[jraph]

I didn't take "protect" the same way as you at all.

Big tech is putting inside our heads that users shall be protected by removing control from them and that's detrimental. This gatekeeping is not protection, it's dystopia.

Protect can be taken as in "Protect the user from bad decisions", or as in "Protect users' freedom" [1], which would completely go your way. I understood protect as "make the user your first priority".

I'm happy with being protected. I'm not happy with my control being removed. It may look like the first implies the second, but it should not and we need to fight against this idea. This leads to (tech!) people here on HN believing their restricted mobile ecosystems are good for them and their parents.

[1] (edit:) another commenter suggests "protect their interests", which nails it for me.

[bambax]

Ok -- but then the word 'protect' is too ambiguous and overused, and we should find a better one.

[Nevermark]

Until then, I like "protect". :)

Very few mottos can withstand literal dissection. For that matter, many phrases have entirely different meanings than if they were read as normal words.

Words bend to the context, and by associating a motto with the ideal it is proposed for, it quickly becomes its own context.

"Protect the user, their data and the truth!", if you say it loudly, comes across to me like something the Three Musketeers would exclaim. If they were programmers, about to enter the forest of dark patterns, risking their lives for the users they know, and those they will never meet.

Love it. All subjective of course.

[jraph]

Fair enough, I suppose we can just drop it :-)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45100163#45100585

[IAmBroom]

You are certainly free to do so. This article isn't a mandate.