| > I just don't understand how shifting blame toward Facebook as a data sharing platform solves the problem. Isn't this a bit of a red herring, though? First, "shifting blame toward Facebook" is not the only thing being done. People are finally allowing themselves to become somewhat aware of the toxicity and perils of data[0]. Facebook is just the first (and one of the biggest). Many people (esp. on HN) already knew, but even among them, a lot preferred to believe it probably wouldn't happen, or just not think about it much (like climate change; faced with a problem of impossible magnitude). Second, that it doesn't solve this particular problem (immediately), isn't a reason to dismiss placing blame. In fact, the act of placing blame doesn't solve problems by itself, usually. However, putting a spotlight on the data hazards concerning social media may help solve some of the problems caused by pushing the corporations farming these networks to come up with better solutions. The effect on Myanmar will be small (but what do you expect? damage has already been done), but it's totally worth it for the combined effect of putting up a barrier, even if it merely lessens the odds that stuff like these large attack surfaces for propaganda-based exploits of the human psyche can happen anywhere in the world. And it is currently happening in a lot more places than we are aware of (or perhaps even expect). It has to be. I've seen technical presentations on security and privacy (from CCC, etc) speculating about these ideas since at least 15 years ago, "What if governments got a hold of all this data and used it for nefarious purposes?". What they didn't always predict was groups other than governments doing that, sometimes implied. Interestingly, I definitely can't remember predictions about it being offered as commercial services by shady analytics companies such as Cambridge Analytica and Palantir. Probably/maybe they're being covered by more recent talks, I haven't been keeping track as much. But it's accelerating the problem in a bit of an unexpected direction. Question, does anyone know, are those services not technically black market? (or partially) [0] I don't want to single out "data sharing" as the big problematic thing either, there are lots of other dangerous things that can be done with data from user-tracking. In fact, just like radioactive waste, I'd argue it is still dangerous when at rest (or worse, you can't always know if no copies remain). |