You are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

0
0

[–] polygeek ago 

"Muh private business" defense? C'mon. It's a shitty argument and doesn't address the MONOPOLY.

GOOG/Twitter/FB are controlling visibility to news, but they can't be held accountable like a news org can.

Consider if the phone company (a platform) wanted to control the discussions of it's users (like a publisher). Creepy, right? That's exactly what is happening. Claiming both publisher and platform should not be allowed for companies of their size.

0
0

[–] Stopmotionhistory ago 

i do not use any of the companies you named, I do not live in your monopoly, therefore it is private problem, there fore a private business. Am I wrong? How about the Amish they do not share your problem, How about the poor people, they have no computers, what about the people who use Duck duck go, my space or, OMG real life talking to people, You are only seeing your point of view from your culture.

0
0

[–] polygeek ago  (edited ago)

"New Order" Amish use mobile phones, and even have websites.

More poor people have mobile phones instead of computers...penetration of that market is especially high in third world countries.

I'm a high functioning technologist and Luddite in the heart of Silicon Valley. I've been talking to people about pervasive and invasive technology for years, but you wouldn't know that. Kind of funny now, but I actually had someone apologize for accusing me of being full of shit until after Snowden's revelations.

Would you rather the gov't hire a private company to steal information on you so it can get around illegal data collection? Because that's (in part) what is happening.

0
0

[–] polygeek ago 

While you're smart to consciously avoid use of those platforms, the vast majority of people still do.

BTW, I don't believe most people when they say they've entirely removed themselves from GOOG's ecosystem. Most people can't, because they don't take steps to control their DNS. You run your own NGFW or manage all of your DNS connections at home? Awesome. Let's assume you also don't have an Android smartphone. Ever use any "free" (ad-supported) app like Waze? How about browse almost any website on your mobile phone while on a carrier network? Boom, you're tracked...no, "incognito/private" browsing isn't enough. Even if you're 100% Tor, I am sorry to say you're trackable if you visit any of the top 7,000+ sites in the world.

I've been able to make very short spurts as an IT professional to be out of that network. I believe my longest stretch so far is about 3 weeks, but I consider that number a bit of a cheat because it includes vacation where I was entirely unplugged.