We Can’t Allow Big Tech to Exploit Coronavirus

tribunemag.co.uk

17 points·jrepinc··6 comments

This seems like an alarmist article. Don't let big tech expand their reach and power. How is big tech expanding their reach? They never dived into specifics of what big tech is doing the they disagree with.

People already willingly give all their location data to Google and Apple as it is, people always have their phones on them. The least these companies can do is also use it for good.

> How is big tech expanding their reach?

Yesterday Apple and Google announced a joint effort to track people via Bluetooth to establish who has had contact with who, to help track COVID19 outbreaks.

The system they have proposed is reasonably anonymous and I personally do think they’ve gone into this with good intentions, but as the article notes, when will the tracking stop? And there are plenty of questions about data storage, persistence, etc etc. It’s justified to worry about it, IMO.

"good" like spying on everybody and sending their every action and position to the government to aid them in their totalitarian wet dream

Do they have a choice if they want to operate in America?

The article specifically calls out Palantir for giving ICE information, but all the big tech companies are part of government surveillance programs. At this point we're just shifting blame to these companies when the problem is how our government operates.

To be pedantic, they are not track any body, they are tracking their phones and devices, it’s a big difference.

Wuhan is a city, not a state.

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