It’s All My Fault

I did a word count. Facebook’s terms and privacy policies are longer than the U.S. Constitution.

I’m not the brightest star in the galaxy but I didn’t seem to have much trouble understanding the Constitution. But Facebook’s terms? I tried to keep track of everything I didn’t quite understand and by official count it came to somewhere around everything.

But, you see, that’s not Facebook's fault. It’s mine. If I were a responsible consumer I would drop what I’m doing and study their terms and policies until I understood them completely before I used their platform.

And not just Facebook’s, but every website I visit, every app I use, and every upgrade I download. And if there happens to be anything their legal departments concocted that I don’t understand I should have my team of attorneys review it and explain it to me. That shouldn’t take much time or money. This is all my responsibility.

Or so it seems according to a disturbingly misguided opinion piece called “What Facebook Data Did They Get And What Did They Do?” by some tech genius in Ad Age recently. He bills himself as (god help us) "LinkedIn's No. 1 Voice in Technology" and apparently thinks the correct interpretation of the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica shit storm is to blame the victims. Here's what "the voice" had to say...

“Just because you did not take the time to learn how you were paying for a tech service and you thought it was "free" doesn't mean it is actually free…”

Well, I’m terribly sorry for my prodigious stupidity. Apparently, in addition to being stupid, I am also inept. All this stealing of my private information is due to my incompetence...

“What you should be configuring is your "Personal Data Sharing Permission Settings" or "API Endpoint Permissions.”

Dude, how about taking your API Permissions and configuring them neatly in your own Endpoint?

“As a society, we have to raise our level of data maturity.”

Now, here he has a point. I do lack maturity. Data or otherwise. To be honest, I’m about the most immature bastard you’ll ever meet. And as an official card-carrying immature bastard, I’m about up to here with tech and data creeps telling me that the fraud, corruption and despicable horseshit going on in their poisonous world is my fault.

It’s not the lying, criminal scumbags who collect personal private information about me without my consent or knowledge who are at fault. It’s not the squids who peddle my info to every living weasel with a bitcoin.

Heck no, it’s my fault. Because I “didn’t take the time to learn…” and I "should be reconfiguring"... and I need to "raise my level..."

The corrupt online ad industry, the data collection maniacs, and the useful idiots who apologize for them are not the problem. Endangering the privacy and security of individuals and the integrity of democratic processes are not the problem.

Nope. According to these hotshots, I am the problem. And like all troublesome, self-respecting problems, I have absolutely no intention of going away.


(H/T the great Don Marti)