| He was harsh. But reporters should have thick skins. And his harsh attitude delivered... • 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. |