Earlier quoted context omitted.
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> um, what? This is obnoxious.
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Washington Post's Privacy Tip: Stop Using Chrome, Delete Meta Apps (and Yandex)
221–230 of 346 posts
Re: Washington Post's Privacy Tip: Stop Using Chrome, Delete Meta Apps (and Yandex)
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
MSN is all rehosted articles I believe. Several times I've searched major paper headlines to read the full story on MSN. No idea what kind of deal these places have with Microsoft.
I like the MSN articles. My ad blocker cleans them up nicely, and they never ask me to subscribe.
Unfortunately MSN has a history of publishing AI hallucinations as fact.
How Microsoft is making a mess of the news after replacing staff with AI https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/02/tech/microsoft-ai-news
Re: Washington Post's Privacy Tip: Stop Using Chrome, Delete Meta Apps (and Yandex)
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What makes employees there feel good (or at least okay) about doing stuff like this? A big house, a fast car, more money. Where else in SV are you going to go anyway? Every company does the same thing.
Finding a company less bad for the world than Meta isn't very hard. They pay really well to compensate, so people will rationalise working there of course, but "everyone does it" is just a way to dodge responsibility for your own choices If you value money over other people, it's a great place to work though
Smearing shit on your face every morning is "less bad" than smearing shit all over your whole body every morning.
"Everyone does it" is as much of a cope as "less bad". You are still covered in shit.
Re: Washington Post's Privacy Tip: Stop Using Chrome, Delete Meta Apps (and Yandex)
#224I don’t know anyone that works at Meta, so I’m hoping that someone here could answer this for me- What makes employees there feel good (or at least okay) about doing stuff like this? You're spying on people, no? Surveilling ordinary people, not enemy combatants or foreign militaries? Perhaps a friend of a friend or even a family member? This kind of thing is so creepy and disturbing to me, not that it’s anything new…
Generally employees put the responsibility on management. As everyone has a higher up they answer to, no one feels personally responsible. From the top down, the concerns of how things are actually implemented are often too abstract. Combine these dynamics with institutional echochambers and group-think. Employees just want to make it to the weekend. Execs want to hit their targets. Sales dept. needs their bonuses. T…
Not Meta but I once got yelled at not by a real manager, but by a PM because I said I wouldn't let the team do something shady without legal signing off. I'm in Europe so it was GDPR related.
The PM tried shopping the task to other teams, but nobody took the bait after I raised it publicly, and both legal and the external law firm sided with me after about three months of delay.
In the meantime I raised the topic of yelling with HR but every step of the way the company made me feel like I was the one in the wrong for not complying.
I believe if I were meeker I would probably have complied right there.
Re: Washington Post's Privacy Tip: Stop Using Chrome, Delete Meta Apps (and Yandex)
#225I don’t know anyone that works at Meta, so I’m hoping that someone here could answer this for me- What makes employees there feel good (or at least okay) about doing stuff like this? You're spying on people, no? Surveilling ordinary people, not enemy combatants or foreign militaries? Perhaps a friend of a friend or even a family member? This kind of thing is so creepy and disturbing to me, not that it’s anything new…
The sad reality is that this behavior gets normalized in the name of making money. For employees it gets normalized at the first signal that your livelihood might be affected if you don't comply. As someone who's privacy conscious, it's an uphill battle to convince co-workers to actually follow laws instead of trying to find loopholes. I've worked at places who collect every possible data point and distributes it wil…
> behavior gets normalized in the name of making money
If Pavlov's dog gets a big fat steak everytime it bites someone ...
Re: Washington Post's Privacy Tip: Stop Using Chrome, Delete Meta Apps (and Yandex)
#226I don’t know anyone that works at Meta, so I’m hoping that someone here could answer this for me- What makes employees there feel good (or at least okay) about doing stuff like this? You're spying on people, no? Surveilling ordinary people, not enemy combatants or foreign militaries? Perhaps a friend of a friend or even a family member? This kind of thing is so creepy and disturbing to me, not that it’s anything new…
Same thing at Google or Apple. Google has everyone’s email
and browsing history, Apple has the complete copy of everyone’s iMessage and SMS history (in the non-e2ee iCloud backups, readable by Apple).
Anything these companies know, the FBI and CIA can know, without a warrant thanks to FAA702 (did we all forget about PRISM?).
The state now has leverage over almost every normal citizen, thanks to what these companies have built.
Turnkey tyranny. Built by silicon valley.
Re: Washington Post's Privacy Tip: Stop Using Chrome, Delete Meta Apps (and Yandex)
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a 90s teen growing up with Grunge and in a DYI punk scene, I remember my youth being a lot about authenticity, and it felt weird reading about how the 80s were all about money and fame and how selling out was ok. To me that sounded absolutely absurd and a freaking caricature, something out of "American Psycho". Today I was just discussing with a friend how we're perhaps even more materialistic and cut-throat...
Musicians used to not let their songs be used in commercials.
For music I blame poptimism.
An entire generation of critics tried to appeal to a new market and money suddenly became synonymous with quality.
Naturally artists stopped caring about authenticity, sharing their beliefs. And also about the critics.
Just as music was replaced by reality shows in MTV, music journalism was entirely replaced by gossip and tabloids.
Re: Washington Post's Privacy Tip: Stop Using Chrome, Delete Meta Apps (and Yandex)
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a 90s teen growing up with Grunge and in a DYI punk scene, I remember my youth being a lot about authenticity, and it felt weird reading about how the 80s were all about money and fame and how selling out was ok. To me that sounded absolutely absurd and a freaking caricature, something out of "American Psycho". Today I was just discussing with a friend how we're perhaps even more materialistic and cut-throat...
A fear of mine is that we are speedrunning Cyberpunk 2077. And that’s not something to expire to. It’s a bleak no-hope hell. Hope is about finding and using that moral compass. To change worse outcomes to better outcomes for everyone . The “I’ll take mine” or “My group needs to win” attitude is poison to yourself and to the world, and if you don’t see that your conscience is blind or broken. This is nothing new, in n…
As an old-school leftist that feels politically orphaned, I feel like there's a huge group that is hating all the current bullshit. Even terminally online people.
I don't see a way out, though. I just hope we can leave a planet for the animals.
EDIT: On the other hand: the internet is already a dystopia if you look closely. Maybe it will prove to be a fad and people will go back to their lives. One can hope!
Re: Washington Post's Privacy Tip: Stop Using Chrome, Delete Meta Apps (and Yandex)
#229Re: Washington Post's Privacy Tip: Stop Using Chrome, Delete Meta Apps (and Yandex)
#230I don’t know anyone that works at Meta, so I’m hoping that someone here could answer this for me- What makes employees there feel good (or at least okay) about doing stuff like this? You're spying on people, no? Surveilling ordinary people, not enemy combatants or foreign militaries? Perhaps a friend of a friend or even a family member? This kind of thing is so creepy and disturbing to me, not that it’s anything new…
In principle, I think most people believe their morals would prevent them from working at a company like Meta. On the flip side, how much are morals worth if you have the opportunity to be financially free? There's also the opportunity to work on interesting problems. Anecdotally, of course, I know a Meta engineer at the L7 level (generally staff engineer in these large tech companies). He makes over seven figures a…
I am not even sure most people could articulate their morals. It's not just about never having heard about things as moral absolutism or consequentialism. Similar to how atrophied people's understanding of sympathy and empathy is as well.