Jeff Bezos Protests Privacy Invasion, as He Builds Surveillance State | Hacker News Reader

Jeff Bezos Protests Privacy Invasion, as He Builds Surveillance State

theintercept.com

52 pointssbuttgereit16 comments

> But Bezos, given how much he works and profits to destroy the privacy of everyone else (to say nothing of the labor abuses of his company), is about the least sympathetic victim imaginable of privacy invasion.

That hits the nail on the head. It seems kind of like poetic justice (though I don’t personally agree with anyone’s privacy being violated).

From the Medium post by Jeff Bezos [1] linked in this article:

> “My stewardship of The Post and my support of its mission, which will remain unswerving, is something I will be most proud of when I’m 90 and reviewing my life, if I’m lucky enough to live that long, regardless of any complexities it creates for me.”

Seriously, how much of a cognitive dissonance and compartmentalization must one have to not see the ill effects of his ruthless actions when contemplating looking back on his life when he’s 90 (or old enough)? Having one thing to be proud of and hundreds of other things to be ashamed of — is that a good sign of introspection?

[1]: https://medium.com/@jeffreypbezos/no-thank-you-mr-pecker-146...

"Jeff Bezos Protests Privacy Invasion" seems a bit of a stretch, since I can't find him doing so anywhere on Medium or even in the linked article. He seems to be merely dealing with the fallout without commenting on the privacy issues.

He says he doesn't want his personal texts and photos published. He says he has retained an investigator to find out how these texts and photos were acquired in the first place. That looks and sounds like a protest of the privacy invasion to me.

In the context of blackmail

Of course. When else do privacy issues matter most?

All kinds of other ways - subtle manipulation, advertising, evaluation by power structures etc.

I didn't say the other problems with a lack of privacy don't matter. I asked when else does a lack of privacy matter most. It matters most when you receive a direct and immediate threat as a consequence of your lack of privacy.

Jeff Bezos is finding out the hard way what a lack of privacy means. If he had had actual privacy he wouldn't be in this position in the first place.

I think the other problems matter vastly more.

They are happening to all of us all the time, and are deeply corrosive to society.

Blackmail is comparatively rare, and may not actually be as harmful even to the individual who is the target.

Just because they are pervasive and so we learn to live with them, we should not underestimate how severely damaging they are.

Protesting an instance of privacy invasion doesn't equate to commenting on the mechanism of invasion, itself. I would have been much more interested in the story if he had had a public change of heart about surveillance states, but alas - all he said was that he was going to stand up against it.

When will the media realize that Amazon didn't invent facial recognition software? It would be here regardless of Bezos.

This is a weird take. Does it extend to anything? Murder would be here regardless, so it's NBD if any particular individual murders? Fraud is going to be here regardless, so individual instances of fraud are NBD?

Why does it matter who invented something when the conversation is about building an empire around it?

Here's the article summary to ponder:

> If Bezos were the political victim of surveillance state abuses, it would be scandalous and dangerous. It would also be deeply ironic. That’s because Amazon, the company that has made Bezos the planet’s richest human being, is a critical partner for the U.S. Government in building an ever-more invasive, militarized and sprawling surveillance state.

Which of that ruffles you?

It's disingenuous to compare a tool to an act. Would you blame Home Depot if someone bought a pipe there and used it to bludgeon someone to death?

If they marketed it as a bludgeoning tool.. Yes.

Neither pipes nor facial recognition software are marketed for criminal purposes. And neither amazon nor home depot invented them.

Now wait a minute. Serveillance technology is definitely sold as more than just tools for building a house. They are tools of war and authoritarianism. Sure you have your run of the mill equipment for securing your building. But then you have massive networks of Spyware to catalog an entire nation's activity embedded without notice into the products you use without your consent. Your politician will sell you it for homeland security but the companies that sell the tech to the government sell in the same way arms dealers do. A Tomohawk missile is also a tool. And if home depot was selling that, especially if they were selling it under the pretence of a 'self defence tool' you but your shiny behind I'd have a problem with it. Wouldn't you?

Now consider home depot and Amazon are both warehouse businesses. Only one of them is helping the US government extend its digital spy network and increase its cyberwar capabilities.

Surveillance is not unethical, it's not unique to Amazon, and it's not remotely new.

Cameras are surveillance technology. Are you outraged at every manufacturer of cameras? Cameras are directly marketed as security systems (aka "surveillance").

A person staring at a CCTV looking out for a specific person holding a photo has been around forever. Facial recognition makes them more efficient.

None of this is new. None of this is unique to Amazon. Making this about amazon is dishonest.

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