• HardNut@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    You called them private companies, and I’m disputing that.

    This distinction is important, because the properties that make it non-private (being owned by a public collective) also happen to make people particularly vulnerable to spyware and data collection. That which is owned by a public corporation is owned by its shareholders collectively. Major shareholders can therefor lobby corporations to divulge data that is technically legally theirs. When you consider how many corporations Black Rock and Vanguard are invested in, there isn’t much that you can touch without generating some meta-data level evidence of what you’re doing, where, and when that they won’t have access to.

    If things were truly privately controlled, nobody would be able to lobby a bank to divulge information about its clients.

    • irmoz@reddthat.com
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      1 year ago

      You’re disputing something other than what they said, bro. “It sounded like you said this” is different from “you said this”. Now talk about what they did say. Are they part of the government? No? Then you don’t disagree and there’s nothing to dispute. Could they have phrased it better? Of course.

      • HardNut@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        just private companies that decided to collect everyone’s information

        This is what he said. He called them private. No, it didn’t sound like he called them private, he did call them private. It’s a distinction I consider important, so I outlined why. You’re just wrong in your characterization of what happened, straight up.

        Don’t pretend he didn’t call them private. And don’t pretend it isn’t super common to think of corporations as private entities. They’re not, and this mischaracterization affects how people think. It’s not good to base your worldview on lies.

        • irmoz@reddthat.com
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          1 year ago

          The credit scores aren’t even government scores

          Their intent was quite clear, don’t try to muddy the waters.

          • HardNut@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            You’re the one muddying the waters, intent is not the only thing that matters. He directly said private, and that has implications that make his comment come off as frankly detached from reality.

            His comment directly suggests that the government is not involved with these credit scores, which is incorrect since the white house did an executive order enforcing DEI in the federal workforce.

            His comment suggests that these companies are free from the influence of the state, which is wrong because the government has full authority to and actively incentivizes ESG credit scores.

            His comment suggests that independent private industry is strong-arming the government, when the reality is these very same scores they blame on private business are actively snuffing out non-corporate business, which will only make the problem worse

            • irmoz@reddthat.com
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              1 year ago

              He directly said private

              They also directly said “not government”

              Gonna keep ignoring that?

                • irmoz@reddthat.com
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                  1 year ago

                  It’s the only point I’m trying to make, don’t try to distract me.

                  They said credit scores are not managed by government. That is true.

                  • HardNut@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    The only point I’m trying to make is that asserting these entities are private is false and leads to false conclusions. This is true.

                    The reason I didn’t address the government issue first is because the relationship between government and corporate is a lot more complicated than that, and the conversation almost always gets cut short by the assumption that corporations are private.

                    I also just finished explaining how the government does influence credit scores. If you’re so focused on this point, why did you ignore that?