[rvz]

> FAANG is “catalyzing the downfall of the world”? We’re in “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” territory.

All the free software and privacy activists needed was Edward Snowden to leak the illegal harvesting and collection of user data done by the NSA and with Big Tech helping along quietly with the PRISM project.

Ever since they were all caught in the act, they are now screaming about privacy all of a sudden as they pretend to care about it whilst they waste resources and burn up the planet with their broken deep learning models in tens of thousands of data centers on user data only for surveillance.

Little to nothing has changed. Despite these regulations, Big Tech is still getting bigger and pushing for more surveillance and aiding the existence of another digital dystopia.

[benreesman]

If that's the reason, why is it never ATT, or Verizon, or Comcast who are dramatically more implicated in ongoing cooperation with NSA/FVEY? Why is it never Palantir or Kratos or Pegasus whose business models are to explicitly market malware to the intelligence community? Why is it not Booz Allen Hamilton where Snowden worked when he took the files and is still chugging right along?

And why is the ultimate responsibility, which lies with the legislators and executives who put together these FISA kangaroo courts and NSL procedures, like a parenthetical on the way to blast Silicon Valley?

If, like me, you're deeply concerned about NSA/FVEY overreach, there are far, far more pressing issues, present day concerns than Google or Meta or Microsoft most likely having knuckled under to a bunch of NSLs rather than send their CEOs to Leavenworth in like 2009 or whatever when the Obama administration was collecting scalps from everyone with a datacenter who didn't play ball.

And what in God's name does the Federal government's energy policy have to do with it? You want clean energy (nuclear) take it up with the NRC and EPA.

[Apocryphon]

Everyone hates the telecom and cable providers. But that hate is wrapped up in complacency because 1) everyone knows they’re oligopolistic dinosaurs with terrible customer service and 2) they are fundamentally unshakable because they are utility companies.

Certainly we should call for them to be broken up too, but we already did it to AT&T once and it got better. And it seems a little old hat compared to the new FAANG big tech giants that have arisen in the current generation.