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Posted by shaicoleman 12 hours ago

Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act(github.com)
1105 points | 466 commentspage 3
0xbadcafebee 10 hours ago|
I don't understand why nobody in the comments is freaked out about this. This isn't just "oh Google knows my age", or "oh politicians being corrupt again!" This is "the government made a law that every computer in the world must track every person's identity and send it to the cloud".

No offline devices. Commercial vendors get your biometric data (and the equivalent of your driver's license / SSN). Every application on the OS can query your data.

If you think it stops with one bill, after they get all the infrastructure for this in place? You're fooling yourself. The whole point of this is to identify you, on every web page you visit, every app you open, on every device you own. Once bills are passed, it's very hard to get them revoked or nullified.

This is the most aggregious, authoritarian, Big Brother government surveillance system ever devised, and it's already law. I am fucking terrified.

(Yes, the EU has a less horrifying version of this. But Google, Apple, and Microsoft still control most of the devices in the world, and they are US companies.)

SkyeCA 9 hours ago|
> I don't understand why nobody in the comments is freaked out about this.

Because it's hopeless? It's been proven time and time again there's nothing the average person can do to fight this sort of thing.

It's just better to sit back and watch as everything gets ruined.

0xbadcafebee 5 hours ago||
Actually it's the opposite. Average people speaking out is how the world gets better. It's when they don't speak out that things are allowed to get worse.

You literally live in a Democracy. There's 5.8 billion people on this planet who wish they had the kind of power you have. If you give up your rights without a fight, you don't deserve them.

istillcantcode 7 hours ago||
This feels like a waste of time and money. Why are people so interested in tracking people who on average can't read or write better than a 12 year old child? By my count, I'm assuming things will be increasingly degraded for about the next 8-10 years or so.
kevincloudsec 6 hours ago||
the post getting mass-reported off reddit twice is the best evidence that the research is accurate lol
ExpertAdvisor01 9 hours ago||
I don't understand it . There are so many ways to child-proof a device . Google Family Link and the Apple equivalent . Use cloudflares Family dns (blocks porn websites etc ..)

Instead of just creating a course that explains how to child-proof a device, we have to surveil everyone.

actsasbuffoon 9 hours ago||
Because they’re not really trying to protect kids.
onlyrealcuzzo 9 hours ago||
Please scan your asshole to use the toaster.

It's to save the kids.

We care about the kids. We don't bomb them.

eigencoder 7 hours ago||
Do you have a child? Because I think the device makers haven't really done a good job, there are just too many workarounds.
kjkjadksj 6 hours ago||
Tell me how a whitelist isn’t going to work for you
DavidPiper 9 hours ago||
The idea that it might cost "someone" $2 every time a user opens and app AND it sends a bunch of private data to a 3rd party is completely dystopian, let alone everything else.

And a serious question: with deepest respect to the author for their extraordinarily impressive time and effort in this investigation... Why was this not already flagged by political reporters or investigative journalists? I'm not American so maybe I don't understand the media structure over there but it feels like SOMEONE should have been all over this way before it's gotten to the point described in this post.

TheRealDunkirk 9 hours ago||
When a megacorp funds a network of non-profits to lobby a bunch of politicians, draft legislation, and tell them to take it to committee, that can happen without much visibility, especially when it's been orchestrated at the state level, as this has. Where does any of this show up until there's a vote called on it? There's no open debate. No working "across the aisle" to address concerns. There's nothing left of the legislative process that started this country, or, indeed, any Western representative democracy. So someone has to be watching, see something on an agenda that raises the hairs on their necks, figure out what it is, and if there's a story there, and they're not going to get any help from anyone because everyone involved knows how the public is going to feel about it. And then, as the article indicates, even a place like Reddit is going to astroturf the effort to get the story out. (Which I've been trying to point out for YEARS, but which -- surprise, surprise! -- gets supressed.)
dfxm12 9 hours ago||
Mainstream media is largely captured by the same monied interests as discussed in the reddit post. Although the poster does mention an article from Bloomberg as evidence, most of their sources are local outlets or tech-focused. https://github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings...
retrocog 8 hours ago||
This discussion, being so timely and important, inspired me to draft an article that explains a possible third way that might not have been fully considered. I would be humbled and honored to receive any feedback:

https://www.robpanico.com/articles/display/presence-derived-...

(posting link because it would be too much for a comment)

naxtsass 5 hours ago||
The OP’s point can be interpreted as describing the automation and mechanization of this kind of targeting, which would likely become necessary if the scope of prosecuting so-called “thought crimes” continues to expand.
juris 3 hours ago||
so as to not hold the liability bag, devs will publish the majority of their apps as 18+ (we're back to the 2000s with porn banner ads everywhere), and children will ask their parents to use their computer (orly owl).
Cider9986 6 hours ago|
Here is an Archive: https://arctic-shift.photon-reddit.com/search?fun=ids&ids=t3...
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