Picking and choosing US big tech in this context is pointless, they're all as much of a risk as each other. And don't come with "you have to start somewhere", because you do, but then the place to start is slowly step-by-step getting off of the most critical ones, which are the first four I mentioned.
The truth is there's thousands if not tens of thousands of people on here for whom it is incredibly convenient to imagine their vests were granted in a completely different universe to the likes of Palantir. Deep down they know their companies realistically play an unfathomably bigger role in surveillance capatalism, crippling addictions, furthering of current US Party strongarming and a whole lot more. Exactly why many find it so cathartic to latch on to these threads and reinforce that cognitive dissonance.
I didn't even mention Meta who bring about as much harm in a day as Palantir wish it could do in a year - make no mistake, I'm not suggesting the latter is for a lack of trying. Although the idea that Zuck is somehow any more ethical than Thiel is of course hilarious.
But after all, you and me too are quite culpable in this moment, providing marketing and engagement for the platform behind Flock(YC S17). The exact source of all that data we're so angry about being loaded into the Palantir platforms.
I expect the author of the article must also recognize that Big Tech is in the same basket and are just as complicit for the sake of consistency. The problem is, we just don't hear about it often.
When I brought this up last time in [0] all I saw was constant hairsplitting, attempts to seperate Big Tech from Palantir and lots of 'whataboutism' accusations, which doesn't work because I agree.
So when I saw this:
> Palantir’s tentacles are already extending into our communities. In my constituency of Coventry, the Labour-run council awarded the company a £500,000 contract to develop an AI tool for children’s services.
Google [1], Microsoft [2], Amazon [3] are no different and these are just a few of them and they are just as bad as Palantir and all of them are in the SNP 500 directly in the portfolios of pension funds.
So it is indeed a waste of time trying to picking and choose US tech companies on this.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46407683
[1] https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366634759/Google-wins-mu...
[2] https://www.digitalhealth.net/2023/06/nhs-signs-new-microsof...
[3] https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366566172/AWS-secures-89...
https://european-alternatives.eu/category/cloud-computing-pl...
And despite this company being creepy and weird and bizarre and secretive, they are also trying to make themselves a lifestyle brand by selling merchandise. If I felt like spending $150 for a Palantir-based hoodie, I guess I can normally do that [1], but disturbingly it is apparently "sold out". Apparently a lot of people really want to buy an overpriced sweater, or maybe they're trying to preemptively buy social credit.
Who knows. Everything is terrible.
I would be keen to know if citizen data is being handled correctly, following GDPR/LED.
Given previous Danish client-state-like cooperation with NSA to spy on other EU countries, I can imagine the answer.
Minority Report Coming right up.
https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/mps-mcdonnell-and-sultana-addre...
Sultana is also on record stating the grooming gangs were a racist smear (which is odd as there were multiple races involved)
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