> It's unbelievable that anyone can hate Facebook so much that they side with authoritarian regimes.
Who is doing that here? 2 Things can be bad at the same time. Just because people are critical of FB in the west it doesn't mean they support authoritarian regimes.
Facebook is an unstoppable entity we all "hope" will do the right thing by us. But, the reality is that it and all the people beholden to it will do whatever it takes to stay operating.
The funny thing is, Facebook CAN be stopped: if people don't use it, it vanishes. The existence of Facebook is 100% in the hands of the users. The problem is: 3 billion users with wildly varying options, beliefs, and attitudes. There's got to be a name for this paradox.
I think that very well captures 95% of the effect.
I also think the 5% which doesn't fit relates to the individual profit motive. I don't know how users of social media profit in the spirit of the CAP. I would replace "profit motive" with "ignorance that their passive involvement enables" the destructive direction social media is heading.
A corporation is much easier to get away from than a government. With a corporation you have a choice in whether you want to deal with them. Government not so much.
This is a quaint idea, and I’m sure it was true once. However, in the world of shadow profiles and invasive tracking techniques, it must also be easy to decide whether you want _the corporation to deal with you_, and it is simply not.
The East India Company was a de facto arm of government; chartered as a state-protected monopoly. There’s plenty of examples of things that aren't formally states or formally linked to them taking advantage of weak or absent states to exert extreme power over people's lives (and plenty of examples of systems without a distinction between private power and public authority at all, e.g., feudalism), but the EIC isn't one of them.
There is always someone that takes the most egregious examples they can find and then say "well if don't have strong government this will happen" ignoring all proportion and scale to any of these matters and the current reality we live in.
It is simply a deflection from the central point that frequently the state will involve itself in things that it really shouldn't be involving itself in. This is frequenly because it must justify its ever increasing size. Saying that the state should have well defined responsibilities shouldn't be controversial. What those should be is a different conversation.
No it isn't a quaint idea. I am aware of the existence of shadow profiles and it doesn't invalidate the general point. Them having a shadow profile of me is an annoyance and is rather minor one at that.
However I have no such choice when it comes to Government. Whatever they choose to decide I have to abide by or face fines, jail and other reprocussions. Some of those decisions maybe just which aren't a problem. However some of them maybe unjust. If those decisions are unjust I have almost no direct way to address it especially if I am in the minority.
I’m not so sure. I can think of plenty of places that are beyond the reach of my government but well within the reach of most the big tech companies. This might be less true if you’re from the US or China or maybe one of a few other countries.
What device would you use? How would you find information? It’s all possible, but not straightforward.
There is likely a good sci-fi or black mirror plot in here somewhere.
If I don't want to use an Apple or Android phone I can buy something else. I have a choice.
If I don't want to use Windows or MacOS, I can use an alternative operating system. If I don't want to use Google's search engine there are many other alternatives. If I don't want to use a companies webmail solution I can setup my own.
It is very simple to not deal with these tech companies.
> It is very simple to not deal with these tech companies.
You may find it easy, and well done if so.
Every step you have listed there is quite hard, even if you let some through (Apple in my case). Some of the things you are cutting out are very good, and that’s how they get you.
Most of it you don't need. I think Stallman is a loon but he was right about the proprietary code making people slaves to it (but probably not in the way he intended).
There is still lots of stuff I kinda have to use but I've managed to massively reduce my use of most of this stuff.
Obviously if your job/business relies on using this stuff then you gotta use it. I wouldn't advocate that you put yourself out on the street for the source code freedoms.
People have been confusingly propagandized about propaganda. That technique for manipulation has been around for a very long time, convincing people that your lies are priveledged secrets. It checks so many boxes for fufilling emotional needs with utter bullshit. It flatters the believer and gives a scapegoat to mean they don't need to try to understand nuanced issues, trade-offs and the cure being worse than the disease. It also provides an easy answer that doesn't mean admitting to yourself that your friends and family have frankly gone far beyond differences of opinion to become outright terrible people.
I have personally concluded that there is no practical difference between credulity and corruptability - both make it easy to get them to support and commit evil. I can only conclude that a lack of critical thinking is a moral flaw in itself as strange it may sound at first blush. But really if greed can get people to do bad things nobody would deny that it is a moral flaw so why should credulity be any different?
>"It's unbelievable that anyone can hate Facebook so much that they side with authoritarian regimes."
Who exactly is siding with an authoritarian regime here? The article indicates it was a unilateral decision on the part of the government. The article also states:
>I't has drawn a heated response from the Government's opponents, with Opposition leader Matthew Wale labelling the ban "pathetic" and unjust."
Freedom to spread false information indiscriminately does not work with an uneducated populace. Heck even the US can barely hold it together right now.
Who is doing that here? 2 Things can be bad at the same time. Just because people are critical of FB in the west it doesn't mean they support authoritarian regimes.