Post 9hpileZMK2nfNBfpj6 by kylerankin@mastodon.social
 (DIR) More posts by kylerankin@mastodon.social
 (DIR) Post #9hpileZMK2nfNBfpj6 by kylerankin@mastodon.social
       2019-04-15T13:29:29Z
       
       1 likes, 1 repeats
       
       Software engineers are indoctrinated to believe: "People only hate ads when they aren't relevant." This doctrine has led to over 20 years of mass data collection. It's a lie, and if more engineers dared to question it, we'd get a lot further on #privacy.
       
 (DIR) Post #9hpyF5Fxg5EJqt5ma0 by freakazoid@retro.social
       2019-04-15T14:14:57Z
       
       0 likes, 1 repeats
       
       @kylerankinI certainly went through this indoctrination. I do think it's true that people prefer more relevant ads and find them less annoying or not annoying at all. The problem is the surveillance necessary to do it; I don't think most people understand privacy well enough to make an informed decision about what information to allow advertisers collect. I don't think they even understand what's being collected or with whom it's being shared.
       
 (DIR) Post #9hqK7WBVsCpG2koE0u by icedquinn@niu.moe
       2019-04-15T20:43:16Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @kylerankin engineers don't make those decisions. if the business unit says slap DRM and spyware on it and you don't, you get replaced with an engineer that does. :blobshrug:
       
 (DIR) Post #9hqy4KiO3cyVlhDo0G by njoseph@social.masto.host
       2019-04-16T04:10:50Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @kylerankin The human mind can delude itself into believing anything to justify that fat paycheck at the end of the month.Besides, some companies make it explicit that "if not you, there are others".Employees all the way up to the CEO can easily justify unethical actions because the corporation is responsible for those actions and not them personally, conveniently forgetting the fact that corporations are just abstractions, not natural persons.
       
 (DIR) Post #9hs519uSfVAYE0GLxY by mplammers@fosstodon.org
       2019-04-16T17:03:27Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @icedquinn @kylerankin Let's take the emissions scamming software that Volkswagen created as another example. Winterkorn (facing 10 years in prison) could not have coded that himself. I hope one day we hear the whole story on how he got his developers to do it.
       
 (DIR) Post #9ht4ZxXwijh7Djio0e by icedquinn@niu.moe
       2019-04-17T04:33:16Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @mplammers @kylerankin Incrementalism (https://www.zdnet.com/article/q-why-did-you-write-adware-a-i-was-broke/), apathy, "banality of evil" (a.k.a. people following local incentives, "knowing their place", "not rocking the boat" and so on), implicit fear of not getting promoted or getting shadow banned (ex. put on secret lists to suddenly have zeroes on their performance reviews so they can get shoved out legally.)