I am not sure what you are trying to tell me here?!
Also, Facebook provides content? I don't use them, so what do I know, but from what I understand, Facebook only provides the platform for others to publish content and to communicate through, don't they?
> Good luck with that. So far it hasn't worked on digital platforms and I fear it never will. There is very little governments pursue as vigorously as cracking down on unexplained money flows. They will stamp out anything that reaches mass appeal with an iron fist.
I am not sure what your point is here?! Government will try to expand surveillance as much as possible, therefore, we should accept surveillance? I mean, I agree that it might not be easy, but I didn't say that it would be easy, but that there will be bad consequences if we don't, whether easy or not.
Also, perfectly legal possibilities to pay anonymously online for small amounts do exist, such as paysafecard.
> Also, making people pay for everything puts poor people at a great disadvantage.
Making people pay for everything and surveillance are not the only options. You can have donation-funded stuff, you can have publicly funded stuff, you can have advertisement funded stuff, and also, you should have a social security system that provides for people's ability to participate in culture. None of that requires surveillance.
> But I do think it is possible to force the biggest internet companies to not use some particularly privacy hostile practices like real name policies, browser fingerprinting and a couple of others. The goal should be to let them target ads all they want, but allow people to unlink their real identity from that ad targeting profile.
What do you mean by "real identity"? The name on the birth certificate? How does that limit any of the potential abuses of the data that's being collected? Or what else do you mean by that? Which data specifically should they not be allowed to collect?
As for the ban being unenforcable: Well, I am not that sure. Sure, the US cannot regulate what tracking Yandex does. But you sure can regulate what business a US company can do with Yandex, and Yandex won't advertise for US businesses for free.
Also, there is no need to be 100% effective. The problem is mass-surveillance, not that some company might know everything about a bunch of people. As far as the abuse potential is concerned, regulating 80% of the market probably is more than good enough. The problem, after all, is a concentration of power. A few million companies that make up the remaining 20% of the market are most likely not a concentration of power.
As for the supposed connection to censorship: How is that supposed to work?!
It's not a different problem at all. Facebook is not infrastructure. They provide content and communication services that many find useful but not everyone does. It's exactly the same with porn.
> As for the funding of content production: I think we have to have some possibility to pay for that anonymously if we want to keep democracy stable.
Good luck with that. So far it hasn't worked on digital platforms and I fear it never will. There is very little governments pursue as vigorously as cracking down on unexplained money flows. They will stamp out anything that reaches mass appeal with an iron fist.
Also, making people pay for everything puts poor people at a great disadvantage.
>Also, as I have repeatedly said, I don't understand why you seem to be constantly equating advertisement and surveillance.
That's right, I have been doing that. Mainly because the link between advertising and wanting to know as much as possible about potential buyers is very strong indeed. Advertisers will always be highly motivated to find ways around any ban. It's unenforceable.
You may ask why I am so confident that governments are able to enforce a ban on anonymous payments and so pessimistic about them enforcing a ban on ad targeting. It's because there aren't that many payment networks and they are highly regulated in the first place.
Financial sector regulation is extremely deep. You can't regulate millions of service/content providers worldwide in the same way. It would take enormous resources and international treaties that take decades to negotiate. In the end you would have something that doesn't just enforce an ad targeting ban but also provides ideal opportunities for censorship.
If you enforce a ban only for the big US based internet companies, then others will will quickly take over their ad business. If Baidu and Yandex can show us personalized ads but Google and Facebook can't, then ad money is going to Baidu and Yandex and they are going to subsidise mobile phones and other free offerings. It's not going to be long until we're back to square one in terms of privacy.
But I do think it is possible to force the biggest internet companies to not use some particularly privacy hostile practices like real name policies, browser fingerprinting and a couple of others. The goal should be to let them target ads all they want, but allow people to unlink their real identity from that ad targeting profile.