Hacker News Reader

Comment by Permit | Hacker News Reader

> Spyware is illegal. So it’s just a matter of defining the data collection practices of internet companies as spyware.

I’ve seen this phenomenon before but never so explicitly. When you can’t convince someone that something is bad, you re-define it as something they do consider bad.

Some examples I’ve seen:

- Some speech is so hateful and racist that its opponents wish to define it as “violence”.

- Facebook offers advertisers the ability to target the demographics their ads reach. Some have tried to term this as “selling your data”.

In this case, it’s clear the average person doesn’t hold data collection in such low esteem as yourself, so you must redefine it as “spyware” in order to convince them.

This subtle shift is in interesting to me, but it leaves me unconvinced. Words are not violence. Facebook does not sell data. Data collection is not the same as spyware.

View on HN

"Free speech" is not a good example in my opinion when we already have so many exceptions to it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...

I'll reconsider not defending free speech from getting a "hate speech" exception when so called "free speech" proponents start talking about getting rid of the copyright exception instead of just wanting to say racist stuff.

It makes complete sense to want to expand the scope of terms that are associated with laws if you don't believe the law is accurate enough. Language evolves through social changes, and so do laws.

I made no mention of free speech. I'm Canadian and support the significant mechanisms we have in place to combat hate speech!

My point is only that speech is not violence. One does not need to change the meaning of the word violence in order to place sensible restrictions on speech. It is a cheap rhetorical trick.

It's intrinsically linked to "free speech" exemptions through being violent, because violence doesn't have to be physical, here's an excerpt from Wikipedia's opening paragraph on violence[1]:

> Other definitions are also used, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened[4] or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation."[5]

There's no doubt that hate speech _does_ commit psychological harm, for example, but the article contains way more nuance than I have time for in this post so I implore you to read the article -- "violence" is just not as simple and limited as physical harm.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence

Violence huh?

That's what this conversation is devolving into, a fluidic interpretation of violence? Seems like a strawman argument; change the topic to violence, then argue a truism that violence is bad... all the while maintaining a pretend causal link between privacy and violence?

Sorry. Not. Persuasive.

That said, for the sake of civility and moving past this distractio... I will concede the point you seem so adamant to make, violence is not so simple. But again, not on-topic here, and it adds nothing to the conversation.

Don't act like the term "spyware" is nebulous and undefined. Spyware is collection of information without consent of users. It's well defined, well understood, and illegal.

The only thing people are hiding behind here is that users agree to it in some novel length TOS that they don't read and don't understand.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com