131–140 of 308 posts
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I don't live in America :P
Most developed countries have similar systems in place. Heck, I'd wager that the US is lagging behind other countries in this area, primarily due to its size.
I've closed my Facebook account but as the article mentions, delete the app and use the browser interface if you must. Your battery will also thank you.
I guess that was a good thing because now I hardly ever check my FB, and if I do it's from desktop.
> In most cases, granting permission is an all-or-nothing affair. This means you cannot cherry-pick the permissions to grant or deny when installing an app. You either accept or decline. I wish the author had spent a few lines to expand on this one so people would understand it better. This is a huge problem for those using older Android phones (which is a huge number worldwide) with Android 5 and below. With Android…
> With Android 6 (Marshmallow) and beyond, one can control specific permissions post app install There are a lot of apps that will simply refuse to open if you do not grant them permission for a list of unrelated permission.
But there's no way for me to allow it only when Maps is open.
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> Google can be as evil as Facebook Personally I believe Google _IS_ much worse than FB for one simple reason: it's much easier to avoid FB than Google. With FB the story is simple. You'll miss out on some news/invites from FB-centric friends, but it's pretty easy to go without (or to even find new friends who aren't as hooked on FB as needed). "Avoiding" Google in your daily life is much, much harder. Their free mai…
If I can affect just one person here today... Please please please stop using Gmail for important communication and account recovery (banking, mission critical services you maintain, etc etc). Use a paid service from a reputable company who does that one thing only and does it well. Too many Gmail horror stories.
The authoritarian regimes' secret police would be delighted at something like this. People actually (well, not all of us) give them information themselves, and those who don't, sure do get tracked across the web. "Thoughts control" is very much a real problem, as the Google Memo scandal showed us. People dug out the irrelevant donation of Brendan Eich. Think about the power FB has, they know exactly who is the enemy…
I more than agree with you. The only thing, why do you assume that only people "on the left" could be intrested in using these tools? Sure it's people "on the left" that are creating them and control them now, and yet thought control is DEFINITELY not a thing right parties have ever had problems using lol. Am I wrong?
Your critique is correct, the right is every bit as brutal about censorship when it comes to a context of authoritarianism. The left in the US is progressive (to varying degrees) in mentality, adopts technology much faster, and gets to utilizing new tools (in this case online) for censorship much faster accordingly.
The interesting thing about the left in regards to censorship is two fold: they (used to) pretend to be the champions of free speech and civil liberties, that makes them a dangerous fake protector. They can strip your civil liberties much easier, as their own base will remain quasi-silent (as we saw in the Obama era), while the right often won't protest because they agree with the abuses. This is fundamentally why the left was able to put us into Vietnam: there was nobody left to stand in the way of it, the right (more inclined to war) was naturally going to agree with the premise.
They're also fast adopters of technology. In my opinion people in the more left half of the political spectrum (call them Democrats or whatever makes sense), on average, move substantially faster as adopters of technology (Clinton & Obama were far more technologically progressive than the Bushes or Trump). The big platforms are all extremely left in their political bias, deriving from the people who work there, the memo was correct in that regard - not to mention credible people like Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel have noted this publicly for years. These platforms are/were built by young people, who (likely inherently) do not tend toward conservatism.
It makes perfect sense that social platforms founded by people with a left wing bias, including: Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, Google - would then link up with left-favoring ideology/politics/causes when it comes to what they allow on their platforms, or what ideas they tolerate.
The left are the fast(er) adopters of technology, at least in the US. Of course they're going to get to using these tools for censorship before the slow-moving conservatives do. The far more scary part, is when the right catches up, and both sides are gun-ho about abusing technology for censorship.
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You can go a long way to blocking a lot of these by using some alternatives: * Using DuckDuckGo ( https://duckduckgo.com/ ). It is really decent and has good desktop and mobile integration. * Using a browser like Brave ( https://www.brave.com/ ) that blocks trackers etc. Android app is superb. * Using a Maps replacement like OSM ( https://www.openstreetmap.org ) on desktop and OsmAnd on mobile ( https://play.google.c…
And don't forget to protect yourself against browser and device fingerprint tracking.
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Absolutely, the reason I wrote left is that for the past decade it's the left I'm afraid of. Of course, the right can use them for evil too. But seeing how American media behaves, scandals around people who don't agree with the left narrative, is very much frightening and reminds me the Soviet past. When I call it out, people say something along the lines "freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences", after so…
I'm generally liberal, but am a strong believer that much more power needs to be vested locally. There are a number of problems in the US that stem from power concentration in the hands of 1%ers that live far away. With Trump, more liberals are also starting to think in this direction. Concentrated power scares them. Concentration of power into international corporations that know everything about everyone is dangero…
Hilariously predictably, it strictly only scares them when it's not their person in power. We get to watch this rotating clown show every few years, where the left suddenly wakes up again and pretends to be against concentration of power or various rights abuses (Clinton to Bush, Obama to Trump). When it was Obama abusing his power, they were as silent as could be (except for a few fringe people like John Cusack or Cindy Sheehan, who both got ostracized for speaking out - they were consistent in their beliefs - once it was a liberal in office).
If it were Hillary in there abusing power right now, they'd be just as silent as they were a year ago. There are more people willing to speak up against abuses of civil liberties on the left than there are on the right, it's still always a small bunch when you've got a Democrat in the Presidency (people like Ron Wyden).
Personally, I think Google is just as terrifying, possibly more. As an example, just take a fairly normal life situation like going out for dinner with some friends, and think about how much of it goes "through" Google: --- One of your friends sends an email to 6 others, to ask if everyone's free for dinner on Friday. 5 of the 7 people involved use gmail or a google apps address. You've never heard of the restaurant…
You can go a long way to blocking a lot of these by using some alternatives: * Using DuckDuckGo ( https://duckduckgo.com/ ). It is really decent and has good desktop and mobile integration. * Using a browser like Brave ( https://www.brave.com/ ) that blocks trackers etc. Android app is superb. * Using a Maps replacement like OSM ( https://www.openstreetmap.org ) on desktop and OsmAnd on mobile ( https://play.google.c…
The important part of that sentence is "for ads". Obviously, they don't do antispam out of thin air, they still have to scan email for it.
By looking at my current permission settings, only the Camera and the Phone app have permission to use my microphone. I closed my Facebook account a while ago but I use WhatsApp, owned by Facebook. Given that I don't send voice notes or make in-app calls, there is no need for it having access to my microphone. Same with location -- no need.