<story><title>Losing the war against surveillance capitalism letting Big Tech frame the debate</title><url>https://www.salon.com/2020/06/20/were-losing-the-war-against-surveillance-capitalism-because-we-let-big-tech-frame-the-debate/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hn_throwaway_99</author><text>I think the problem with your argument is that &lt;i&gt;most&lt;/i&gt; people don&amp;#x27;t think those things would apply to them, or they wouldn&amp;#x27;t care if they did. And in their defense, at least in the the US, most of the examples you give are hypotheticals. Possible rejoinders:&lt;p&gt;1. In the US, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act already prohibits this. For other things, like &amp;quot;are you a skydiver&amp;quot;, the insurance company already has the right to ask you that.&lt;p&gt;2. I mean, sure, I&amp;#x27;m sure I&amp;#x27;ve broken some laws, but I can&amp;#x27;t think of any examples of overly agressive prosecutions for people who weren&amp;#x27;t already guilty of bad shit.&lt;p&gt;3. I mean, people are already used to creepy hypertargeted Facebook ads, most of them have don&amp;#x27;t really care anymore.&lt;p&gt;4. I mean sure, but how does this affect me?&lt;p&gt;5. This just sounds like a hand-wavy slippery slope argument.&lt;p&gt;I think the issue for most people in the US is that they still fundamentally believe that the justice system is generally &amp;quot;just&amp;quot;, at least with respect to themselves, though that is obviously changing. Contrast that with Germany, where people are vividly aware of what happens when the government uses personal data nefariously.</text></item><item><author>vegetablepotpie</author><text>1. If an insurance company finds out that you’re more predisposed to a disease, they will charge you or your employer a higher rate&lt;p&gt;2. The Fed gov’t has ~20,000 laws, it has more than it can count, can you tell me that you haven’t broken a single one? Could a creative prosecutor find something you’re guilty of if they had enough information on you?&lt;p&gt;3. In 2012 (edit: 2010) target sent ads to a teen girl for baby supplies, the father angrily talked to the store manager asking why they were sending baby supply ads to his daughter. When he found out his daughter was pregnant, he apologized to the store manager. Target had a good idea the girl was pregnant because of the items she bought in their store. How would you like it if corporations know details about your family before you do? (Pro tip: they already know things you don’t know)&lt;p&gt;4. Organizations are not monolithic, they’re full of people who are constantly moving around and organizational priorities change. Any restrictions on use and protections will be ignored eventually and changed in privacy policies, which they have complete discretion to change.&lt;p&gt;5. The world is filled with clever and unscrupulous people, they will never stop finding ways to use your data in ways we can’t imagine, not all of them will be in your favor.</text></item><item><author>tdrgabi</author><text>Add top 5 reasons here. I&amp;#x27;m one of the people without imagination.&lt;p&gt;Genuinely curious.</text></item><item><author>unix_fan</author><text>I could spend hours trying to explain to people why data harvesting is a bad thing, and most of them still wouldn’t care.</text></item><item><author>gdsdfe</author><text>Honestly I think the main problem with the privacy debate is that most people have no imagination on how their data can be used against them and the response you often get, even from people with years of experience building software, is the now classic response : &amp;quot;I have nothing to hide&amp;quot;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jkhdigital</author><text>Your response to point 2 made me gasp. Just watch a few episodes of any of the many true crime false conviction series on Netflix. Unscrupulous prosecutors are not rare, and it does not matter who you are—if you get caught in the crosshairs you could go to prison for a crime you didn’t commit, or be coerced to provide false witness against a friend or loved one for a crime &lt;i&gt;they&lt;/i&gt; didn’t commit.</text></comment>
<story><title>Losing the war against surveillance capitalism letting Big Tech frame the debate</title><url>https://www.salon.com/2020/06/20/were-losing-the-war-against-surveillance-capitalism-because-we-let-big-tech-frame-the-debate/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hn_throwaway_99</author><text>I think the problem with your argument is that &lt;i&gt;most&lt;/i&gt; people don&amp;#x27;t think those things would apply to them, or they wouldn&amp;#x27;t care if they did. And in their defense, at least in the the US, most of the examples you give are hypotheticals. Possible rejoinders:&lt;p&gt;1. In the US, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act already prohibits this. For other things, like &amp;quot;are you a skydiver&amp;quot;, the insurance company already has the right to ask you that.&lt;p&gt;2. I mean, sure, I&amp;#x27;m sure I&amp;#x27;ve broken some laws, but I can&amp;#x27;t think of any examples of overly agressive prosecutions for people who weren&amp;#x27;t already guilty of bad shit.&lt;p&gt;3. I mean, people are already used to creepy hypertargeted Facebook ads, most of them have don&amp;#x27;t really care anymore.&lt;p&gt;4. I mean sure, but how does this affect me?&lt;p&gt;5. This just sounds like a hand-wavy slippery slope argument.&lt;p&gt;I think the issue for most people in the US is that they still fundamentally believe that the justice system is generally &amp;quot;just&amp;quot;, at least with respect to themselves, though that is obviously changing. Contrast that with Germany, where people are vividly aware of what happens when the government uses personal data nefariously.</text></item><item><author>vegetablepotpie</author><text>1. If an insurance company finds out that you’re more predisposed to a disease, they will charge you or your employer a higher rate&lt;p&gt;2. The Fed gov’t has ~20,000 laws, it has more than it can count, can you tell me that you haven’t broken a single one? Could a creative prosecutor find something you’re guilty of if they had enough information on you?&lt;p&gt;3. In 2012 (edit: 2010) target sent ads to a teen girl for baby supplies, the father angrily talked to the store manager asking why they were sending baby supply ads to his daughter. When he found out his daughter was pregnant, he apologized to the store manager. Target had a good idea the girl was pregnant because of the items she bought in their store. How would you like it if corporations know details about your family before you do? (Pro tip: they already know things you don’t know)&lt;p&gt;4. Organizations are not monolithic, they’re full of people who are constantly moving around and organizational priorities change. Any restrictions on use and protections will be ignored eventually and changed in privacy policies, which they have complete discretion to change.&lt;p&gt;5. The world is filled with clever and unscrupulous people, they will never stop finding ways to use your data in ways we can’t imagine, not all of them will be in your favor.</text></item><item><author>tdrgabi</author><text>Add top 5 reasons here. I&amp;#x27;m one of the people without imagination.&lt;p&gt;Genuinely curious.</text></item><item><author>unix_fan</author><text>I could spend hours trying to explain to people why data harvesting is a bad thing, and most of them still wouldn’t care.</text></item><item><author>gdsdfe</author><text>Honestly I think the main problem with the privacy debate is that most people have no imagination on how their data can be used against them and the response you often get, even from people with years of experience building software, is the now classic response : &amp;quot;I have nothing to hide&amp;quot;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ensignavenger</author><text>As for # 2: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Aaron_Swartz&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Aaron_Swartz&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>