An update on the 2021 bill "Protect Personal Data Privacy". You should read "fact checks" just as skeptically as any other form of reporting.
An update on the 2021 bill "Protect Personal Data Privacy"
I have been watching for (and updating periodically) the implementation of the 2021 bill offering a way to help opt out of online data collection and sales. I linked to the bill first below if you want to revisit it.
That bill is finally at the stage of implementation, that of the AG's office researching and sharing various ways that you can go online and do a "global opt out" of data sharing.
Let me back up a minute and make a quick distinction. Even before this law, you had the option of opting out of data sharing on a site-by-site basis. You get asked often about this and it may not really register well with you (that's what the thing asking about cookies when you visit a new site is all about), but you also have the chance to go back and change many of your preferences with various levels of ease depending on the site.
What this law brings is a state-researched and approved global opt out. I.e. you go to one site, sign up, and then every site you visit gets told of your preferences -- see the infographic heading this post for a sketch.
The CPR article linked second below puts it in different words and is also handy for more detail if you want it. Quoting:
"The first universal opt-out mechanism approved by the state is Global Privacy Control, a software developed and supported by a consortium of companies, digital rights organizations and independent developers. ... Attorney General Phil Weiser said the state could add more opt-out programs to its approved list in the future."
In true Colorado Democrat fashion, this global opt out was approved by California prior to us, and it will be the first on our state's list. That list is housed on the third link below (with the link to go and opt out via our only state-approved option linked fourth) for further reading and your convenience.
I salute the effort but I think I want to research this a little more before jumping in with both feet. I may also do a little trial run. It requires installing a program on your computer which right away makes me nervous, and I'm also wondering how this would interact with everything I'm already doing online: how I use things like my email and Substack and etc.
In the meantime, it may be just as easy to go through the big privacy offenders (Google, FB, I'm looking in your direction!) and do some cleaning. Nonetheless, read through the below and come to your own decision about what's best for you.
My way is A way, not THE way in other words.
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb21-190
https://www.cpr.org/2024/07/09/how-to-use-colorados-free-data-privacy-tool-web-browser-extension/
https://globalprivacycontrol.org/
You should read "fact checks" just as skeptically as any other form of reporting.
Nothing, repeat nothing, and no one or one group is unassailable.
I wrote an op ed on this point recently and linked to it first below. While searching Google Images for an image to put on this post, I came across the Scientific American article which I link to below my op ed.
I liked a lot of their ideas and saw a lot of overlap here to my own thinking, but it was the authors' idea of "adversarial fact checking" fleshed out in the quote:
"One path to a solution is 'adversarial fact-checking.' Fact-checking is often done by teams of two or more journalists rather than by a single person. We propose that political claims continue to be aggressively fact-checked, but by teams of individuals with diverse sociopolitical views; for example, by pairing fact-checkers from major liberal and conservative news sources."
The authors continue on with their idea and present some arguments to bolster it which I'll leave to you to read, but I'll leave you with this last quote:
"When adversarial fact-checking leads to unresolvable disagreements among team members [a possibility the authors acknowledge and one that would be almost a certainty for some of the more contentious issues people would investigate], readers will be better able to judge how persuasive each side’s argument is and arrive at a more informed conclusion than they would if only one side’s evidence is presented."
Hear hear. I think this is all that I or anyone could ask for. I don't ask for an authority to sweep my path clear of trouble. What I want are facts which I can then make my own sense of. I want to hear from all the people in the room, not just one who appoints him or herself an expert and judge.
Because, no matter who does the sweeping, they're going to inevitably leave some things behind.
https://pagetwo.completecolorado.com/2024/06/28/gaines-fact-checking-media-check-their-own-biases/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-psychology-of-fact-checking1/