Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What is likely to have an effect on democracy is when governments analyze data for political reasons. What if companies analyze data for political reasons? > Where that happens, people will simply stop volunteering so much private information. They don't need to be banned from doing that. Except that they don't. Heard of a certain Edward Snowden, maybe? Except that they can't because the data is already there and i…
I never disputed that there are dangers and negative externalities to lack of privacy. But democracy falling apart isn't one of them. Your logic is flawed. You are reversing cause and effect. Where there is a lack of democracy, privacy is often taken away in order to make it easier to oppress political opponents. But giving up some privacy in exchange for services doesn't make that happen. Yes the Stasi would love Fa…
Your logic is flawed. You are reversing cause and effect.
There simply is no unidirectional causation between lack of privacy and lack of democracy. Obviously, the Stasi took away privacy in order to suppress democracy. And at the same time, the lack of democracy helped with establishing and maintaining the Stasi. It's a positive feedback loop.
> Yes the Stasi would love Facebook's database, but using Facebook doesn't cause the Stasi.
Does using Google cause the NSA? No. Did the NSA take advantage of the data collected by Google (by eavesdropping on their internal communication), thus increasing their power? Yes.
Things aren't simply a linear chain of causes and effects. There are lots of factors contributing to certain historical developments, there are feedback loops, it's complicated. In particular, the development of power structures doesn't care about intentions behind a source of power. When the Netherlands collected information about the religion of their citizens prior to WW2, they didn't have an intention of killing all jews. But the database confers the power to find them very efficiently. Which is what the Nazis did when they invaded.
As you yourself say, the Stasi would have loved Facebook's database. Does that mean that Facebook is the Stasi? No. Does that mean that it cannot possibly attract interest from people who want to use it like the Stasi, who might end up getting access to it, thus contributing significantly to the establishment of an authoritarian dictatorship?
> Snowden isn't proof of that at either. The NSA hasn't hunted down and imprisoned supporters of Bernie Sanders after all, has it? American democracy hasn't fallen apart and where it is lacking it has little to do with Facebook.
1. So, even if that abuse by the state did not happen, what about all the abuse by the state that indeed does happen? What do we know about which role the NSA plays in those cases?
2. More importantly: What kind of evidence would you accept to consider something a risk to democracy? So far, it seems like democracy needs to have been destroyed before you accept that whatever has caused it to fall apart could indeed cause a democracy to fall apart.
> But please don't get me wrong. I find it very problematic when governments scan everybody's data. It could have an effect on how people behave even if it doesn't make democracy fall apart.
Well, except that is a major way in which it does? Surveillance changes how people discuss their opinions. People changing how they discuss their opinions is how people end up making different choices in elections. An idea that's not being discussed is less likely to gain support in an election.
Imagine a world where everything was being monitored by a Stasi-like entity, but with the exception of actually fair, secret, democratic elections, where citizens actually knew and could verify that the elections were fair and secret. Would you consider that a functioning democracy?
> It may deter people from doing perferctly legal things because they could be misinterpreted. None of that is voluntary though. I haven't given the NSA permission to scan my data at all.
1. The externalities of people using facebook aren't voluntary either.
2. The point wasn't whether you have given them permission, but whether the majority of people have given them permission. Your claim was that people would stop volunteering their data. If you go by the general reaction to Snowden's relevations, people don't care. It's probably not informed consent, but neither is it with Facebook.
> My problem with your line of thinking is that you are extrapolating every single danger to the extreme until you arrive at the conclusion that people must be banned from ever making these choices. As I said, you can ban everything based on that sort of thinking.
Except I don't, that's just your interpretation. Just because I don't write pages upon pages for a short HN comment, doesn't mean that there isn't any more reasoning behind it.