Comment by enjalot | Hacker News Reader

Comment by enjalot | Hacker News Reader

A lot of xenophobia in this article. The amount of data Facebook, Google and others are collecting on us is worrying when we think of what might happen if it gets into the "wrong" hands. Right now thoughts of China buying Facebook illicit this image easily in our western minds, but we should recognize this feeling as an admission that we don't really feel safe giving so much control to these companies.

I haven't taken many active steps not to depend on them, but it's troubling whenever I think about what happens if a bad apple gets in the bunch. If I were to become a target of someone with access to Google or Facebook level data, there would be nowhere to run.

I don't foresee becoming a target in the near future, so I haven't done much to 'liberate' myself or switch to open solutions. For now the services provided give me many more benefits than worries. I just wanted to point out that this article is playing on xenophobic fears and we should be careful of doublespeak.

As far as I know no company has ever tracked down dissidents and imprisoned them. I'm not saying that you should exactly trust Facebook, but I think it is disingenuous to imply that you have just as much to fear from a crooked company as you do from a crooked government.

I find this interesting because I was just reading about these incidents from the early 20th century in the US:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_massacre

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain

Both of these articles are about union struggles where the government intervened on behalf of corporations. These incidents have caused me to question how we treat various types of organisations [i.e. C-corps vs. 501(c)(3)] as they relate to society.

Thanks for the links.

I do think it's relevant that a corporation that has that kind of clout with the government is something you should be just as afraid of as branches of the government themselves, but I still feel like the potential for abuse by Facebook and the Chinese government is not even close.

I agree with you completely wrt China/FB. However, given your comment's assertion, I thought you might find the stories of those incidents interesting as I did.

My point was actually that I fear any corrupt person having access to the kind of data that FB or Google have. If I am that person's target, for any reason (political dissent, competition, just cuz) I am way more screwed. It doesn't have to be a company or a government, it can be a criminal organization or just a crazy individual.

I don't think I was being disingenuous, my point is about how dangerous and powerful the data these companies have is. They probably have more ability to identify and locate an individual than any of the 3 letter agencies. My other point was that the article has a serious xenophobic agenda, something that probably increases readership but is bad for the world.

*elicit

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