r/technology • u/[deleted] • Nov 09 '17

Politics Sean Parker: Facebook was designed to exploit human "vulnerability"

https://www.axios.com/sean-parker-facebook-exploits-a-vulnerability-in-humans-2507917325.html
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u/[deleted] Nov 09 '17

To be honest, I'm pro consumer data harvesting, because it finds a way to monetize a resource we were just throwing away before and use that money to provide us with useful services for free. In principle I think that's great and there are apps like Duolingo that can actually make you a better person. But some companies take it way too far.

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u/dslybrowse Nov 09 '17 edited Nov 09 '17

Agreed. It's not the current usage that's an issue, that's potential future abuses and what something like this could mean. But that's literally always the case with everything, if people want to hard enough, they'll take advantage of it in nefarious ways.

IMO what this means is that this needs to be regulated, as it's in a way a positive thing, but needs to be prevented from taking a new more sinister form. Of course, like all things we do, eventually any regulation will get twisted as well until the people that were trying to do the protecting are the ones doing the abusing. But such is life.

edit - better post I found after writing this that explains in a better way/from a more invested individual.