Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 24-Aug-2023 03:49:44 JST Aral Balkan

   If the thing you’re making wouldn’t exist if people had to opt in instead of having to opt out, maybe the thing you’re making shouldn’t exist.

   #technology #humanRights #consent #respect

   • Linux Walt Alt (@lnxw37a2) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 24-Aug-2023 06:03:25 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • jill
     • starbreaker

     @starbreaker @jill Yep.

   • Embed this notice
     starbreaker (starbreaker@libranet.de)'s status on Thursday, 24-Aug-2023 06:03:26 JST starbreaker

     in reply to

     • jill
     @jill Forcing people to opt out of stuff like telemetry and targeted advertising is unethical because it presumes consent instead of making it possible for people to give informed consent. @aral
   • Embed this notice
     jill (jill@det.social)'s status on Thursday, 24-Aug-2023 06:03:27 JST jill

     in reply to

     @aral could you elaborate on this please?

   • Embed this notice
     Raptor :jewish_pride_flag: (rushraptor@babka.social)'s status on Thursday, 24-Aug-2023 06:04:32 JST Raptor :jewish_pride_flag:

     in reply to

     @aral imagine if we treated IRL spaces like this. We'd have random techbros crashing on everyone's couches and saying "if you didn't want me here you would've locked your door."

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 24-Aug-2023 15:25:04 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Billy O'Neal

     @malwareminigun You’re right, we don’t agree.

     The world is not better for having trillion-dollar surveillance capitalists like Microsoft and Google in it.

     But I won’t argue with you that these corporations erode human rights and democracy in the same way I wouldn’t argue with someone working at Shell that oil companies are destroy our habitat.

     “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” – Upton Sinclair

   • Embed this notice
     Billy O'Neal (malwareminigun@infosec.exchange)'s status on Thursday, 24-Aug-2023 15:25:05 JST Billy O'Neal

     in reply to

     @aral I don't agree.

     1. There are lots of things where there is benefit in aggregate usage statistics etc. where there's no reason a user would go looking to turn it on because it doesn't affect immediate product function, but which will make the product better over time when designers can see how and what gets used.

     2. In the 'advertising' cases which are what tend to make people angry, the opt out is functionally the price of the product. Which makes the statement "if you're making something that wouldn't exist if nobody was willing to pay for it, maybe the thing you're making shouldn't exist". By which logic we would have none of the modern commercial internet. The world is better for things like Google existing than not.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 24-Aug-2023 15:49:57 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Billy O'Neal

     @malwareminigun Google, the company, makes Google, the search engine. Which is why, as much as it is a search engine, it is also a real time bidding engine for people’s attention and a funnel for their data. You can no more separate Google, the company, from Google, the search as engine, as you can Google, the search engine, from Google, the auctioneer of people’s attention, and Google, the farmer of people’s data.

     #SurveillanceCapitalism #PeopleFarming #Google

   • Embed this notice
     Billy O'Neal (malwareminigun@infosec.exchange)'s status on Thursday, 24-Aug-2023 15:49:58 JST Billy O'Neal

     in reply to

     @aral I'm referring to Google the search engine, not Google the company, in my post.

   • Embed this notice
     Matt (mattswift@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 24-Aug-2023 21:02:37 JST Matt

     in reply to

     @aral This kind of depends, I know this is about tech but here's a prime example: The UK made organ donation opt-out, because most people won't make the effort to actively opt-in. Would you disagree that was a bad idea?

     Then there's things that people like which depend on consent from many users: Full text search for example. In cases like this, I like opt-either where you must pick your preference.

     Most people are not informed about choices (or even look!), what we need is better information.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 24-Aug-2023 21:02:37 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Matt

     @mattswift Organ donation is an edge case because you’re no longer a person when you die. I’m talking about things that negatively affect the rights of the living.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Saturday, 26-Aug-2023 02:43:17 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Sören
     • Lazy Q

     @lazyq2 Bloody hell, dude, can you please stop explaining the status quo to me? It’s not that I don’t know it. It’s that I don’t agree with it.

     Yes, you’re right, the people who do the horrible things they do to make money today have their reasons. I neither agree with nor care for them. Nor is it my job to fix their shitty business models. In fact, I don’t even think their shitty businesses should exist.

     So for the love of fuck, please go away.

     @chucker

   • Embed this notice
     Lazy Q (lazyq2@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 26-Aug-2023 02:43:18 JST Lazy Q

     in reply to

     • Sören

     @chucker @aral about the cookie thing, for example, it's easy to spread scaremongering about cookies for average web users. Doesn't take a lot to understand that. What's complex to understand, and most people won't bother to even think about, is what happens when all those ad-supported websites can't get enough revenue without personalized ads. The indirect consequences of opt-in cookies may be way worse for the health of the web than opt-out cookies but it's too late to talk about it now.

   • Embed this notice
     Lazy Q (lazyq2@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 26-Aug-2023 02:43:19 JST Lazy Q

     in reply to

     • Sören

     @chucker @aral Also, I don't want to sound elitist, but you can't make generalizations assuming every person will be capable of making an informed decision, because, iirc, a large % of the population literally lacks the level of LITERACY required to read about complex things and come to an informed decision. If you assume most will be uninformed or uncaring, then the default no matter which way will be the prevalent option, and so it becomes a question of utilitarianism vs. individual rights.

   • Embed this notice
     Sören (chucker@norden.social)'s status on Saturday, 26-Aug-2023 02:43:20 JST Sören

     in reply to

     • Lazy Q

     @lazyq2 @aral and your conclusion from that is that they should continue not to ask for consent, rather than that they need to improve their sales pitch?

   • Embed this notice
     Lazy Q (lazyq2@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 26-Aug-2023 02:43:21 JST Lazy Q

     in reply to

     @aral I disagree. There are many cases where obtaining the consent of a extremely large number of individuals for something seemingly trivial is impractical (e.g. web indexing, the internet archive). The problem that people have had recently with tracking cookies and AI trained on public data is that there's no perceived benefit for them so they would never consent if asked.