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[godhandiscen]

We’re losing the war against surveillance capitalism

It’s too late to "conserve" our digital privacy — but to preserve what's left, we must stop defining people as commodities

www.salon.com

The rise of surveillance capitalism — the buying and selling of our identities and our data — may herald the death knell of privacy. Social media and targeted online advertising are designed to allure us; in the process, we are losing our rights to anonymity and accelerating the erosion of our civil rights. Proposed individual "solutions" — such as configuring our social media privacy settings or using the anonymous Tor web browser — are at best half-measures. A personal example best illustrates why.

 

[SurprisedPikachu]

If the service is free, then you are the product. This is why I refuse to be on social media, run ad, script, and tracking blockers, and I generally run everything through a VPN. You know what sites to avoid when they deny you access simply from using a VPN or a blocker.

 

[samporter]

Salon? This reads like an anti-Trump conspiracy theory drive by story than anything. Let's see, the article points out: Chinese hacking, Russian bots, only mentions Google and Facebook but nothing about Twitter, and welcomes in a new administration at the end. This is not a tech story, it's a political story disguised as a tech piece to rally the gullible liberals against Facebook or any platform that allows for both sides to speak.

 

[cryptoadam]

We are looking at a social media war. Its been a cold war for a while, but the first shot across the battlefield was Twitter labeling Trumps voting tweet as fake news. And its escelated from there to an EO, to manipulated media, and so on.

This is a war that big tech can't win, but I think they are seeking a phyric victory. This in the end is a war on the richest companies in the USA. And if the US goes out against them its going to hurt their value, thus hurting the American economy.

Almost as if a certain country would love to see the government dismantle large American money making countries. I can imagine a world where Weeibo and other Chinese SM platforms are able to overtake google/Twitter/FB because of this big tech war. And then we can all live under the great Chinese firewall.

 

[godhandiscen]

Salon? This reads like an anti-Trump conspiracy theory drive by story than anything. Let's see, the article points out: Chinese hacking, Russian bots, only mentions Google and Facebook but nothing about Twitter, and welcomes in a new administration at the end. This is not a tech story, it's a political story disguised as a tech piece to rally the gullible liberals against Facebook or any platform that allows for both sides to speak.

The author is not unbiased, but at the same time, these platforms who let both sides speak also auction off every piece of real state in your screen to marketing vendors and propaganda machines. If you don’t seek the content you consume proactively and instead let BigTech feed you the content, you allow third parties to define your purchases, politics and other life choices for you.

 

[godhandiscen]

We are looking at a social media war. Its been a cold war for a while, but the first shot across the battlefield was Twitter labeling Trumps voting tweet as fake news. And its escelated from there to an EO, to manipulated media, and so on.

This is a war that big tech can't win, but I think they are seeking a phyric victory. This in the end is a war on the richest companies in the USA. And if the US goes out against them its going to hurt their value, thus hurting the American economy.

Almost as if a certain country would love to see the government dismantle large American money making countries. I can imagine a world where Weeibo and other Chinese SM platforms are able to overtake google/Twitter/FB because of this big tech war. And then we can all live under the great Chinese firewall.

The Chinese social media platforms are the devil incarnate, but Facebook/Google/Twitter are not your friends either. Just quit it all, find sources of news that avoid recommendation algorithms, and stick with that.

 

[cryptoadam]

The Chinese social media platforms are the devil incarnate, but Facebook/Google/Twitter are not your friends either. Just quit it all, find sources of news that avoid recommendation algorithms, and stick with that.

I agree, I barely use SM. And all though I think FB/Google/Twitter are bad, CCP SM is worse. All though at this point CCP SM may not be worse than modern day FB/Twitter/Google.

but I just don't see a good outcome economically if Trump starts a war with SM companies. Though MS was gone after and the US economy didn't collapse so maybe I am being alarmist. But tanking the stock market would play right into China's hands.

 

[samporter]

We are looking at a social media war. Its been a cold war for a while, but the first shot across the battlefield was Twitter labeling Trumps voting tweet as fake news. And its escelated from there to an EO, to manipulated media, and so on.

This is a war that big tech can't win, but I think they are seeking a phyric victory. This in the end is a war on the richest companies in the USA. And if the US goes out against them its going to hurt their value, thus hurting the American economy.

Almost as if a certain country would love to see the government dismantle large American money making countries. I can imagine a world where Weeibo and other Chinese SM platforms are able to overtake google/Twitter/FB because of this big tech war. And then we can all live under the great Chinese firewall.

You bring up some good points about this being a war between the big social media companies. Right now American social media companies are competing against mostly American social media companies. But we know that the Chinese have their own version of Google called Baidu, Facebook version called WeChat, and the Russian have their Facebook version called VK and etc. How long until the American social media companies begin expanding by competing against the world's social media? Will cyber welfare be used during these digital expansions and competition? Will the US government need to back the American social media companies?