The only whistleblowers you should trust are ones the government is attempting to completely ruin.
My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post
251–260 of 269 posts
Re: My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes and I also clarified that this is about optics. Anyway, since you are challenging the reference - I shall explain it. It is a bit complex and hinges on a few pieces of information and reasoning: 1) The whistleblowers I am advocating in favor of - Assange, Manning and Snowden, are being prosecuted because the US government is ensuring that there is justice served to those who would dare to expose their secrets to…
You're honestly comparing apples and oranges here. One side (whistleblowers) is a case where someone actively published and drew attention to classified material. The other one is someone who was careless with classified material due to laziness and either A) not caring about the ramifications of that or B) not knowing. I'm not defending Clinton, she's icky for many other reasons (not the least of which is her insinc…
Not caring about the ramifications is pretty much what the whistleblowers are being persecuted for though. They drew attention to classified materials for the public good, not to aid the enemies of the US government by leaking some specific tactical information that helps in battle.
Re: My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post
#253Re: My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just so I understand your claim: My agenda is that I am advocating for the rights of Julian Assange - who exposed various embarassing government secrets for the Bush administration... .. and simultaneously my agenda is also that I am advocating against Hillary Clinton, the political opponent of George W Bush? Our local Indian news channel NDTV (which leans left) released a story in 2016 about Hillary Clinton asking h…
You're leaving out that even though she asked her housekeeper to print out classified information (so you say, I'm not familiar with the story, but I'll take your word on it for this), she wasn't actively trying to undermine US security. She's just careless and ignorant of the ramifications of her actions. I'm not defending Clinton or Assange. I think they should both be facing some sort of punishment for their actio…
I am not a professional and I have not met any of them, so I cannot diagnose them with complexes.
Actively trying to undermine US security is a misattributed intent. You can easily assume good intentions for Snowden and Assange, just like good intentions are assumed for Clinton.
This is not done because Clinton is a member of the Washington DC establishment, who is well networked, and is well protected by people in the system.
Re: My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do these two align? Why would FB sending messages that are sent encrypted (not e2e) and stored on US servers allow China to read messages? If you allege hacking then why wouldn’t they be able to hack the devices? Re misinformation: why would misinformation not simply happen in e2e group chats like it is already happening in e.g. Brazil or India? What’s the difference between posting to a group of friends on Faceb…
> Why would FB sending messages that are sent encrypted (not e2e) and stored on US servers allow China to read messages? Not parent, but I think the idea is that if BigCo does business in CountryA , then CountryA's government invariably forces BigCo to spy on their users who are residents. Obviously compromising the user's device is a workaround open to governments but hard to achieve in bulk.
FB does not do business in China. This is rather a risk for Apple given they store keys in the cloud and do business there fwiw.
I agree it’s a risk for almost all other countries.
Re: My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would the judiciary (branch of government) consider Haugen to be in violation of any NDAs that she had with Facebook?
In general, leaking a company's secrets is going to be a civil matter, and to the extent that it's a criminal case a prosecutor would be very unlikely to press charges if the company isn't asking them to. On the other hand leaking classified government secrets is always a criminal matter and charges are almost always going to be pressed.
Yes, but my point here largely rests on the literal definition of the word "whistleblower" itself and how the use of that word, and who uses that word, impacts how issues are framed.
The US Government has, in a seemingly bipartisan fashion, pre-emptively branded Haugen a whistleblower. They've used the word before any debate over whether or not this is a whistleblower, has taken place. This person is assumed to be acting for the public good.
Manning, Snowden and Assange were not afforded that presumption. Instead they are first presumed to be guilty of revealing state secrets. They are not presumed to be acting for the public good.
Presumption of innocence for those who serve the government's interests. Presumption of guilt for those who expose the government's wrongdoings.
Re: My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post
#257On the popularity of Haugen: I find it amusing how your government treats a whistleblower who is promoting government control over social media, vs the way your government treats a whistleblower who leaks evidence of government spying and abuse. The fact that Edward Snowden and Julian Assange are treated the way they are (and the earlier treatment of Manning) gives the US government zero credibility on press freedom,…
>The optics are absolutely terrible on these issues. If I can speak for some of the folks in the rest of the world, we're laughing and shaking our heads. I can't think of a large government that doesn't protect its interests and those of the elite above others. In my experience people tend to have a blind spot for how their own government functions versus other governments.
My government is far worse, but it doesn't grandstand in public hearings the way the US Congress does.
Re: My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about (3) Less consolidation of power Personally as someone who doesn't use FB and never will, I couldn't care less if Facebook wants to track and monitor every one of their users, monetize their every movement, and ban any message they want. In a free market you'd have thousands of social networks to provide competition with all sorts of different policies and ToS. The real issue is that one company is in a skew…
> In a free market you'd have thousands of social networks to provide competition with all sorts of different policies and ToS. You know, I want to believe that, but I don't think it's true. Because of the "network effect", the value of belonging to a social network is mostly dependent on how many people are on it. This dynamic very strongly favors a few big social networks.
But the network effect of a social network is a status quo we kind of just let happen, and maybe that needs to be rethought. You could equally imagine a case where email was a walled garden — where Gmail users could only send messages to other Gmail users, Hotmail to Hotmail etc — and someone said "well, that's the nature of email platforms".
It doesn't have to be this way — if we had a common protocol for 'social' (or used & improved the ones that we already have), you could have interop of posts/comments/media between platforms and then the platform's 'secret sauce' be curation of messages, discoverability of people you might want to connect with, etc.
Facebook could focus on connecting with friends & being free but ad supported. Instagram could be only media posts & supported by sponsored influences in your timeline. Twitter could be focused on current events rather than your friends and be subscription based, etc.
Similarly with IM, we had lots of competing IRC clients when that was a thing. As products, you could easily create competing messengers that could speak to each other. You could even have additionally things on top e.g. if you have a FBFB message it can support 'stickers' or whatever that are outside the spec, but similar to browser development they _do_ get added to a shared spec that isn't controlled by one company.
Re: My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean, he's been pretty open about his goals and moral code for a while now. The entire company was built on the assumption that being connected to as many people as possible is net good. You can probably argue that he's wrong on this, but it's hard to say that he just cares about himself.
I doubt it, but I guess its possible that is his only true north. If it is, he is going about it in a Machiavellian or Caesar like manner where he does not care about the impact he has while attaining those goals. But I also think it's possible that his actions are those of someone who is power hungry and does not care about what happens in his wake.
> If it is, he is going about it in a Machiavellian or Caesar like manner
The dude is a classics nerd, and supposedly a bunch of the original FB mottos were in Latin (Fortune Favours the Bold, at least). That isn't surprising to me, at least.
Re: My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post
#260“make the world more open and connected” only means "scale fast and get as much products as you can to later sell to advertisers". being connected or open won't end slavery, homelessness, crime or ignorance.
> being connected or open won't end slavery, homelessness, crime or ignorance. Is any other corporation (Visa, Saudi Aramco, Apple, ...) expected to solve slavery, homelessness, crime, and ignorance? This is an absurd criticism.
Was just stating facts, didn't say they were expected to solve slavery. But maybe they should be, now you mention it: we're talking about the richest org's/individuals in the planet, afterall. It was also an indirect criticism to this tech-startup-bullshit-lingo, full of lies and hypocrisy.