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"We are closely following all this (the latest developments in shale oil extraction). The thing is that modern-day technologies for extracting shale oil, shale gas, they are without exaggeration, barbaric, they destroy the environment."
"[D]espite the real value of the services they provide, Google and Facebook's platforms come at a systemic cost. The companies' surveillance-based business model forces people to make a Faustian bargain, whereby they are only able to enjoy their human rights online by submitting to a system predicated on human rights abuse. Firstly, an assault on the right to privacy on an unprecedented scale, and then a series of knock-on effects that pose a serious risk to a range of other rights, from freedom of expression and opinion, to freedom of thought and the right to non-discrimination. This isn't the internet people signed up for."What's most striking about the report is the familiarly of the arguments. There is now a huge weight of consensus criticism around surveillance-based decision-making — from Apple's own Tim Cook through scholars such as Shoshana Zuboff and Zeynep Tufekci to the United Nations — that's itself been fed by a steady stream of reportage of the individual and societal harms flowing from platforms' pervasive and consentless capturing and hijacking of people's information for ad-based manipulation and profit.
Comment: While in this case, sparks from welding equipment were thought to trigger the blasts, it's notable that explosions are occurring more frequently: