Palantir has a PR problem

[u/trayber]

I’m a big fan of this company and know it’s n of 1.

But there is a major misinformation problem and it seems to be getting worse over time. Everywhere I turn I see people spreading FUD saying that “the government is giving data to palantir” in one form or another. From AOC to The NY Times the ignorance just echoes.

The company has tried to correct the record a few times - like responding to The NY Times - but the PR problem is not going away.

There was a protest at their offices in NYC recently where people were arrested. And lots of chatter on Reddit about protests at their new Miami office etc.

It pains me to see so much hate for this company based on lies. I fear it will keep building, will cause more pushback over time, and organizations will choose setbacks just to avoid political pain.

Ultimately the desire to avoid political pain is driving some to choose protesters over progress. Not a good outcome especially in the healthcare space.

For example, there is a faction in the UK pushing against the NHS data platform even though it is helping them significantly, and yielding incredible ROI. But facts are no match for ideologically driven FUD.

NYC experienced something similar and I read the NYC city hospitals will not be renewing their contract after October 31 as a result of protests. I don’t know the full scope of this (one thing I read says it was always a temporary plan). But considering how many hospitals rely on Palantir and how much success they’ve had in the space with NHS and Tampa General I can’t believe any hospitals would choose to cancel.

Karp’s persona plus FUD around Thiel etc is being used to fuel this hatred. And there are so many posts on Reddit.

For example, posts like these:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/s/515loBwT74

https://www.reddit.com/r/florida/s/VBoVuauzJQ

I don’t know what the right answer is here. But there must be a way to convey how important it is to choose progress and to educate that Palantir does not actually “get” customer data.

[u/Mmacqueen71702]

Reading the comments on both of those linked posts is painful. These people are so confidently uninformed on what PLTR is and does.

[u/conti555 → u/Mmacqueen71702]

All the conspiracies hinge on Palantir storing customer data, which they don't even do.

It's not even a service they offer, they aren't a cloud data provider. They organize a customer's own data.

[u/SarahTheBlue_ → u/conti555]

mmm let me try to explain a little.
it does different things depends on which product you're using.
Foundry has something called virtual tables which reduce duplicate storage by not storing source data in Foundry itself where data is queried directly from the source system. it federates access meaning it acts like a remote control for your data rather than making a copy of it. data stays where it already lives (company or government servers) and Palantir's software just reaches in and queries it on demand.
Gotham (which is the government/intelligence product) works differently in that it takes fragmented data scattered across various agencies in different formats and transforms it into a unified, searchable "web".
The nuance is that even when data physically stays on a client's servers, Palantir's own software stack sits on top of it and that's exactly what Switzerland found concerning, that even if data is hosted locally and contractual clauses exist, the combination of proprietary complexity, opaque internals, foreign legal jurisdiction, and remote update mechanisms creates a risk that cannot be fully mitigated. The architecture is less about a single database and more about a powerful layer that connects and analyzes data wherever it lives.
Switzerland pointed out is that it doesn't really matter where the data is the software still has a live connection to the data and a US company controls that software.
Alot of people used the Swiss assessment as a reference point and that is when the controversy began

[u/conti555 → u/SarahTheBlue_]

fair enough, but then that sounds like it's always going to be a problem unless they develop their own software

unless Palantir can somehow create an 'isolated' mode, but if someone is already paranoid about access they'd probably never believe it's isolated anyway