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DIRESTA_VS_THE_FAANG

                                             July 21, 2021

In 2018, Renee DiResta made the point that the information
gathering of the big tech companies looks a lot like behavior
that set off alarm bells when the government was doing it:

https://www.wired.com/story/darpa-total-informatio-awareness/

  "So where do we go from here? How do we
  address the profoundly powerful tools now in
  private hands?  First, we need civic groups
  to scrutinize powerful companies the same
  way they scrutinize government. Some of the
  groups most vocally critical of Total
  Information Awareness-- the Electronic
  Frontier Foundation, the Open Technology
  Institute-- have been largely silent about
  Facebook's and Google's amassing of similar
  power. Slate's April Glaser recently wrote
  an excellent piece examining the nuances and
  politics at play here, from financial
  conflicts of interest to worldviews. As she
  put it, we need the watchdogs to bark."

  "But civil society alone can't win this
  fight. We need scrutiny from everyday internet
  users too. As a country, we were extremely           Opposing "everyday
  bothered by the government aggregating               internet users" to
  databases and mining for certain behavioral          "civil society" is
  signatures that might reveal extremist               interesting.
  leanings. The idea that there could be
  effective oversight of such an invasive program          The barbarians of
  was dismissed as absurd. But just a few years            the inner tubes
  later, we were remarkably quick to give away             can not be trusted.
  the contents of those same databases to large
  corporations. We don't trust our government--
  too many scandals, too much abuse-- but we
  haven't fully reckoned with the fact that we're
  turning our personal information over to
  powerful private interests with no oversight."


There's a few things about this that
strike me as funny--                    
                                        
From listening to a few DiResta         
talks I thought that she was fine       DIRESTA
with the big guys in control of        
everything, she just wanted the        
government to boss them around a       
little more.                           

She doesn't really point the way to a
solution-- does she want government
regulation of the FAANG's data gathering?
Does she want "everyday internet users" to
get smarter and hold their cards tighter?

Would people be more conscious of the
problem is the watchdogs were barking            And: does she have a bug
louder?  I would've thought it was               up her ass about the EFF?
common knowledge at this point that              It could be it's me, but
the "free" services pay the bills by             she seems to keep looking
spying on you and selling your eyeballs.         for excuses to complain
                                                 about them.

                                                 I thought it might be
                                                 because she has a problem
                                                 with "freedom", like a lot
                                                 of internet kids.

                                                 POISONED_WELLS



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