Thanks Margot, for taking some time out of your busy schedule to post this fabulously intricate meta-contribution on bots, identity, and social media! Its much appreciated.

What brain-dead form of utilitarianism is that supposed to be? The “I’m-16-and-on-a-wikipedia-bender”-kind?

We don’t hold 6-year-old children accountable for very much in a legal sense, because they are essentially animals able to (barely) speak. Thats why we instead regulate gun-ownership, so that no child has access to firearms. And if that doesn’t seem to do the trick yet, I’d suggest regulating more comprehensively and holding parents accountable, so that it is very much in their own interest to keep guns from kids. We might also fund social services and schools to the extent that children are able to adequatley learn how to control their emotions and verbalise anger, unhapiness in a non-ciolent way, even if their parents are a bunch of irresponsible idiots.

That seem much preferable to executing a six year old every once in a while to be save.

the messaging has been consistently toned down in the hopes people would listen.

My guess is its even more than this: deadlines were extended to not let people fall into inaction. The tipping point always close enough so that its dangerous, but still far away enough so that there is still hope. It is a ploy analogous to the fascist “the enemy is strong enough to be dangerous and weak enough to be thoroughly defeated.”

This scene is far more realistic, I think. But as you can tell, it doesn’t play very well with either the audience or the media.

Question is what do you do then? First, you try to reach profitability. Get out of the red by milking users and reducing costs, but there is little chance to get that really sweet ROI that you dreamt of in the last decade. What do you do next? My guess is that we will see some websites change ownership into some shadier hands in the next years. The personal data collected could still be worth something after all.

They are nothing but hot air until they really do it. And when they really do it, they will look and be really stupid.

Don’t fan their vanity by paying attention to stupid people doing stupid things. Put your phone away or close your laptop, go out, breath some fresh air. This nonsense is of no concern to you.