

Why Are People More Scared of Facebook Violating Their Privacy than Washington? - mtgx
http://reason.com/blog/2012/12/28/why-are-people-more-scared-of-facebook-v

======
easyfrag
I guess it's because theoretically the government is accountable to its
citizens whereas Facebook is accountable to its shareholders, the citizen can
exert some action against Washington via the democratic process, they have no
action to take against Facebook other than not participating at all.

There's also the question of motive, Facebook exists to make money and there's
the fear that the profit motive may outweigh its users privacy. The government
can and has defended its actions in the context of keeping people safe.

I'm not defending any actions by Facebook or government, just trying to point
out the differences.

What I'm more interested in is why the most passionate defenders of the second
amendment never seem interested in government power grabs like this. Isn't the
reason for the 2nd amendment to keep expansive government in check, at what
point does government become a threat?

~~~
credo
_> > What I'm more interested in is why the most passionate defenders of the
second amendment never seem interested in government power grabs like this.
Isn't the reason for the 2nd amendment to keep expansive government in check_

That is the party-line.

However, if you study American history, you'll see that this 2nd amendment
propaganda doesn't square up with reality.

The only times guns were seriously used in an anti-federal-government uprising
was during the civil war - but that was armed rebellion by the state
"governments" and it was a war to defend the right to slavery. (yes, I know
that some people describe it as the "war of northern aggression")

MLK talked about the long arc of history bending towards justice and that has
undoubtedly been true in America. Today, native Americans cannot be massacred
or driven into reservations, blacks cannot be enslaved to work in plantations,
women have the right to vote and many more rights that were denied to them in
previous centuries, gays have the right to not be arrested for being gay,
Japanese-Americans have the right to not be arrested solely based on their
ethnicity etc.

In all of these cases, freedom has expanded far beyond what America had in
previous centuries. However, I think it is safe to assert that the 2nd
amendment was absolutely irrelevant (in any positive way) in the expansion of
any of these freedoms.

~~~
baddox
> The only times guns were seriously used in an anti-federal-government
> uprising was during the civil war...

Like many people, you are missing the role that personal firearms play in
resisting tyranny. No one is claiming that a firearm can do anything against
artillery, tanks, and fighter jets (much less chemical and nuclear weapons).
The armed populace obviously cannot hope to mount an offensive coup. The point
is that an armed populace cannot be _occupied_ by a tyrannical government.
Look at how difficult the occupation of Iraq has proved, and imagine how much
more difficult it would be in a country with ten times the population, 20
times the land area, and nearly 30 times the number of small arms.

~~~
williamcotton
And the ignorant and fearful keep marching in their parade of bloodlust and
violence... while the rest of us keep burying the dead, unfortunate casualties
in your paranoid experiment of personal rights and politics. Nothing but
hypotheticals to compete with the hard facts seen in studies of other nations,
the truth pales in comparison to the nightmare you wish we all lived in.

~~~
bionsuba
> hard facts seen in studies of other nations

give me one example of a time where gun violence went down after the
government of a first world country imposed gun control

~~~
chris_wot
Since the gun buyback of 1996 and the banning of automatic weapons ad semi-
automatic weapons, there have been no mass killings in Australia.

We'd be doing even better if we controlled hand guns.

Hope this gives a truth value to your existential quantifier.

------
rayiner
I am much more worried about Facebook, etc, violating my privacy than
Washington, for three reasons:

1) A lot of the hand-wringing over Washington's privacy invasions are
overblown. A lot of online commentators are playing fast and loose with the
contours of the various laws in question. Sometimes the rhetoric is
(ironically) downright Orwellian. Laws designed to restrict federal
investigative authority are turned around to seem like they are expanding that
authority. This is a great post by tptacek answering some of the points in the
FISA debate: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4979925>. Also, as a lawyer,
I have quite a bit more faith and less paranoia about the various legal
protections we have against the government.

2) I trust big corporations less than I trust the government, at least the
federal government. Through history, the pendulum has swung back and forth on
this issue, but I think right now the shoe is on the other foot. Your
protections against your government really have never been stronger.
Guantanamo has been a huge, wrenching scandal, even though it involves non-
Americans captured in Afghanistan that are not even being held in the U.S. It
is portrayed as our Soviet Gulags, but the place is literally crawling with
attorneys (including many from prominent corporate law firms):
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_attorneys>. This is not a place
where things are happening under the cover of darkness. At the same time, the
economic power of corporations, relative to the rest of the economy, hasn't
been stronger in generations, and the regulations and laws protecting you from
them haven't been weaker in generations. This is not to say that I think
corporations are evil. I don't. I think they're great. I also think the
government is great. But I'm more wary of the people that have the most power
and from whom I have the least protection.

3) It's a rational risk-weighted evaluation of the potential harms. Yes,
getting detained indefinitely without trial and access to representation would
be much worse than my employer getting a hold of my Facebook information, but
I think that as a practical matter the latter is orders of magnitude more
likely. Look at the credit reporting services. People these days can be denied
jobs because they have bad credit. I think that sort of thing is far more
likely to happen with social networking sites, than I am to get disappeared by
the government for posting critical comments on online forums. It's totally
rational to worry more about the former than the latter.

~~~
baddox
> Your protections against your government really have never been stronger.

Assuming you're talking about the USA, that is one of the more ludicrous
claims I have read in a long time.

~~~
rayiner
Yes, in the U.S. your protections against your government have never been
stronger. The idea that we've seen a "chipping away" of liberties over time is
an uneducated trope. In the 1940s, we indefinitely detained, without review,
American citizens of Japanese descent on U.S. soil, and the Supreme Court
upheld the action. In the 2000's, we tried to detain non-U.S. citizens
captured in Afghanistan on a military base that wasn't even on U.S. soil, and
the Supreme Court smacked down the administration three different times and
the detainees all got lawyers.

The habeas jurisdiction of federal courts, which is the safeguard we have
against the detention of American citizens, has never been stronger in the
history of the country than it is today.

~~~
tptacek
Note well that you _do not have to be O.K._ with what happened in Guantanamo
Bay or with how the civil courts are used by the RIAA or how the CFAA is used
against hackers to maintain the perspective that your rights in 2012 are
stronger than they've ever been in recent memory.

I tend to assume that people with alarmist stances about online rights aren't
old enough to remember that the Clinton administration attempted to
criminalize encryption.

------
pitiburi
I think the sad true is very human, rooted in psychology: we can SEE facebook,
but we do not see the government/Washington. People can relate way better with
a danger when it is possible to see it, when you can feel it while it's
present in front of you. You can SEE facebook and your data in the screen near
their logo. From there to imagine someone looking at the same data (YOUR data)
from within facebook, that is a jump that emotionally is very easy to take. On
the other hand, even if you KNOW that the government is wiretapping
everything, you don't have the emotional connection needed to see it as a
danger. Of course you can understand how terrible it is, but the emotional
link is -for most of us humans- not there. We just do not feel the danger "in
our guts".

------
loceng
It's more annoying what Facebook does. Washington isn't showing pictures or
information to our friends that we don't want them to see. It's assumed I
imagine by most that the 'spying' into our activities is done for our safety -
this can of course very quickly be turned against us, and abused.

~~~
vaadu
Facebook may be more annoying but what the political ruling class in
Washington is doing is far worse. I don't have a FB account because I value my
personal security. I have this choice. With the government there's only the
Hobson’s choice of moving out of the country. I foresee the government slowly
ratcheting any remaining privacy out of existence.

\- Obamacare is stripping off all medical privacy.

\- Patriot act has stripped all financial privacy.

\- Cameras are being installed in public places at an alarming rate tracking
all of our movements.

\- Obama gave the National Counterterrorism Center the authority to collect
any and all data from anywhere. No warrants necessary.

\- Indefinite detention without trial, even of US citizens.

What’s left? This is a Stasi wet dream.

~~~
rayiner
None of those things are even remotely true, but I don't see how pointing out
the facts is going to dissuade you from believing conspiracy theories.

~~~
mahyarm
Your coping out. Put out your sources.

------
noillustrations
I wish more people would ask this sort of question. Not that reading about the
latest spook news or reading about people crusading for government reform
isn't at least marginally interesting. Certainly it is. But put this in
perspective in terms of actual impact on your life. Generally, the NSA or any
enforcement agency does not send me junk mail and spam. They don't try to
influence me to pay for things I don't need; they don't put my reputation at
risk through some bizarre concept of "sharing" (as in giving people's personal
details to corporations or whoever might be scraping Facebook); they don't
generally annoy me and care less about it. That's not their job. They do not
set out to do that. The government is not sitting on a mountain of personal
information, run by 20 somethings and "in search of a business model".

When you distill things down to their essence, Facebook is a next generation
junk mail company. (Despite how things may appear to the naive user, they are
not the medium. They do not enable connectivity, they merely utilise what is
available. They are not a network; they use a network: the internet; they are
a website with access control.) The amount of information they have is like
nothing any direct mail company has ever seen. The level of invasiveness of
marketing with this much personal information at the ready is potentially
devastating; and when all is said and done, Mark Zuckerberg may have less
scruples than the worst of the worst direct marketers sending you junk mail.
And he can have a much larger effect on your life than someone filling your
mailbox you junk mail.

The government has to follow rules. They have to be accountable. In theory, at
least. By contrast, Facebook, like a direct marketer, does not have a similar
mandate of representation and accountability and Facebook will do everything
in its power to try to bend and break the rules. There is very little to reign
in Facebook.

------
baddox
Because lots of people spent their most formative years in government schools,
not Facebook schools.

~~~
pretoriusB
So, it's like because of ...government propaganda in schooling?

Strangely that haven't made people in the sixties question the government any
less, despite school being even more strict at the time...

~~~
baddox
There's no point in calling it "government propaganda," as if it's some secret
conspiracy or something. It's really not a secret. Children spend 12 or 13
years learning the government's version of its own history. Even on this
thread, how many comments are verbatim talking points from public school
curriculum? "The government gets its authority from the people (social
contract)," "we have a voice in government," "government serves us," "the
constitution limits the power of government," "the atomic bombs saved millions
of American and Japanese lives," "the goal of the government's foreign policy
is to spread and protect democracy," etc. How many people repeat these lines
that have been hammered into their brains, and how many actually think about
how meaningful and truthful they are?

~~~
pretoriusB
I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but I don't think it's that simple.

The government is both a kind of "autonomous entity" with serving self-
interests AND something somewhat controlled by the public (not just by voting:
also by the mere fact that it involves thousands of people, has to balance
different interests, is bounded by specific procedures, it needs a level of
constent for it's actions, etc). To put it this way, from all the entities out
there, the government is the more accountable. You think the government serves
some big interests (big corporations etc?). It sure does. But a country only
at the mercy of private interests, without a mediator like a democratic
government, would be intolerable. Actually it would be like what it's in some
Banana Republics, where the "government" is essentially a front for
corporations and private interests.

That said, the government (any government) is also the scum of the earth,
especially went left to rule without vigilance. Sponsors and big interests
come into play and bureaucracy wants to increase its reach and rule as far as
it can.

And of course government wants to justify itself and its actions, hence the
"official version of history", in which the nuclear bombs "ended the war"
(whereas Japan, a nation collapsed and willing to sign a peace treaty was
nuked just so that US could showcase the new bombs and send a message to the
Reds for the post-war state of things). Or in which "Pearl Harbor" was
..."unprovoked" (whereas the US presidency did all it could before it happened
to ensure a war with Japan).

Of course the Japanese have their own "official history", in which they didn't
do anything bad in Manchuria and Korea (where they enslaved, raped, torture,
and genocide-like killed thousands of people).

~~~
baddox
The only issue I have with your characterization of government is that you
make too much of a distinction between "the government" and any other
organization of individuals, such as a corporation or business. What you call
a democratic government is still less accountable than a normal capitalistic
business, and I'll argue that the government is strictly _less_ accountable,
because the government is the only organization (with a few potential counter
examples) that can and does use a massive campaign of organized violence to
maintain and exercise power. The ability to vote is no more powerful in
affecting government as the ability to choose who to engage in commerce with
is in affecting businesses. But businesses don't get to use violence to earn
revenue, public schools to indoctrinate children (which is way more effective
than advertisements), welfare and retirement campaigns to incentivize
government dependence, etc.

~~~
pretoriusB
> _The only issue I have with your characterization of government is that you
> make too much of a distinction between "the government" and any other
> organization of individuals, such as a corporation or business._

In my opinion, they are not even close. A corporation or a business is
accountable to its shareholders but not to society at large. And it's mostly
accountable to shareholders in the "get us more money" way, and not the "be
ethical and do good" way. A corporation is only accountable to society in as
much as they are accountable to the law (passed by the government).

Note that in most cases you cannot even "vote with your wallet".

For one, because the harm they do might happen thousands of miles away from
where consumers are (as it often happens) so buyers don't care. For another,
because even if the harm is domestic, it doesn't necessarily affect the same
people as those buying (e.g, treating workers badly or dumping toxic waste in
a river in South Dakota doesn't directly affect consumers in the rest of the
50 states).

> _What you call a democratic government is still less accountable than a
> normal capitalistic business, and I'll argue that the government is strictly
> less accountable, because the government is the only organization (with a
> few potential counter examples) that can and does use a massive campaign of
> organized violence to maintain and exercise power_

The difference is that the government must balance millions of expectations
and demands, whereas a corporation does not. A government must at some deegree
satisfy it's voters, must keep the main opposition at bay, must be accountable
to foreign powers (diplomatic agreements, ecological treaties etc), cannot
favor a corporation or a lobby too much because of counter-action of opposed
lobbies, etc. Plus there are binding documents it has to follow to some
deegree, from the constitution to common law.

A company has far fewer such restraints. Especially a global one.

------
njharman
We have strong protections (constitution) and recourse (elections) against the
government. While not perfect by any stretch they are far better than what we
have against Corporations.

Government is much more transparent compared to corporations.

For me, it is more insidious to be exploited for profit than to be spied on.

Scale and applicability, as mentioned in the article. Facebook and other
Corporations "watch" much more of us than government does.

~~~
betterunix
"We have strong protections (constitution)"

Which history has shown can be ignored, chipped away, sidestepped,
circumvented, reinterpreted, and otherwise abused when it is convenient to do
so.

"recourse (elections) against the government"

Except that in America, the elections are a choice between one set of fascists
and another set of fascists. Voting third party is the only real recourse in
America, but the major parties have set things up so that third party
candidates are marginalized and remain obscure.

"While not perfect by any stretch they are far better than what we have
against Corporations."

Better? Corporations cannot send paramilitary teams to invade your home.
Corporations cannot punish you at the airport. Corporations cannot hold in
against your will. You are free to _ignore_ Facebook; you are not free to
ignore the government.

"Facebook and other Corporations "watch" much more of us than government does"

The real problem with corporations is that they become a tool used by the
government to circumvent the constitution:

<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1475524>

------
berkay
Better question where are all the mighty constitution defenders that go nuts
over gun control? Congress just crapped all over the constitution with FISA
(4th amendment) and with NAtional defense authorization act (5th amendment) in
the name of national security. Yet often the same people oppose any type of
gun control citing government tyranny.

How does this make any sense? Dazed and confused.

~~~
harold
Hang on there. If you're going to count amendments crapped on by congress, at
least count it on both sides.

A lot of Obama supporters here on HN seem to be hesitant to call him out, but
I'm going to. None of the bad stuff you cite congress as doing could have
happened without the co-operation of Obama and a senate controlled by
Democrats. They are _all_ crapping on our rights.

[http://www.ibtimes.com/obama-expected-sign-fisa-
amendments-a...](http://www.ibtimes.com/obama-expected-sign-fisa-amendments-
acts-extending-warrantless-wiretapping-americans-977318)

[http://investorplace.com/investorpolitics/what-obama-
slipped...](http://investorplace.com/investorpolitics/what-obama-slipped-by-
us-on-new-years-eve/)

~~~
berkay
What part of my comment blames one side? I fully agree that democrats are to
be blamed for FISA and NDAA just as much as republicans, if not more. If and
when Obama signs them into law, he will share the blame as well. He has been
consistently missing in action or on the wrong side on these issues. But my
main point is not the congress but the public, media, etc. there is very
strong defense of second amendment yet fourth and fifth gets dumped on and
it's hardly noticed. I consider these changes as much bigger threats to
liberty than ability to have guns, and perplexed that this view is not more
widely shared.

------
AlexeiSadeski
Because most people are either closet Marxists or closet Fascists?

------
blueprint
The CIA has a backdoor into Facebook's data anyway.

I think people are (or should be) more concerned about collusion between
corrupt corporate and governmental entities than they are when either one is
corrupt because they are stronger and less easy to take down when they are
actually working together. Makes people realize the fact that the reality of
the society is actually very gloomy.

~~~
MrBlue
"The CIA has a backdoor into Facebook's data anyway."

Don't forget the NSA!

------
DodgyEggplant
Facebook was not obviously identified as an "establishment". It was "ours". We
don't expect much from the government: we even know that some security
measures are part of it's job. But Facebook was supposed to be cool, friendly,
the dorm friend next door.

------
delinquentme
Facebook we feel like we've got influence. Does anyone still believe that they
have ANY say in what happens in the government?

~~~
clobber
Not according to this: [http://dashes.com/anil/2012/11/facebook-makes-it-
official-yo...](http://dashes.com/anil/2012/11/facebook-makes-it-official-you-
have-no-say.html)

Not that users ever had a say in the first place.

------
mrlyc
The U.S. government already knows everything about me. My friends and future
employers don't.

------
greesil
availability bias.

------
shuri
because the government used to be accountable

