5 pointsby AlexanderHanff5 hours ago5 comments
  • chadash4 hours ago
    > I call on the Secretary-General to pledge that, within 180 days, the United Nations will remove all third-party tracking, analytics, testing and advertising scripts, and all tracking beacons, from its websites - the entire online estate, not a single flagship page.

    I'm not defending the UN here, but I don't think that the Secretary General is the person who decided to put Google Tags on their website. I'd be shocked if he even vaguely knows what a Google Tag is.

    • AlexanderHanff4 hours ago
      The buck stops at him, whether he likes it or not.
  • kaon_24 hours ago
    As much as I sympathize with the message I don't like the way it was brought. I cannot help but feel that this "indignation journalism" hurts more than does good. Everybody knows the UN is imperfect, and yet the people that win from its disenfranchisement are tyrants, billionaires and certainly not you or me. In fact even the tyrants need a UN because you need to cooperate somehow. We need to improve and strengthen international institutions, not discredit them. The article could have been written with that in mind
    • AlexanderHanff3 hours ago
      You are assuming that the author (me) hasn't tried to help the UN do it right in the past and that assumption would be wrong.

      They don't get to shout at big tech when they are doing exactly the same thing and using the same vendors they are berating, to do it for them. It is rank hypocrisy.

      Also, I was very clear in the introduction that I support the UN and their mission, which is precisely why they need to be held to account because their own Charter requires it.

  • AlexanderHanff5 hours ago
    As much as I support the UN (I have worked in privacy for 20 years, my life's work is in the field of human rights) - I do not support hypocrisy and it is long past due that the UN lead by example.
  • andor3 hours ago
    Eye roll. The UN are pointing out that the AI hype is literally burning the planet. Just because they have Google Analytics on their site doesn't mean they are participating in the destruction.

    This is like calling out environmentalists that took a flight.

    • AlexanderHanff2 hours ago
      Or you could actually read the article and look at the evidence which is based on peer reviewed research...
  • spwa44 hours ago
    When it comes to UN hypocrisy ... remember the last climate summit: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/25/climate/cop-failures-futu...

    The organizer of the conference was negotiating oil deals at the climate conference. This was the stuff of conspiracy theories not 5 years ago but actually happened.