Silicon Valley engineers need to seriously ask themselves if its OK to be enabling a future like this.
They're surrounded by confirmation that it is. Plus way too focused on the details.
Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism
11–20 of 78 posts
Re: Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism
#12Interesting read. But the repeated notion that surveillance capitalists are only taking from the people by selling off the behavioral surplus omits that fact they they are providing services that those people want. Yes, appearing to be free is a subterfuge for many who don't understanding what they are giving away. But for many others they feel it is a fair exchange for services they really want.
It's hard to know when services are really wanted. One measure that absolutely does not capture information about the service being wanted is sales. Pure sales information fails to control for the neurological process that generated the decision to buy, and takes an incorrectly agnostic position that the business has no social obligation to care how that buy signal was generated in the customer's brain.
There are all sorts of ways to induce an impulse in someone which, if given the opportunity to engage their higher level thinking processes, would be described as "unwanted." Most often, the victim of such manipulation is unaware and could even mistakenly report later that the choice was made solely of their own volition. Others may rationalize later that it was "wanted" even if they didn't "do the wanting" at the moment of purchase.
But the existence of priming, SEO tactics, in-app currency manipulations, pay-for-pain-release, bank overdraft fees and holds on deposits designed to cause such fees, etc. all represent dark patterns (which benefit from data and consumer prediction) that are by definition based on an open acknowledgement that customers will be doing things they unequivocally don't want to do.
There is no one set of decision-making processes that "is me." There's the lizard brain me that often makes choices that the homunculus me disapproves of, and a whole mess of competing interests, distractions, and irrationalities in between. The mistake of saying that a consumer purchase choice is a clean signal of wanting is that you don't know which "them" did the wanting, and which "them" is allowed to approve / disapprove of it.
My general belief is that we should be skeptical. When someone enters into a purchase behavior that is impacted by advertising phenomena or data-driven optimizations on the order of how fast their eye saccades sweep over a monitor, we should heavily discount the degree to which that signals a valid want, and instead view it as an instance where the person was grifted out of money for a thing they didn't choose to buy and then primed to back-fill their account of their choice with a rationalization that maintains their volition.
In a very real way, this means that the more sales certain organizations accrue, the more direct evidence we have that they are not wanted or value-creative.
It's similar to seeing a very successful loan shark and saying, "well, if the loan shark is successful it must be because people wanted the loans." No, psychological pressures were used to convince someone to bear a risk and make a type of purchase they didn't want. The success of the loan shark is a direct testament to the value they have destroyed.
Re: Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism
#13 knows Everything about you and the threat of having all that information looming over peoples head ought to cause fear. If the data is leaked and mined, lives are harmed and sometimes irreparably. Clearly there is evidence of damages and I think a lawsuit makes sense. If you poison the air with mercury causing a significant chance of fetal brain damage, you get sued. Why should you not be sued if you leak information that leads to suicide, divorce, etc...?
Re: Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism
#14> Governmental control is nothing compared to what Google is up to. Governments have guns, Google does not. I'm not saying we should ignore corporate surveillance but there is a big difference.
Force is only one form of influence. As recently posted on HN, search engines have a strong influence over their users' thinking and decision making. Article: https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-flips-elections-and-... HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11255633
Force is the ultimate form of influence against which there is only force to stand against it. I can stop using Google products tomorrow without the need for a gun or explanation.
The article is sowing some serious FUD. Everything is engaged in behavior modification. That's the basic point of products and services. Watch more/better/less/no TV. Exercise more. Eat healthier. Stand up at work. Reward yourself with a candy bar/bottle of wine/vacation.
I don't know. I'm not sold on fearing Google. The government I do fear.
Re: Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
Force is only one form of influence. As recently posted on HN, search engines have a strong influence over their users' thinking and decision making. Article: https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-flips-elections-and-... HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11255633
Force is the ultimate form of influence against which there is only force to stand against it. I can stop using Google products tomorrow without the need for a gun or explanation. The article is sowing some serious FUD. Everything is engaged in behavior modification. That's the basic point of products and services. Watch more/better/less/no TV. Exercise more. Eat healthier. Stand up at work. Reward yourself with a ca…
Optimization of consumer behavior through endless A/B testing optimizes behavior in favor of the corporations, not the society or the individual. So one of my bigger worries is that these optimization strategies will lead society into a dead end local maximum where everyone is perfectly conditioned to consume for the good of the corporation, when we could have taken a different path resulting in a more egalitarian outcome.
Another worry is that through subtle manipulation of search result ordering, page load delays, news feed filtering, etc., Facebook, Google, et al. could influence politics and culture in counterproductive ways, even if only by algorithmic accident.
Re: Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism
#16> Governmental control is nothing compared to what Google is up to. Governments have guns, Google does not. I'm not saying we should ignore corporate surveillance but there is a big difference.
>Governments have guns, Google does not. I'm not saying we should ignore corporate surveillance but there is a big difference.
That's a misleading analogy. Problem is that Google/ebay/Microsoft/Silicon Valley cooperate closely with the law enforcement and employ a lot of former LEO people who still have close connections with law enforcement.
Check out some of the Yasha Levine's articles. He's one of the best investigative journalists when it comes to SiliconValley and surveillance.
For example, he's writing a book, Surveillance Valley, precisely on this topic. Check out this short blurb that debunks this notion about Google not policing people:
http://pando.com/2015/02/23/support-yasha-levines-surveillan...
>Reveal how Silicon Valley polices our lives: There is a common misconception that no matter how much Silicon Valley companies spy on us, at least they don’t have the power to arrest and jail us. Truth is, they can and do. This book will investigate how the most progressive Internet companies — including eBay, Facebook and Google — engage in pro-active policing. For example: eBay’s massive private police alone has overseen thousands of arrests and convictions around the globe, and hands over complete criminal cases to government prosecutors “on a silver platter.”
Anyway, truth is a lot darker.
Re: Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism
#17"You’re giving them information; they sell your information." This is a common misconception about Google, so one can understand why the authors came to this conclusion. It would be very interesting to see evidence to the contrary. https://privacy.google.com/about-ads.html
Not sure why you were downvoted, but Google is hardly the most creepy actor here. My top votes are for Facebook and ad retargeting.
One of the things people don't realize is how strict data hygene and log access inside Google is. Cross correlating data across major services in an attempt to demask individuals is a huge no-no and gets you fired.
Plus there is a ton of engineers and staff who deeply care about privacy. You don't push SSL to every endpoint if you don't care about privacy.
Re: Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism
#18> Governmental control is nothing compared to what Google is up to. Governments have guns, Google does not. I'm not saying we should ignore corporate surveillance but there is a big difference.
Force is only one form of influence. As recently posted on HN, search engines have a strong influence over their users' thinking and decision making. Article: https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-flips-elections-and-... HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11255633
The ones having monopoly on violence are a much stronger force. There is indeed a constant balancing act between them and the masses, but at the end the sooner you accept that that is the real and ultimate power, the world and its inner working, across cultures, will become clear to you.
Re: Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism
#19> Governmental control is nothing compared to what Google is up to. Governments have guns, Google does not. I'm not saying we should ignore corporate surveillance but there is a big difference.
> Governments have guns, Google does not. I'm not saying we should ignore corporate surveillance but there is a big difference. That's a misleading analogy. Problem is that Google/ebay/Microsoft/Silicon Valley cooperate closely with the law enforcement and employ a lot of former LEO people who still have close connections with law enforcement. Check out some of the Yasha Levine's articles. He's one of the best invest…
>That's a misleading analogy.
No. It's not misleading at all. And your example illustrates the important distinction the OP made. These companies that you mentioned almost have to cooperate with the government because the government has the ultimate power to fine or even jail them, not to mention harass them or put them out of business, if they refuse to cooperate. They can't just walk away from this issue. This is why government power and the use of the gun has to be strictly controlled by the constitution. This is what the FEDs, et. al. are trying to circumvent. Our basic liberties such as Freedom of Speech, Assembly, etc. are empty words if the government attains the power to spy on all citizens en masse without out cause or warrant.
Re: Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism
#20> Governmental control is nothing compared to what Google is up to. Governments have guns, Google does not. I'm not saying we should ignore corporate surveillance but there is a big difference.
> Google does not.
That's simply not true; they use the government's guns every time they file a lawsuit. While the government is the ultimate controller of that power, the economic and legal powers available to corporations depend on the enforcement of the state.