lol you’re right up there with the person suggesting doxxing just to show them it can be done…!
Having said that I did read about someone who tried to locate themselves using publically findable information, and they managed it. It freaked them out a bit, so to do it to someone else would be wild.
This is my attempt at that: Rebel Tech Alliance - Learn Section
I’d like to crowdsource this learning section but not sure how. I linked to the Codeberg site on the homepage but that probably won’t work as too techy.
lol I’ve tried to answer that one on this page: https://www.rebeltechalliance.org/nothingtohide.html How did I do?
It certainly make me feel safer against big tech snooping. Is obscuring your IP address not useful? I genuinely want to hear the arguments for and against VPNs. And if they’re not effective what are better ways we can protect ourselves?
I’m in the UK and there’s a feeling amongst some that “we’re next” if we don’t curb the rise of the far right.
The Reform party’s victories here this week are another alarm bell.
Shoshana Zuboff says that privacy is already, effectively, dead. Or at least on life support. And there is no way we can reform the tech giants and surveillance capitalism. She says the only way out is around - to boycott them and use alternatives. That’s what inspired my site.
I have friends and family who occupy both sides of the political spectrum, so it’s impossible to have just one message that suits both. That’s why I’ve largely avoided politics my whole life…
But tech has become political, so it’s not that easy to avoid anymore 😬
On my website homepage Rebel Tech Alliance.org I try and make it clear that we’re trying to undermine a business model, not a political ideology. But the presence of the word ‘capitalism’ in surveillance capitalism does trigger some people to start talking politics.
This is the same argument against trusting opaque algorithms from proprietary systems (usually billionaire owned). You just don’t know when they’re going to tweak it for their purposes.
harsh! but might work lol
OMG your book is amazing! You actually sent me a summary version before, and I’ve just downloaded the full one. I’ll add it to my Calibre library and share with others!
I love that foreword about the town square - “Are we in paradise yet?”
We should work together - you’re right your book covers a lot of the same ground as my website, but just better written and better researched lol
I’ll change the normie thing in the post - that was a mistake to use that term regarding privacy knowledge.
How could I reshape the message to be more about the hostility of the information space? Where would you start? I do talk about elections being swung, but since I’ve dumpted all billionaire-owned social media (and newspapers/tv news) then I’m actually not in a good position to write specific stories about hostile info. Your guidance is welcomed!
You’re mostly right about self-hosting, but in my ‘normie’ journey (I’m using it correctly there) into self hosting I’ve found that there are actually a few wins that non-techie people can achieve: Jellyfin, Syncthing and Calibre. They all give back some data sovereignty. but I suppose until I can explain that, it’s probably best not to even mention it.
As for the student energy vibe? lol fair. I’m rubbish at design, and probably so immature that my mental age stopped then 😂 In time, and if I can get any funding, I will pay someone to help with marketing and design. Someone quoted my £1200 to get some better visuals on there, but I just cannot afford that atm.
One thing I would like to do is gamify the process of changing away from big tech, but I’m not sure how to do that. Perhaps some web games baked into the site?
I’ve had a bit of success with this - a cousin for example was shocked by a report I sent him about the RTB system - but I worry that if I send too many of those kinds of info then people will think I’m some kind of conspiracy theorist. 😱
You’re right. I replied to someone else about this - I’ll change the post.
Totally - if the same functionality isn’t there, most people won’t switch.
What about having both running in parallel for a while?
This. You’re so right. It’s stories that move people not facts - I constantly forget this!
I’ve made a note to use the blog to put the messages in story form - case studies.
Thank you for writing that!
This is a VERY interesting perspective - thank you for sharing!
You are lucky in Norway to have that level of trust, but I’d never considered the flip side: that it would create a dangerous apathy about privacy.
Your two angles are great:
This is so true but for some it is so nebulous, and it countries like the UK (and especially if you are white and not struggling financially) then there is an exceptionalism that creeps into the thinking. Probably because we’ve never been invaded and occupied. I was in Norway last year, and Denmark this year, and no one wants that to happen again. It seems to have shaped thinking a lot - correct me if i’m wrong 😊
This is a big one - privacy is a collective problem. It’s a team sport. I have had some success with this argument.
What’s very hard is to convey to people just how amazingly powerful and efficient big tech’s profiling models really are. Trillions of computations a minute to keep your creepy digital twin up to date. Most people cannot get their head round the scale of it, and I’m struggling to visualise it for them!
oh yes, convenience… a big problem when moving from the alternatives.
And I have to acknowlege that I’m an unusual case - I would rather use a less-good service than give my data to a better one. I know most people don’t think like that.
That’s why the alternatives we recommend are usually the zero knowledge encrypted ones, and they need to have a good experience. But privacy by design is sadly not that widely adopted in products. It has been increasing though, but just very slowly.
And about your point to hit the problem when mass change can happen e.g. political, legal - that is more the domain of our friends at other orgs like EFF, noyb, The Citizens etc. But you’re right, that is where change needs to happen. Not easy when the big tech firms lobby so hard and throw money at the problem.
First of all, it’s May 4th so happy Star Wars day Han Solo!
Your points land… hard. Yes it is so messed up that privacy has been pushed on the end user as ‘their problem to fix with consent choice’. As you all know here it’s not a real choice.
Yes this should all be solved at the regulatory / gov level, but whilst the EU has been doing some great things recently, and the US has just kicked Apple and Google and Meta in the balls for antitrust, it’s never enough - there’s just too much lobbying and money washing around.
So, sadly, it does come down to the individual. My position is “if huge numbers of people starve the system of their behavioural data, then the surveillance economy is less effective, and perhaps other business models will have a chance”. Do you think that holds water?
Damn. that is creepy. Similar to the comment someone else left about stalking…
Maybe I’ll so a series of case studies via the blog - thank you for sharing this!
Orgs have to wean themselves off big tech dollars. Painful, but has to happen. They’ll have to restructure and refocus. Maybe cut out the AI stuff and focus on core functionality?