It really speaks to the great improvement of the human condition, that the big complaint about the top companies of today is that they are showing us personalized ads, rather than burning the earth or poisoning babies.
Good point. It’s almost as though the tendency of activists to punch up at The Man du jour results in their own priorities reconfiguring in opposition. Seems a little myopic to me. Maybe we should be celebrating these companies for finding a way to generate economic growth by increasing the efficiency of the economy, instead of putting more carbon in the atmosphere or enslaving people.
It's funny what you say here, but the truth in what you say actually makes it more sinister if we consider that many of these personalized ads are paid for by companies that are poisoning the earth and babies.
(assuming that bayer and johnson and johnson may have given fbk or big G money for ads at some point, and perhaps companies that make plastic or pump poison into the ground and water to extract gas, other companies that use plastic, etc)
To think that these 'top companies" make it easier to use data to change an ad slightly so that it sways the opinion of open group of people one way and another group another - and get be put right in front of someone's eyes at the moment they are feeling down or researching something else -
This kind of propaganda power is indeed saying a lot about the improvement of the well educated and powerful humans of today.
As to the "great improvement" of humans today.. I'd say a majority are being influenced, and it's more often about extracting money from the majority than it is to personalize in a do-no-burn, let's-un-poison kind of way.
The complaint isn't that they are showing us personalized ads, it's that you can't participate in modern society without sacrificing a ton of privacy or being incredibly inconvenienced.
Yes, it means having all of your data available for any criminal or civil court case. It means that any data breach will likely also include details about your life that you would like to remain private. Sure, it's not abused by the government right now but what happens in a regime change? What if that regime hates black people or homosexuals or muslims? So yea, it means a bit more than being shown personalized ads. How'd that Ashley Madison leak go? How about the OPM hack? How about Equifax, where's my SSN at now? Who knows my credit score? Then it also goes to conversations that used to be private. Mark Zuckerberg started deleting all his old conversations on Facebook, but how many of our chats, blogs, conversations, and comments are going to linger on?
"Sure, it's not abused by the government right now" - actually I think it has been by many governments many times.
There has been some push back on occasion, (facebook wanting to withhold data against the NY AG looking for insurance fraudsters with pm data?) and in some cases the gov has backed off, a few times the courts made them back off some (the dreamhost site visitors data requests from sessions and co?) -
There are many more examples, however I agree with your comment and I think that in general most people are unaware of massive gov overreach with data requests at the moment, so most would say the data is not being grossly over used / abused by (the US) gov right now.
However that could change quickly, just as the cambridge analytica made people start to question some things with private companies use / abuse.