From “A Spectacularly Bad Washington Post Story on Apple and Google’s Exposure Notification Project” posted Friday on Daring Fireball:
A Washington Post story today on Apple and Google’s joint effort on COVID-19 exposure notification project, from reporters Reed Albergotti and Drew Harwell, is the worst story I’ve seen in the Post in memory. It’s so atrociously bad — factually wrong and one-sided in opinion — that it should be retracted.
Start with the headline: “Apple and Google Are Building a Virus-Tracking System. Health Officials Say It Will Be Practically Useless.” It’s not a “virus-tracking system”, and the health officials the Post talked to don’t know what they’re talking about…
The gist of Apple and Google’s project is that it attempts to balance privacy with the usefulness of tracking potential exposure. It’s right there in the name of the project: “Privacy-Protecting Contact Tracing”. The Post’s sources for this story seemingly want a system with no regard for privacy at all. I wish that were an exaggeration.
My take: A classic Gruber takedown. Well deserved.
In its ineptness of dealing with the pandemic, governments at all levels and public health officials resort to gaining some semblance (or an illusion) of control by locking down everything. Quarantines have done no less than to distract authorities and communities from effective targeted interventions.
When governments and public health officials in their desire for control assign citizens a mandate to quarantine at home, then we have emasculated individuals abilities for their potential contributions to resolve the crisis. (We didn’t quarantine after 9/11, even when we fear an explosive device could go off next to us in a crowded concert, mall, or downtown street).
Only through individual exercise of personal initiative involving meaningful behavioral changes in sanitary practices can people gain understanding from their experience of confronting the adversity of the virus.
Shutting down nations’ entire economies simply destroys large swaths of human lives while attempting to save a much smaller segment, many whose lives already were tenuous due to poor behavioral lifestyles accrued from years of benign neglect to their health.
I fear public policy has not adapted to new data as we find out about COVID-19. For example, most main stream news articles place R0 (in an unexposed unrestrained society) still at 2.0-2.4 where papers published 4 weeks ago show values of around 5.5. I would not be surprised if later data, taking into account asymptotic carriers, push it up to between 8-10 in some populations (NYC). I don’t know how to contact trace 1,000,000 infected people in a city.
But what I am really concerned with is the long term mental health aspect of our reaction.
* In February, 1:6 Americans were on antidepressants/anti-anxiety meds. We are now nearing 1:4. I think 1:6 is troubling. 1:4 is down-right freighting.
* We have told 33,000,000 people they are not “essential”. At some level, that does not seem right.
Suffering comes in so many forms and I fear we are trying to minimize one type of suffering while greatly expanding overall suffering.
In a country as large and diverse as the US, it seems to me that distributed responsibility and distributed response is A Good Thing. Not everything should be owned by and controlled by the Federal Government (and that’s true independent of which party controls the White House and Congress.)
Neither of your comments addressed the topic of the article, which was the direct attack with truly fake news on Apple specifically and Google tangentally. Tangentally because Apple is clearly the driving force behind this approach, having (1) developed the process in the first place, and then (2) reached out to Google as the developers of Android to extend its reach.
The bottom line here is that this is an attack on the concept of personal privacy under the guise of “the greater good”. But “the greater good” is no different from “the end justifies the means” – that is, it’s purely relative to the opinion of the individual.
Your argument, that this virus has been destructive on many levels, is not subject to debate. But neither is doing all that can be done within a reasonable framework. You can only argue about what that reasonable framework is.
To take this tragic circumstance and try to use it as a foil to push an attack on personal privacy is simply despicable, and that’s precisely Mr. Gruber’s point. And yes, it is a form of politicization, of once more creating an environment of division in a time when we should be uniting.
The issue goes beyond fake news targeting Apple and Google tangentially. Revisit my comments. Revisit Steven Noyes’ comments. It gets fatiguing Joe with your ceaseless assumption that your role is that of the Apple 3.0 policing cop in deciding whose comments are, or are not appropriate.
As Steven denoted explicitly, “… COVID-19 has shown how preparedness truly has to be done, mostly, at a local level with individuals taking responsibility for their own specific behaviors.”
Contact tracing through massive scale digital surveillance using phones with bluetooth to enforce quarantines while scooping digital information is another invasion of citizens personal privacy. Bluetooth encompasses too large of a distance, resulting in an overwhelming number of false positives.
Also, most infections occur where a person is in a place, leaves a virus particle on a surface and then exits with their phone. Afterwards, somebody else comes an hour or even two hours later and touches that virus with their hands. Unfortunately, that person gets the infection. There’s no telephone proximity in these incidences. NADA! Yet, the do-gooders classified as “essentials” have access to personal and privileged information on a massive scale involving digital contact tracing that literally jams the “personal privacy” issue to the wall.
What I said:
“Neither of your comments addressed the topic of the article…”
What you said:
“It gets fatiguing Joe with your ceaseless assumption that your role is that of the Apple 3.0 policing cop in deciding whose comments are, or are not appropriate.”
I stated a fact. That’s not playing policeman. And it’s certainly not me saying anything about your comment being inappropriate. Off topic, yes, but not inappropriate.
“Contact tracing through massive scale digital surveillance using phones with bluetooth to enforce quarantines while scooping digital information is another invasion of citizens personal privacy.”
Did you even read Mr. Gruber’s article? He would agree with you!
“Bluetooth encompasses too large of a distance, resulting in an overwhelming number of false positives.”
Again, you need to read the article. This comment doesn’t even make sense in the context of the article in question.
“Also, most infections occur where a person is in a place, leaves a virus particle on a surface and then exits with their phone. Afterwards, somebody else comes an hour or even two hours later and touches that virus with their hands. Unfortunately, that person gets the infection. There’s no telephone proximity in these incidences. NADA! Yet, the do-gooders classified as “essentials” have access to personal and privileged information on a massive scale involving digital contact tracing that literally jams the “personal privacy” issue to the wall.”
What the heck are you talking about? The situation you describe above has nothing to do with what Apple and Google are doing….
Apple and Google started initially what was called the “Contact Tracing” effort on a massive scale involving digital surveillance using phones with bluetooth to enforce quarantines while scooping digital information from citizens.
The topic under discussion involves a project between the two organizational entities (Apple & Google) that I feel is “questionable” for the very reasons I denoted. It is irrelevant to me whether the Washington Post’s story is fake news (which seems your focus target) since I believe (as I wrote in my comments earlier) that the project already is “problematic” for the reasons I noted, and so do a fair amount of public health officials. Bill Gates also addressed this very issue challenging the effort as being questionable, shaky, dubious or obtaining results being disputable.
“…using phones with bluetooth to enforce quarantines while scooping digital information from citizens.”
You assert, without proof, belief in a conspiracy, for which Apple is ready to trade away all its hard-won trust of its customers.
Et tu, Jerry?
Journalism is dead. It’s all click-bait, to one degree or another. (WashPost and NYT chasing Pulitzers is just ‘click-bait, once removed’.)
Bravo!