I don't think it's unrelated, and perhaps your point is that it's doubly clear no one has thought about ethics when you examine Sean's contradictory responses. But I think the lack of patriotism is more of an example.
Anyway, at the end of the day we're all people and we are the ones that depend on these companies and services. If you don't believe a company is behaving ethically, stop using their services. Make a damn sacrifice and live your virtue. Sure maybe we could argue that to some extent and in certain cases some companies have crossed the line and are harmfully exploiting customers to the extent that there should be legal ramifications, but the government does not exist to provide you an ethically sterile society. It exist to maintain and protect basic human rights--at least in the US as far as the formal documentation is concerned.
As far as I can gather based on armchair political philosophy over drinks.. most people don't actually care about privacy and rank convenience or safety (at the expense of said privacy) higher in their priorities. I find that unfortunate but at the same time I still haven't worked up the courage to totally disband my Facebook account and switch completely over to my proton mail accounts. So it's complicated.
If we could all agree that privacy is a fundamental human right which you would think would be supported by the constitution in the US then, we should actually act/rally to legislate such as other countries have done. Yet at the same time because these companies operate globally, they serve a diverse spectrum of users who may or may not share the same political and social values as we do in the US. This extends to the very employees who are "failing to ask the ethical questions" that Kumail can so obviously see are overlooked. This is globalization.
TL;DR: they do this because they can, and they can because you let them.
You may be passionate and well informed enough to have the strength of conviction to take appropriate action, but most people are not.
Nothing will change unless you can affect the behavior of others. You will be fought every step of the way: for the company, this is a fight for survival.
>they can because you let them.
What does this statement reveal about your internal dialogue? You can't expect people who don't understand or who aren't involved to take action. You are delegating your responsibility. Perhaps it is good for your ego, but I can tell you how it turns out.
A more appropriate statement would be, "because I let them."
>deciding to pivot my personal career into public advocacy or civil service
There have been worse ideas. It's worth fighting. :)
Organizations will engage in behavior if the expected risk-adjusted payoff is sufficiently large, from eroding privacy to cheating emissions tests. Unless we can change that equation we should expect to lose in the long run. This behavior is emergent, based on laws of power and organizational structure.
Organizations stand to win far more than lose, and a victory for us does not provide the same millions of dollars. They get stronger as we get weaker, and they use that strength to win people over to their position.
Of course there's an understanding that intelligence agencies are all ultimately looking at everything, but there's a degree of cooperation. Even in the current state of affairs Russian and American intel agencies work together on anti-terrorism stuff.
However, if the other group is clearly actively against you, then it's harder to work with them. It's safe to say at this point, given the evidence out ther, that WikiLeaks does work with an objective of embarassing American interests.
I think it's a contrarian media organization. I recall when the conservatives were all "kill this guy" during the Bush administration, now they they think he's the rescuer of Western Civilization.
If you have any belief in 'checks and balances' as an anti-corruption mechanism then this is a positive.
Who could regulate the 4th Estate, the academies? Not the government, they would be accused of corruption or despotism. Enter WL.
Think about it: who is 'the establishment'. It can't be the President/White House can it, not when the majority of pundits, journalists and intellectuals were against him.
I doubt it needs pointing out that the reason WikiLeaks exists is because many (most, all?) organs of "public " service are anything but.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned-down-le...
I recall another case when Wikileaks itself advertised a Russia leak and then never released anything.
I think the turning point was the SOPA/PIPA thing. After that event, it felt like the tech industry seemed to collectively figure out that just through sheer technical dominance, they actually wield tons of practical political power. Possibly more then the savviest Washington insiders.
Perhaps they were naive on whether RT was actually an aperture of Russian intelligence services. OK. Their KYC game could use some upping. OTOH, would anyone be surprised if the CIA were paying some little hedge fund somewhere to let them piggyback on access to Twitter's feed?
As far as Wikileaks' uninhibited operation goes, as far as I can tell, the CIA has not had its account banned from Twitter, just its firehose access. Does Wikileaks have access to that? What would they do with it if they did?
I mean it just seems like the line of questioning is, "Hey is it fair that you let them do X and won't let us do Y?" Maybe I can't see it because my silicon valley ass has no ethics.
if Twitter cut off CIA from firehose access and then tried to sell Twitter advertising and analytic services to RT for a US election then that seems to be some poorly constructed PR staging by Twitter
1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/09...
More surreal things have happened...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_Games,_Inc._v._U...
Ah, the 'pockets full of fish' defense. "While my client did shove the claimant into a lake, they came out with their pockets full of fish to a net benefit. Therefore, my client is innocent."
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/11/are-f...
tl;dr, this back-and-forth is unsettling to a Federalist:
>In response to a tough line of questions from Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Twitter’s acting general counsel, Sean Edgett, gave two conflicting answers within a couple of minutes. Cotton pressed Edgett on Twitter’s decision to cut off the CIA’s access to alerts derived from the Twitter-data fire hose, which is provided through a company it partially owns, Dataminr, while the companies reportedly still allowed the Russian media outlet RT to continue using the service for some time.
>“Do you see an equivalency between the Central Intelligence Agency and the Russian intelligence services?,” Cotton asked.
>“We’re not offering our service for surveillance to any government,” Edgett responded.
>“So you will apply the same policy to our intelligence community that you’d apply to an adversary’s intelligence services?,” Cotton asked again.
>“As a global company, we have to apply our policies consistently,” Edgett replied. “We’re trying to be unbiased around the world.”
>Cotton then turned to WikiLeaks, which the Intelligence Committee has designated as a nonstate hostile intelligence agency, asking why it had been operating “uninhibited” on Twitter.
>“Is it bias to side with America over our adversaries?,” Cotton demanded.
>“We’re trying to be unbiased around the world,” Edgett said. “We’re obviously an American company and care deeply about the issues we’re talking about today, but as it relates to WikiLeaks or other accounts like it, we make sure they are in compliance with our policies just like every other account.”
I guess it is kind of cyberpunk-y. All we need now is for US Marshals to lay siege to some SF headquarters, facing contracted PMCs denying the validity of their warrants.