I have been holding off on this posting until Zeckerberg testified in front of Congress and, to an extent I feel inadequate to blanket all the issues that are raised by Big Tech. In fact the effects that Facebook, Google, Twitter, Apple, Snapchat, etc. are having on our societies deserve a huge book. Don't look to me, dear readers, for such a treatment. I will just scratch here where I am now itching ... censorship, monopolistic power and privacy issues.
One thing that bothers me a lot is how Bug Tech is censoring free speech. Diamond and Silk had been kicked off of Facebook, the Diplomad can no longer tweet. Hundreds of conservatives have been shadow-banned on Facebook. Google searches are directed based on politician considerations ... and I'm sure there are thousands of other examples on Instagram, reddit, YouTube, etc., etc. Because many terrorist attacks have been coordinated on social media, this is as a deflection excuse for this increase in censorship of political thought.
"Opt Out" button is, I'm my opinion, the answer to the privacy issue on social media ... even if users then have to pay to do so. Hitting this button would and should erase all possibility of your private data being used for any purpose beyond what you explicitly designate. This is the new European regulation. The U.S. should quickly adopt it. Full stop.
It is staggering the degree of economic control that Big Tech has over our lives ... many say equivalent to how the big trusts controlled things at the beginning of the last century. Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google each has a monopolistic stranglehold on their respective markets and there are growing number of pundits that think they should be broken up ... see: Seattle Times Article.
All in all, this triple whammy of political and economic power combined with the shredding of our First Amendment are reason enough to look closely at applying remedies to Big Tech. It may take new blood in Congress to do it however, because too few of the current old members seem capable of understanding what is happening ... unfortunately.
6 comments:
You forgot to include Microsoft via Outlook.
Two threads:
The products that were presented to users over the past several years clearly stated that they were free -- all you had to do is be willing to share everything about who, what, when, and where you were at any moment through history. Wasn't it obvious that you could have regrets later that some actors could analyze your behaviors better than you do? This has been the mantra of the advertising industry for decades, trying to measure impressions that convert into sales. Only here sales were votes.
Second, it is easy to be a Luddite and not use Facebook or Twitter, shut off location services, disconnect mics and cameras when not in use, stay away from Alexa and Siri. I recall the days when it was good practice to disconect your network connection or turn off your machine when not in use.
Good comment. Blogging and reddit are the only two social media I touch. We need to take back our privacy.
I just perused my Facebook history. As a casual user, the history back to 2012 of every picture i posted and every comment i made was like going through an old trunk in the attic. Only this was rather easily accessible. I don't even recall many of the posts. It would be a trivial routine to scan all the text for keywords. What would the scanner determine if i had multiple hits on "AR-15", or "abortion", or "opioids"? That I am pro, con, or just concerned?
Artificial stupidity?
Actually it is AI: Artificial Ignorance
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