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(lemmy.world)
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
Build the alternative and use it.
You're either the dictator of your computer or you're not. A government 'forcing' companies to hand over logs describing what happened on their commercial platform means you have not even begun the fight. It's a complete farce.
It's a distraction from the fact all these companies are rolling in capital by manipulating their users--oh, but I want to be manipulated by daddy Apple or daddy Discord, just not daddy national-government. What?
It's a fucking larp. How many of you will agitate against this, but you will still use your fucking Discord/Apple/Google/Meta whatever?
Oh, the government is going to hunt you down for using different software that is non-compliant with legislation? What? In what fantasy land? Wake me up when there's boots on the ground invading people's homes by authorities to check what software I'm running on my computer. It's never going to happen.
EDIT: Sorry, the more I look at this cartoon the more this pisses me off. It's painting Apple as an innocent. It's fucking not. Come on, dear artist, labour more to paint mega-corp dictatorships as benign, aloof, white, middle-class targets. Get fuckt.
me and a lot of us on lemmy do whenever possible.
the problem comes from the societal changes that spawn off of that shit when most normies are using it and/or don't care.
like how i can be super careful i don't upload my picture, but then the first normie takes it and my face is suddenly on a database. or public surveillance camers etc.
or how facebook mindrot culture is now mainstream even if we don't use it.
You are absolutely correct, which is why this and even your comment is a distraction. Regardless of how much we dislike the sophisticated surveillance regime you can't deny material reality: it exists.
The correct thing to do is to materially destroy it. Its current existence is the threat, not a theoretical oh, it might be compelled to do something to me. The actual fact it could do something to you now is the issue. It is doing things to you right now. Every user of these commercial entities labours freely for these trillion-dollar companies.
E.g.: A Google android phone provides data to Google which they use in their commercial mapping-software, which they sell access to. "Oh, but I get free-access to Google maps; if my mobile-computer spies on me to improve Google maps then it's beneficial to be spied on." Such reasoning is trotted out ceaselessly, but it ignores the commercial nature of Google: other companies (& governments) are required to pay a license to use it. You're a rube labouring for free. You are an employee of Google, only you don't realise it; neither does the law. You materially impoverish yourself whilst enriching a capitalist corporation. The data you're giving away has value. Even if you want to deny that value consider the following: you pay for the hardware, the data connection and the electricity that enables the extraction of that data. !Socialise the losses privatise the profits! Free access to Google maps isn't charitable. It's a requirement to extract labour from you that improves Google maps. (EDIT 3: this is an important point that I wish to impress upon the reader: that improvement allows Google to demand higher prices from other commercial entities [& governments]. If the product stagnates then the price does too. To prevent this you are required to purchase increasingly sophisticated mobile-computers to extract increasingly sophisticated data sets.
Have any of you used commercial software recently? Consumer computers are fucking super-computers, yet Microsoft windows and Adobe's PDF reader lags like a motherfucker dancing in molasses under the ocean in a pit of sand--just wtf!)
You might as well praise your employer for providing shelter whilst at work. How charitable of them. Gee golly, I sure am pleased my employer lets my use a building whilst I labour for the owners. Gee golly, they're so charitable that they're not demanding a rent. (Satire.)
I will reiterate: it exists now. Ask yourself what can you do now to weaken what it is you're fighting. This cartoon distracts from the fact that Apple is a private surveillance-corporation. Don't use Apple controlled computers. That is the correct line.
Yes, your data will be inadvertently collected by rubes, but this cartoon says nothing about that fact. This cartoon is just a distraction. It shouldn't be applauded by those who want privacy. It should be critiqued for what it is: a distraction.
EDIT: Apple would love this cartoon. Apple do not want to share their power with any government. This cartoon creates social-pressure to ease governmental oversight of their private, for profit fiefdom. This cartoon only aids Apple. Critique this cartoon.
EDIT2: just look at the fucking cartoon: Apple's mobile-computer is on the left, brightly light. It's white like virgin snow. It's painted as a good thing. Apple's mobile-computer is a private prison. It's anything but good.
FINAL EDIT: on the topic of Google maps. I was shocked to learn that a store's manager refused to comply with Google's terms for being listed on Google's maps. The shock was not from their refusal, but the requirements Google were demanding. They wanted a video that showed how to access the store (located within a larger commercial building) and privileged information. This was dressed up as attestation that they were in fact an employee of the store and therefore the data was valid and correct. However the privileged information they wanted was absurd: passwords to store safes and company logins.
That was what I was told by the manager. For those who work within businesses do these requirements sound familiar? Is Google actually demanding such information as a requirement for new listings?
i wholeheartedly agree with you. my great question is how.
how the fuck we take computing back and convince a critical mass of people this is wrong as fuck? because it looks like we are barely able to resist.
I would say liberate yourself first. Buy computers that can or already are liberated (that is to say computers running libre software). Once liberated you will understand how it is done and can then teach others how to do it too.
You should not be concerned about politics here. Already the people are rendered mute under Western democracies.
Even if you don't think it's folly to persuade others, what are you persuading them of? To use software that you yourself don't use? Build it. Use it. Promote it. Can't write software? Donate to the orgs that are writing libre software. Can't run it? Haven't you liberated your computer? If you have you can run it. Can't promote it? Are you not able to communicate?
Ditch Apple and Google. Use GrapheneOS. Use a linux powered mobile-computer like Pine Phone. Use encrypted overlay networks to communicate over the internet like i2p (it has a Java implementation and a C++ implementation), tor, hyphanet or my personal favorite: GNUnet. Heck, use all of them!
I will preemptively address an infantile critique of GrapheneOS: it uses Google branded hardware. File off the logo if it disturbs you so much. This critique fails to address the reality: hardware is subsidized by technological behemoths like Google because their product is not the hardware, but the software that is built off data collected by the hardware. An argument could be made that taking advantage of that subsidization maliciously damages Google more than purchasing non-subsidized hardware. Something to think about. Regardless, Foxconn makes both Google Pixels and Apple Iphones. The branding blinds people of the reality.
Anyway... rambles, rambles. It's not about convincing others, it's about you doing what you think is the correct thing to do.
Really great comment! I do not agree with the edit, tho. Apple's dude is the one with they on his and, on an Apple device. Doesn't look like Apple is depicted as an innocent agent here, to me