For all we know, they’re literally just passing massive checks in a circle to one another to say “yes, it says right here in our bank records that we spent a combined $100,000,000”, meanwhile only 25% actually goes into the production, and they pocket the rest.

That would be illegal and easily discovered

But you could pay $10M to hire another company to do the sound mixing. They might spend $500k to do the work. You might also be the owner of that company, and the money ends up back in your pocket…And that’s not embezzlement or a kickback, because that’s what it’s called when poor people do it

It’s kinda grey area to start with - if I install something on your computer to track what websites you visit without consent, that’s illegal, right? Different countries have different laws, they’re generally pretty broad

So then you introduce the EULA - very problematic (as Disney showed us) and no one reads it, but theoretically this is where they outline what the software can do and obtain your consent

Now, on a website they just have to put the EULA somewhere, theoretically they’re just hosting the content, your browser is in control. The rules are a bit more lax because of the nature of the interaction

But now, you can visit CNN or BuzzFeed, agree with their EULAs, and unknowingly Facebook and Reddit (websites you’ve potentially never visited), are tracking you. You never agreed to this in any form, the fact it’s even happening is obscured from you, even the sites hosting the share buttons probably don’t know

It gets less grey area if you live in the EU, they’ve passed a suite of privacy laws that are sometimes ignored

One of the earlier methods was the share button image. That button lives on Reddit’s server, and your browser might set the URL from the referer when it requests the image. It definitely has your IP, so they can try to tie that to an account.

When you click a link, it also likely has a referer URL of the page you came from. These are both things that the browser doesn’t have to do

When you click share, they now often add URL params that track who shared the link and who clicks it

There’s tons of methods, some you can shut down with a browser or add ons, some you

So this isn’t a compelling argument because it sounds outlandish and the implications (while serious) are indirect

Every major power, and some companies, have population simulations. It’s not that hard to build one - we’ve been using them for decades, and they start yielding useful results even when they’re pretty simple. Individuals are complex, but populations can be boiled down with statistics pretty easily

Let’s say I want to increase stochastic violence in America. I rate the traits of as many people as I can across as many useful criteria as I can measure. I could then tweak an algorithm to show something I think would radicalize people to a test group, and measure again. I then take what I learned, and polish my approach until I’m ready to go live

You can do this to whatever end you like - and browsing habits can only tell a human so much, but this is what big data does. It finds associations humans wouldn’t see through math

This probably sounds like I’m wearing a tin foil hat, but this is a real thing. This is how foreign election interference works - astroturfing blindly only does so much, and modeling a population isn’t difficult (depending on what you’re trying to do)

Now as for browsing habits - like location data or Facebook friends, with enough data points you can find out things about a person they don’t know themselves. It may or may not make sense to a human, but big data is all about finding associations through blind math.

If you provide a set of data points, you contribute. It may or may not influence you, but either way it improves the ability to influence those around you.

I don’t know how much opera collects, I don’t know how much of that data is exfiltrated to China. I know I don’t want anyone to have too much of that data, but I also have to live my life.

It’s a matter of harm reduction - educate yourself on your choices, listen to people who dive deeper than you’re willing to, and do what you can to make the most ethical choice based on where you are right now. There’s no perfect choice

I’m sorry, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Could you explain it in assembly?