Comment on Palantir CEO Makes Shocking Confession on Disrupting Democratic Power
its_me_xiphos@beehaw.org 2 weeks ago
Take anything Palantir says about democracy as either a dog whistle or a threat. Palantirs product is mass surveillance and criminal behavior prediction (location, whereabouts, movement patterns). That’s authoritarian, but not necessarily antidemocratic. You can still vote and be a democracy withass surveillance, don’t conflate it.
Where the anti Democratic comes in is using that surveillance to prevent people from exercising their right to vote and manipulating their information so they vote how you want. That’s what Palantir is enabling.
Its nuts on accurate their name is in spirit. Almost commendable.
Quexotic@beehaw.org 1 week ago
Democracies require privacy, therefore they are in their most basic mission, anti-democratic.
its_me_xiphos@beehaw.org 1 week ago
That’s a good read, thank you for sharing. I do not believe that a lack of privacy and surveillance are a given. You can have a strong Democratic state with surveillance, if you have strong privacy guarantees and the means to enforce them.
This is a much larger discussion, but your article and point are well taken.
Quexotic@beehaw.org 1 week ago
I might be able to agree with you if they hadn’t already said that it’s basically being misused and I’m talking about the people using it, not some crackpot or tin foil hat person. Also, the case for its necessity and its utility is very flimsy. Looke into snowden. Look into flock cameras. If you can even scratch the surface on those two topics and come back with the same argument… Well, then I just don’t know what to do with you. lol
You can put in whatever safeguard you want, but there will still be people that will misuse it, and they won’t get caught. That’s what’s already been happening with the levels of surveillance that we’ve already had since 2001, and even more so in 2004 with the Patriot Act.
In many ways, it’s already too late and it has been proven that what we have already has not not been handled responsibly.
its_me_xiphos@beehaw.org 1 week ago
That’s a fair set of arguments.