Using the BBC: Why we’re asking you to sign in | Hacker News Reader

Using the BBC: Why we’re asking you to sign in

bbc.co.uk

14 pointsKaibeezy12 comments

So many public services have already gone to the "prove you're the public" why not this? Surely they're not collecting data to monetize and track peoples track peoples habits to determine right or wrong think. They just want to make sure you're getting content you want. Trust them to feed you the information you need to know, because you're not capable of understanding uncurated articles. Stay within the box that they provide because they know best.

We need more gatekeeping on public services. You need to present ID to enter a public parks and spaces. You should be required to publicly display a unique identification symbol to travel from place to place and use the public thoroughfares. This is all for your safety and protection. Trust us. We're from the government and we're here to help.

Slavery is freedom.

..and it's not like there hasn't been precedent for that before. I'm still a little sour about the collaboration between google and the NHS - the NHS is great, but who gave them permission to share the private information of British citizens with an evil american spyware ad-tech company? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice...

Now let a ML algorithm interpret this comment. Is it positive, negative, or sarcastic? I bet that a lot of humans wouldn't be able to tell the tone of this comment.

"Keeping your information safe and secure is our top priority."

No it's not. If it were you would not be collecting or processing data unless you had to.

"You’re in charge. If you’d rather we didn’t make the BBC more personal to you, you can always opt out."

No, I'm not. If I'm being forced to login when it's not necessary, you've literally taken control from me. I would rather you didn't make the BBC more personal to me, and let me opt out, but not requiring unnecessary logging in.

Because the government would like to know what sort of news you're reading. For the protection of children.

Ignorance is strength.

The real reason is further down, it's to make sure you're still paying for the BBC;

>Will you share my data with TV Licensing?

>We share some of your personal data with TV Licensing to check if you are using BBC iPlayer and to keep their database up to date.

Get tae fuck, BBC. Yer nae the New York Times, yer a public service. Gies an opt oot.

With the decline of “traditional” TVs and watching habits, the number of people paying for a TV license has also decreased despite them being able to watch basically everything online via the BBCs own apps.

The BBC is funded through a TV license, which is a “tax but not technically a tax”, and plugging the obvious loophole of watching BBC funded content online for free on their own bloody platform is a good thing, not least of all because they produce some absolutely marvellous content.

An account only requires an email address, I think. I'm wondering what they could share with TV Licensing that would allow them to correlate with a TV License. Are you going to have to use the same email address going forward? Or enter the license number or something?

Personalisation is the worst euphemism

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