FTC: Vast Surveillance of Users by Social Media and Video Streaming Companies

Because that is the choice they made for themselves.

How it plays out after is another matter entirely. But the choice was what they seemed to think was right, for them, at the time. Thus it was the right choice for them. It doesn't mean it was the right choice in terms of integrity, or the right choice for me, or you or anyone whose data got caught up in it. Nor was it right choice in receiving a paycheck the next week.

But the way it was explained, it doesn't seem like they went out of their way to pick a "wrong" choice, specifically. They picked what they felt was the right one, for them, at that time. There were less ethical options to choose as well, and those were not picked either.

Someone choosing an action does not at all mean it's the right choice for them.

> What intellectually honest reason do you have for why it would be wrong if I’m watching you while you sleep? If I inventory your house while you’re away, and sell this information to the highest bidder?

This is an interesting idea, but it's a pretty far analogy from app telemetry or ad data collection. If you're really saying, "would it be wrong for me as a camera app developer to collect the videos end users record?" I suppose the answer would really be, "It depends." Like that's what Instagram does, it collects videos end users record. But without their permission? I guess not, no, but that's pretty obvious. The same would be true if you made firmware for security cameras, which happened to be pointed at my bedroom. I suppose if you asked for permission, and I granted it, go ahead - if you didn't ask for permission, I would be surprised why you would need to collect the videos as a firmware developer. The house inventory thing is the same tack - are you talking about, does it make sense for Amazon to sell my purchase history, or something? I guess they asked for permission, go ahead... Nobody forces me to use Amazon or whatever.

Instagram, Amazon, etc. do the things they do with permission. And I don't think anyone who is fully educated is surprised what the idea is for the transactional attribution data it collects. There's lying by omission, which is bad, but that is an issue of leadership and education. Everyone in the EU still chooses telemetry and free over no telemetry and paid service, when it is spelled out to them. It's too bad that leadership has to be taken in that form, but there's no alternative in the regime they built there.

If this is just a competition over the leadership and education of laypeople, so be it, but this real life experiment keeps happening, and the people who try to inject drama into ad telemetry keep losing, so I really don't think it's just about lying. There is a real lack of harm.

> reason that they don’t want to be spied on

Nobody forces you to use Instagram. If you think ad data attribution is a form of spying, go for it. Delete the free social media apps. I don't use them. I don't have Instagram, TikTok, etc. I spend less than 10m a week watching something on YouTube. I don't even have a TV in my house. Do you see? They are not enriching your life.

> In my experience literally everyone who argues... well those people still want their own privacy, they just don’t respect anyone else’s.

In my experience this is pure projection. I respect when people don't want to give permission to Instagram to collect ad telemetry when they choose to not install the app. Of course, you say these things on the Internet, but you, you personally, are not going to migrate off of Gmail, which does all the same things. This is all really about vibes, about vibes being vibesy against social media, but not vibes being vibesy against Gmail, which would be a major inconvenience to say no to, and it would suck to have to pay $35/mo for e-mail - at the very least!

I understand your perspective, but I maintain that "good" (morally pure) isn't a category any of us belong to. We're all lying, hateful people to one extent or another, and lying hateful people aren't "good", even if we haven't lied or hated as much as other lying, hateful people. "Less evil" isn't synonymous with "good".

The argument that profit motivation is the origin of shady business practices ignores the existence of those businesses which pursue profit in an ethical manner. The company I work for, for instance, is highly motivated to produce a profit, but the way we go about obtaining that profit is by providing our customers with products that have real value, at fair (and competitive) prices, and by providing consistently excellent customer support. Our customers are *very* satisfied with our products and services, and they show their satisfaction with extreme brand loyalty. The profit we make year over year allows us to increase the quality of life for our employees, and keeps our employees highly motivated towards serving our customers. We pursue the good of our customers alongside our own, and we avoid shady business practices like the plague.

That is not the treatment for depression.

this argument reduces mental health to medication, which leaves aside everything from the history of mental health (asylums, witch burnings to today), leaps in medicine (from lobotomies, to SNRIs, bipolar meds and more), to simply better diagnoses.

There are certainly tons of people here who have benefited from mental health professionals - overextending the flaws in psych simply to dismiss the idea of a watchdog is several unsupported arguments too far.