We hate the way things are, but we’ve traded away our power to stop it, and our worries won’t change anything.

For the Medium post this week focusing on two articles from the NYT Privacy Project I chose “We Hate Data Collection. That Doesn’t Mean We Can Stop It” by Farhad Manjoo and “Don’t Trust Facebook With Your Love Life” by Charlie Warzel.

I read several articles but chose Warzel’s article because it made me laugh and that was sorely needed after reading some other content. Who would trust Facebook to handle their dating profile? Your secret crush finding out you put them in a “secret crush” stream on Instagram? I would DIE x 1000.

But this also speaks to the tone deafness displayed by many companies who collect our data. As stated in Manjoo’s piece, tech companies firmly believe that their success is a green light to become more involved in our personal, financial, and social lives. We say we’re unhappy with Facebook, and Google, and a plethora of other companies but how many could eradicate them frok our daily lives?

Consequently, a lot of the opinion pieces focus on how the majority of us are unhappy with the reality that are data is routinely mined but we feel powerless to do anything about it.

“We hate the way things are, but we’ve traded away our power to stop it, and our worries won’t change anything.”

I am firmly within the two-thirds camp of Americans who “believe that surveillance is an inevitable consequence of modern existence.” I recently updated the operating system on my phone and was shocked by the (now) mandatory location permissions that users are alerted to. I never turn my location data on voluntarily, I turned it off for Google Maps and have it off in general settings, yet somehow my location data was still being used by random apps.

How could we not feel hopeless? This is a completely legal use of data. Our government regulatory systems have not evolved nearly with the pace of technology. As it’s pointed out in the article, Facebook stock rose after being fined by the FTC and after the enormous data breach of Equifax — they have been allowed to stay in business. We lack legal avenues to pursue recourse against tech companies and our society — particularly work — is structured in a way that boycotting or opting out simply isn’t a realistic option. Could I give up Slack, stop using email, get off the internet? It’s unlikely.