At least for the first two points, Soros does the same thing:
1) George Soros also tries to manipulate how the public thinks and feels with his media campaigns
2) he manipulates people’s attention to focus on his political interests
Not saying either are particularly in the right for doing these things but it’s a little funny that this is so alarming for him, a major political donor and influencer
I guess this is sort of a weird article, just saying what others have said but this time repeating it because the source, Soros, is unique and for some has more authority because is very wealthy. Basically nothing is new in the criticisms.
We strive for a higher level of discourse at HN.
FWIW, I have convinced myself that ubiquitous surveillance is pretty much inevitable as a side-effect to automation of infrastructure, so the question is how to manage it (rather than whether.) Right now we are seeing a split between "Morlocks" and "Eloi" where there is a huge gap between the understanding of the folks working at these AI-developing super-silos and the understanding of Joe and Jane User on the street.
The insidious thing is that sufficient storage + innocous tech can be transformed into surveillance... when everything's aggregated.
Right, but it seems then you're saying that surveillance is more of an intention than it is a set of technologies. Some technologies make those intentions easier to act upon certainly, but the concept of "surveillance" needs to be defined better so that we can recognize what specifically makes it sinister.
Have you ever heard the old bit about how “a lie is best hidden between two truths”? I think a lot of people steer clear of truth from someone they don’t trust because they know what the next thing will be.
It’s counter to another saying, “if a thief tells you murder is bad, does that make him wrong?” But life is complicated.
I think you are falling into the fairly common "George Soros is evil" narrative and it causing you not to listen to what Soros actually is saying in this particular case.
Soros actually is focusing on three well established points that others also regularly make - these are quotes from the article:
(1) “This is particularly nefarious because social media companies influence how people think and behave without them even being aware of it. This has far-reaching adverse consequences on the functioning of democracy, particularly on the integrity of elections.”
(2) In addition to skewing democracy, social media companies “deceive their users by manipulating their attention and directing it towards their own commercial purposes” and “deliberately engineer addiction to the services they provide”. The latter, he said, “can be very harmful, particularly for adolescents”.
(3) Soros warned of an “even more alarming prospect” on the horizon if data-rich internet companies such as Facebook and Google paired their corporate surveillance systems with state-sponsored surveillance – a trend that’s already emerging in places such as the Philippines.
He isn't talking at all about social movements or populism on Facebook or Google, not at all. Remember that those are often outside of those platforms generally these days, such as Telegram in Iran or Twitter.
I feel like your comment is bringing in an axe to grind because of other grievances with Soros, rather than dealing with what he is actually saying in this particular article.