Posted by slowin 14 hours ago
Corporations all over the world routinely and knowingly poison, injure, or outright murder their employees and their customers. They spend massive amounts of money preventing the public from knowing about the harms they are causing. Even in the most egregious cases where there is well documented proof of what they've done the heads of these companies still get away with it. They profit from it. They're just happily living their lives in their mansions and on their yachts while graves are dug and families are torn apart.
It is absolutely failing of the government and the American legal system that nobody spent time in prison for Purdue's lies and poison, we're in full agreement there.
That said, this position alone doesn't suggest that otherwise law-abiding citizens should be more concerned about corporate surveillance than they are government surveillance.
It wasn't until the current administration that the US government handed over the people's most sensitive private data in bulk to private corporations in exchange for bribes.
Government violence is different though. When the government acts against the public they are generally required to follow long and complex procedures with multiple points of checks and accountability. A cop has to get enough evidence to convince a judge to issue an arrest warrant. A person is taken into custody and given access to a lawyer. A trial is held in court with a jury. At every step there are volumes of records detailing exactly what was done, by whom, and why. All of that information is public record and we can request those records to keep watch on what the government does. If the government abuses the power we give them we can vote them out of office and replace them.
Obviously there are a lot of problems with our legal system and places where all of that breaks down, but the goal was for there to be transparency and accountability and nothing stops us from improving the situation. With corporations on the other hand, they act in secret, they don't have to ask anyone for permission, they aren't required to keep records of everything they do, you have no legal right to examine the records they have, and even if you find out a CEO is responsible for murdering a bunch of people for profit you have no power to vote that CEO out of office.
It's pretty clear which of whose two entities is the larger threat. Which one of them has already repeatedly poisoned you and your entire family. Which one do you think was responsible for more violence done to your loved ones?
The end results is they are two sides of the same coin but with very different mechanics. Neither should be accepted.
Privacy doomerism is a form of complicity.
Governments want control, Companies want money. Control typically comes from a reduction in rights, freedoms, money. When you fail to give those up "naturally" violence, worsened living conditions and abuse are the tools used.
It's not just about child safety. No one is safe from this increasing levels of toxic environment created by digital/online ways. A lot of types of people will be extinct, who are unable to deal with technology driven media onslaught, complexity, online crime and content manipulation. There is no scope for trust and assumptions. One need to be on their toes in every engagement with others and these systems, or hire an agent/expert even for simple tasks in life.
The tech-savvy people here might argue for freedom and anonymity at any cost. But think of other social classes, laws and the way the nations and societies came to be what they are today. The world doesn't just belong to tech nerds only.
People need safety from all this tech. That may against the wishes of a tiny minority of the people. But a nation, by nature, enforces generic policies that benefit those most of the people.
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says.
If the same standard were applied for posts, this one would fail. I recognize that it is a popular perspective that these measures are essentially a war on anonymity, but that is not what they intend to fix, although it is quite possible that anonymity is a casualty of whatever war is at hand.
I believe efforts to resist these measures would be more effective if they engaged with the problem: the modern internet is a harmful experience for young minds, beyond what any society should consider acceptable. I personally don't think shocking content is the worst of it. Algorithms that maximize engagement over enriching experience are a curse for any age group, and developing brains face the worst of it.
Is age-gating the internet the right answer? Will it even help? Are there ulterior motives? Those are open questions that need discussion. Dismissing a genuine problem is choosing not to engage in the discussion.
Larry Ellison on surveillance: “Citizens will be on their best behavior, because we’re constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on.”
This is not new and it’s not about kids. This is the culmination of years of planning that began after the Arab Spring, when elites began to get concerned about how the Internet could be leveraged for domestic regime change.
While I do think we should make efforts to reduce crime and create better spaces for kids, laws like this aren’t the answer.
Because of the goal of advertising revenue as the ultimate driver as to build an addictive permanent scroll of slop on tiktok or instagram, and the desire of social media companies to build walled gardens where someone's entire online experience stays in their "app.". As you say, this affects young and old alike.
I'm a Brit who wastes time web surfing and the total impact on me so far is reddit asked for a selfie. It's very different from areas where they did have a war on anonymity like bank accounts and investments where you have to scan passports and stuff. I've heard no one at all suggest that for general web surfing.
Whistle blowers, journalists, religious apostates, people unsure about their sexuality all rely on annonimity on the internet.
I can't find the Times article but government officials have clearly stated that this isn't about protecting children, it's about controlling political discourse online. They are now floating the idea of forcing YouTube to give "trusted" public service news sources prominence. Again to control the discourse. That includes the BBC, which I personally have completely lost trust in.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/plans-for-prominence-of-t...
Sure - open an email not in your name, write to papers not in your name, whistle blow away. It still works. I've got various anon accounts - no problems so far.
Not sure about the trusted source bit although the likes of x and youtube seem to do that anyway a bit - give more prominence to medical experts than antivax cranks for example.
[1] there are caveats, but the crucial point is its a legal process, rather than bidding war.