Thanks to Samantha Cole at 404 Media, we are now aware that Automattic plans to sell user data from Tumblr and WordPress.com (which is the host for my blog) for “AI” products. In respon…
    • porgamrer@programming.dev
      0·
      9 months ago

      Why would you discourage interesting, original journalism over such an obtuse nitpick?

      They are clearly criticising the same capitalist structures that you are. They single out the tech industry because the article is about the misuse of tech, not because they think rank and file tech workers are deviants.

      Frankly it comes off as fragile and dismissive, and if that’s what we’re doing we could have just stayed on reddit.

      • cbarrick@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        9 months ago

        While the tone of the comment is dismissive, they have a point.

        It’s not the engineers that are the problem, or even limited to the tech industry. Dark patterns are top-down business decisions, motivated by money.

        It’s not that the “tech industry doesn’t understand consent,” but rather that greedy people do evil things. And software is just a low hanging fruit for that kind of business.

        • vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          0·
          9 months ago

          It’s not the engineers that are the problem, or even limited to the tech industry. Dark patterns are top-down business decisions, motivated by money.

          Just following orders, right?

          Come on, that’s not how morality works.

            • vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone
              0·
              9 months ago

              Are you seriously suggesting knowledge workers have no responsibility for how their work is used?

              • HowManyNimons@lemmy.world
                0·
                8 months ago

                We have limited options in what we can do to get money. I currently have a job where I’m proud of what I do, but it took decades of working for assholes to get there. Even now I’m not comfortable with everything I’m asked to do. I push back when it’s unethical, and sometimes that changes things. Sometimes it doesn’t and I just have to do as I’m told. What’s your life like?

                • Corbin@programming.devOPEnglish
                  0·
                  8 months ago

                  I directly tell my managers that what they are asking for is illegal, and then I refuse to do it. So far, I’ve yet to be forced to “do as I’m told,” and I doubt that this will ever be a problem for me as I don’t intend to sign up for the military or any other organization that can actually force people to follow orders.

    • phonyphanty@pawb.socialEnglish
      0·
      9 months ago

      Nowhere in the article does the author pin blame on individual employees. “Tech industry” obviously refers to corporations, not individual contributors. The title isn’t clickbait.