this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2024
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Yeeeah, we're not hearing each other.
I don't want to not have people reach me through the most convenient means.
I would very much prefer that not to compromise more of my privacy than absolutely necessary, for sure. But I do want a service like WhatsApp that everybody I know is also using. That's a good thing. If Line was the thing everybody uses I'd be on Line. Back when it was MSN Messenger (because that's what we had, ICQ was never a thing), I was on that.
I don't aim to not use WhatsApp, I expect regulation to make it safe, just like it does for food and medicine and roads and everything else.
Ah, yes, that's why I keep my walls unpainted. Can't trust big paint with the not putting lead in that. Never going to happen.
You're not pushing back against anything, you're arguing about Meta's nichest product on the nichest social media of them all. At some point one will have to assume the arguing is the point, more than enacting any change.
Between regulation of the techbro oligarchy or... whatever this thread is, I know where my money goes. The opposite is straight up libertarian talk.
Libertarian talking points again. Every instance of a government failing to do their jobs is an indictment on the concept of governments.
There are two things you need for effective governance: effective people in government and effective design of government.
If you don't have those, your only priority is to get those (so get to it, Americans). If you do have those, your job is to oversee them doing their job.
Neither of those tasks particularly requires getting into spats with random Internet people in obscure corners of social media to flaunt how much you dislike anything associated with a particular brand you've chosen as an arbitrary avatar for a specific issue. One could argue for an organized boycott, but that's not what's happening here, and if it was it'd be a record for the most ineffectual example of one on record.
No, I get it, I'm not saying you're doing it on purpose. I'm saying the cynical right wing anti-regulation talking points have seeped so deep into the fabric of social disenchantment that they are parroted universally now.
No, artificially crippled regulation being bad at regulating doesn't change the need for regulation or the collective onus on regulating abusive corporate behavior. No, you don't just control you. You take collective action. Individual action means squat and does nothing. Nobody has ever "voted with their wallet". You vote with your votes, and if that isn't allowed or is rendered ineffective you vote with something pointier.
So no, you don't -can't- abstain from participating in that process as a political act. You engage in political action. Especially if the performative pantomime of activisim is arbitrary and driven by false premises and misconceptions.
Look, social media is fundamentally harmful. Including this site. Meta invented a good chunk of it and monetized most of it using anticompetitive practices and abdicating their responsibilities. And they should be broken apart into manageable chunks and regulated within an inch of their lives.
None of which has any bearing on them spending their considerable resources on subsidizing some gaming-focused VR headset. And even if the perceived slight on that particular product was offensive, it certainly isn't more offensive than waht Google does with Gmail. Or what Unilever does with pretty much everything you buy that has some chemicals in it, or whatever else.
I don't care or want to be an online vigilante, taking valiant ranting action against whatever company is unlucky enough to have been part of an article I read once. I want to pay my taxes, vote in conscience, unleash the hellhounds of the hard end of the social contract and get to buy whatever cool shit I think is cool without having to bear the burden of moral judgement from highly ineffective keyboard warriors. Or, you know, at least only bear the judgement that is based on actual facts, not made up grudges.