Technology Controlling Lives

[DreamHollow4219]

If there's a better thread for this, let me know.

 

I just want to bring awareness to people who might not already realize what's happening. As of the past few years, tech companies are becoming increasingly restrictive in what they will allow their users to do. Terms of Service for most major monopolies are adopting very similar guidelines to "always be a good citizen, and never question anything" on a regular basis. For an example of what I'm talking about, Microsoft recently updated their terms of service to double down enforcement on a Code of Conduct that I'm sure did not previously exist- at least not for user-to-user personal use.

 

I can understand on some level the enforcement against things that are flagrantly illegal that Microsoft would never want to be associated with, that's not what I'm worried about. What I'm deeply concerned about is legal gray areas where legislation and pending court cases have not fully established "modern" judgements in cases that would affect users day-to-day lives. Under these new rules, it's not far fetched to say that someone's entire Microsoft account could be completely terminated because you just did something Microsoft didn't like. And because Microsoft has easy access to a lot of people's information, this could be a significant and permanent "all goods and services" ban that completely eliminates your ability to use Microsoft products without an appeal- including Windows and Windows programs.

 

This is especially true of the particularly invasive Windows 10 which has had multiple services enabled by default that are extremely hard to turn off. 21 different settings that should be modified just for you to retain some of your privacy to yourself. Sheesh. If you value your privacy or even your safety, Windows 10 is a bit antithetical to that. There is almost nothing you can do that Microsoft won't know about, which is another major reason people have been distinctly hesitant to upgrade to the OS.

 

I just wanted to get the opinion of some of the people here, seeing as how I only see these trends intensifying over time. I have no doubt that without something like government intervention, these companies will continue to double down on their users to encourage certain "behaviors".

 

I know how I sound, but I've been observing tech and tech trends for years. I'm from real old school computing, back during the days of those rough looking tan computers that took actual floppy disks. Those days are long gone, and the idea of an operating system that keeps any data on a singular computer are practically a distant memory. I just want people to be aware how much worse this could get before it actually does.

[kerdios]

We're not allowed to discuss piracy on this forum.
And apart from that, I don't see how Terms-of-Service that will allow banning for missuse of a program or service could be relevant to privacy issues. (at least outside of a gross criminally misconduct related manner - such as conspiracy to commit murder, pedophilia or narcotics sales).
I don't disagree that win 10 ad-spyware services being on by default is an extremely scummy thing to do - and maybe that should be the illegal part.

[Shaddy]

As far as I can tell, the rules don't prohibit the discussion of piracy, only hosting or linking to pirated content. It'd be really weird to disallow all talk of it, given what we've seen on the Game Dungeon.

[BTGBullseye]

On 4/12/2021 at 5:12 AM, Shaddy said:

As far as I can tell, the rules don't prohibit the discussion of piracy, only hosting or linking to pirated content. It'd be really weird to disallow all talk of it, given what we've seen on the Game Dungeon.

This is the correct interpretation. I've talked about and even promoted piracy before, and gotten direct statements from the mods saying it's not against the rules.

[kerdios]

oh, ok, then discuss ahead,

it's already been a week, I have no idea what i wanted to say about piracy

Edited April 16, 2021 by kerdios (see edit history)

[Roindarb]

My awakening as to how technology can be used to control people was learning about the events leading up to the Referendum on the UK leaving the EU (Brexit). This subject was really topical when I was studying for my GCSEs and A-levels, so I would casually watch videos and read on this topic in my free time. What I learned was that both sides of the campaign used personal data harvested from social media platforms to create targeted advertisements based on whatever topics that user felt strongly about. One of the campaigns used a significant amount of dissinformation in their advertisements and targeted those who were passionate but not necessarily politically informed.

 

This was facilitated by those terms of service agreements that are formatted deliberatley to by awful to read, in order to prevent us from understanding what's happening. It's incredibley frightening how private organisations can purchase harvested data to manipulate narratives on any topic they wish to further their goals, whilst most people are ignorant of how prevalent or effective said methods really are.