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Because mass surveillance by a group that can use violence and deprivation of liberty to enforce its will is a lot scarier than mass surveillance by a group who
by growse 12y ago
Because mass surveillance by a group that can use violence and deprivation of liberty to enforce its will is a lot scarier than mass surveillance by a group who can't.
Its not that people accept one and not the other, its that one is much more serious, and is impossible to opt out of.
- walshemj 12y agoCompanies have done all of this in the past read up about the pinkertons and the blacklists run by companies in the USA and elsewhere.
- TeMPOraL 12y agoBut then again Facebook won't send men in blue full body armour and automatic weapons after you. Agreed that government can get to the corporate data through few hoops, but it feels safer to share with a corporation than with organizations allowed to inflict violence on people.
- themartorana 12y agoNailed it. That put words to a feeling I was searching for. Government collection supposes everyone is or will be a criminal, while corporate collection is less offensive on the surface. They may want to mine my data to display the appropriate Target ad to me, but that feels a lot more benign than surveillance purely for the sake of possibly removing my freedoms.
- sp332 12y agoOnce Facebook has your info, federal, state, and local governments can get it just by asking. They're not really separate anymore.
- rosser 12y agoYou're neglecting a critical little detail: Once Facebook has your data, there's (currently) nothing you can do to stop them from subsequently electing, or being forced, to hand it over to someone whose use-case is, let's say, "less benign" than mere ad targeting.
- walshemj 12y agoYou do know that in the past American companies used private armed police who where not averse to extra judicial killings.
- TeMPOraL 12y agoYes, I am aware of that. I was trying to make a point about interacting with Web companies in first world countries in current sociopolitical climate, not about corporations around the world in all history in general.
- DanBC 12y agoPerhaps it feels that way because your farmland is not being poisoned by cocacola giving you industrial waste and calling it fertiliser; or because your children are not being killed by Nestlé miss-selling formula; or because your family is not being tortured and murdered by Shell Oil and the like. Perhaps you don't know anyone who died at Bhopal? This is a tiny fraction of the fucking scary things that big companies do today. CocaCola- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3096893.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3096893.stm Nestlé- http://www.babymilkaction.org/nestlefree http://www.babymilkaction.org/nestlefree Shell torturing and murdering campaigners- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8090493.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8090493.stm Bhopal- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster
- TeMPOraL 12y agoYou're right of course. It feels that way because of a. companies we're talking about, b. fact that I live in the so-called first world. I probably haven't made that explicit enough, thus making the comment sound much more general than it was supposed to be. To restate: being a Facebook user in Europe feels safer than government surveillance. Dealing with Nestlé or Coca Cola in poor countries - obviously not so much. Also thanks for the other two examples, haven't heard about them before.
- pdkl95 12y agoThat's because Facebook is still young, and hasn't finished their Company Town yet. /the little plot of employee housing in Menlo Park is not what I'm referring to - company towns are usually a financial trap