New Book Argues Silicon Valley Will Lead Us to Our Doom (sandiegouniontribune.com)

Long-time Slashdot reader Zorro quotes the San Diego Union-Tribune: To many Americans, large technology firms embody much of what's good about the modern world. Franklin Foer has a different perspective. In his new book, "World Without Mind," the veteran journalist lays out a more ominous view of where Big Tech would like to take us -- in many ways, already has taken us... These firms have a program: to make the world less private, less individual, less creative, less human... Big Tech has imposed its will on the resident population with neither our input nor our permission.
The reviewer summarizes the book's argument as "Once hooked, consumers are robbed of choice, milked for profit, deprived of privacy and made the subjects of stealth social engineering experiments."

Interestingly, Foer was fired from The New Republic in 2014 by its new publisher -- Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes -- and Foer's new book includes strong criticism of the way companies are assembling detailed profiles on their users. "They have built their empires by pulverizing privacy; they will further ensconce themselves by pushing boundaries, by taking even more invasive steps that build toward an even more complete portrait of us."

Comments

Only if we let them...

[h33t l4x0r]

I myself have no Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or otherwise social media presence. You hand over power over you because you believe you get something back, but that something is often just an illusion.

Re:Only if we let them...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have friends? Family? People you just happen to know?

The problem is that it's becoming increasingly impossible to avoid being on social media, even if you never use it yourself. Other people posting pictures of you, combined with facial recognition, means it's possible for social media networks to know quite a bit about you without you ever using them yourself.

As data mining technique improve, this is only going to get worse. Simply existing is going to be enough for companies to build profiles on you, regardless of whether you yourself use their services. It's not enough to not use the services yourself, you need to make sure no one you know ever posts anything about you as well.

Re:Only if we let them...

[elrous0]

Sadly, it may be too late. We've already handed over control of almost all public discourse to private companies, companies which are free to censor that discourse at will. They're already using that power to censor ideas from the right that they disagree with. And many leftists are celebrating that, championing it even. But that's a mistake they'll regret.

You see, what these anti-"hate speech" leftists have failed to consider is "what ideas are going to be censored next?" Do you really think that this handful of super-powerful corporations who you've ceded control to are going to tolerate anti-capitalist rhetoric, or calls for higher wages, worker rights, higher corporate taxes, and unions? Ha, not for long! And you've been the one who championed them having the the right to censor, never thinking that power could be turned against YOU too. But once they've banned the "Nazis" you can bet they'll come after the "Communists" and "Socialists" next. And you Bernie bros will end up just as cut off from all the major social media outlets as your bad-guy-du-jour Milo Yianopolis.