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Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

nytimes.com

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Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

#181

Post by mncharity »

pascalxus wrote: post #116

I think 2017 is the year we have a turning point in the media's opinion of Silicon valley. I don't remember seeing this much SV bashing in the last 10 years. I think it has less to do with what SV is doing precisely: it's more about the threat of automation and the consolidation of power in the hands of a few companies. Pieces like this, so enfused with bitterness show a fundamental lack of understanding of how capit…

> I think 2017 is the year we have a turning point in the media's opinion of Silicon valley. I don't remember seeing this much SV bashing in the last 10 years.

Is there any evidence of an organized campaign? Is the LA Times leading the way, for instance?

During SOPA, it seemed clear that at least some Hollywood leadership actually believed a narrative of "unethical black-hat Tech corrupting Congresspeople to oppose our pure white-hat legislation". Perhaps driven by a group-think "everyone I know agrees this is excellent and necessary, so opposition from tech and congress can only be rooted in greed and corruption respectively". A real CEO-ish quote from the period was something like "congressmen not staying bought". Perhaps meaning something vaguely like "we donate a lot to get good people elected, and then they turned around and took Tech bribes to stab us in the back, oppose our good legislation".

If this is indeed a media industry point of view, it would seem unsurprising if they then used media to raise awareness that Tech is a problem requiring attention.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

#182

Post by pheldagryph »

cromwellian wrote: post #68

The reporter asks a rhetorical question of whether self driving cars should be stopped. Did he ask the car companies whether they should have been stopped selling a machine that helps kill tens of thousands a year and pollute the global environment? I mean, lets get a damn perspective here: traditional non-silicon valley companies continue to make and sell things which poison and kill people and because of that, ther…

> But he doesn't like SV because it's companies created anarchic platforms that allow unsavory people to buy and publish propaganda? Seems somewhat hypocritical for a writer of the NYT to decry freedom to publish on platforms.

Where in the story do you read the NYT writer decrying freedom of publication? If it's between the lines, I can't find it.

Seems to me that the concerns are about how sites like Facebook decide which posts to show me (my cousin's travel pictures, or a 'trending' news story?) and the piles of information these companies are amassing on us.

I don't think it's fair to frame this as purely a 'freedom of speech' thing on the part of SV companies. Besides, not all speech enjoys legal protections.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

#183

Post by mythrwy »

bogomipz wrote: post #140
jrs95 wrote: post #35

"Silicon Valley is Not Your Friend...but we, at The New York Times, totally are."

What a total strawman comment that is. The free press is necessary for a functioning democracy, Silicon Valley is not.

When can we get some of this "free press" then?

Mostly what I see is promoting one agenda or another and not much "free" about it.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

#184

Post by tomcam »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #24
hprotagonist wrote: post #2

I grew up reading 2600 and the jargon file and early slashdot, and hanging out on freenode and usenet, so i've been indoctrinated in this way of thinking this way for 20 years. In my experience, the people who built the net are among its sharpest and most vocal critics, and there's some cause for that. I'm not sure what the implications of everyone else thinking this way will be.

This is my experience as well. While my family are enjoying their Amazon Dots and "Hey Siri" and everything else, I'm constantly reminding them of how evil these companies are, and how they're constantly consuming and eating information, while Uncle Sam syphons every drip of internet off the pipeline. Convenience, in my mind, has never been worth the price of losing anonymity.

You sound like a lot of fun to be around ;)

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

#185

Post by mythrwy »

Hypothetical question.

Would you rather live in a world constructed by Google or one constructed by the New York Times?

My personal theory is that these articles keep popping up in the hopes regulators will "do something" then old newspapers will become the primary sources of information again.

But as much as there are hazards of big centralized tech companies, the information we have now is so much more complete than the little slices of bias and propaganda that the newspapers brought us.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

#186

Post by pheldagryph »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #60
vasilipupkin wrote: post #56

this may be the dumbest most fud filled article I have ever read. I mean it's just a bunch of words that mean what exactly? what exactly does the author think those companies are doing that is evil ? I can't figure it out. Driverless cars are not a worthy goal? don't buy one once it's for sale.

sure, you can downvote, but those downvoting can you explain to me in a nutshell what is the specific point made by this article ?

The articles makes points throughout, but one I found interesting was in the first paragraph. Zuckerberg acknowledging professional failings, suggesting FB does not consider itself to be perfect.

For example, a recent Facebook privacy failure (also, a separate failure for FB PR department): https://gizmodo.com/how-facebook-outs-sex-workers-1818861596

Some find it worrisome that these systems don't work quite like users expect, and believe there is risk we're not accounting for.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

#187

Post by goialoq »

wolco wrote: post #163
Bartweiss wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm honestly pretty baffled by the whole "techies hate privacy and undermine consumers" genre. I mean, sure, engineers built Echo/Alexa and the Equifax website. But engineers also built Signal and HIBP. Programmers vary in their concern for privacy, just like any other group, but my general experience is that they skew more privacy-conscious than the general consumer. The writers who admit that often frame it as hypo…

It was always this way the people who actual wrote softwate were always more privacy minded. The products geeks who get excited over new products were the ones who never cared about privacy. There is a price to pay to be an early adopter and most are willing to trade in intangable things like time or stability or privacy. They set the norm for the average customer group that follows through feedback in the alpha/beta…

You know it was geeks who invented all the insecure technologies that still plague us today: DNS and SMTP to name a few.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

#188

Post by bogomipz »

mythrwy wrote: post #183
bogomipz wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a total strawman comment that is. The free press is necessary for a functioning democracy, Silicon Valley is not.

When can we get some of this "free press" then? Mostly what I see is promoting one agenda or another and not much "free" about it.

>"Mostly what I see is promoting one agenda or another and not much "free" about it."

This is exactly what press freedom is. Anyone is allowed to own and publish a newspaper and have their own editorial policies, without government interference. That's exactly what makes it free:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_the_press_in_the_Un...

The word "free" in the context press freedom has zero do do with being free from bias.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

#189

Post by bogomipz »

jrs95 wrote: post #176
bogomipz wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a total strawman comment that is. The free press is necessary for a functioning democracy, Silicon Valley is not.

Isn’t any media company’s ability to hide behind “we’re the free press and we’re necessary for democracy” even more potent than SV’s faux dedication to the interests of humanity? There’s a lot wrong with what SV companies do, but they don’t have the same direct power to define what is and isn’t “true” like the media does.

>"Isn’t any media company’s ability to hide behind “we’re the free press and we’re necessary for democracy” even more potent than SV’s faux dedication to the interests of humanity?"

You realize that the widely accepted idea of journalism being an essential part of a functioning democracy is not something that today's "media companies" made up right? See "The Fourth Estate":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Estate

>"There’s a lot wrong with what SV companies do, but they don’t have the same direct power to define what is and isn’t “true” like the media does"

Are you joking? The SV companies are the Goliath in terms of direct power. Did you miss this whole story of a major election, micro-targeting and dark ads?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/1...

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

#190

Post by KirinDave »

vog wrote: post #174
KirinDave wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With payment, they can afford to have strong privacy rules and have others check their system integrity. But they'll only do so if there's demand for sanity. I confess it's frustrating to me that I just defined 2 alternative models that involve customer paying, break customer faith, and do not involve ads. A post ignoring the examples I gave immediately appears. There is no set of behavior YOU can engage in to enco…

> A post ignoring the examples I gave immediately appears Not sure what you mean. Am I supposed to only reply if I disagree? Just because I did't express disagreement with your examples doesn't mean I didn't read them. Your question that summarized the examples was: "Why is it that folks think that paying for a product somehow fixes this?" My answer was: "Because that is a necessary condition (although not sufficient…

> "Because that is a necessary condition (although not sufficient)."

I think it's at best a loose correlation. And as an example: the CFPB doesn't offer pay-to-play but does a good job of its work.

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