[inthreedee]

The tone of the article dips a bit too far into sensationalism and fear mongering for my taste. While the concerns expressed are absolutely legitimate, I grow weary of people spreading fear for the sake of fear (or worse, clicks) without any mention of what we can do to protect ourselves. Spreading fear and then calling people to action based on that fear is not really leading us down a good path.

I've noticed the effects of this reaching normal people. It can be debilitating when they're spoon-fed fear without a corresponding dose of digital safety education. They're afraid of these companies or the internet in general but don't really know why. That kind of environment makes it all too easy for someone with an agenda to step in and take control of the narrative, manipulating people for their own purposes. "You're afraid. Let me tell you why you're afraid and how I'm going to fix it. Vote for me."

[Lio]

The problem here is that surveillance firms _are_ out of control and there isn’t much you can do about it.

Even if you leave their platform they won’t leave you alone. How exactly can you stop Facebook compiling shadow profiles?

How do you stop Google Analytics without installing more of their software?

We used to be able to say no to software, now it’s all “Not Right Now”.

[CaptArmchair]

> there isn’t much you can do about it

1. Support advocacy groups that defend your rights (i.e. make a donation, become a member, participate in activities) 2. Send letters, e-mails to or call your representatives expressing your concerns. 3. Attend protests when those are organized. 4. Use your right to vote. Make an informed decision. 5. Educate those around you about viable options, such as they are. 6. Support technological efforts such as they are: document, give feedback, report bugs, inform yourself about alternatives, use them. 7. Inform others, those that are also concerned, about steps 1 to 6.

Your civil and human rights are never ever self-evident or to be taken for granted. They are not unmovable natural laws. Their existence hinges entirely on the willingness of society at large as well as individual responsibility to defend the basic principles and uphold the culture that underpin them.

So, when it comes to defending your rights, safeguarding them boils down to one brutally simple question: how hard are you willing to pull your weight?

[jillesvangurp]

Well, the tone has a lot to do with the business model of the websites that publish them which is to get people to click on their article and see the ads. There's more than a bit of irony in here; but it's on the front page of HN so they did that right (from the point of view of reaching their target audience).

Things that stand out to me is the use of the word "we" in the title creating an artificial us and them of of people like "us" who are clued in enough to be reading this bit of wisdom on their website.

In reality, this is a piece cliche laden drivel that brings us nothing new, novel, or remotely insightful and rehashes the same things that people have been writing for years. It's true clickbait; no redeaming features. It's light reading for designed to trigger emotions in a particular crowd with reasonable and irrational concerns about having their freedoms infringed by "surveillance capitalism".

My view is very simple: we are enjoying a brief period of time where the technical capabilities still have enough wiggle room that we can sometimes be un-monitored. Enjoy it while it lasts. But given that we all carry phones that have their microphones turned on just so it can respond to "Alexa", "Siri", or "Hey Google" for the last few years means that it's quite hard to be out of reach from several active microphones; no matter how many things you opt out off (unless that includes having a social life). Much of our public space is monitored by surveillance cameras. Our phones also report our location (via cell towers) every second they are connected to a network. Etc. We emit so many signals continuously that are tracking us that the only thing limiting surveillance is our ability to connect the dots. Which is an ability we now know for sure that the NSA has been investing in as fast as nearly unlimited government funding allows (courtesy of Snowden, Assange, and other people risking everything to report on this).

Right now it's easy to track large groups of people but tracking the entire population is still a bit controversial though that's probably been happening covertly in some places and a bit more openly in China. And of course there's no good reason to assume they are limiting their tracking to China. They have a long track record of industrial espionage, just saying.