It’s not that we’ve failed to rein in Facebook and Google. We’ve not even tried | Hacker News Reader

It’s not that we’ve failed to rein in Facebook and Google. We’ve not even tried

theguardian.com

33 pointsoil258 comments

> research over the past decade suggests that when “users” are informed of surveillance capitalism’s backstage operations, they want protection, and they want alternatives

I'd love to hear more about said research. It's kinda my hunch, too, the refrain of "normal people don't care, only a vocal minority of techies do" doesn't really convince me, but I'm just going by rather spotty anecdotal evidence.

"normal people don't care" is likely a bit of a meme at this point; most people don't care because they do not know the extent of surveillance. People don't know about Google or Criteo tracking their every move despite the later publishing youtube videos on their channel explaining how exactly they track every centimeter of a customers movements (not joking on that) in the real world so they can offer related online ads, in store and once the customer has left.

Facebook (the product not the company) is outright bleeding users since all the privacy scandals around it (granted, bleeding to Instagram and Whatsapp).

People ultimately do care but G, F and Friends make very sure that people don't KNOW.

> because they do not know the extent of surveillance

In my experience saying "most people don't believe it even when told" is closer to the truth. To my mind, this is a logical consequence of broad-scale propaganda that decries anyone who says stuff like this as someone who has a tin-foil hat on. You can have solid proof from reputable sources for days, but with most people you will never break through this mental block.

yes, let's blame the ubiquitous machine for millions of American & UK idiots sharing easily debunked propaganda that lead to both Brexit and The Orange One. it's so much easier to blame the big corporate overlords than have any personal responsibility. no one forces you to sign in. no one forces you to share pics of your lunch meat. no one is stopping you from creating an alternative, i mean, aside from the fact you can't afford the servers because without ads you have no way to pay for them.

I hardly think the government - any government - can responsibly regulate a free market of information without imposing limits on free speech and innovation.

Seat belt laws came much later than cars. It used to be a personal decision to wear one or not. Same goes with drunk driving. Gambling is tightly regulated and controlled, although it used to not be. Strong and highly addictive drugs were sold in corner stores.

All of these conditions had a negative effect on society, but individually could be considered one's personal responsibility. The negative effect in aggregate was considered strong enough to have to regulate. People are social, and network effects of social media effects are strong. Seems like it fits a similar enough niche to warrant regulation.

This is not a complex issue to solve. We need to BAN PERSONALLY TARGETED ADVERTISING (and the sale of user data in any form)

Sure it is optimal for the advertiser to be able to target niche demographics, but its this craze for optimisation that has resulted in this position.

Some things need to be left alone, and personal information is such a thing. We should go back to contextual advertising. Advertising related to the content you are viewing. Keyword based advertising.

This level of user tracking and targeting is a new phenomenon. We managed without it for a long time. It's not critical for discovery. It is a commercial and political tool. Lets stop treating users as the product - its wrong on every level.

edit: and so the downvotes start - you tracking apologists are the worst. How about you leave some constructive feedback instead of just abusing your downvote ability. I don't care for my internet points, but I care about your desire to hide anything you disagree with. At least respond with a reason, you cowards.

Y'ain't s'posta use caps or talk about downvotes 'round these here parts. But I agree with you.

Im not in it for the points, so not too fussed. Im just very aware of how this kind of privacy invasion has moulded the last 10 years of history, and feel strongly that this is something that needs to change. It's currently a very negative rated comment, but I don't think HN is probably the place to speak out against what so many members see as a lucrative business model, so I'm not entirely surprised. I had the same backlash when I stated that app stores were a monopoly, only to have recently been justified with these antitrust investigations. For some reason people idolise these dishonourable business models. I'll keep in mind your feedback about the all-caps emphasis in future, but haters gonna hate IMHO ;)

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