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The Violations Start With Us

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Khandro | 15:49 Sun 10th Feb 2019 | Society & Culture
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I have been reading this article in the TLS from Dec. 21-28. It is an edited extract from the 2018 PEN, H.G.Wells lecture. I tried to summarise it to someone on the phone, and then discovered it is also available online.
It is worth reading by everyone, but particularly anyone who has a child or teenager. If you read it, I'd be interested in any comments;


https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/digital-rights-dave-eggers-lecture/
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Very interesting read.
Dave Eggers is right - we have the internet we deserve.
I have just read this and 100% agree with it, it is very well written and I particularly like the example of a person being able to pinpoint exactly when an email you have sent has been read. The internet has been good for us in many ways, but it has also been a blight, particularly when it affects young lives. But what can we do, will it ever change ?? People like being able to access information at the touch of a button and sending an email is so much easier and quicker than so called 'snail mail' (although I miss the plop of a thick newsy letter from a friend dropping through the letter box). As this writer says, maybe it is the younger generation who will eventually change things, but I have my doubts. I feel we are stuck with it, rightly or wrongly and more often than not, I am on the side of 'wrongly'.
I found it went on and on and on and... Particularly offputting when it's written to one side of the screen in a narrow column and one's forever scrolling. Was there a synopsis, as I gave up ?
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OG; It is already is a synopsis of a longer lecture. I know you don't like reading anything longer than a few lines. Perhaps you are reading it on a small screen which wont help.
If you can access it on a larger screen it is well worth reading as the other two above have said. In fact, what is taking place to our younger generation and right before our eyes, is rather chilling, it is one of the most important issues facing society today.
I got to this bit and stopped.....read it again, and again, and again.....

" First, we need to hold the tech companies accountable through increased regulation and governmental oversight, and we need to stand opposed to exponentially increasing surveillance practiced by nations and corporations"

so we need to have governmental regulation and oversight and at the same time NOT have governmental surveillance.....wha'?????
Oh PS I gave up shortly after that....the bloke may be a thinker but he's sure no writer
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woofgang; // [I] ..read it again, and again, and again..... //
and why not just once more again please. The implication isn't that the government acts directly as a censor on each issue, but that they ensure that companies such as Facebook clean up their act, - which in fact is very slowly beginning to happen.
If you read the whole article, which is a synopsis of the lecture, you may see that it isn't solely about the vehicle, it's about what children and parents are doing to themselves.

Hence the title at the OP!
That makes chilling reading – but there’s little there that hasn’t crossed my mind already. I utterly detest the intrusion of the internet and the influence of the internet, in particular social media websites. The thought that unseen voyeurs may spy on emails is, frankly, creepy – I can’t think of a more appropriate word - so too is the notion that those unknown eyes are also industriously collecting every bit of data available on unsuspecting internet users. One reason I don’t and won’t ‘do’ Facebook. That people are oblivious to that intrusion, having no hesitation in merrily posting, boasting, and exposing every aspect of their lives is frightening. Never thinking that any of it can be used to determine everything about them. Who they are, what they do, what they eat, where they holiday, where they shop, how many children they have, what car they drive, their ailments, their social status - even whether or not they are suitable for a particular job. Their whole lives laid bare!

The internet is certainly changing the way that people interact with each other too - and not for the better. Levels of aggression that would be unthinkable in the real world - at least to any reasonable person - are becoming the norm. Acceptable.

I fear something verging on a disturbingly ‘dystopianesque’ (I think I made that word up – but it serves my purpose) future awaits. A society where privacy is unknown, where intrusion is blithely accepted, and where everything about everyone is a simply a matter of record. God! What a gloomy prospect!

Sorry, I’ve gone on a bit – and probably gone off course too – but there you are. Once I got started my thoughts on the link you provided, Khandro, ran rather amok - but thank you for posting it. Well worth reading.
7670 results on Google, naomi. :-)
Ouch!
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n. A lot of issues raises in this talk; I personally became concerned and astonished couple of years ago when looking through a family photo album with one of my visiting daughters, she effortlessly took a photograph with her i-phone of one of the pages containing a picture of herself as a child at a garden party with lots of our friends.
I was unaware of what she was doing and she immediately sent the picture to someone in England to which she got an almost instantaneous reply, but what was even more worrying, 5 minutes later she got another
sms from another friend, equally unknown to me, commenting on the picture and in Australia!

In the photo there were a couple of fairly high-profile public figures of the day, who may not have wished to be seen relaxing in a private situation, albeit 30 years previously.

It is alarming that a private photograph kept for years in an album can so easily become instantly (and remain) in the public domain. Big lesson learnt!

It's also interesting that Bill and Melinda Gates wouldn't allow their children to have personal phones.
Indeed …. and how thoughtless are the people who write, “Going on holiday on Saturday. Can’t wait. Sooo excited!”?

Helloooo burglars! My house will be unoccupied for a fortnight from Saturday.

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