1984 Shows Up About Thirty Yrs. Late

Consuming & consumptive sheep rejoice, the exclusive "Winston Smith" model telescreens are here!

A Nervous Nellie/Social Justice Warrior (Michael Price is counsel in the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law.) thinks there may be a caveat or 46:

The only problem is that I’m now afraid to use it. You would be too — if you read through the 46-page privacy policy.

The amount of data this thing collects is staggering. It logs where, when, how and for how long you use the TV. It sets tracking cookies and beacons designed to detect “when you have viewed particular content or a particular email message.” It records “the apps you use, the websites you visit, and how you interact with content.” It ignores “do-not-track” requests as a considered matter of policy.

Will it watch you watching it? Well, why wouldn't it? If consumers are too lazy to move, they will be catered to.

It also has a built-in camera — with facial recognition. The purpose is to provide “gesture control” for the TV and enable you to log in to a personalized account using your face. On the upside, the images are saved on the TV instead of uploaded to a corporate server. On the downside, the Internet connection makes the whole TV vulnerable to hackers ...

And listened to.

The TV boasts a “voice recognition” feature that allows viewers to control the screen with voice commands. But the service comes with a rather ominous warning: “Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party.”

Wonderful to see privatization of the surveillance state; further proof that THE MARKET WORKS! Must be the market (rather than the unintended consequences of technological/commercial progress); can't see gov't. functionaries thinking clearly or far enough ahead for it to have been deliberate. Can't see short-sighted corporate profiteers planning it either.

But whether life is made a can't-wait-to-die horror of corporate wage-slavery or chattel slavery/gov't. feudalism matters little: When two dogs fight over dinner, dinner's the real loser.