#big[ ]data

[fuzzyghost]

[probablyasocialecologist]

Fifty per cent of web users are running ad blockers. Zero per cent of app users are running ad blockers, because adding a blocker to an app requires that you first remove its encryption, and that’s a felony. (Jay Freeman, the American businessman and engineer, calls this “felony contempt of business-model”.) So when someone in a boardroom says, “Let’s make our ads 20 per cent more obnoxious and get a 2 per cent revenue increase,” no one objects that this might prompt users to google, “How do I block ads?” After all, the answer is, you can’t. Indeed, it’s more likely that someone in that boardroom will say, “Let’s make our ads 100 per cent more obnoxious and get a 10 per cent revenue increase.” (This is why every company wants you to install an app instead of using its website.) There’s no reason that gig workers who are facing algorithmic wage discrimination couldn’t install a counter-app that co-ordinated among all the Uber drivers to reject all jobs unless they reach a certain pay threshold. No reason except felony contempt of business model, the threat that the toolsmiths who built that counter-app would go broke or land in prison, for violating DMCA 1201, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, trademark, copyright, patent, contract, trade secrecy, nondisclosure and noncompete or, in other words, “IP law”. IP isn’t just short for intellectual property. It’s a euphemism for “a law that lets me reach beyond the walls of my company and control the conduct of my critics, competitors and customers”. And “app” is just a euphemism for “a web page wrapped in enough IP to make it a felony to mod it, to protect the labour, consumer and privacy rights of its user”.

[catswilleatyou]

making sure you stay that way

[porterdavis]

Plus he stole everybody's data

[makingmy-waydowntown]

You understand I got a plan for us? I bet you didn’t know that I was dangerous.

[threetrenchcoatsinatrenchcoat]

hate hate haaaaaaate when i bring up privacy and someone says "ah they already have all my data anyway so it doesn't matter for me". no they don't. who do you think "they" is and no they don't and even if they did up to yesterday does your heart not pump blood today? are you dead in the ground? or is being an ignorant bad faith defeatist perhaps easier than learning that there is still good in the world you have a chance to embody?

being scared of Big Brother has been a useful model for a while, but if we can spare a second to color in the picture, there is no organized team of geniuses staring at a wall of computer monitors tracking citizens one at a time. there are apps that sell our data, data brokers that traffic it, and companies who pay someone to run regression analyses on the sqls they happened to buy and hope has enough of what they wanted. the bigger the file, the easier it is to silence political dissenters and stalk victims and design ads that can make as many people as possible feel as unfulfilled as possible. every person who blocks cookies today makes the world safer and fairer

[stilmor]

Video description:

In this episode of Free Speech Friday, [Taylor Lorenz] sat down with Cindy Cohn, former head of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and author of the new book Privacy's Defender. We dive deep into the secret history of the early internet, the terrifying reality of mass online surveillance by the US government, and how "age verification" laws sweeping the US will destroy digital civil liberties for everyone.

Cindy explains how the NSA and FBI use massive legal loopholes like Section 702 to secretly access your data for domestic purposes, the massive security dangers of forcing users to upload their IDs to access apps like Discord, and why the fight to protect encryption is more crucial now than ever.

If you care about your digital rights, free speech, and the future of the open web, this is a must-watch conversation!!