OpenStars
joined 1 year ago
Ofc it could have been benign, but there is no evidence that it was, while conversely everything that we currently know points to a breach of ethics.
One, they did not fully disclose that a camera was even there (unless I am mixing up this story with another one just like it?). That also makes it impossible to...
Two, they did not obtain proper (or any) consent. A banking ATM that needs to use your face to verify your identity could be an example of a benign use, and ignoring the enormous potential security implications of that atm, it could do so with a popup on the screen "Do you consent to having your face observed?", "Do you consent to storage of your facial data in our database?", "Do you consent to us selling the marketing data we collect from analysis of your facial data?". They did none of this.
Three, when asked about it, they lied. Technically they obfuscated the truth, which is just another way of stating that they lied.
Ofc it COULD have been benign, but so far they are zero out of three already towards that end - and that is even from just what we know so far.
Their corporate website mentions that they use the data for marketing purposes. Whatever type of face they see - e.g. male or female, large or skinny, etc. - gets correlated with what was purchased, and then they sell that data for marketing purposes. Exactly like Google selling your search history, except with likely fewer restrictions in place.
Their website doesn't mention how often they get hacked to give away that data for free - to be clear, that data meaning A PICTURE OF YOUR ACTUAL FUCKING FACE. I don't know what resolution, or even what someone would do with it later, I am focusing here on the fact that the picture taking seems nonconsensual, especially for it to be stored in a database rather than simply used in the moment.
This is where John Oliver would jump in to say: except that's not who this is bc one of them is fake.
And then continue with: except that's a lie bc actually, two are fake!
/s btw, it's a saying as in "you are beyond the ability of mere humans to save you":-P
I wouldn't be even a tenth surprised to find out that the name of the later-made TV show was designed as a partial homage to that exact episode that preceded it.
Though maybe not, as the concept seems to describe something deep in our psyches, and appears in so many shows & songs (e.g. R.E.M.'s shiny happy people), and I would bet that the Twilight Zone episode itself was either based on or at least was was preceded by some ancient story written or told hundreds of years before it:-).
Oh dayum, you are right. Ok, I quit already.
Nobody likes a quitter... unless it means creating a Shitter account, b/c that's just too cruel (and too kind to Musk's profits).
Yeah note how the version number is 0.19.3 - that's not 19.3, or 1.93, it's still far from 1.0 yet.
When Reddit imploded Lemmy got hit with this deluge of new subscribers, but it wasn't quite ready for it. On the other hand, third party apps were made almost instantly, so definitely the pace accelerated:-).
And they've been hit with multiple spam attacks, from 4chan and Discord, so those I am sure were considered the priority.
Well, this is certainly the Good Place at least:-).
That does not work in a webpage browser, so seems like a Liftoff ~~bug~~ (/feature?:-P) on top of the underlying issue in Lemmy itself.