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Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims

latimes.com

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Re: Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims

#41

Post by protomyth »

bwreilly wrote: post #30

For everyone dismissing this as "too late" and "this data already exists" should consider that this appears to be addressed in the pledge. > to scale back existing datasets with unnecessary racial, ethnic, and national origin data. > Responsibly destroy high-risk data sets and backups

Good luck getting Facebook or the US Census to do that. This is a useless gesture that means very little. I guess some people get to feel better about themselves.

The first step would be some reforms in consumer protection laws dealing with privacy and information sharing. Just watch how much certain SV firms spend to opposed those changes.

Re: Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims

#42

Post by jsf666 »

exabrial wrote: post #31
jsf666 wrote: post #20

Can someone explain to me why a religion made by a pedophile-barbarian is somehow tolerated and even defended against "islamophobia" (is e.g. a gay guy phobic for being scared of muslims that given power would throw him from a building or persecute him in some other way at least)? Their whole ideology (as it basically governs every aspect of life) is crude, vile, barbaric and dangerous. The animosity towards them is…

Your comment is slightly abrasive, however, it is worth discussing. Every Religion has been warped by humans at some point to gain wealth or power, I think Islam has seen the worst of it. What was meant as framework to help people be happy and treat each other with dignity has turned into a destructive force used to justify crimes.

The thing is Islam wasn't "warped". Mohamet was a barbaric warlod, you think the religion he created was and is about love of respect to your enemies? Could you please explain the train of thought that brought you to such conclusions?

Re: Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims

#43

Post by dsr_ »

hprotagonist wrote: post #33
milge wrote: post #3

Sadly, there will always be tech workers willing to do this for the right price. As I get older, I'm starting to wonder if not following my "tech morals" would've brought more success.

01:17:25 -Chris. -I'm all right. 01:17:32 -They took everything. -Kent's tracking system is gone! 01:17:39 How could you build that mirror?! 01:17:50 He lied to us. 01:17:53 It's easy to lie to you, Mitch.

For people who aren't getting it: Real Genius (1985)

Re: Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims

#44

Post by this-dang-guy »

exabrial wrote: post #21

Unfortunately, with firearms registration and no-fly lists, Muslim registries are part of the slope we've set precedent for. A citizen should _never_ have to register with the government to exercise a freedom explicitly granted in the constitution.

I'd argue "A citizen should _never_ have to register with the government" should really be the entire statement.

Things like aid and whatnot should really be isolated and broken off to prevent mass collection dbs.

Re: Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims

#45

Post by drakonandor »

r3bl wrote: post #23
1ris wrote: post #8

It's a ridiculous and naive view of the world. Of course it already exists. For example on facebook. For example in the mosques. Everybody was warned, everybody could have seen this coming. But most people didn't give a fuck. Welcome is post privacy. I didn't need have to be that way. We can still turn this into post-post-privacy. But only if we face what we have already done.

Well, to be honest, the title is highly misleading. Sure, they pledged to refuse to participate in the creation of such database, but that's just one of the things stated in the full pledge. I would emphasize more on the following parts of the pledge: * to scale back existing datasets with unnecessary racial, ethnic, and national origin data. * to implement security and privacy best practices, in particular, for end-…

> * to scale back existing datasets with unnecessary racial, ethnic, and national origin data.

We already have this, as the foreigners Trump is referring to have to get US Travel Visas. Obviously we know their country of origin. Anyone paying attention at all knows Trump's current plan is keeping a close eye on all visitors and immigrants (allowed in) from countries with large anti-western terrorism contributions - which happens to of course coincide with some Islamic-majority countries.

The whole article and 'pledge' is anti-Trump fluff.

Re: Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims

#47

Post by marchenko »

exabrial wrote: post #21

Unfortunately, with firearms registration and no-fly lists, Muslim registries are part of the slope we've set precedent for. A citizen should _never_ have to register with the government to exercise a freedom explicitly granted in the constitution.

Eugene Volokh wrote an excellent and highly-cited paper on this point, summarized here: http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/slipperymag.pdf

Re: Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims

#48

Post by edblarney »

What about a database of people from countries with high propensity for radicalization, for example Tunisia, or Somalia?

Paradox: Tunisia is perhaps the most progressive of all the M/E Muslim countries, and yet they are the #1 M/E country in terms of Jihadis. They are overwhelmingly the greatest per/capita Jihadi producers in the world. By far. Tunisia is very small. Networks are very small. 95% chance that a young male Tunisian knows someone off to fight Jihad. This is very significant.

Somalia - is a stateless war-zone, people coming from their are massively over-represented in other kinds of crimes. Wherever there is a 'new' Somalian community, the crime (drugs and related) offenses are off the charts with over-representation. In Toronto - a big slice of the 'violent murder' pie is committed by Somalis - and they are near 0% of the actual population. Some social workers have observed that they simply have absolutely no respect for authority - it's meaningless to many of them. There is an overrepresentation among Somalis in terms of 'domestic' (i.e. host nation) violence, that's possibly 'terror' related.

Those are both good examples because it shows you how young men from completely different places, are radicalized for completely different reasons, and are associated with completely different kinds of violent people - and their nationality (read: culture) is definitely a correlating (or even predictive factor).

It's a moot point anyhow. The FBI has a database. You're probably in it. There's a tag on your file that might indicate the likelihood you'll be radicalized.

We have to be really quite careful of this kind of stuff, frankly, I'm more concerned about the 'populist anti-muslim sentiment' that might arise, as opposed to any kind of actual 'database' of muslims.

Anyhow - it's all moot. There will be no DB of Muslims.

Re: Tech workers pledge to never build a database of Muslims

#49

Post by dmritard96 »

exabrial wrote: post #21

Unfortunately, with firearms registration and no-fly lists, Muslim registries are part of the slope we've set precedent for. A citizen should _never_ have to register with the government to exercise a freedom explicitly granted in the constitution.

equating the purchase of a shotgun to having an ethnic or religious identity is a sad statement.
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