Shared by ooli 1202 days ago.
I just came across it on HN.
I am of the opinion that cross-site tracking and the selling of user data should be illegal.
“Do you check your smart phone before you pee in the morning or while you pee in the morning? ’Cause those are the only two choices.” Line from Roger McNamee in “The Social Dilemma.” Someone pointed out that Facebook doesn’t sell user data, that’s the family jewels which they carefully guard, instead selling the opportunity to advertise to curated demographics. What behavior do you want to discourage? Would you want to block Mazda from running ads before car videos on YouTube rather than Mickey Mouse videos?
They do track you around the web, and through your phone quite aggressively, however. They guard the actual data, but sell the use of it causally. Absolutely. First, I want to see a world that isn't warped by predictions of my behavior, and second, for the minuscule value of seeing a Mazda ad over a Mickey Mouse one (which on the whole, in my experience has been zero or negative), I'd rather have the privacy. If I am searching for car videos, take a chance and show me a car ad over a Mickey Mouse ad.Someone pointed out that Facebook doesn’t sell user data, that’s the family jewels which they carefully guard, instead selling the opportunity to advertise to curated demographics.
Would you want to block Mazda from running ads before car videos on YouTube rather than Mickey Mouse videos?
I think we should be careful about thinking that advertising is annoying like mosquitoes, and anything we do to make life harder for mosquitoes makes life better for us, so we should similarly make advertising harder. Advertising is mostly wasteful; probably very few purchase decisions are altered by ads. Yet advertisers have a high tolerance for this waste. If we make it harder for advertisers to find their targets, the result could be a much larger volume of less discriminate advertising. Suppose Mazda USA wants to advertise to potential customers in North America, but 90% of the online audience is outside North America. Do you have a preference between seeing ten times as many ads versus YouTube geolocating your IP address into continental sectors? Consider that YouTube already provides faster service by caching content on a geographically nearby content delivery network.
Advertising is motive force that is ruining everything. It's why we think buying more things might finally make us happy. Consuming our way to a destroyed earth and an insatiable apatite that can never be sated. The essential trick is to make you feel like you aren't good enough and things can make you happier, thinner, prettier, smarter ect. It's why my healthy nine year old thinks she is fat. It's why our news panders to the extremes, pushing us further and further from each other. Shock and outrage sells more tooth paste and cars.
I don't think that buying more things will improve my baseline happiness, but I do get pleasure from my consumer behavior. Today's consumerist society comes with costs, but stress and insecurity aren't new, and maybe not a bad tradeoff for the agricultural lifestyle we left behind. Communes are out there for people who get bored with their four hours of daily television. I'm just trying to find out what would make mk happy. He doesn't want Facebook to sell user data, but when the documentary says they don't sell data, he expresses concern about gathering data. He says it's okay if someone searching for "stem cell storage" sees an ad for Forever Labs, but if they search for "Wankel engine" and land on a car video, Mazda should "absolutely" be blocked from showing an ad with that video (though his next sentence seems to say the reverse). My point is not that privacy is worthless, but that Mazda's desire to sell cars will not be reduced by making it harder for them to find customers. They will adjust to controls on targeted advertising, perhaps with larger and less discriminating campaigns. That means more demand for ads, and more revenue and influence for Facebook.
Facebook gathers the data not just on their platform, but by tracking you elsewhere. Also, Facebook sells the use of the data for marketing. I am fine with presenting ads next to search terms. I am not ok with marketing based upon a profile that is built for me. I am less ok with it if it is shared between companies, and even less so if it is created by tracking my behavior. It is ok if Mazda has to work harder to sell cars or if Forever Labs has to work harder to sell stem cell banking. That's how advertising worked for more than a century. It won't mean more revenue for Facebook, as it will mean a lower ROI on their ad service.He doesn't want Facebook to sell user data, but when the documentary says they don't sell data, he expresses concern about gathering data.
He says it's okay if someone searching for "stem cell storage" sees an ad for Forever Labs, but if they search for "Wankel engine" and land on a car video, Mazda should "absolutely" be blocked from showing an ad with that video (though his next sentence seems to say the reverse).
I would like to block Cozy Bear from running "Joe Biden drinks baby blood with Ghislane Maxwell" ads before "Sandy Hook was Crisis Actors" videos. They can't do this on TV because there's legislation preventing them from doing so. As currently written, broadcasters are culpable for defamatory and slanderous content while social media networks are not. What is your argument for this dichotomy to persist?
This is all true because the incentives are wrong. If I were able to opt-in to a cross-site tracking network that was actually beneficial to me, and used my data in responsible ways to improve my life, rather than garbage marketing, then I'd sign up... ... and stop using every site that DIDN'T conform to this standard. Flip the script and make a product FOR the consumer, not OF the consumer, and this effect could be immediately reversed.
I am sure that the current model would not have flown if you could have accomplished it on the early internet. Culturally we have become much more tolerant of giving up privacy. I myself won't write certain things in gmail or over text (or even telegram or signal for that matter). I believe that only by the slow creep have we been able to arrive at this point. If you sit down and show people the extent of the data gathering occurring, and the use of the data, most people say they'd rather it stop.
I am wondering what can do, besides raising awareness. I was the social dilemma documentary with a couple of friends and had an interesting discussion about it. One thing that came up is that this problem is one one side so subtle and slow that people don't feel the impact right away (no injury, no pain) and on the other hand a little more complex than X causes Y, so it makes it harder to break down and explain why it is a problem at all. This second one is similar to the discourse we had in Europe about the CumEx affairs, some stock market shenanigans that cost multiple European countries billions were so complex to understand that people lost interest. Even though it's billions in tax money that people stole. I like the comparison to climate change. Because it compares on both points to it. It is a slow change and a little more complex than X causes Y. So what can we do? Use brave Browser? Set up a pihole? Delete Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram? Any suggestions?