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The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

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Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#41

Post by walrus01 »

matchbok3 wrote: post #24
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Noticed the same with some media publishing anti-work-from-home articles recently. "We need the plebs to want to mock people who work from home, to reduce the reticence in coming back to work in the office" "We need our commercial property values to go back up" Edited to add: "Our managers need to _feel_ as if they're actually managing people"

It's 2026, the conspiracy theory that business people wanted RTO for office space value has been debunked 100 times. Such a silly, nonsense idea.

You think that the size of investment firms that own something like, a good sized chunk of midtown Manhattan class A and B commercial real estate aren't capable of deploying social and tradtional-media influence tools to push an agenda to repopulate their office space? That would be a very inaccurate assessment of how large and motivated they are.

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#42

Post by cosmic_cheese »

anigbrowl wrote: post #25
like_any_other wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note how they always ignore parental controls, and skip straight to deanonymize everyone.

Tech people keep ignoring the fact that many people a) find the parental controls too hard to use and b) have no confidence that their kids won't find a way to circumvent them. If parents felt in control of technology they wouldn't be calling on governments to regulate it in the first place. I know a lot of tech people like to assume that government wants to control everything and these parents are fake front groups…

On one hand the software world needs to re-learn the lost art of proper UX research and rely on data from user trials instead of on vibes and reading tea leaves with analytics, but on the other hand parents have a wholly unrealistic expectation of being able to keep their kids in a hermetically sealed bubble until they turn 18.

Kids are going to get into stuff you don’t want them to no matter how hard you try to prevent that, short of keeping them in locked padded rooms with no electronics (which would be abuse). Parents are right to want to steer them in the right direction and keep them out of the worst trouble, but that’s as far as it goes.

So really, both sides need to improve here.

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#43

Post by barney54 »

iamnothere wrote: post #22
Analemma_ wrote: post #7

On this topic, have people noticed the sudden coordinated media push for Flock Is Your Friend? The Free Press, The Atlantic, and Axios have all churned out pro-Flock articles in the last week. Clearly someone (I assume A16Z, but it could be multiple groups) is panicking about the mounting bipartisan backlash to Flock cameras and is starting to write checks to try and head it off.

My theory is that the establishment sees the oncoming economic crisis and is desperately trying to plan for managing the fallout. They don’t like Flock or its backers, but they feel they have no choice. Same as why Palantir is gradually being rehabilitated in the mainstream press. You’ll also notice that Anduril is quickly being accepted now that we’re expending munitions faster than our replacement rate.

You are giving them way, way, way too much credit. They are not planning for a future economic crisis.

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#45

Post by swed420 »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #23
Analemma_ wrote: post #7

On this topic, have people noticed the sudden coordinated media push for Flock Is Your Friend? The Free Press, The Atlantic, and Axios have all churned out pro-Flock articles in the last week. Clearly someone (I assume A16Z, but it could be multiple groups) is panicking about the mounting bipartisan backlash to Flock cameras and is starting to write checks to try and head it off.

Noticed the same with some media publishing anti-work-from-home articles recently. "We need the plebs to want to mock people who work from home, to reduce the reticence in coming back to work in the office" "We need our commercial property values to go back up" Edited to add: "Our managers need to _feel_ as if they're actually managing people"

The entire back-to-normal narrative was and still is a total mindfuck:

https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-co...

The threat from COVID (and more importantly, long COVID) never went away, but they sure convinced the average person that it did.

Today you can see an N95 in the wild once in awhile, so some people are paying attention, but they are less than 1%. Many others are suffering brain damage, unexplained heart issues, taxed immune systems, etc and have no idea why (nor does their doctor).

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#47

Post by walrus01 »

doginasuit wrote: post #39

HN has this guideline for comments: > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says. If the same standard were applied for posts, this one would fail. I recognize that it is a popular perspective that these measures are essentially a war on anonymity, but that is not what they intend to fix, although it is quite possible that anonymity is a casualty of whatever war is at hand. I believ…

> the modern internet is a harmful experience for young minds

Because of the goal of advertising revenue as the ultimate driver as to build an addictive permanent scroll of slop on tiktok or instagram, and the desire of social media companies to build walled gardens where someone's entire online experience stays in their "app.". As you say, this affects young and old alike.

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#48

Post by steve_taylor »

anigbrowl wrote: post #25
like_any_other wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note how they always ignore parental controls, and skip straight to deanonymize everyone.

Tech people keep ignoring the fact that many people a) find the parental controls too hard to use and b) have no confidence that their kids won't find a way to circumvent them. If parents felt in control of technology they wouldn't be calling on governments to regulate it in the first place. I know a lot of tech people like to assume that government wants to control everything and these parents are fake front groups…

Parents can stop giving kids smartphones.

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#49

Post by Computer0 »

doginasuit wrote: post #39

HN has this guideline for comments: > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says. If the same standard were applied for posts, this one would fail. I recognize that it is a popular perspective that these measures are essentially a war on anonymity, but that is not what they intend to fix, although it is quite possible that anonymity is a casualty of whatever war is at hand. I believ…

[dead]

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#50

Post by inigyou »

like_any_other wrote: post #5
matheusmoreira wrote: post #3

> These NGOs have converged upon a unified strategy: use the rhetoric of ‘child safety’ to advocate for digital ID laws that would prevent adults from using the internet anonymously. Of course. Anyone who brings up kids is trying to manipulate you into giving up your freedom for security. Whatever argument they make should be simply ignored and dismissed.

Note how they always ignore parental controls, and skip straight to deanonymize everyone.

Half the laws we're complaining about (e.g. California, Illinois) are literally just regulating parental controls, and I can no longer give the benefit of the doubt to people who act as if this is the same as forcing internet users to scan their ID. People who conflate these two things are paid lobbyists of Meta to make sure Meta won't have to be safe for children even when the parental controls checkbox is turned on.
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