As much as I dislike Apple, I dislike Facebook even more.<p>And as much as I dislike Facebook, I dislike even more the more evil alternatives that could exist.<p>We're lucky that it's just Zuckerberg - some nerd that lucked his way into a lot of money. There are plenty of people that could be more nefarious - particularly if the power is shared among a group of people where blame can even further be distributed.<p>I don't want to get too political and name names, but there are certain companies that are magnitudes worse - that can be tied directly to concentration camps, cartels, war crimes, mass scale environmental destruction. And they don't get held accountable because they're made up of boards of shadowy people that know how to stay out of the public eye and grease the right wheels.
FB definitely having an existential moment there. Not just because Apple but because this is getting more attention. Tracking is a lot more acceptable if it’s invisible / unknown.<p>A bit like how eco friendliness of products creeped its way into more mindshare. And one day manufacturers wake up and realise it has critical mass
it seems like every time one company of the technofeudalist leaders got itself into a scandal, fanboys tend to forget the previous ones. When did apple become the "lifestyle brand", the good guys? Not so long ago HN was full of the storm how apps stopped working when tracking servers went down. Apple shares the very same interests around your personal data, it's just that facebook is a reseller and apple is an enduser of your privacy.
Despite the fact that Tim Cook's attack on Facebook and its business model is really just another round in the ongoing fight between Apple and Facebook, he hits on an important point.<p>Facebook, et al are engaged in an effort to co-opt the freedom and privacy of people the world over and make our entire lives data points to increase their profitability.<p>By depriving us of privacy and choice around our information spheres, these practices derail and stultify our liberty and ability to <i>knowledgeably</i> practice self-determination.<p>This has been done with the tacit support (with a few notable exceptions) of frightened government officials who don't want to be blamed for another 9/11-like occurrence.<p>As Shoshanna Zhuboff put it in her recent OpEd Piece[0]:<p>"The epistemic coup proceeds in four stages.<p>The first is the appropriation of epistemic rights, which lays the foundation for all that follows. Surveillance capitalism originates in the discovery that companies can stake a claim to people’s lives as free raw material for the extraction of behavioral data, which they then declare their private property.<p>The second stage is marked by a sharp rise in epistemic inequality, defined as the difference between what I can know and what can be known about me. The third stage, which we are living through now, introduces epistemic chaos caused by the profit-driven algorithmic amplification, dissemination and microtargeting of corrupt information, much of it produced by coordinated schemes of disinformation. Its effects are felt in the real world, where they splinter shared reality, poison social discourse, paralyze democratic politics and sometimes instigate violence and death.<p>In the fourth stage, epistemic dominance is institutionalized, overriding democratic governance with computational governance by private surveillance capital. The machines know, and the systems decide, directed and sustained by the illegitimate authority and anti-democratic power of private surveillance capital. Each stage builds on the last."<p>[0] <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/29/opinion/sunday/facebook-surveillance-society-technology.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/29/opinion/sunday/facebook-s...</a>
I wonder if Facebook will be able to find a way to collect not exactly same amount of data but most of the data it captures atm. Ok, if you like to access to uniq identifier that's going to trigger a confirmation modal but as we all know Facebook doesn't necessarily need to capture all the data from the mobile phone directly with their SDK.<p>Especially, if the user is logged in app owner can send data to their backend and send it to Facebook from there. Like many of those marketing / analytics companies ask you to do.<p>For the long term tracking, the app owners can still generate uniq identifier and store on device storage, can't they? I guess the only functionality Facebook or any ad network would lose will be cross-app tracking. But I'm not sure how important is that.<p>The initial reaction Facebook gave to this was too aggressive and Apple will push back for sure with their own way. We all have bloody cookie confirmation on all websites and people mostly just click ok. Isn't that gonna be the same for the apps? In iOS14 modal asking you for confirmation, is it gonna say "Facebook wants to access idfa?" or "X application wants to access idfa?"
Facebook could try making another phone. I just don't see how you get around strategy like this without owning your own platform from top to bottom.
They say he's taking a swing at facebook without naming them.<p>They've missed the fact that every single thing they've excerpted there applies equally to google. Algorithm, engagement, conspiracy theory, disinformation, recommendations to more of the same is precisely what YouTube does. For both "With a computer" in the description which is necessary for how recommendation algorithms work has again caused the overwhelming majority of politicians, public servants, commentators to have their brain fall out of their ear. These recommendation algos were censoriship before censorship suddenly got cool a few weeks ago.<p>Save us from being protected from censoriship by Apple. You'd have to be stone cold crazy to trust Apple now and forever into the future and they are hoarding your data every chance they get themselves with zero consequences beyond PR if they change their policy tomorrow, next year or in 5 years time.<p>Separately to that, I've never seen a (directly paid for) advert for apple product on the internet. Plenty on the tv. A plethora of manipulated 3rd rate news pieces [1]. Do they advertise on the internet at all? They seem to be very good at advertising.<p>[1] Is there anyone in Apple's league for convincing news outlets to run their advertisments for free? Elon Musk, for sure. Is he even better? Anyone else? Donald Trump's political advertising maybe? What have you noticed that I might have missed here?
This article makes no goddamned sense. Android is the one with the majority and killer apps attract people to platforms. I don't like Facebook but it is far more likely that a full block would harm Apple way more.
As much as I dislike the effects of Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit on the world, it is equally alarming that the actions of platform providers like Apple and Google can have such broad impact. Apple’s recent history in political manipulations includes swapping the gun emoji for a squirt gun emoji, banning Parler, and more. Now, I’m no less alarmed that they could “end” Facebook even if I’m not a fan of Facebook and even if privacy protections help me.<p>This issue is that there simply isn’t much choice in the market here - between Google and Apple it’s two companies from the same area espousing the same political culture. Having them influence and control the entire world between them is dangerous. Unfortunately I don’t see viable competition for them on mobile devices. Who would we look to - Purism?