My understanding is that the PC culture backlash is the intolerance of “snowflakes”, which I’d define as individuals who place the value of opinions over fact, are unable to entertain both sides of an argument at the same time, believe safe spaces and trigger words are more important than freedom of speech, or are unable to tolerate criticism or the expression of ideas drastically different than their own.
This is just scratching the surface without talking about the possible use of diversity and inclusion efforts as sanctioned discrimination.
Your definition consists of one description that distinguishes "snowflakes" (safe spaces, etc), and three general, similar flaws that apply equally well to their counterparts within the "anti-PC" crowd. I think that's probably the (sarcastic) point the parent comment was making.
Your comment is being downvoted because you're just rambling like an old man grumpy about kids on his lawn. Not a single shred of evidence, or even an attempt at making an actual reasoned point.
Every time there's comments like this I can't help but think I'd be extremely surprised if the people writing them knew any of the names of the people who worked on the law.
I wonder what you even define as "having an idea what you're doing".
Whether it was poorly drafted legislation remains to be seen. The "unintended consequences" people are talking about here are minor, what matters are the intended consequences such as the augmented rights europeans have over their data, their privacy, etc. I personally don't give a shit about the annoying cookie popups, I'm just glad I can finally delete my account and email address from various websites when I want them gone.
GDPR has given me a ton of rights over my data that I should have, and everybody should have. It has given me access to my own data. It has given me the power to delete it. This shit is important, and now it's law. That there's cookie popups because the companies in question suck? I don't care. If it makes you close the page, that's a positive side effect IMO. This shit must be bad for conversion in order for businesses to start getting a clue. It's a version of the "tax on privacy" that a lot of people on HN like talking about.
Regarding #2, I dispute that for the same reasons. GDPR is achieving its goals of securing user data in europe. Companies are scared straight into following it so far.
There are issues with it (especially a lack of compliance material). None of them point to "the authors had no idea what they were doing".
In other words, no, GP isn't "right" just because you have to click off some annoying popups. That's not the only thing GDPR does.
Edit: Lacking replies, I'm going to assume those downvoting this comment are the usual no-privacy-apologists who are annoyed they now have to put legalese in front of users and don't ask themselves why they have to.
I agree with you that an important and useful part of the GDPR is deletion of your data. Good examples: No advertising and spam. Prevention of later hacking and theft of your data like e.g. credit card numbers or private messages. You have revealed your true identity on social media and want to remove your posts.
But maybe GDPR gives a false sense of safety and security and control:
- What is technically possible ? When I cite you, must my posts be deleted as well ?
- Who controls what companies do outside of the EU or even within the EU ?
- National police and secret services in the USA and EU might be more interested in the data than some US company. They have no moral problem with installing spyware on your computer.
- Banks and maybe even insurance companies have already the right to know much about you.
IANAL so I can't address most of your questions, but
> When I cite you, must my posts be deleted as well ?
You mean for comments and such? What I write on a site's comment section falls under copyright law, with the usual attribution reservations etc. So no.
> Banks and maybe even insurance companies have already the right to know much about you.
I shouldn't have used the word "privacy" in my comment. I think calling GDPR a privacy law is a shortcut a lot of people take (myself included), but it really is a data protection law. (It's even in the name!)
GDPR doesn't talk about privacy very much. In fact, I just searched the full english text of the law: There isn't a single instance of the word "privacy".
In other words, it doesn't so much say who can and cannot store and analyze your data. Instead, it lays out your responsibilities if you are storing/analyzing personal data, and your (consumer) rights as someone whose data is stored/analyzed somewhere.
I was attacking the contents of the comment, not the person. As for ignorance, I usually give the benefit of the doubt, but I've seen enough of those types of comments regarding GDPR that I'm cynical. They're almost always from non-EU business owners annoyed at having to suddenly comply to EU laws, or business owners in general annoyed at having to care about privacy (where they didn't before).
Uninformed consumers who think GDPR is a cookie law also exist, but they're not HN's usual audience.
Edit: A quick stroll through scoom's comments reveals an nauseatingly unsurprising picture. I'm so very shocked.
AMP Is open source, Microsoft/Bing are on board, and Google recently stepped back from AMP governance to encourage more parties involved. No one group will hold more than 1/3 control.
Google AMP is not "open source". You might be able to offer suggestions about it, but it's not like a piece of software that you can fork and develop independently. Google controls the main reading device (Google Chrome). The "open source" line is marketing BS.
When I read "no group will hold more than 1/3 control" it sounds like 3 big players will wink at each other while they pillage the WWW and divide the spoils.
> This would be illegal in many economies,is grossly unfair and probably racist.
It's actually not illegal to not accept somebody based on them having a degree from a university of poor renown. It's called "qualification" and you can discriminate upon it all you want. It's also not unfair. Unfair would be accepting degrees from any place that hands out degrees like candy. It's also not racist, a lot of Chinese parents send their children to study abroad because they know Chinese universities suck. Those foreign degrees open up a lot of doors, both abroad and domestic.
> Plus, the rate of Chinese IPR and future knowledge is huge. Do you e.g. want to miss out on Chinese PV and wind and emerging battery know-how?
What's your point? Hire Chinese with junk degrees now so that you magically get to profit from future Chinese innovations?
a lot of Chinese parents send their children to study abroad because they know Chinese universities suck
I'm told the value of a British degree, once highly prestigious, is rapidly declining in China due to the number of degree mills (ex-polys) we have here churning out degree certificates as fast as they can cash the tuition fee cheques.
My time is actually more valuable than this. There are signals available to them to show they take original work seriously and are bucking their cultural trends of cheating academia to get worthless degrees.
GDPR is TOTALLY different. If you can't run a business under GDPR legislation then what you're doing is almost certainly unethical or at worst mismanaged and irresponsible with customer data.
On the other hand this legislation will completely change the internet as we know it.
I don't believe that. If a compagny has no idea where does their data goes and what their use is, they have shitty practices and / or are incompetent. Good riddance
All you need is a privacy policy and the ability to delete / return customer data when requested. But that doesn't have to be in real time/automated, you can just set up an email address and respond manually. It's rare you'll even get a request if you're a company with such a small IT budget.
All the other things (double opt-in email, not contacting your customers in an unsolicited way) are process changes that can be implemented without IT cost.
Good riddance then. Not gonna cry for them like I'm not gonna cry for a restaurant that gets shut down because complying with health standards is too expensive.
maybe - but the philosophy behind it is similar. The EU lawmakers just cannot stand to the existence of unregulated area. Everything gotta be under their control. Unfortunately, once you support pro-strict regulations, then there is no going back. One day, I believe, the internet as we know today won't exist in the EU.
Bureaucracy, compliance cost, uncertainty of enforcement... The category doesn't need to be the same, just the pile upon pile of anti-(small)business regulation.
You say "anti-business", I say "consumer rights" (and more importantly "human rights").
As a small business you can comply with the GDPR fairly easily unless you have no regard for anyone's privacy to begin with. And even if you're not 100% compliant you won't be insta-sued to bankruptcy, you'll only be reported and the relevant data protection agency will check on you. The GDPR encourages data protection agencies to help businesses fix their problems and only use fines as a last resort for gross violations and wilful negligence.
Unless you're storing/processing information that has special protections (e.g. religion, sexual orientation, medical data) the bureaucracy is also fairly tame, especially for small businesses, especially for businesses that aren't at their core based on processing personal information (e.g. not online dating startups).
Compare this with the "upload filter" as it has been interpreted in the media so far: allegedly every website that allows users to upload content would have to implement their own Content ID database and sign deals with publishing companies or license filtering services.
It's a bit ironic, since the very first thing I see when I visit the link is a giant banner to consent to being tracked, or visit each and every third-party advertiser's opt-out site from the giant list of advertisers present on Vox's platform. Said list carries the explicit note "We provide the table below as a courtesy, but we are not obligated to maintain or update it. We are not responsible for third-party sites and their privacy practices as it relates to opt-outs from tracking activities."
