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Amazon shareholders demand it stop selling facial recognition to governments

independent.co.uk

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Re: Amazon shareholders demand it stop selling facial recognition to governments

#21

Post by jonknee »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #3

A much more accurate title would be "19 Amazon shareholders demand it stop selling facial recognition to governments." They even wrote a sternly worded letter!

A much more accurate title than that would be "Shareholders representing X% of Amazon demand it to stop selling facial recognition". I mean Jeff Bezos and myself are both shareholders, but his stake is worth mentioning.

Activist funds are able to shake things up with a lot less than 19 shareholders, so the count isn't important at all unless it's giant.

Re: Amazon shareholders demand it stop selling facial recognition to governments

#22

Post by philwelch »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #2

Good. "We don't want you doing shady things that damage the brand's reputation in order to make a buck" is the kind of message shareholders should be sending to all companies. Edit: Apparently I'm wrong and shareholders should be pushing for profits regardless of means? I know Amazon isn't exactly known for treating people well but they're no Monsanto or Blackwater either. Amazon sells to consumers and is therefore d…

The US government is a huge customer of AWS, and AWS has deliberately built entire regions to cater to them: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/announcing-the-new...

https://aws.amazon.com/govcloud-us/

Re: Amazon shareholders demand it stop selling facial recognition to governments

#23

Post by kakarot »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #12

I think this kind of “don’t sell technology x to governments” is kind of misguided for the following reasons. 1) You are saying that you are from be with private entities having access to this technology, but not public entities? Private individuals and companies should be able to use facial recognition, but not governments? Throughout history, governments have typically been the first ones to acquire tech. Of note i…

A giant corporation might be evil, but where I live the government pretty much has a mandate to systematically erode the last 200 years of advancement in civil rights.

The sooner facial recognition data is integrated en masse, this mandate will be exponentially easier to carry out.

A corporation aiding the government in this process is essentially an extension of Corpgov and is not to be trusted with facial recognition tech anymore than the increasingly authoritarian government with whom they share a bed.

Re: Amazon shareholders demand it stop selling facial recognition to governments

#25

Post by Spivak »

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #10
istvanp wrote: post #5

While I applaud this effort, this will not stop the use of the technology. It will simply steer them to another provider or a custom implementation (on top of AWS if they so choose to) of this now well-understood technology.

Sure. But let's be clear - it is good to have as many software developers as possible steering away from unethical work.

Is it really the tool that's unethical or the argument here just about depriving governments they don't like tools in general?

"Twenty shareholders from Ford demand they stop selling cars to local law enforcement."

Re: Amazon shareholders demand it stop selling facial recognition to governments

#26

Post by frozenport »

pests wrote: post #13
kickopotomus wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or a tweet. That is how most official communication is handled these days, right?

Is there something wrong with this? Email, fax, phones, telegrams, snail mail, etc. Everything was the new weird thing at one point in time.

Tweets are limited in content, unlike other forms of communication their perminance is at the leisure of one American tech company.

Re: Amazon shareholders demand it stop selling facial recognition to governments

#27

Post by manigandham »

Governments are just people, led by politicians.

It would be far better if efforts were spent on recognizing and electing qualified and capable people to run the government as wanted instead of this silly run-around with commercial companies.

Re: Amazon shareholders demand it stop selling facial recognition to governments

#28

Post by FartyMcFarter »

Spivak wrote: post #25
FartyMcFarter wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. But let's be clear - it is good to have as many software developers as possible steering away from unethical work.

Is it really the tool that's unethical or the argument here just about depriving governments they don't like tools in general? "Twenty shareholders from Ford demand they stop selling cars to local law enforcement."

> Is it really the tool that's unethical

Amazon runs the tool on AWS servers they control, so they can (and should) be responsible for having policies that forbid its unethical use.

Here is AWS's Acceptable Use Policy: https://aws.amazon.com/aup/

I don't see anything there about ethics.

Re: Amazon shareholders demand it stop selling facial recognition to governments

#29

Post by brew-hacker »

Spivak wrote: post #25
FartyMcFarter wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. But let's be clear - it is good to have as many software developers as possible steering away from unethical work.

Is it really the tool that's unethical or the argument here just about depriving governments they don't like tools in general? "Twenty shareholders from Ford demand they stop selling cars to local law enforcement."

I completely agree -- wouldn't you rather help law enforcement and our military protect our well-being?

Re: Amazon shareholders demand it stop selling facial recognition to governments

#30

Post by _jal »

manigandham wrote: post #27

Governments are just people, led by politicians. It would be far better if efforts were spent on recognizing and electing qualified and capable people to run the government as wanted instead of this silly run-around with commercial companies.

> Governments are just people, led by politicians

... empowered to do things we lock up, tase, beat, sick dogs on, and/or kill other people for doing. Kind of an important distinction to make.

If you have reason to think exhorting your peer-proles to 'pick qualified and capable people' will lead to better outcomes now than it has in the past, certainly, please continue. Some of us, however, don't see that happening and prefer to explore other approaches, even if you happen to find our pessimism 'silly'.

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