{"id":1845,"date":"2021-06-12T15:40:31","date_gmt":"2021-06-12T13:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2021\/06\/12\/big-brother-is-still-watching-you-and-he-goes-by-the-name-facebook\/"},"modified":"2021-06-12T15:40:31","modified_gmt":"2021-06-12T13:40:31","slug":"big-brother-is-still-watching-you-and-he-goes-by-the-name-facebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2021\/06\/12\/big-brother-is-still-watching-you-and-he-goes-by-the-name-facebook\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Brother is still watching you and he goes by the name Facebook"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The social media giant\u2019s offer of free internet access ensures that mobile users stay where it can keep an eye on them <\/p>\n<p>The security guru Bruce Schneier once <a href=\"https:\/\/www.schneier.com\/news\/archives\/2017\/07\/surveillance_is_the_.html\">famously observed<\/a> that \u201csurveillance is the business model of the internet\u201d. Like all striking generalisations it was slightly <em>too<\/em> general: it was strictly true only if by \u201cthe internet\u201d you meant the services of a certain number of giant tech companies, notably those of Facebook (including WhatsApp and Instagram), Google (including YouTube), Twitter and Amazon.<\/p>\n<p>The trouble is (and this is what gave Schneier\u2019s aphorism its force) that for a large chunk of networked humanity, especially inhabitants of poorer countries, these walled gardens <em>are<\/em> indeed what people regard as \u201cthe internet\u201d. And that\u2019s no accident. Although Chinese smartphones are pretty cheap everywhere, mobile data tends to be prohibitively expensive in poor countries. So the deal offered by western tech companies is that data charges are low or zero if you access the internet via their apps, but expensive if you venture outside their walled gardens.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2021\/jun\/12\/big-brother-is-still-watching-you-and-he-goes-by-the-name-facebook-john-naughton\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><br \/>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/6072eaf0499b2df642875d999450230d5ab78a6d\/0_228_3504_2102\/master\/3504.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=e52a2bca1b16e86fbb517cbc21b979a4\" title=\"Big Brother is still watching you and he goes by the name Facebook\" \/>The social media giant\u2019s offer of free internet access ensures that mobile users stay where it can keep an eye on them<br \/>\nThe security guru Bruce Schneier once famously observed that \u201csurveillance is the business model of the internet\u201d. Like all striking generalisations it was slightly too general: it was strictly true only if by \u201cthe internet\u201d you meant the services of a certain number of giant tech companies, notably those of Facebook (including WhatsApp and Instagram), Google (including YouTube), Twitter and Amazon.<br \/>\nThe trouble is (and this is what gave Schneier\u2019s aphorism its force) that for a large chunk of networked humanity, especially inhabitants of poorer countries, these walled gardens are indeed what people regard as \u201cthe internet\u201d. And that\u2019s no accident. Although Chinese smartphones are pretty cheap everywhere, mobile data tends to be prohibitively expensive in poor countries. So the deal offered by western tech companies is that data charges are low or zero if you access the internet via their apps, but expensive if you venture outside their walled gardens. Continue reading&#8230;Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The social media giant\u2019s offer of free internet access ensures that mobile users stay where it can keep an eye on them The security guru Bruce Schneier once famously observed that \u201csurveillance is the business model of the internet\u201d. Like all striking generalisations it was slightly too general: it was strictly true only if by &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2021\/06\/12\/big-brother-is-still-watching-you-and-he-goes-by-the-name-facebook\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Big Brother is still watching you and he goes by the name Facebook<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1846,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1845"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}