alt Hacker NewsAm I missing something? I thought it was not the ad itself, but rather the combination with the reporting on that Guthrie abduction, which claimed that although there was no subscription to the recording service, the video data was still recovered, i.e., recorded and sent to Google servers.
Regardless of how you see it, although the ad was a kind of manipulative reframing of surveillance infrastructure by using pets as means of psychological manipulation, the Super Bowl ad seems to have just been an unfortunate (or fortunately) timed ad that caused people to glimpse through the cracks in the control matrix being constructed around them.
I don’t think it will really make a difference though. It’s like wildebeest watching their compatriot snatched underwater by a crocodile, to only momentarily pause before venturing right into the same river.
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Anecdotally, my physical therapist (far more connected to the cultural zeitgeist than I am) brought up the ad yesterday and talked about how creepy it was.
The bigger issue is whether users feel they have clear, informed control over what's collected and who can access it
That's a great analogy.
The internet found out you can point a camera outside.
Humans can adapt more quickly than wildebeest. Join advocacy groups for your own morale, continue to get better at communicating these dangers to the mainstream, be that person who offers alternatives to your non-technical circle.
Yeah, it’s a timing thing. Government surveillance with commercial partnerships is more aggressive now, and the stories are chipping away at our collective ignorance until something like this connects the dots for people. I’m off in my corner of culture and don’t watch social video so I didn’t appreciate the work that streamers/explainers have done to alert normal people to these problems. But those videos were more effective at getting Flock out of my city than any canvassing I did. It’s nice to see conspiracy brains turned to an actual cabal.
This kind of story has been in the news cycle every few weeks for years. The ad is what's new.
I think the Guthrie case had Nest cameras, thus the Google servers.