M/M
06-01-2019, 08:52 AM
Recording of Edward Snowden's talk. (He begins speaking around the 25-minute mark.)
Published on Friday, May 31, 2019
by Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org)
Edward Snowden: With Technology, Institutions Have Made 'Most Effective Means of Social Control in the History of Our Species'
by Andrea Germanos, staff writer (https://www.commondreams.org/author/andrea-germanos-staff-writer)
"We don't sign up for this," he added, dismissing the notion that people know exactly what they are getting into with social media platforms like Facebook.
"How many of you who have a Facebook account actually read the terms of service?" Snowden asked. "Everything has hundreds and hundreds of pages of legal jargon that we're not qualified to read and assess—and yet they're considered to be binding upon us."
"It is through this sort of unholy connection of technology and sort of an unusual interpretation of contract law," he continued, "that these institutions have been able to transform this greatest virtue of humanity—which is this desire to interact and to connect and to cooperate and to share—to transform all of that into a weakness."
Published on Friday, May 31, 2019
by Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org)
Edward Snowden: With Technology, Institutions Have Made 'Most Effective Means of Social Control in the History of Our Species'
by Andrea Germanos, staff writer (https://www.commondreams.org/author/andrea-germanos-staff-writer)
"We don't sign up for this," he added, dismissing the notion that people know exactly what they are getting into with social media platforms like Facebook.
"How many of you who have a Facebook account actually read the terms of service?" Snowden asked. "Everything has hundreds and hundreds of pages of legal jargon that we're not qualified to read and assess—and yet they're considered to be binding upon us."
"It is through this sort of unholy connection of technology and sort of an unusual interpretation of contract law," he continued, "that these institutions have been able to transform this greatest virtue of humanity—which is this desire to interact and to connect and to cooperate and to share—to transform all of that into a weakness."