Oliver Stone does not find the Pokemon Go phenomenon to be light-hearted fun, to say the least.
During a panel for his new movie “Snowden” in the first day of San Diego Comic-Con 2016, the director was asked about the app, and called it “a new level of invasion,” and said it could lead to totalitarianism.
“They are data mining every person in this room,” he said. “It’s what they call surveillance capitalism.”
He also commented that the app could help usher in “a robot society.”Stone is not the first to raise concerns about Pokemon Go and data collection. After the now wildly popular app gained traction, many pointed out that Pokemon Go requires access to a user’s entire Google account on iOS, including location data, email and browsing history.
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Niantic, the developer behind Pokemon Go, said it “fixed the Google account scope” in a statement attached to the first patch to the game last week.
“We recently discovered that the Pokémon GO account creation process on iOS erroneously requests full access permission for the user’s Google account,” Niantic said in a statement. “However, Pokémon GO only accesses basic Google profile information (specifically, your User ID and email address) and no other Google account information is or has been accessed or collected.”
Cast members at the panel included Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who plays NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, showing his patriotism in an American flag t-shirt, Shailene Woodley and Zachary Quinto as Glenn Greenwald.
The movie focuses on “The ultimate conspiracy story,” said Stone.
Quinto added his own thoughts on Pokemon Go, saying to much applause, “People need to pursue what makes them happy, what makes me happy is looking up at people and putting down my screen for at least some part of the day.”
Stone said that in France, which provided financing for the film, “They have a respect for privacy there.” He said studios didn’t want to pick up his film, charging that “self censorship and corporate studio boards blocked funding abilities.” When asked whether the NSA could have disrupted funding of the film, Stone said, “I don’t acknowledge or feel suspicion that they did…I feel the 1984 Big Brother vibe in general in this society…I don’t know and neither do you.”
“The word patriot gets brought up a lot,” says Gordon Levitt, “and I’m sitting next to the most patriotic people in American Cinema.” Gordon Levitt donated a portion of his acting fee to the American Civil Liberties Union.
For Stone, Quinto, Gordon Levitt and Woodley, the film is a call to action. Quinto said, “The people in this room and the people at this convention are the absolute core of the message of this film. This is your world. Get involved and be aware of what’s happening.”
“Snowden” opens September 16.
What kind of useful data do they expect to mine from tracking people while they’re playing pokemon that they couldn’t have already mined from google maps? It’s not like pokemon go provides them with any information that they couldn’t already get.
pokemon go such a wonderful game.
they can mine my data all they want but if I dont get a higher CP Beedrill i will go HAM
Oliver, I know this might be disturbing to hear but the datamining didn’t start with Pokemon GO. This has been our new reality since smartphones became ubiquitous. The difference with Pokemon GO is that it’s encouraging people to walk around their local neighborhoods, meet up with members of their local community, and discover landmarks like art murals/parks/historical markers. Sorry, this is an improvement over what came before it even if it’s still part of the system that has effectively annihilated privacy.
From the man who believes JFK was killed by LBJ, the CiA, the DoD, and Fidel Castro.
And the Cuban businessmen (led by Larry Hagman) who were helping Nixon.
Oliver Stone is a national treasure of the United States of America. Oliver Stone should run for presidency of this great surveillance nation. Oliver stone definitely has my vote. Oliver Stone was created by the CIA as a disinformation junkie that serves the purpose of the 1% elite running the world and living in their gated utopia and away in safety distance from.the lawless gun-obsessed streets of every day Americans.
nobody seems to understand the long term implications. It’s about data mining. data is worth money, sure. But its also dangerous if it falls into the wrong hands, or like in WW2 the rules of the game change.
There was a really nice birth registration system in the netherlands. Including religion, job, adress, family ties. Hitler knew where every jew in the Netherlands lived. The country at the time was divided in religious groups. Catholics shopped at Catholics etc. Every group had his own place of worship. Political parties for every group. Nobody intended bad stuff with that data, but we all know the outcome. We didn’t learn shit from our history.
well geuss what Oliver Stone nobody cares about your dumbass review stuff you
wow nice just amazing I agree with dave on this
He might just want to go and check every app ever made.
Specifically facebook, Google and twitter..
These apps want access to everything ever.
Idk this seems like a publicity grab for his new film
Sounds like pretty run-of-the-mill fear-mongering and ignorance. I do get that at it’s root it is based upon a true piece of information, which is that the app asks for a very broad permission set on Android phones. (Apparently erroneously, and has been scaled back.) But if you’ve even used the app, you’ll understand that this is because, like a plethora of other apps, it uses your Google account as an option to log into a Pokemon GO account. By definition, you need permission to access the Google account data to be able to do this.
Furthermore, as far as location data goes, this is again completely necessary to use the app as designed. It’s designed to get people to go out and walk around to ‘discover’ things, drawing people to various crowd-sourced landmarks to obtain bonuses and the like. The game, as designed, falls apart if it doesn’t know where you are. This is really not so different from using any app that helps you get live direction to a destination… It can’t effectively do that, in real time, without your location.
I’d note that it doesn’t actually seem to lead people to businesses or prompt people to buy anything from a third party. It tends to use churches, schools, fountains, art objects, and other similar public locations for it’s digital landmarks. It also does nothing if you aren’t currently using the app, unlike many other apps which keep tabs in the background. So if it’s trying to ‘collect info’ on you, it’s pretty lame and useless info, from a sales perspective.
Leftists like Stone are destroying Venezuela right now, and have been seriously damaging America for the past 50 years with their own brand of tyranny. They ignored and viciously attacked Republican, Christian, conservative, libertarian concerns re Big Gov’t (including federal “aid” to “education”) for years. They have gotten the facts about this wrong repeatedly. So, maybe they now should just shut up and learn something new for a change.
Aren’t you just the most adorable little troll with your neon hair and fuzzy little feet. Whose a cute little troll, you are! Oh yes you are!
Please leave your fairy tales out of our government. Separation of church & state, the founders were pretty clear about that
And republican led wars that have cost trillions, or unregulated bankers during a republican presidency that strip mined sub prime mortgage loans from people knowing full well they would fail, or republicans that keep the nation in a state of tyranny so that gun nuts can keep combat weapons, they’ve just made the world beautiful haven’t they?
Please tell us more how horrible your life is.
I feel you nobody cares about you tell us what we want to no (not you life)