First off let me apologize if there is an older similar thread like this as I couldn’t easily find it. And if there is one, please kindly append my post to that one please.
Anyhoo, I’m just pissed off at American companies these days for giving in to Islamic Terrorists and the God effing’Chinese Government, where are those great strong American balls you uaed to fling around back in the day
Just now I received a warning from a moderator over at Steam for my post regarding an idiot arguing about the now common place “Data gathering and Telemetry” clause of game Publishers when purchasing and playing games. And the idiot keeps bringing up this damned EU GDPR crap he keeps defending and stating that his Privacy is way too important for him.
So naturally a bunch of us on the forum start stating the obvious to him that he had a choice to agree to the terms or not and be done with it. Just like that, a simple declination is all you needed and it was the end of it.
But sadly the fool wanted to be a wise ass and kept bringing up that damned EU GDPR crap. So I replied by saying, “You do realize the World isn’t only Europe do you?”. And followed up with, “Do you know in Southeast Asia China is harrassing several ASEAN nations right at this very moment?” And I ended with, “While your sole concern IS YOUR PRIVILEGED PRIVACY, thousands of people, nay even countries’ rights and sovereignity is being stepped on by China. And here you are bitching about YOUR SOLE privacy. The whole world doesn’t revolve around you and your measly Privacy buddy!”
And several other people on the forum also wailed on the sad sod.
And then this…
A warning from being disrespectful and not being constructive.
Sounds entirely justified. Arguing that because worse things happens elsewhere you have no right to complain about bad things happening to you is in bad faith and has no bearing on the situation. GDPR applies to anyone who wants to do business in Europe, so a company will have to comply if they are selling to Europeans, his demand that it is adhered to is legitimate. Whether it applies or if he understands the law and it’s implications is another matter though.
He has every right to be concerned about his privacy and your attempt at making it about him being “entitled” is again a bad faith argument. If it was such a simple matter as declining the telemetry and not losing out on any part of the product he purchased then that would be fine. But since you’ve neglected to share what the product in question is I can’t verify the situation, I also have my doubts that you did yourself.
Ganging up on the steam forums against people demanding their rights be observed is a kin, though not in scale, to what the chinese and islamic terrorists you decry in your opening statements do. You’re the one trying to harass someone into accepting their civil liberties violated.
While I feel like you said more than you did to get a warning and you aren’t telling us the full story, that’s beyond what I want to say. Just because something worse is happening somewhere else, doesn’t mean it tramples the rights of someone’s privacy or makes it less important. The cruelty one experiences in Islamic States or in China is terrible, but one doesn’t have to weigh that against one’s right to privacy to say they are both wrong.
You need to realize that. He isn’t privileged for reminding you of that.
Honestly he has a right to his privacy and sounds justified in what he wanted to say. Bringing up the situation in China is kind of like parents bringing up ‘Starving children in Africa’ when you don’t finish your dinner, there’s no connection between the two points. I feel like we aren’t getting the whole story here either.
Rant away, but it sounds like none of this needed to happen. Ganging up on someone cause their opinion differs from yours isn’t very constructive, and he’s not hurting you with his beliefs and concerns. It doesn’t sound like this guy is in the wrong here and it does indeed sound like ‘being disrespectful and not constructive’ was indeed key on your part. Just a thought.
I could’ve avoided the whole China bit if he didn’t keep waving his Privacy spiel over and over. Plus everybody who participated in his thread DID say the same thing essentially, it was your choice to agree or disagree with the game’s ToS (Terms of Service). And if he was really that Paranoid about his Privacy, then he should cut off his internet access altogether and live either in some cave or isolated island as a Hermit. Because the fact of the matter is, nowadays Data collection and Telemetry is the accepted norm, eapecially in videogames. Game companies, at least do it to get to know their customers, what hardware they run and what similar games they are into and not to use the data for nefarious means. Microsoft and their telemetry on the otherhand…
Anyhoo, why must one be so overly protective of one’s Privacy? If you know that your intentions are good and are for your own means, then why be so paranoid? If it’s your personal safety you are concerned with then be mindful of what you do online. Heck, that was why usernames were invented in the first place, for anonymity. Back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s when the internet was in its infancy and the net was just mostly Internet Relay Chat (IRC) people created the unspoken but universally accepted rule to NEVER give out personal information for everyone to see on the internet. And then Social Media, and no not just Facebook as there were other earlier Social media platforms that came out BEFORE Facebook was a thing, came and raised an entire generation of complacent fools all lining up to be noticed. And for what? Meaningless likes and hearts. Social Media DID connect everyone as individuals but that’s just it not as a society… Individuals who believe their sense of selves are the only thing that matter. We as a species really failed big time. And to think lowly ants and bees have beaten us in the Social game by millions of years and look at them now, they outnumber us by a thousand to one and they’re still running around unempeeded.
