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by md224
5280 days ago
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I'm kind of amazed at some of the completely unsympathetic responses on here and on the original article. There are two distinct issues I see here: 1) whether or not Moglen's tone/attitude was appropriate, and 2) if his arguments were valid. Personally I think he was a bit harsh on her and could have at least expressed his feelings in a more diplomatic manner. She's a journalist calling about a story, not someone on trial. The moralist scolding seemed a bit much. I also think his premise is a bit extreme... Social Media can be used recklessly, but so can many things. Suddenly people are saying that if your friends are on Facebook then you should get new friends... I must admit this sentiment sounds extremely reactionary and way over the top. We seem to be operating under the assumption that all information shared about another human being is potentially dangerous... Really? I'm pretty sure that most of what gets shared on Facebook is fairly innocuous, if not utterly mundane. |
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• for her and her site, a full-length story of the call, garnering inlinks and traffic
• for him, a detailed description of his views, totally beyond the original 'quote in a box' form-journalism role they wanted him to play
• for us, a discussion thread seeded by an interesting, strong, contrarian opinion
Why be diplomatic if that would result in none of the above?
I think you're missing his point about privacy, that "everything they share is held by someone who is no friend of theirs… whose goal it is to make a profit selling the ability to control human beings by knowing more about themselves than they know." And, "You injure other people today also using social media. You’ve informed on them. You’ve created more records about them. You’ve added to the problems not of yourself but of other people. If it were as simple as just you’re only hurting yourself I wouldn’t bother pointing it out to you."
The collectors would like you to think the data you're sharing is 'innocuous' and 'mundane' but they have algorithms and statistical confidences that say it isn't.
On the other hand, I think Moglen is hopelessly standing athwart history yelling 'stop' on this issue. Technology would make these behaviors trivial to monitor even if most people opted out (instead of cheerfully opting in). So I tend more towards the David Brin/'Transparent Society' view, that the only workable adaptation will be transparency/accountability and new social mores, because privacy is on its deathbed.