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There's a general trend right now against privacy and in a more general sense against freedom. More and more companies are on board with it. I'm not sure if any

• krystalgamer 7mo ago
  i don't understand this doomer mentality regarding the internet. internet is a service that you choose what to engage and how. don't like a platform? find another, build it or stop using it altogether. personally, i find these things really great has it helps nudge people into the more decentralized web. a few years ago those who were pushing for privacy respecting apps and platforms were deemed too paranoid.
  • ultratalk 7mo ago
    Network effects will keep a person on a platform until a critical mass of their social circle decide to leave all at once. I'm no expert, but I suspect that that critical mass is pretty high, maybe more than 50% of a person's circle. So it's not exactly vanilla free-market competition. Entrenched players have a pretty big advantage.
    • krystalgamer 7mo ago
      what does your social circle being on Instagram bring to you? seriously, this picture-sharing app has evolved into this content spread machine that brings very little value.
      • ultratalk 7mo ago
        When most of your social circle exists on one platform, you tend to use that platform less for its specific features, and more because of the fact that all your friends are there. I don't personally use Instagram, and this is anecdotal information, but I know a lot of people who only use Instagram to see what their friends and family are up to, and to watch the occasional reel. But you're absolutely right about Instagram's evolution. It's crazy.
        • krystalgamer 7mo ago
          this is a very 21st century thing, the ability to know what everyone is doing at any time. extremely voyeuristic too. the only social circle that truly matters is the geographically close one. no amount of E2EE or fancy chat app will replace being physically present.
          • tredre3 7mo ago
            First you said that people should use decentralized platforms. Now you acknowledge that there's nobody of value on those platforms so now you say people should stop wanting to connect in the first place. I mean, okay? Next time just say social media is a cancer, and don't waste our time moving goal posts.
            • krystalgamer 7mo ago
              > that there's nobody of value on those platforms so now you say people should stop wanting to connect in the first place that's exactly what i said and not a figment of your imagination. if your social circle mostly exists on instagram like the person that i was replying to mentioned :), then you have no social life. any of these platforms is just an add-on to real social interaction. prioritize the real thing and the platform stops mattering. > social media is a cancer it isn't but your comment is.
    • happosai 7mo ago
      Ah Network effect, That's why we all are still using Skype, microsoft messenger and ICQ. You don't have to wait for everyone to switch, in fact it's pretty normal to reach different people on different chats. https://xkcd.com/1810/ https://xkcd.com/1810/
      • ultratalk 7mo ago
        Well, maybe it was normal ~10 years ago, when that comic was published, but is now getting rarer and rarer, as each new generation consolidates itself on a single platform.
  • Schlagbohrer 7mo ago
    Many people make their livings from these platforms. They cant leave without abandoning most of their income stream.
    • krystalgamer 7mo ago
      find a different employer? what kind of argument is that.
• junofan 7mo ago
  As a California resident I request to download my personal data from every service I can, and I’m constantly surprised. We each have scores for all kinds of things. The local power company keeps a “Green Ideology” score on me.
  • wiether 7mo ago
    How is that even legal?
    • stackskipton 7mo ago
      Because it's not illegal. Most data privacy laws just require that user can see data collected about them and prevent sale of said data in optout fashion. There are rarely laws around preventing collection of said data or using said data for some new service.
      • wiether 7mo ago
        But it's not any data, it's political orientation data! Sometimes people talk about GDPR being only the cookie banner, but thanks to it, its forbidden to collect that kind of data. https://gdpr-info.eu/art-9-gdpr/ https://gdpr-info.eu/art-9-gdpr/
    • natch 7mo ago
      This is in the US. It’s a free country. Things are legal by default (that’s a good thing) until the system notices them and makes a law. Having seen how things work where freedom is not the default, I much prefer freedom.
    • knowitnone3 7mo ago
      [dead]
  • johnisgood 7mo ago
    It makes me curious what other scores (I would call them labels) there are.
  • 7mo ago
• add-sub-mul-div 7mo ago
  You're on a site with a surprisingly high amount of support among commenters for trading privacy and freedom for convenience and comfort where it aligns with their religion/other biases or desired consumer experiences. I don't know if this the best place to ask for advice.
  • pjc50 7mo ago
    I'm not sure people realize that HN is already at the most libertarian end, and all the discourse spaces which are much closer to actual power and legislation are much less pro-privacy.
    • davorak 7mo ago
      Historically, like 10-20 years ago, libertarian would be staunchly pro privacy. Is this no longer the case? If libertarians have dropped this stance, since it is so close to what was the core beliefs, I really have no mental model of the philosophy/politics for libertarians any more. Any primer/link on what current libertarians believe is welcome.
      • natch 7mo ago
        It’s possible to want something without wanting to live in a system where there is a nanny to enforce that thing. Other means of enforcement exist, such as free markets.
      • scarecrowbob 7mo ago
        You might find it useful to distinguish between right and left libertarians. All my anarchist (left libertarian) friends are pretty consistently opposed to state and corporate surveillance. There is plenty of theory in a canon of literature that goes back to the mid 19th century, even as there are many subgroups and spurs off that general line of thought all with their own sets of (usually somewhat) consistent lines. If you want something short and brutal, I am a fan of "Desert" by anonymous, but "A Utopia of Rules" by David Graeber is not a bad thing to read and probably closer to a popular line. Or the CIA-Coded Yale academic James Scott has a lot to say, "Two Cheers for Anarchism" and "Seeing Like a State" both seem to have influenced a lot of people. Historically "right libertarians" (the US Libertarian political party, for instance) have been, uh, "less consistent" in their thinking, so you might have a hard time finding anything that looks like a "philosophy" in that branch of "thought". Plenty of goofy-ass ideas, but little consistency except a strange ability to begrudgingly conform to GOP politics at the end of the day.
• aavci 7mo ago
  I wonder if promoting open-source tooling and best practices could make it easier for new apps to adopt security features like E2E encryption. For example, someone building a chat app might not add E2E encryption unless they have access to user-friendly tools and are encouraged to do so. Startups that initially choose the more private implementation version often face a disadvantage. They may not see immediate benefits and instead experience drawbacks, such as caring a bit more than their competitors. For example, an AI plugin using local large language models for privacy might not be rewarded as much as a competitor who fully embraces cloud-based solutions.
  • starkparker 7mo ago
    That's all fine and good but this is Meta removing an existing implementation. How would you stop decisions like that?
• ls612 7mo ago
  It's depressing to think that after the abuses people suffered during the lockdowns the response has been to embrace authoritarianism even more. It makes me fear how far this could go before people realize how bad it is. Fundamentally I think that liberal democracy won't be able to survive compute, communication, and storage being cheap, combined with asymmetric encryption. I really think there should be an article illustrating just how much that last one is fundamental to making the apparatus of control cheap and effective in a way that 20th century regimes could only dream of.
  • Larrikin 7mo ago
    What abuses?
• reactordev 7mo ago
  If you’re a good boy then you have nothing to hide right? Not even your passwords…
• john_strinlai 7mo ago
  unfortunately, since the messaging/trend isnt "we are against privacy" (it is "we are protecting children, which reluctantly means we all have to sacrifice a wee bit of privacy"), it is really hard to fight back without being labelled as someone who is against protecting children. but the advice is basically the same as it always has been: - talk to your friends and family about it. do it with passion, but without hyperbole or conspiracy or aggression. any person you can convince to care is a win. organize with like-minded people. - talk to your representatives in government. vote for representatives that are pro-privacy (when possible). convince your like-minded friends and family to do the same. - to the greatest extent possible, dont purchase/use products/services which are facilitating the trend. (but, you also need to be realistic or you will burn out! and that is a bigger loss overall). - if you are a decision-maker at work, or have any sort of input, leverage it as best as you can to make pro-privacy business decisions. however, similar to the above point, recognize that you still need to be realistic and dont get yourself fired arguing some decision. it is better to make 1,000 nudges in the right direction than it is to be fired/burn out trying to make 1 big nudge. - support organizations that align with your beliefs. this can be monetarily, or by volunteering, or by spreading awareness of the organization itself. for example, many people have never heard of the electronic frontier foundation and have no idea what they do. lots of people dont know of the ACLU either (or, maybe they have heard the name, but dont know what they do or why it matters).
  • trinsic2 7mo ago
    >unfortunately, since the messaging/trend isnt "we are against privacy" (it is "we are protecting children, which reluctantly means we all have to sacrifice a wee bit of privacy"), it is really hard to fight back without being labelled as someone who is against protecting children. That's not what I am seeing on the ground. Many discord users I have seen talk about this issue frame this as an attack on freedom and privacy by hiding it behind the same narrative that has been used so many times before of protecting children. You can only push fake narratives so far until people start getting the message that people are hiding nefarious attacks on society behind fake movements.
    • john_strinlai 7mo ago
• fsflover 7mo ago
  > I feel like I don't know what to do about the internet for the next 5-10 years. Switch to decentralized, e2ee alternatives, support https://eff.org https://eff.org
  • trinsic2 7mo ago
    I feel like e2ee on phones with OSes from the big two is a lost cause. I'll bet this is the year where open hardware/bios starts getting more popular, hopefully. So we can have open hardware/software.
    • fsflover 7mo ago
      GNU/Linux phones already exist. See: Librem 5 and Pinephone.
      • subscribed 7mo ago
        If you like privacy without security then yeah .
        • fsflover 7mo ago
          There is no security in a vacuum. Security depends on your threat model. I use Firefox with NoScript and never run untrusted apps on my Librem 5.
      • vova_hn2 7mo ago
        I find it really off putting, how weak is their hardware, compared to a normal Android phone in a similar price range.
        • fsflover 7mo ago
          Weak hardware can work quite well with optimized and non-bloated software (which doesn't constantly phone home). For example, maps and Youtube work smoothly on Pinephone with SXMo. See also: https://puri.sm/posts/the-danger-of-focusing-on-specs/ https://puri.sm/posts/the-danger-of-focusing-on-specs/.
• Spooky23 7mo ago
  The US is building out the infrastructure for a police state. The people who control the consolidated tech platforms are either spearheading or collaborating with that process. Privacy as a concept isn't even in the cards. You need to be prepared to avoid saying naughty things on the internet. Otherwise, perhaps someone will figure out that you great-great grandfather didn't sign in the right spot in 1897 and you're presence in the United States is void, retroactive to your birth. Off to El Salvador with you, enemy of the people.
  • mc32 7mo ago
    It feels to me Europe and the UK, in the western world, are further ahead on the legal road to surveillance than the US.
    • ls612 7mo ago
      [flagged]
      • gzread 7mo ago
        What differentiates correct politics from incorrect politics?
      • deleted 7mo ago
        [deleted]
      • mikepurvis 7mo ago
        Sure, but I think the point of this thread was (or should be) what can be done in the US to resist this. There's a lot of things the US resists doing because voters who never traveled outside of it can be convinced that what it is as implemented elsewhere is somehow flawed or worse than the status quo. You see this exact pattern with real health care, common sense gun laws, investment in mass transportation, probably more that I'm not thinking of.
        • mp05 7mo ago
          > Sure, but I think the point of this thread was (or should be) what can be done in the US to resist this. I read that as "we're not going to sit with the uncomfortable implication that the places being held up as policy exemplars are also the places criminalizing speech."
• dfxm12 7mo ago
  In this specific case you can avoid Meta. In general, if you're in the US, you probably have a primary election coming up soon and certainly have a general election in November. Ask your politicians what their thoughts are on these topics and make an informed vote. Continue to pressure the incumbents as well.
• dheera 7mo ago
  E2EE on Instagram was never real, trustable E2EE. No open-source client, no way to verify that private key is never sent to server, and encryption of a key with a low-entropy PIN is effectively plaintext.
• j_bizzle 7mo ago
  I’m truly on the fence about all of this. On one hand, I think a lot of the larger issues and divisions we’ve seen in society over the last 20 years are a direct result of our primary means of communication, entertainment and information being one that allows such ease of impersonation. While most of us here understand just how much Internet content is created with influence as a goal, and the posted by accounts with false identities, a majority of people still don’t. (And many who do don’t understand just how prevalent it is). I also think that sadly we’ve demonstrated that when people feel they are anonymous and beyond consequence, they’re willing to say and advocate for some terrible things which they might otherwise not have, and seeing others say those things reinforces their willingness to say and do them. If social media and internet norms of today had held the original Facebook model of requiring verification of your actual identity (back in the day .edu email days), I truly think we would live in a much different and in many ways better world. On the other hand, I fully acknowledge that many of the people pushing for the removal of privacy and encryption are not doing so for altruistic reasons, but so that they have a more data to mine and monetize, or have the ability to monitor to a frightening degree, and that these tools once available will be available to any regime or government, so even if the ones currently pushing do have naively good intentions, the next ones very well may not. But, I also struggle with the knowledge that for sophisticated parties, the privacy that most people think they have is a sham to begin with. There are already many tools available to piece together information sources and build a horrifyingly complex and accurate picture of individuals activities and identities. So I wonder if the illusion of privacy isn’t worse than the public at least being forced to confront the fact that they have none in the first place, and therefore being able to truly see and address the issue, while the security minded and technical individuals will always find a way obfuscate their identity and activity, just as they always have.
  • everdrive 7mo ago
    In my opinion anonymity is a great red herring. The worst offenders on the internet have verified accounts and are public figures. The problem is algorithmic content, prioritizing for engagement and outrage, and then connecting _everyone_. We had what was effectively anonymity in the 90s, but really had NONE of the crazy society-breaking extremism we see now. Getting rid of anonymity will really do NOTHING to halt the march of internet-fueled extremism.
• wslh 7mo ago
  I sometimes feel a bit weird about this. In the 90s it felt like "we" won the crypto wars: PGP, the fight over export controls, the Clipper Chip, etc. There was a strong sense that privacy and strong crypto had become settled questions.
• caconym_ 7mo ago
  > I'm not sure if anyone in HN has any useful advice in this regard. Self host. It's still possible to buy computer hardware and install FOSS replacements for most/all of the services you need, and plumb it all through to your mobile devices using wireguard/tailscale. If you're behind a CGNAT you can proxy it through a cheap VPS that won't fuck you on bandwidth costs. Thanks to Proxmox, I probably have better uptime on my services than e.g. Github these days. When it becomes impossible to get open PC hardware, I don't know. I like to think I will just stop using the internet for anything besides the bare minimum NPC type activities that are required to engage with the institutions of society.
  • abnercoimbre 7mo ago
    If you don't know where to start check out the Linux Prepper [0] podcast. (I'm not affiliated, just a listener who enjoys the show.) [0] https://podcast.james.network/@linuxprepper/episodes https://podcast.james.network/@linuxprepper/episodes
• Cider9986 7mo ago
  You could try becoming a privacy advocate. https://www.privacyguides.org/en/activism/ https://www.privacyguides.org/en/activism/