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   Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 29-Apr-2025 04:25:04 JST Paul Cantrell

   • Vincent Van Dinsky

   @vvandinsky
   I appreciate the warning about the data that private companies hold, which is alarming in the extreme, but NO, if we’re talking about what DOGE is creating, your post is false. It is absolutely not the case that “these databases” will be built.

   No corporate database, none, is as complete, as accurate, or as intrusive as the union of all data a government holds about its citizenry. For example that real, all that data has been strictly compartmentalized and quarantined until now. There’s a reason we put a strict data wall between the IRS and Medicaid and ICE. Merging these datasets creates something unlike any database that existed previously. And no, the creation of that database is not inevitable. It is a choice.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 29-Apr-2025 11:39:10 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • PaulDavisTheFirst
     • Vincent Van Dinsky

     @PaulDavisTheFirst @vvandinsky
     I do not mean to downplay the data that Amazon, Meta, Google, et al. possess; it truly is horrifying.

     •Different• is correct. My point is just that neither one is a superset of the other; those corporations would kill (and may in fact literally end up doing that) to get their hands on what the DOGE just got.

   • Embed this notice
     PaulDavisTheFirst (pauldavisthefirst@fosstodon.org)'s status on Tuesday, 29-Apr-2025 11:39:11 JST PaulDavisTheFirst

     in reply to

     • Vincent Van Dinsky

     @inthehands @vvandinsky While not seeking to deny the scope and depth of government data held on citizens, I think you are underestimating the scope and significance of the data held by e.g. amzn. It is *different* from government held data, but just as capable if not more so of being used for nefarious purposes by both public and private actors.

     And yes, no DB merging and yes, it's a choice.