Stand Out of Our Light #3

Reading Stand Out of Our Light was a refreshing change from reading The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, which I wrote about here. James Williams wasn't eager for a lot of government control the way Shoshana Zuboff was. Zuboff considers Google, Facebook, Twitter as enemies. She believes they have too much power over us and their platforms enable others having too much political influence. Williams in effect echoes Pogo, "We have seen the enemy and he is us."

For a more appreciative and optimistic article about personalized advertising, see this article. In my view it's too rosy, since there is some dark side to this new digital world. I sometimes get annoyed by being asked if I want to sign up for notifications, by popups, and having to scroll by several ads in order to read one article. I use an ad blocker. Fraud and scams lurk behind some advertising. On the other hand, I am amazed by the technology and appreciate a news feed that obviously recognizes my past attention.