Opt-out is bullshit, it’s unethical. Unless people specifically give their consent to their content being used for training data, and are compensated if they wish to be compensated for that privilege, then it’s just not morally defensible. Legally defensible? Sure, maybe so. But we don’t like to support companies who are merely abiding by the letter of the law, we want them to abide by the spirit of the law and of treating their customers with respect and consideration. This is not that at all. 😕
Hey, non-FOSS internet, how is it going?
…
Yeah.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!
The tech industry understands consent just fine, the corpos will ignore the idea however if it means less revenue and can’t have that because capitalism.
I’m giving the benefit of the doubt to every one of these shitty clickbait article authors about “tech industry” and “software engineering circles” that the authors aren’t dense and know random code monkeys aren’t evil or too stupid to figure out opt-in is more ethical, they just work for corps that have to make money because capitalism, but they post their stupid garbage anyway because it gets clicks.
Don’t post it here.
Lol you already commented this with your alt https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/6909435 lmao
Absolute lunatic m8
It sounds like you understand what’s wrong with your opinion and yet can’t bring yourself to improve as a person.
random code monkeys aren’t evil or too stupid to figure out opt-in is more ethical
Coming in with a hot fucking take, they very much are that evil and/or stupid. They’re not at fault for how the software is structured, but judging by the crazes around tech hype (crypto, AI, NFTs) and my personal experience with average code monkeys, they would happily support “unethical” solutions (like opt-out tracking) if asked
Yeah I’m gonna need some elaboration on that. How is AI anarchist? What exactly do you mean by anarchism? And how does this relate to my comment about the moral and intellectual (and thus cultural) tendencies in software engineering and the wider tech community?
I try to fight some battles about ads, accessibility and an open web but I’m a failing don Chiosciotte; best I can actively do is test mainly for Firefox and make sure everything works properly there but for more business related decisions (see: ads, consent etc) there is little to nothing I can do
You are out of your mind. Soatok has more credibility in the industry than all the posters here put together.
You might not want to read it. Skip it and move on.
Are you this ‘soatok’? I’ve never heard of you before doesn’t look like anyone else has either.
@LainTrain That would be @soatok@furry.engineer. The blog itself is also federated at @soatok@soatok.blog
[tagging @vzq @programming for Mastodon->Lemmy federation]
Umm no? Soatok is Soatok.
He’s an expert in the field of the security of cryptographic implementations, along with other lesser interests.
Nowhere in the article does the author pin blame on individual employees. “Tech industry” obviously refers to corporations, not individual contributors. The title isn’t clickbait.
“Tech industry” does not mean that, it could just as well mean “people in the tech industry” which means “people who work in the tech industry”. The author uses this because it’s the boogeyman du jour with Sam altman and such but his entire essay is dancing around the point that it’s capitalism and has nothing to do with tech or is even specific to it. They would’ve probably had more of an article if they tried to specifically tie it to Nestle than the Tech Industry but it wouldn’t get them those precious clicks.
Sure, I agree that “tech industry” can refer to individuals. But in this context, it’s referring to corporations. That’s the simplest interpretation of the headline, and if you don’t arrive at that interpretation, it becomes increasingly apparent in the article.
“Nothing to do with tech” – I disagree. The author is speaking to a specific issue of consent in how tech companies handle data and build UX. These are tech industry issues. Immoral data handling may also be an issue with Nestle, but the author isn’t talking about Nestle. They also aren’t purely talking about the general economic system of capitalism, because doing so would dilute their argument.
I don’t know the author, but I don’t think reducing the article to an effort to get “precious clicks” is fair. They’re an established tech blogger, they’ve worked in security for many years, and as far as I know they make no money directly off of their articles. They even strongly encourage you to use an ad blocker when you enter the site.
Why would you discourage interesting, original journalism over such an obtuse nitpick?
They are clearly criticising the same capitalist structures that you are. They single out the tech industry because the article is about the misuse of tech, not because they think rank and file tech workers are deviants.
Frankly it comes off as fragile and dismissive, and if that’s what we’re doing we could have just stayed on reddit.
While the tone of the comment is dismissive, they have a point.
It’s not the engineers that are the problem, or even limited to the tech industry. Dark patterns are top-down business decisions, motivated by money.
It’s not that the “tech industry doesn’t understand consent,” but rather that greedy people do evil things. And software is just a low hanging fruit for that kind of business.
It’s not the engineers that are the problem, or even limited to the tech industry. Dark patterns are top-down business decisions, motivated by money.
Just following orders, right?
Come on, that’s not how morality works.
The corpos and gaffers ARE the tech industry. We all know that coders don’t make decisions like that, and the article does not blame them. I’m all for raising awareness of the problems with “opt-out” and fluid license agreements.
