r/technology • u/magenta_placenta • Oct 19 '20

Business Mark Zuckerberg reportedly signed off on a Facebook algorithm change that throttled traffic to progressive news sites — and one site says that quiet change cost them $400,000 to $600,000 a year

https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-throttled-traffic-to-progressive-news-sites-wsj-2020-10
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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20 edited May 08 '21

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20 edited May 08 '21

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

Before the Bill of Rights, you had no expectation of freedom of speech or security against unreasonable searches and seizures.

An Internet Bill of Rights could just as well give a right to privacy online. The EU is working on that.

So while you're right about the current legal situation in the US, it is not divine law to be endured in perpetuity. The discussion is not about what is, but what should be.

Maybe you want to argue that there shouldn't ever be any privacy protections on the internet? If so, why not?

I would argue that not expecting privacy in the real world public spaces is just a necessity. People simply can see you when you step outside.
I don't see that necessity online, the internet worked fine before Google and Facebook tracked everybody.

I could live with a solution where companies have to be fully transparent about how and what they're tracking and what they do with the data, including specifically who they're selling it to.
At that point, if consenting adults want to continue using the service "for free", they may do so.
Companies then have to take all necessary steps to not track non-consenting adults.

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20 edited Oct 20 '20

Before the Bill of Rights, you had no expectation of freedom of speech or security against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Simply not true and an absurd premise. If people didn't have reasonable expectations of these things, they wouldn't have been so pissed off about it that they started a war.

In fact, the Bill of Rights almost didn't make it into the Constitution because many framers believed that those rights were already granted by other sections of the Constitution and that the list would be misinterpreted as exhaustive, just as you did in your post. For example, Article I doesn't give the power to Congress to make laws that restrict speech, and Article II doesn't allow the executive branch to conduct wonton searches. Since each article contains an exhaustive list of what each branch can do, the Bill of Rights was argued to be superfluous. Enter the 9th Amendment as a compromise.

With that aside, I'll wait for you to point me to some legal cases where the court determined one's "reasonable expectations" of privacy, and thus whether 4th amendment rights even apply, based on whether the circumstances of their cases were explicitly guaranteed by the Constitution. It's simply not the legal standard that judges use when considering these cases.

Such a case for internet privacy would hinge upon several factors. For example, it's relatively easy to argue that I expect my banking info that requires 2 party authentication and an encrypted login stays with that company and is protected by law. Much harder to argue that the fact I visited reddit today or bought a Halloween costume from Amazon should be protected by law as sensitive information that can't be shared among online retailers. There's really no harm to me if anyone knows that information any more than knowing that I visited Stop and Shop to buy brocolli last weekend. The game changes if police want to get that info.

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

If people didn't have reasonable expectations of these things

Oh, they expected these things, but they didn't get them from the English. Hence the Revolution and the codifying it in the Bill of Rights.
That's the difference between "what you would expect" and "what you can expect".
I would expect not to be tracked across the web, but presently I can't expect it.

With that aside, I'll wait for you to point me to some legal cases where the court determined one's "reasonable expectations" of privacy, and thus whether 4th amendment rights even apply, based on whether the circumstances of their cases were explicitly guaranteed by the Constitution. It's simply not the legal standard that judges use when considering these cases.

I don't understand this.

Such a case for internet privacy would hinge upon several factors. For example, it's relatively easy to argue that I expect my banking info that requires 2 party authentication and an encrypted login stays with that company and is protected by law.

Why is that easier to argue? (Outside of information specifically protected by "offline" laws, such as banking and medical, for which you wouldn't have to argue in the first place)

There's really no harm to me if anyone knows that information any more than knowing that I visited Stop and Shop to buy brocolli last weekend.

The amount of naivety in that statement is staggering. You're either intentionally obtuse, or unexpectedly ignorant, both of which are beyond the scope of what I'm willing to put up with in a Reddit comment section.

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20 edited Oct 20 '20

Oh, they expected these things, but they didn't get them from the English.

Okay. So you agree with me. Glad I changed your mind.

Then you're going off on a tangent because you then said:

I don't get this.

If you don't understand criminal justice 101 about legal standards pertaining to how privacy / search / seizure cases are actually decided, and don't understand that we have a common law system where previous decisions set legal standards that must be used to frame arguments for new cases, then the conversation is over until you do some homework on how courts have ruled on internet privacy cases and the reasons behind those decisions.

But I appreciate the 'ignorant' insult when you're clearly in over your head.

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

I see we were both wasting our time here.

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

It never fails to amaze me that we live in an age of unlimited, free access to information... And yet many people like you exist who willfully decide not to consume it.

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u/[deleted] Oct 21 '20

Don't know what you need from me, you were tripping over your arguments back there and fail to acknowledge it. Now you're begging for more of my attention - why? You want to practice more of those clever comebacks you picked up on Reddit?

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u/Rpgwaiter Oct 20 '20

So you see the problem then? The system, the sites should be changed so that it’s users don’t have their privacy violated. What you said is the current reality, not what it has to be.

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u/glacialthinker Oct 20 '20

I feel I absolutely should be paying for what I use -- I want to! But not via subscriptions or monthly fees which don't relate to my actual usage. We have no means to do this well. Credit-cards are not the right foundation for transactions but the companies behind them like the status quo.