The CEO needed to be under oath so that lying would carry consequences, and they needed someone who could cut through the BS of how some of the answers were worded.
We need more programmers, engineers, etc running for office.
And also he emphasized too much how people are in control of what data they share. The better question is, what data does Facebook save that the users can't see: all the analytics, all the location tracking, all the websites they visit. I didn't volunteer that data to you, Zuck, and I can't even control whether you have that data or not! (Well ok, on desktop I have Ghostery that blocks many many tracking pixels...).
uBlock Origin is a low footprint (compared to other ad/tracker blockers) extension primarily maintained by one person who refuses to even take donations for it. Scroll down to the "About" section on the GitHub page [1] and see this Wiki page on donations [2], which at this point in time states:
> Why don't you accept donations?
> I don't want the administrative workload coming with donations. I don't want the project to become in need of funding in any way: no dedicated home page + no forum = no cost = no need for funding. I want to be free to move onto something else if ever I get tired working on these projects (no donations = no expectations).
> Have a thought for the maintainers of the various lists. These lists are everything. This can't be emphasized enough.
Also see uBlock Origin's manifesto. [3]
For me, using uBlock Origin along with Privacy Badger [4] from EFF is a good combination.
[1]: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock
[2]: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Why-don't-you-accept-...
[3]: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/blob/master/MANIFESTO.md
Decentraleyes:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/decentraleyes...
Don't touch my tabs! :
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dont-touch-my...
"Don't touch my tabs" does not exist on Chrome, but some random author created an extension that adds rel=noopener to all _blank links:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/safeclick/npmhmkil...
Facebook container: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/facebook-cont...
I think a better solution would be either:
1) When elected officials run for office, they explicitly state who their go-to advisor for internet and technology matters is. That way, they are not so reliant on the technical advice of lobbyists. The flaw in this is that now those advisors' opinions on unrelated matters are subject to scrutiny. I can easily imagine a scandal because it turns out that some senator's advisor said something dumb about abortion 5 years prior to an election. I'd like to say "well, don't judge the advisor on things unrelated to their area of expertise", but where do you draw that boundary? Is someone's opinion on domestic violence or prostitution really irrelevant to how they advise a senator on FOSTA?
2) The UK has been framing the House of Lords as a council of experts for a while now. I don't know how well it actually works as one though.
Hard to take that seriously in any regard, much less as 'experts'.
You can't inherit any of the seats any more, you can inherit a title that means the other Lords could pick you for their chamber without anybody else sending you, this was supposed to be temporary but no other mechanism has ever been approved to replace it. But nobody automatically gets a seat, either they were sent there or they were chosen by the others.
Well, that and there's no reason to think that the candidate won't just reach into the lobbyist pool to pick their advisor.
Still, you're absolutely right that having lawmakers that are themselves technical experts is not super important, or likely. They always rely on staff, and that's fine. No one person can know everything about everything.
It's basically pot luck, unfortunately.
Sometimes the Lords have quite enlightened debates, where several contributors clearly do have expert knowledge in a field and others do respect that and politely defer to those with more relevant experience. Consequently, sometimes they really do send proposed laws back to the Commons with helpful amendments suggested.
However, sometimes they have no idea what they're talking about at all. It's not unusual to see a committee of Lords hearing evidence from high-ranking civil servants on some issue where the entire session looks like one old, rich, out-of-touch person after another declaring an interest due to their own business activities and all of them collectively missing the point for several hours.
It's not a universal truth, but I'm afraid discussions around science and technology subjects tend to fall into the latter category, other than perhaps on medical matters, where there does seem to be enough knowledge and expertise within the Lords to allow constructive and intelligent debate.
> one could just as easily say that we need more senators who are nurses, petroleum engineers, hydrological engineers, pilots, soldiers, teachers, tax accountants, actuaries...
I agree! That's what my "etc" was for. I would love to see more everyday people run for office so our elected officials can be a better representation of the everyday people they're supposed to represent.