I think these proposals need to be in both party platforms - they are excellent suggestions that would make a real difference
I think these proposals need to be in both party platforms - they are excellent suggestions that would make a real difference
These are silly. Legislation cannot solve technological and social problems. Even if you put aside both the unethical nature of legislation and the fact that you will never be able to get such laws enacted when the corporations have so much control over our politics, it simply will not work to use the state - the most important entity that you want to be anonymous from - to protect anonymity.
The only viable strategy for protecting privacy is to stop depending on things that violate it:
Delete your facebook or twitter account. If you’re really sure you want social media in your life, there are decentralized and open-source alternatives like Mastodon.
Don’t use Discord or any other messaging platform owned by a corporation. Use Privacy-friendly alternatives like Signal or XMPP or even Matrix
Don’t use a megacorp email service. This one is a bit difficult because there aren’t any ideal email providers, and also because email is an inherently insecure platform and yet indispensible for life in our economy. Still, you can do way, way better than relying on Google or Microsoft for your email. Check out DIsroot or Migadu or Mailbox.org or Riseup if you can get an invite.
Don’t take your phone everywhere with you (I keep mine turned off most of the time), and use something like LineageOS if you’re really serious (I don’t know much about this space)
Use browser extensions that let you disable as much tracking as possible without breaking websites.
Minimize online shopping, since every time you do it you’re providing personally identifiable information.
And this should go without saying, but don’t run Windows.
I could list more examples, but you get the picture. Pretty much every service you depend on a corporation for has decent freedom-friendly alternatives. The first step to defeating your enemy is always to stop being dependent on them - if you don’t do that, you’ll never win.
I love what you are doing and trying to do similar myself. The more people that do, the better.
But I think there is a lot of value in attacking this problem with the suggestions in this article through legislation.
I know of data that is being collected about people that is totally out of their control, that is one reason why legislation is needed.
The state is one of the groups collecting that data - in fact, they want the corporations doing it so they can in turn get the data from the corporations, like they do all the time (just search for “government requests user data from google” or something). So you won’t get the state to stop them from doing it.
exactly. and that is why those businesses aren’t stopped from forming monopolies - which are against are laws, but those laws aren’t enforced for companies help certain sectors of gov’t.
worth a try. i think both the Left and Right are in bed with BigBiz, though, and won’t seriously change any thing unless their PuppetMasters agree.