The much maligned “Trusted Computing” idea requires that the party you are supposed to trust deserves to be trusted, and Google is DEFINITELY NOT worthy of being trusted, this is a naked power grab to destroy the open web for Google’s ad profits no matter the consequences, this would put heavy surveillance in Google’s hands, this would eliminate ad-blocking, this would break any and all accessibility features, this would obliterate any competing platform, this is very much opposed to what the web is.
Note of amusement: The GitHub issues tracker for that proposal got swamped with tickets either mocking this crap or denouncing it for what it is, this morning the person who seems to be the head of the project closed all those tickets and published this blog post, in essence saying “Shut up with your ethical considerations, give us a hand in putting up this electric fence around the web”. Of course that didn’t stop it.
Also somebody pointed out this gem in the proposal, quoted here:
Quick edit: This comment on one of the closed tickets points out the contact information of the Antitrust authorities of both US and EU, i think i’m gonna drop the EU folks a note
My favorite part is when they ask you to give them the benefit of the doubt, but also anyone who disagrees with them is “noise.”
And if you have issues with the “use case” itself, you’re shit out of luck, shut it, shithead!
If you raise legal issues with the ‘use case’ of their ‘web platform’ thing, ppl will just not respond to you!
Meaning: we don’t care if the shot we plan might be illegal, and we won’t be stopped by you fucks telling us if it is or not "
What benefit of the doubt?
The absolute best possible case is repulsive.
My favorite part was “even if you notice we intend to break the law just be quiet about it”
Benefit of the doubt, as in “I doubt this is a good idea”
Wow, that blog post is truly nauseating and infuriating to read, knowing the context.
Fuck Google. They’re the Nestlé of tech.
I don’t think Google has recently insisted that child slavery is just a thing we all have to be OK with if we want chocolate, or starved millions of babies by convincing their mothers that their breast milk is dangerous. But I also wouldn’t be shocked to learn that they had…
Ha! Fair point. I guess the Internet is ultimately peanuts compared to the real world.
But as far as relative negative effect on its sphere of influence, I’d say they’re comparable.
No, but they accepted to publish political fake news ads for one of the running parties (the fascistoid one, of course) in the last elections here in Brazil.
That party has lost, but it was too close. In the 4 last years, during their mandate, hunger, violence, discrimination rape, and other problems rose to the highest levels in the century.
Google and other big tech companies have been influencing elections in a lot of places, and the consequences are enormous.
…?
What is this, “Good vibes only?”
“Good vibes only” seems to be embedded in the culture of web development today. Influential devs’ Twitter accounts have strong Instagram vibes: constantly promoting and congratulating each other, never sharing substantive criticisms. Hustle hustle.
People with deep, valid criticisms of popular frameworks like React seem to be ostracized as cranks.
It’s all very vapid and depressing.
Do you have an article about react? I’d love to read it. And yes tech is chock full of egos and fakers.
Alex Russell is a good read on React. His position gives him a broad view of its impacts and has kept him from being sidelined. This Changelog podcast is a decent distillation of his criticisms – it was recorded earlier this year, a few days after his Market For Lemons blog post.
(Sorry for the late reply! I’ve been a bit swamped lately and away from kbin.)
The amount of noise IS the signal
Never seen it work? These faang people are totally delusional. Google keeps putting off their third party cookie retirement exactly because of outcries like this.