from ever becoming efficient or scalable, even though the population and economy and complexity of the world the government is tasked with regulating scales up. But often the inverse argument is used in respect of private corporations. Obviously it would be unreasonable to expect Google to vet every ad and YouTube video uploaded tot heir platform, and make responsible editorial decisions about which ads and content to show to children. Surely to allow them to scale arbitrarily large we must make sure not to overly burden them with regulations.
- Forgeties79 2mo ago
  > Obviously it would be unreasonable to expect Google to vet every ad and YouTube video uploaded tot heir platform, and make responsible editorial decisions about which ads and content to show to children. I am actually not so sure that’s obvious. I am slowly coming around to the controversial opinion that if they can’t vet what is going up, they shouldn’t be allowed to have an infinite number of uploads/hosted content. They constantly alternate between “don’t worry, we have perfected our algorithms and can catch all of the stuff” and, when they fail, “well you can’t expect us to go over all this stuff. But don’t worry, we pinky promise it’ll be different now.” If I owned 10,000 apartment buildings and one of them collapsed because of negligence, I don’t simply get to go “my real estate empire is too big for you to expect me to follow the law. Shit is just going to collapse sometimes, deal with it.”
  - jameshart 2mo ago
    I guess it wasn’t clear that I share your opinion that it is not ‘obvious’ that companies should be allowed to set aside accountability in pursuit of scale. I was lending expression to an opinion that seems to be orthodoxy, not supporting it.
    - Forgeties79 2mo ago
      Ah my mistake! Misread the intent there.
- Dylan16807 2mo ago
  > It is a curious ‘small government’ instinct that wants government capabilities to be restricted from ever becoming efficient or scalable Efficiency would be great if it was used to save money. But surely you've heard of the Jevons paradox. This kind of cheap surveillance does not make the government smaller and it has all kinds of bad effects. > even though the population and economy and complexity of the world the government is tasked with regulating scales up. Car stuff isn't changing much. They don't need better tracking of where you drive. > But often the inverse argument is used in respect of private corporations. Obviously it would be unreasonable to expect Google to vet every ad and YouTube video uploaded tot heir platform, and make responsible editorial decisions about which ads and content to show to children. Surely to allow them to scale arbitrarily large we must make sure not to overly burden them with regulations. Well, vetting every video would not be reasonable even at a small scale business with the same business model. While vetting every ad is very possible. I don't think I've seen anyone claim youtube is unable to vet ads if they significantly wanted to?
  - jameshart 2mo ago
    YouTube absolutely claim not to be vetting every ad they serve. That is why so many outright fraudulent ads get shown by them. In the same industry we have Meta using AI to generate and display ads that even the advertiser hasn’t vetted. > vetting every video would not be reasonable even at a small scale business with the same business model. A small scale business like… a cable tv company? They certainly historically were assumed to be responsible for every piece of video content they took from a creator and broadcast.
    - Forgeties79 2mo ago
      Exactly. “We’re too big” is the most insane excuse. If I just get big enough I can say “nah the law doesn’t apply to me”? I’m not naïve I understand that’s kind of how the world works, but should be really be supporting this?
    - Dylan16807 2mo ago
      > YouTube absolutely claim not to be vetting every ad they serve. That is a true statement that is very different from my claim that they could. > A small scale business like… a cable tv company? No, cable is a very different business model. If youtube only allowed business accounts worth millions of dollars it would get halfway there. And it would be the end of "you"tube.

jameshart 2mo ago

It is a curious ‘small government’ instinct that wants government capabilities to be restricted from ever becoming efficient or scalable, even though the population and economy and complexity of the world the government is tasked with regulating scales up. But often the inverse argument is used in respect of private corporations. Obviously it would be unreasonable to expect Google to vet every ad and YouTube video uploaded tot heir platform, and make responsible editorial decisions about which ads and content to show to children. Surely to allow them to scale arbitrarily large we must make sure not to overly burden them with regulations.

Forgeties79 2mo ago
> Obviously it would be unreasonable to expect Google to vet every ad and YouTube video uploaded tot heir platform, and make responsible editorial decisions about which ads and content to show to children. I am actually not so sure that’s obvious. I am slowly coming around to the controversial opinion that if they can’t vet what is going up, they shouldn’t be allowed to have an infinite number of uploads/hosted content. They constantly alternate between “don’t worry, we have perfected our algorithms and can catch all of the stuff” and, when they fail, “well you can’t expect us to go over all this stuff. But don’t worry, we pinky promise it’ll be different now.” If I owned 10,000 apartment buildings and one of them collapsed because of negligence, I don’t simply get to go “my real estate empire is too big for you to expect me to follow the law. Shit is just going to collapse sometimes, deal with it.”
- jameshart 2mo ago
  I guess it wasn’t clear that I share your opinion that it is not ‘obvious’ that companies should be allowed to set aside accountability in pursuit of scale. I was lending expression to an opinion that seems to be orthodoxy, not supporting it.
  - Forgeties79 2mo ago
    Ah my mistake! Misread the intent there.
Dylan16807 2mo ago
> It is a curious ‘small government’ instinct that wants government capabilities to be restricted from ever becoming efficient or scalable Efficiency would be great if it was used to save money. But surely you've heard of the Jevons paradox. This kind of cheap surveillance does not make the government smaller and it has all kinds of bad effects. > even though the population and economy and complexity of the world the government is tasked with regulating scales up. Car stuff isn't changing much. They don't need better tracking of where you drive. > But often the inverse argument is used in respect of private corporations. Obviously it would be unreasonable to expect Google to vet every ad and YouTube video uploaded tot heir platform, and make responsible editorial decisions about which ads and content to show to children. Surely to allow them to scale arbitrarily large we must make sure not to overly burden them with regulations. Well, vetting every video would not be reasonable even at a small scale business with the same business model. While vetting every ad is very possible. I don't think I've seen anyone claim youtube is unable to vet ads if they significantly wanted to?
- jameshart 2mo ago
  YouTube absolutely claim not to be vetting every ad they serve. That is why so many outright fraudulent ads get shown by them. In the same industry we have Meta using AI to generate and display ads that even the advertiser hasn’t vetted. > vetting every video would not be reasonable even at a small scale business with the same business model. A small scale business like… a cable tv company? They certainly historically were assumed to be responsible for every piece of video content they took from a creator and broadcast.
  - Forgeties79 2mo ago
    Exactly. “We’re too big” is the most insane excuse. If I just get big enough I can say “nah the law doesn’t apply to me”? I’m not naïve I understand that’s kind of how the world works, but should be really be supporting this?
  - Dylan16807 2mo ago
    > YouTube absolutely claim not to be vetting every ad they serve. That is a true statement that is very different from my claim that they could. > A small scale business like… a cable tv company? No, cable is a very different business model. If youtube only allowed business accounts worth millions of dollars it would get halfway there. And it would be the end of "you"tube.