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Facebook and Google hand over user data, help police prosecute abortion seekers

businessinsider.com

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Re: Facebook and Google hand over user data, help police prosecute abortion seekers

#151

Post by justinclift »

inspicouss wrote: post #142
tsimionescu wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no inherent moral good in enforcing the law. Enforcing a morally evil law is morally evil.

The second part is true, the first part not so much. Enforcing the law creates stability, which is a good trait in and of itself, (all things considered equal otherwise about the law in question) You have some arguments for that I'm not aware of perhaps?

> Enforcing the law creates stability ...

Do no obvious counter-examples spring to mind for you regarding that? ;)

Re: Facebook and Google hand over user data, help police prosecute abortion seekers

#152

Post by projektfu »

concordDance wrote: post #117
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're working on sensitive or compartmentalized tech, and talking about it on the platform, I don't even see why you'd need to self-censor on WeChat. The Chinese, for all their faults, don't seem to care what you do in your spare time. That said, I don't know if I'd feel comfortable discussing my medical history over Gmail or Facebook, even if ostensibly "private."

> The Chinese, for all their faults, don't seem to care what you do in your spare time. I thought pyrography (for example) was illegal in China

That would be strange for a traditional Chinese art that's probably sold at airports and gift shops.

Re: Facebook and Google hand over user data, help police prosecute abortion seekers

#153

Post by kevincox »

dspillett wrote: post #144
kevincox wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this issue is that we are giving these companies the ability to reveal sensitive information about us. We should rethink how we share our data and the costs that it has. I don't think Meta and Google are to blame here. Other than encouraging us to give them our data unprotected (as well as trying to syphon up as much as they can get their hands on in the background).

> I don't think Meta and Google are to blame here. Other than encouraging us to give them our data unprotected (as well as trying to syphon up as much as they can get their hands on in the background). That bracketed "as well as" is a 'king huge "other than". Even your smaller "other than" that is stated as such, is enough to make the premise that they carry no blame seem pretty silly to me.

Yes. But the bracketed part doesn't apply to this article IIUC because it is talking about chat logs which were "consciously" given. If the article was talking about web history assembled by ad tracking scripts than I can definitely agree that Meta and Google have a large portion of the blame.

Re: Facebook and Google hand over user data, help police prosecute abortion seekers

#154

Post by fluxinflex »

dspillett wrote: post #150
fluxinflex wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The data was generated, the law changed and law enforcement asked for all user data. There is nothing retroactive here. There is no respect for the context in which the data was generated.

From the point of view of the company for who it is just a pot of data with no context until analysed, maybe. It will sure seem retroactive to someone who might have acted differently so the data wouldn't be available to be handed over, if the current laws were in action at the point they could have done something to avoid the data being collected¹². -- [1] "Generated" is too benign a word here IMO, hence using "coll…

I used "generated" viewed from the user, "collected" would be from the perspective of the company. I wonder whether there is a legal difference in the case of law changes, which date would be taken?

The classic form of retroactive application of laws would be if someone performed an action, the law was backdated so that action becomes illegal and the performer becomes a criminal.

In this case we're talking not about direct action as the action is implied via the data collected. So if the action was performed before the backdating of the law but the data was collected after the backdating, is the performer a criminal?

So from the data, an action is "inferred".

Re: Facebook and Google hand over user data, help police prosecute abortion seekers

#155

Post by [deleted] »

dools wrote: post #95
nilmask wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Safeguarding the privacy of a user's personal information is a technological problem that should be solved through the development and correct usage of cryptographic primitives that secure that data.

I completely disagree. If you're trying to subvert the political/legal process through innovation then you're only accelerating the path to dystopia.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook and Google hand over user data, help police prosecute abortion seekers

#156

Post by projektfu »

krapp wrote: post #86
dools wrote: post #71

This is not the story. The story is Roe v. Wade overturned due to heinous corruption of the US political process in favour of the religious right and free market libertarians.

That's not even the story. The story is Roe v. Wade was overturned due to the US political process working exactly as it as designed to , with the religious right telegraphing their play for decades, and progressives doing nothing about it except trying to fundraise on the aftermath.

That's not entirely true. They also bought candles and tote bags.

More seriously, there has been substantial opposition to the anti-abortion long game but it's not easy to secure abortion rights in Nebraska from NY without federal law. But Roe made securing abortion federally a little moot and maybe not the hill a slim majority wants to die on when they have other priorities. Then they didn't get justices to retire when they could be replaced, although it's questionable that would have been allowed to happen anyway. Bad strategy but not complete inaction. They have been trying to oppose laws in states but gerrymandering means that the Right gets unfairly more representation in those states like Georgia.

Re: Facebook and Google hand over user data, help police prosecute abortion seekers

#157

Post by lapcat »

decremental wrote: post #136
lapcat wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> BI seems to be implying that abortion shouldn't be treated as a crime in places where it is a crime. Abortion was explicitly legally protected for 50 years and only became a crime in some localities last year. There aren't many "crimes" like that.

Slavery was once legal everywhere until it wasn't. It became illegal in some parts of the country but eventually it became illegal everywhere. Now we can look back and think how obvious it is that slavery is wrong. Murdering the unborn was once legal everywhere until it wasn't. It became illegal in some parts of the country and will eventually become illegal everywhere. One day we will look back and think how obvious…

You're missing the point. The transition from legal slavery to illegal slavery was not a smooth one. Consensus did not magically arise. People did not simply relent to legal authorities. There was a massively bloody Civil War fought over it. Regardless of what you think about how "One day we will look back" (and note how Confederate pride is still a thing today), you can't expect this to be like an ordinary legal issue. The transition is extremely divisive, and there will be resistance. Nobody could be neutral during the Civil War, and it's going to be difficult for corporations to remain neutral now, when they want pro-choice people to use their services. Abortion is legal in the headquarter state of the big tech companies, and those companies employ many pro-choice workers.

Re: Facebook and Google hand over user data, help police prosecute abortion seekers

#158

Post by MacsHeadroom »

lapcat wrote: post #40
psychphysic wrote: post #15

The only take away from this article is that somehow they could read the change logs. Doesn't that fly in the face of metas own claims to not be able to? BI seems to be implying that abortion shouldn't be treated as a crime in places where it is a crime.

> BI seems to be implying that abortion shouldn't be treated as a crime in places where it is a crime. Abortion was explicitly legally protected for 50 years and only became a crime in some localities last year. There aren't many "crimes" like that.

Technically it was illegal the whole time in many places and the supreme court only last year recognized that they never had the power to prevent states from enforcing their own laws on the matter.

In states where it was illegal it may not even be ex-post-facto for them to prosecute for events that took place prior to last year's supreme court ruling.

Anyway, the real takeaway should be that businesses should not be collecting this kind of data in the first place. If they don't collect it, then they have nothing to turn over.

Re: Facebook and Google hand over user data, help police prosecute abortion seekers

#159

Post by lapcat »

MacsHeadroom wrote: post #158
lapcat wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> BI seems to be implying that abortion shouldn't be treated as a crime in places where it is a crime. Abortion was explicitly legally protected for 50 years and only became a crime in some localities last year. There aren't many "crimes" like that.

Technically it was illegal the whole time in many places and the supreme court only last year recognized that they never had the power to prevent states from enforcing their own laws on the matter. In states where it was illegal it may not even be ex-post-facto for them to prosecute for events that took place prior to last year's supreme court ruling. Anyway, the real takeaway should be that businesses should not be…

> Technically it was illegal the whole time in many places and the supreme court only last year recognized that they never had the power to prevent states from enforcing their own laws on the matter.

I don't agree with this "technical" interpretation at all. Nobody would have said in 2020 that technically abortion is illegal in many places. Just because the Supreme Court changed its mind doesn't wipe everyone else's minds.

Re: Facebook and Google hand over user data, help police prosecute abortion seekers

#160

Post by npteljes »

qwray wrote: post #118

I miss the good old days when you could just open a telephone book and no one would know what you were looking up. Now everything you do is recorded by a third party. Don't use Facebook or Google.

Since communication was unencrypted, listening in was easy though. Even the instant messengers, up to 2005-2007, sent their messages in cleartext. So listening in was easy, but since storage was much more expensive, I don't think they bothered with recording them too much.

Regarding your conclusion, leaving FB and G is not even the hardest part. The hardest part is that your network probably won't follow.

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