Comment by chc4

17 days ago

I saw a Mastodon tweet a while ago, which went something like:

Do tech companies understand consent?:

- [ ] Yes

- [ ] Ask me again in a few days

28 comments

chc4

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usefulposter  17 days ago

Hey, that sounds like Signal!

https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/4590

>We're not going to remove the reminders.

>If you don't want to provide that access, you still don't need to – you can simply tap remind me later once a month

(See also: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/4373, https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/5809, ...)

  • stackghost  17 days ago

    Signal is an interesting case study in UX failure. I and a bunch of other tech forward people were on it in its heyday but after they removed SMS support and implemented shitty UX like that nag dialog: Neither I nor a single person I know uses it any more. Everyone is on Whatsapp or iMessage.

    It may be cryptographically superior, but does that matter at the end of the day if nobody uses it?

    • ale42  17 days ago

      Cryptographical superiority aside, Signal doesn't collect personal data, unlike Whatsapp. For me that's the main reason to use it. The UX is good enough, although some points can for sure be improved.

      2 replies →

    • TheChaplain  17 days ago

      > It may be cryptographically superior, but does that matter at the end of the day if nobody uses it?

      I've made a few attempts to convert people, but no-go. People stay on Telegram and WhatsApp because they have better UX and features.

      Signal refuses to see the value in good attractive UX.

  • MiddleEndian  16 days ago

    Every so often I consider writing the "STFU license." Something like GPL but if you use this code, even as a library, you can't give people unwanted notifications. Would need to be pretty comprehensive and forward compatible to cover all the crazy cases that notification-enthusiasts dream up.

littlecranky67  17 days ago

This. We must change laws that the above field is not considered as given consent. And while we are at it, we must change "silence is agreement" to "silence is disagreement". This applies to change of ToS, price increases etc. That means if I don't click a link with a button "I agree", the ToS change is not accepted - that means they have to cancel/delete my account.

  • bayindirh  17 days ago

    Didn't FCC remove "1-click unsubscribe" requirement since it can "provide more choice and lower prices to all users across the board" (since the companies can rip off more users and create pseudo-lower prices)?

    EU has its GPDR and it has some teeth, but US is currently hopeless on that front, for now, from my vantage point.

    I'd love to be stand corrected though.

    • SpicyLemonZest  16 days ago

      The FTC established a "click-to-cancel" rule, but (as with just so many regulations in the US) it was blocked by an appeals court. Federal law says there's a hoop they have to jump through for rules with an impact of more than $100 million, and they didn't jump through the hoop because they didn't think the impact was that high.

  • lelanthran  17 days ago

    > And while we are at it, we must change "silence is agreement" to "silence is disagreement".

    Maybe we should reframe their "silence is agreement" message as "silence is consent".

    • pluralmonad  16 days ago

      So creepy and weird this comment has downvotes. These people/companies absolutely do not value nor care about consent.

amatecha  16 days ago

I like to frame it like this: "ask me later" is rape culture. It promotes and reinforces a culture of never taking "no" for an answer, and pushing one's agenda/intent regardless of the preference/consent of the other party/parties.

  • margalabargala  15 days ago

    > "ask me later" is rape culture

    I see the point you're making but this sort of hyperbole has a tendency to turn people away from whatever point you're trying to make unless they already agree with you.

  • B1FIDO  15 days ago

    I was visiting a girlfriend once, and she was in the process of moving in the same city. There was a telephone bill on top of her dresser, and I noticed that she had noted "butt-rape fee" next to one of the line items there.

    Now she is a very literate woman and loves poetry and "Penny Dreadfuls", so she uses language and words very deliberately. And so, I asked her why she wrote that, and she said it was some sort of unnecessary fee that they were charging to move her line from one address to another, and she clearly resented their opportunistic capitalism.

    I certainly sympathized with her, especially since she is the type of woman who has probably been subjected to that sort of actual trauma in her own life, and that of her friends, she had every right to compare the experiences.