I wouldn't be surprised if this app collected much less data than the Facebook cancer. Facebook is not only stalking you through its main app but its other brands (Insta, WhatsApp, etc which a lot of people don't even know they're owned by FB) as well as unrelated third-party apps & websites that embed their malicious SDKs.
Facebook is an industrial-scale stalking operation. I doubt FaceApp (or frankly any government actor) could pull off something like that even if they wanted to.
The face picture is not really the problem. The app slurps other data from the device, such as log files, cookies, identifiers, etc. Of course, this app is probably not dissimilar to many of the other 2.5 million Android, 1.8 million Apple, 0.7 million Windows, and 0.5 million Amazon apps. https://www.statista.com/statistics/276623/number-of-apps-av...
It's not better to have your face or other data in a database within reach of your own government. Your government has power over you, other governments do not.
The FBI very specifically is concerned about public/elected officials. You don't think other governments might be interested in data about elected officials?
Where do I or China say that? It's single digit percentages of Uighur that are interned, and the governor and large portions of the police of the region are Uighur.
This is exactly the kind of fundamental misconception of the situation that's particularly terrifying to me.
I'm a similar age group / community and this sort of perspective is not at all uncommon, and it's legit. There is no "performative wokeness" going on in my experience.
On the flip side I'm still roughly in that age group (first half of my 20s) and I absolutely did engage in performative wokeness at that age and continue to do so today. Not to the degree of interviewing with the NYT, but I definitely voice support in view if my peers and co-workers for social issues I don't really care about. Maybe people do believe in the trending issues, plenty are just playing along because failure to do so results in loss of status and respect.
With respect to the original comment, though, I agree that 20 year olds are mature enough make their views public. Sure their views may change, but that's life. It doesn't mean they should refrain from sharing their views.
I agree it's a legit perspective and I know it's not uncommon. That's not my point. My point is that the students quoted likely do not grasp the potential future consequences of their name being in the newspaper this way.
Prospective employer Googles your name, sees that you recently trashed their company (or strategic partner, or largest client), and decides to take a pass.
I think their comments will come across as arrogant and entitled to potential employers and/or colleagues who google them in the future. I think the kids are probably not that way, they're just really earnest, but the reporter did them a disservice by putting their juicy hot college sophomore takes into the ether for all of eternity.
Sure, but this is not a problem money obviously solvable by throwing money at it. San Francisco already spends over $300m/year for helping the homeless, is Prop C going to be any more effective?
I was just making a general philosophical point. Whether Prop C specifically is a good idea depends on a lot of empirical information that I haven't researched.
It is true that multiple parties (which first past the post prevents) would make forming coalitions around issues like this easier.
Saying "this isn’t a conspiracy by one party or group" is pretty silly though. The economic policies advocated for and enacted by the two parties point in completely opposite directions.
I think this is just way too simplistic of a view of it. People won't just follow two exact patterns of behavior regardless of their environment. We all have, to varying extents, a proclivity to instant dopamine-based gratification.
The difference now is that the technology that now exists makes this sort of gratification both constantly available, and better than ever at scratching that dopamine itch.
The evidence the article presents also points towards something happening after the advent of smartphones, and not before.
> I think this is just way too simplistic of a view of it. People won't just follow two exact patterns of behavior regardless of their environment. We all have, to varying extents, a proclivity to instant dopamine-based gratification.
Perhaps in the same way as an LED dimmed via pulse-width modulation has, to a varying extent, a proclivity to not produce light? Then just as the human perception of such an LED is on a continuum between "off" and "full brightness", so people's net-worths-at-retirement will stand on a continuum between starvation and Bill Gates.
I agree with the authors points about blogging on facebook and having a decent logged out experience, but I want to push back against him lumping in anti-adblock pop overs.
Every publisher of high quality content is dependent on advertising to stay in business. When you are using adblock, your eyeballs are freeloading off of all the users who are using the website as intended.
I certainly understand the urge to use adblock, but it's amazing to me that people would feel entitled enough to actually expect publishers not to try to prevent this.
And he is a publisher of content too, with ads, and you didn't notice what he does differently? All text, simple links, and usually a nice blurb describing the company/product. I have read 2000% more of those than I have ever cared about any pushy, animated, noisy ad on any other site. His system works, without being obnoxious.
This is just semantics. You get to use Facebook in exchange for having the info you share there used for advertising, and having those ads show up on the side of the page. Who cares what you call it.
