What you fail to understand is that the average layman doesn't care about data collection and ad tech. If it pisses you off that people don't care about the same things you do, welcome to politics.
What I care about are companies that simply have no moral compass. If no one at Google or Facebook think that they're pushing a little too hard to get ever more data about their users, then something is terribly wrong at those companies.
Google is particularly fascinating, their employees protest when their parent company want to be a supplier to the US military, but apparently they have no moral objection to building detailed profiles on users (and non-users) in order to sell them more junk that they don't need and can't afford.
The whole data collection thing is so abstract that the same people who don't want their employer to kill people with drone can't see the immorality of invading people privacy. If that's the case, then how can we expect the layman to understand or care?
Funny you are accusing those employees of nefarious political motivations when you are pushing your politics up and down the thread (and others) in your sub-day-old anonymous account.
I get banned every day, else my account would be like 10 years old, haha.
I am not accusing them of "nefarious" political motivations, I respect their right to push their own politics. I wish they were more transparent, though.
> the average layman doesn't care about data collection and ad tech
True. But Facebook has managed—by demonstrating a repeated recklessness, unwillingness to reform and immortality that seems fundamental to its culture—to energise a vocal minority in a way no other tech company has. This vocal minority, moreover, is wealthy, politically connected and bipartisan.
This is already resulting in costs and reduced strategic flexibility for Facebook’s senior leadership. I expect it to turn into an existential threat for the company, as it’s currently organised, in the coming years.
There is a difference between not informed, and doesn't care.
How many people would be comfortable if you laid out the full spectrum of what is possible with the data that is collected, and how said data is distributed and sold?
Its frankly a massively dishonest claim that people "don't care so its all fine".
Users realise that the ads they see are targeted to them, and infer that those ads are chosen depending on their activity. Do you think people would stop using Facebook if you told them about this? Or maybe you're wishing for the government to step in?
