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Facebook to move UK users to California terms, avoiding EU privacy rules

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Re: Facebook to move UK users to California terms, avoiding EU privacy rules

#321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this specific case, my data is being moved to California. Placing it in direct reach of the US government, which has not been historically shy about abusing that kind of reach. I would quite like my data to stay in the UK, where national governments I don't elect or pay taxes to, can't touch it.

Except the UK and US security agencies share data freely through the Five Eyes alliance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes

There's a huge difference between sharing between national security services, which are generally out of the reach of everyday warrants and the company moving data so that a local judge can approve a subpoena.

Re: Facebook to move UK users to California terms, avoiding EU privacy rules

#322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just don't overestimate the effect of the data location. You have other tools as well, including controlling more tightly what information you share on platforms like Facebook. Now surely, they do track us regardless, shadow profiles, like buttons etc. Also on the other side of things, does it harm me more if a foreign government holds information on me, random Joe, or if my own government holds the same info? Which…

> Also on the other side of things, does it harm me more if a foreign government holds information on me, random Joe, or if my own government holds the same info? Might be a good question for Kim Dotcom. Regardless of your views on his various business, it hard to explain how the US arresting a non-US citizen outside of the US isn’t a huge and worrying overstep by the US. Now I probably don’t need to worry about a Ki…

Let me understand you better. Would you say the following?

- If FB is to operate under US law with US data centers you prefer to be geo-blocked by them based on IP and feel you need to be protected against your own will and you can't trust yourself to just not use the service

- You are concerned about shadow profiles and the like, i.e. the unavoidability of FB even if you want to avoid it. But otherwise you'd be okay with FB offering its services to those who accept it on the foreign terms.

- You are concerned for your fellow citizens who may be less informed and may accept conditions they don't understand and are harmful for them. Therefore rather geo-block foreign FB from them for their own good.

Re: Facebook to move UK users to California terms, avoiding EU privacy rules

#323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s you vs a team of 200 PhDs who’s entire job is to make you spend more time on the platform and make more clicks. It’s invasive marketing on a level that has never occurred in human history, and also happens to have the effect of amplifying the craziest voices. It’s hijacking people’s psychology, creating fights when peace would be better, because fights are less boring. And you pay for it, just with the dissoluti…

> How many families have been split because of Facebook radicalization of conservatives? Mine for one. I am willing to bet your family is saying the same thing but calling it "radicalization of liberals" it works both ways

That’s how they justify it, certainly. That’s also how they justify cheering for violence.

Anti vaxxers and people wanting police dept reform aren’t the same as the people who want and are preparing for a second civil war

Re: Facebook to move UK users to California terms, avoiding EU privacy rules

#324

Free exchange among peoples is alive and well. It is easier today to make a website and share anything than it has ever been in the history of civilization. All this is is the reining in of a few greedy corporations that offer information-sharing platforms in exchange for exploitation. New communities will pop up, and old ones resurface.

It's easier to put things online wrt technical barrier of entry and cost, but it's a lot harder for things to get seen. Got a popular page on Facebook? pay for it to be seen. Got a great unique website? Pay to be seen via Adwords. Website owners don't link so liberally as they once did because the link graph has been obliterated by "what people think will please Google" rather than linking to things they think other…

> it's a lot harder for things to get seen.

Here's something I've always wondered: I don't really get this obsession with maximizing the number of people who go to one's web page. If you're just a regular person who's not profiting from ads or something, it shouldn't matter.

If I post something to the internet, I maybe send it to a few people who might want to see it and that's it. I don't care about collecting pageviews, or likes, or follows, or upvotes, or any of these vanity metrics. It doesn't really matter to me if something I wrote was viewed by 10 people, 1000 people, or 100,000 people. Who cares? What difference does it make? My life is not richer because thousands of random people read some blog post or forum comment.

The only reason I can see to promote some creative work is if you're making a profit off of it. In that case, it's an investment. Spend $X on discovery and make $Y in revenue from ads or conversions or whatever. But just to put up some web site about your stamp collection? Who cares how many people visit?

Re: Facebook to move UK users to California terms, avoiding EU privacy rules

#325
post #3

Tech companies, or any company for that matter, will do what is best for themselves. Regulations exist to protect consumers and other companies from accusative behaviors. Remove the regulation and the 'we care for your privacy' message disappears with it. Because they never cared for your privacy, they will just doing what was mandatory.

>Regulations exist to protect consumers and other companies from accusative behaviors.

Regulations exist because the government created them. Everything else is secondary.

Re: Facebook to move UK users to California terms, avoiding EU privacy rules

#326
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulations are fluid and often end up raising the barrier to entry often stifling the competition.

Companies are often fluid, especially smaller ones, and can more easily adapt to a changing world.

>Companies are often fluid, especially smaller ones, and can more easily adapt to a changing world.

Smaller companies have less capital to expend on compliance

Re: Facebook to move UK users to California terms, avoiding EU privacy rules

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easier to put things online wrt technical barrier of entry and cost, but it's a lot harder for things to get seen. Got a popular page on Facebook? pay for it to be seen. Got a great unique website? Pay to be seen via Adwords. Website owners don't link so liberally as they once did because the link graph has been obliterated by "what people think will please Google" rather than linking to things they think other…

> it's a lot harder for things to get seen. Here's something I've always wondered: I don't really get this obsession with maximizing the number of people who go to one's web page. If you're just a regular person who's not profiting from ads or something, it shouldn't matter. If I post something to the internet, I maybe send it to a few people who might want to see it and that's it. I don't care about collecting pagev…

Indeed. Why publish your journal at all?

Re: Facebook to move UK users to California terms, avoiding EU privacy rules

#328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Centralization of supply chains, economic monoculture, increased spread of disease, increased carbon emissions, massively increased pollution. That’s a lot of risks which are mostly unquantifiable; it’s dubious to claim we know which is worse, especially in the long run. We lived without globalism for many thousands of years, it’s incredibly new and unproven.

I think the idea here is that keeping most humans alive, relatively healthy and out of poverty is good end goal and globalization helped with that. We do have unquantifiable long-term risks but I would wager you don't want to live in the days where you did from a small wound because we don't have the technology or scale to provide antibiotics.

That is a false dichotomy. There was a sweet spot we had in between the invention of the antibiotic in the 1920s and now when societies were more localized. I find it quite doubtful, for example, that disposing of tons of forever chemicals (PFAS, etc.) in the ocean is at all compatible with keeping humans alive, even most humans. These are the unfortunate incentive structures we get when there is so little accountability.

Re: Facebook to move UK users to California terms, avoiding EU privacy rules

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easier to put things online wrt technical barrier of entry and cost, but it's a lot harder for things to get seen. Got a popular page on Facebook? pay for it to be seen. Got a great unique website? Pay to be seen via Adwords. Website owners don't link so liberally as they once did because the link graph has been obliterated by "what people think will please Google" rather than linking to things they think other…

> it's a lot harder for things to get seen. Here's something I've always wondered: I don't really get this obsession with maximizing the number of people who go to one's web page. If you're just a regular person who's not profiting from ads or something, it shouldn't matter. If I post something to the internet, I maybe send it to a few people who might want to see it and that's it. I don't care about collecting pagev…

I think you're seeing it out of context.

I'd agree, it's not about volume.

I'd disagree about your supposition of an 'maximizing the number of people who go to one's web page', which the rest of your post alludes to. Most smart online marketers are concerned with conversions rates, not volume of visitors. ROI as you mention with $X and $Y

The point is about how people discover new information. As an end user, on which platform, how that platform allows me to discover the new information, are there platform or result alternatives etc etc.

IF we're reducing my online information discovery to "how advertisers can effectively make an ROI out of me", especially from one or two portals, I suspect the outcome is I'm being duped or at the very least, shortchanged of all the other sources that should be available to me.

Re: Facebook to move UK users to California terms, avoiding EU privacy rules

#330

This is the balkanization of the internet. We've lived through a brief period of free exchange among peoples, but it's soon over. I predict only one viable future for all technology companies, big and small: Pick a single national jurisdiction, keep your employees and servers inside it.

> Pick a single national jurisdiction, keep your employees and servers inside it.

How does that help when you have countries like the US that enforce extra-territorial laws?

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