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Aral Balkan

No, really, there’s something wrong with me. This is plainly clear, because Paul Nemitz, architect of GDPR, is speaking at CPDP, sponsored by Google and Facebook.

The surgeon general is speaking at a conference sponsored by Big Tobacco and no one has a problem with this but me.

ar.al/2019/01/11/i-was-wrong-a

Photo of Paul Nemitz, CPDP speaker
Google and Facebook sponsoring
Aral Balkan

Conferences are a dime a dozen. There is only one Shoshana Zuboff. There is only one Paul Nemitz. Very few people have the legitimacy you do. You legitimise the conference, not the other way around. You have the power in this relationship. If a handful of you refused to speak, it would get them to either change or lose legitimacy and close up shop. I’m disappointed.

Jan 29, 2019, 07:14 PM·Public
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hunter :verified:
@aral some cursory research on Paul Nemitz reveals his foremost principle appears to be "democracy," suggesting that casting him as the knightly surgeon general opposing $SurvCapCo may be a bit optimistic. Democracy means opening a civil dialog with all involved parties, of course
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Aral Balkan

@hunter No, I mean I know that he’s literally the core architect of the GDPR and perhaps did more than anyone else at the EC to get it passed. It’s his baby. (And when I met and spoke with him he struck me as entirely genuine. He does care about this shit. Which is so rare in the EC. Hence my disappointment. If he wasn’t the real deal, I wouldn’t give a damn where he spoke or what he did.)

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hunter :verified:
@aral That sounds disappointing. If he seems like a genuine privacy advocate, perhaps he feels that Big Data is unavoidable for most people, and he's attempting to minimize inevitable social harm by bringing them to his bargaining table. I agree it would send a stronger signal to disown them entirely, but that may come off as unreasonable to (real or imagined) hordes of zuck-worshiping constituents.
I don't know the man, so I'm just speculating. If you have occasion to meet him again, perhaps you could ask.
I'm inclined to focus on technical and social advocacy. There are a lot of malicious incentives at play.
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