Political Discussion

RenegadeMonster said:
John Oliver had a segment on Mark Robison before the main story last night.

Wow, what a wack job.

I learned a lot more about him, and none of it good. Like he he thinks the Civil Rights movement was bad and took away freedoms. Freedoms like "free markets".

Also, what an endorsement by Donald Trump :rolleyes:
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"Free markets to own and rape other humans" would be my guess.
 
Just a reminder that even if Biden manages to win, it's going to be a shit show either way. And remember that the fascism doesn't end with Trump.
www.yahoo.com

RNC to add new lawyers focusing on claims of election fraud – including one key figure from 2020 challenges

The Republican National Committee, now under the control of former President Donald Trump and his campaign, is bringing on a slate of new lawyers both internally and externally who will focus intensely on election fraud, an issue Trump has remained fixated on.
www.yahoo.com www.yahoo.com
 
Joe Mac said:
That doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s wrong.
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Fear Mongering is 100% why they are passing this bill.

To me that is not a valid reason.

TikTok doesn't collect any data that Facebook or Twitter don't. The only difference is TikTok is owned by a Chinese company.

Currently, any data on US users remains on servers in the United States and is not sent home to China. The fear would be how easy it would be for China to get this data. But what are they actually getting? There is nothing of national security unless someone posts that content or uses it from a secret location. And in that case, it doesn't matter what "app" you are using, it's a national security issue.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
Fear Mongering is 100% why they are passing this bill.

To me that is not a valid reason.

TikTok doesn't collect any data that Facebook or Twitter don't. The only difference is TikTok is owned by a Chinese company.

Currently, any data on US users remains on servers in the United States and is not sent home to China. The fear would be how easy it would be for China to get this data. But what are they actually getting? There is nothing of national security unless someone posts that content or uses it from a secret location. And in that case, it doesn't matter what "app" you are using, it's a national security issue.
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There is a huge amount of personal data on social media. It may not be explicitly “national security” but to dismiss a company located in a hostile nation, in which you can’t operate without permitting massive government intervention, gathering masses of your citizen’s personal data is very shortsighted. With the data they harvest social media companies can pretty effectively track, and potential extort, anybody using their platform regularly.

That’s without even entertaining the ability of social media and its algorithms from distorting the democratic procedure. Have we learned nothing from Cambridge Analytica?
 
Joe Mac said:
There is a huge amount of personal data on social media. It may not be explicitly “national security” but to dismiss a company located in a hostile nation, in which you can’t operate without permitting massive government intervention, gathering masses of your citizen’s personal data is very shortsighted. With the data they harvest social media companies can pretty effectively track, and potential extort, anybody using their platform regularly.

That’s without even entertaining the ability of social media and its algorithms from distorting the democratic procedure. Have we learned nothing from Cambridge Analytica?
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Well this is all Al Gore’s fault!
 
Hemotep said:
Just a reminder that even if Biden manages to win, it's going to be a shit show either way. And remember that the fascism doesn't end with Trump.
www.yahoo.com

RNC to add new lawyers focusing on claims of election fraud – including one key figure from 2020 challenges

The Republican National Committee, now under the control of former President Donald Trump and his campaign, is bringing on a slate of new lawyers both internally and externally who will focus intensely on election fraud, an issue Trump has remained fixated on.
www.yahoo.com www.yahoo.com
Click to expand...
Yeah, fascism's already here right now.
 
Joe Mac said:
There is a huge amount of personal data on social media. It may not be explicitly “national security” but to dismiss a company located in a hostile nation, in which you can’t operate without permitting massive government intervention, gathering masses of your citizen’s personal data is very shortsighted. With the data they harvest social media companies can pretty effectively track, and potential extort, anybody using their platform regularly.

That’s without even entertaining the ability of social media and its algorithms from distorting the democratic procedure. Have we learned nothing from Cambridge Analytica?
Click to expand...

I don't disagree there is a huge amount of personal data on social media, but I do think this is a different issue. I think privacy laws need to be put into place to protect said data and allow you to opt out. That largely does not exist for any platform. Opting out largely means not being able to use said platform.

This is where I love the Apple Ecosystem. With iOS I can opt out of allowing apps to trackme. I also use the Cloudflare VPN to anonymize my data both on iOS and my Mac.

Sadly, Facebook and what not are bringing on Antitrust cases against Apple over this in both the EU, UK and US. Not being able to collect revenue on data Apple is preventing them from obtaining they say should be illegal and is a form of "gatekeeping". And this is gaining traction in government's crackdown of big tech.

I don't like where the crackdowns are going. I would love to see crackdowns on protecting consumers data. Not crackdowns that protect corporations rights to obtain and sell our data.

If Apple can't be the gatekeeper of our personal data, then who can be? It certainly won't be Facebook and alike corporations. And I have zero trust in governments to act as that gatekeeper. They will always be years behind in updating laws to protect consumer privacy. And would they have consumer privacy interest first?

Also, you would be surprised by how many apps try to access your clipboard, screenshot your device or screen record your device in the background. Why do they need to do that?
 
RenegadeMonster said:
I don't disagree there is a huge amount of personal data on social media, but I do think this is a different issue. I think privacy laws need to be put into place to protect said data and allow you to opt out. That largely does not exist for any platform. Opting out largely means not being able to use said platform.

This is where I love the Apple Ecosystem. With iOS I can opt out of allowing apps to trackme. I also use the Cloudflare VPN to anonymize my data both on iOS and my Mac.

Sadly, Facebook and what not are bringing on Antitrust cases against Apple over this in both the EU, UK and US. Not being able to collect revenue on data Apple is preventing them from obtaining they say should be illegal and is a form of "gatekeeping". And this is gaining traction in government's crackdown of big tech.

I don't like where the crackdowns are going. I would love to see crackdowns on protecting consumers data. Not crackdowns that protect corporations rights to obtain and sell our data.

If Apple can't be the gatekeeper of our personal data, then who can be? It certainly won't be Facebook and alike corporations. And I have zero trust in governments to act as that gatekeeper. They will always be years behind in updating laws to protect consumer privacy. And would they have consumer privacy interest first?

Also, you would be surprised by how many apps try to access your clipboard, screenshot your device or screen record your device in the background. Why do they need to do that?
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Yes but this is effectively giving that information to the Chinese government. Selling is a totally different issue. They are not a friendly party, we have to limit their access to our citizen’s data as much as possible.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
I don't disagree there is a huge amount of personal data on social media, but I do think this is a different issue. I think privacy laws need to be put into place to protect said data and allow you to opt out. That largely does not exist for any platform. Opting out largely means not being able to use said platform.

This is where I love the Apple Ecosystem. With iOS I can opt out of allowing apps to trackme. I also use the Cloudflare VPN to anonymize my data both on iOS and my Mac.

Sadly, Facebook and what not are bringing on Antitrust cases against Apple over this in both the EU, UK and US. Not being able to collect revenue on data Apple is preventing them from obtaining they say should be illegal and is a form of "gatekeeping". And this is gaining traction in government's crackdown of big tech.

I don't like where the crackdowns are going. I would love to see crackdowns on protecting consumers data. Not crackdowns that protect corporations rights to obtain and sell our data.

If Apple can't be the gatekeeper of our personal data, then who can be? It certainly won't be Facebook and alike corporations. And I have zero trust in governments to act as that gatekeeper. They will always be years behind in updating laws to protect consumer privacy. And would they have consumer privacy interest first?

Also, you would be surprised by how many apps try to access your clipboard, screenshot your device or screen record your device in the background. Why do they need to do that?
Click to expand...
TikTok is harmful so pretty much any other social media platform. The difference is China can and will use the platform as a way to manipulate and harm the US. If banned, something will rise up to replace it. People will get over it pretty fast.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
This is where I love the Apple Ecosystem. With iOS I can opt out of allowing apps to trackme. I also use the Cloudflare VPN to anonymize my data both on iOS and my Mac.
Click to expand...

I have some thoughts and disagreements on your assessments in this post, but I'm still mulling it over before commenting further. But this specific thing is worth pointing out: I'm not sure how technically savvy or security conscious you personally are, but about this specific thing you should consider this more of a "best-effort" on apple's part rather than some protection that you have (because you're using apple products,) that is being adhered to in a real way.

I can get into the weeds on this but honestly it'll probably make most folks' eyes glaze over; but this page has some worthwhile points about apple's "ask app not to track" specifically:


More generally, even if apple were to block the app from tracking via your phone's internals (which apple can and do block these if you ask,) operational security around how you use your phone and any particular app means that you are still very, very much trackable (and tracked).
 
yukbon said:
I have some thoughts and disagreements on your assessments in this post, but I'm still mulling it over before commenting further. But this specific thing is worth pointing out: I'm not sure how technically savvy or security conscious you personally are, but about this specific thing you should consider this more of a "best-effort" on apple's part rather than some protection that you have (because you're using apple products,) that is being adhered to in a real way.

I can get into the weeds on this but honestly it'll probably make most folks' eyes glaze over; but this page has some worthwhile points about apple's "ask app not to track" specifically:


More generally, even if apple were to block the app from tracking via your phone's internals (which apple can and do block these if you ask,) operational security around how you use your phone and any particular app means that you are still very, very much trackable (and tracked).
Click to expand...

A lot of that is true, but apple is getting better and are doing more than most companies.

They have introduced features that now help you catch the apps in the act of trying to track certain things they have control over with permissions. Such as reading the phones clipboard, taking a stealth screenshot or screen recording and accessing microphone and GPS. You get badgered with prompts telling you so and so app is requesting access to the following and you have to either grant or deny that request.

A lot of companies cried foul play when Apple introduced this.

But yes, a lot of other tracking can skirt by. Hence my use of VPN's as well as ad blockers.

I have my personal data pretty locked down, but as a result, there are a few apps and many websites that will not allow me access unless I disabled my ad blocker and VPN. "Because that's who they make their money", and they love to rub it in your face like you are unethical and stealing their service. And when I see this happening I either delete the app, or bounce from that website and never return.

And that right there is what I think we need to truly address. Being able to opt out without having to forfeit access to a service.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
And that right there is what I think we need to truly address. Being able to opt out without having to forfeit access to a service.
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Question? Do you feel you have a right to access a service or an information provider, that pays money to generate content and provide the service? Do you accept that if we end their methods of generating cash to pay for that that we should have to pay for that?
 
Joe Mac said:
Question? Do you feel you have a right to access a service or an information provider, that pays money to generate content and provide the service? Do you accept that if we end their methods of generating cash to pay for that that we should have to pay for that?
Click to expand...

I wouldn't go that far. I understand the need to make monty. It's just the way the

I don't mind a couple ads, that's now why I use the ad blockers. It's the tracking and selling of my data that I do not consent to. If they gave me an option to opt out of that and just see ads, or buy a subscription I would do that.

But not giving the consumer an option and capturing and selling their data no matter what, even if they have a paid subscription is what I'm calling out.

So, if I don't get the option to opt out, I won't use the service. And to me, that is different than thinking I have the right to freely access that information without any method for them to generate cash.
 
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