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Mad at Meta? Don't Let Them Collect and Monetize Your Personal Data

eff.org

41–50 of 104 posts

Re: Mad at Meta? Don't Let Them Collect and Monetize Your Personal Data

#42

What happens if you've never been a Meta user? I have never had any kind of business relationship with Meta (so far as I know), and have never agreed to any contract or terms of service. What can I do, under US law, to minimize what they store about me and my behavior, or at least keep tabs on them?

Is this rhetorical? Nothing. Every website that adds their code will be tracking you. Every friend, acquaintance, or anyone that you’ve shared your contact with for what ever reason that has given them access to their contacts has provided your info for you. There’s nothing you can do about it.

At the rate we’re going, it will soon be law that you have to allow them to track you. The Zuck just hasn’t figured out yet that if he writes larger checks, he can get an executive order that would benefit him.

Re: Mad at Meta? Don't Let Them Collect and Monetize Your Personal Data

#43

What happens if you've never been a Meta user? I have never had any kind of business relationship with Meta (so far as I know), and have never agreed to any contract or terms of service. What can I do, under US law, to minimize what they store about me and my behavior, or at least keep tabs on them?

They'll keep a shadow profile on you anyways. If you want Meta to not know you exist, it's probably almost impossible.

Re: Mad at Meta? Don't Let Them Collect and Monetize Your Personal Data

#44
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you kidding? They have literally been the most progressive tech advocacy group in history. I’ve been donating annually since it was founded. They’ve been consistent. Maybe you’ve moved more to the right?

Historically, the EFF has been very pro free-speech. Now it seems like they're in the free-speech-but-only-if-we-agree-with-you camp.

Being in support of free speech doesn't mean being explicitly tolerant of every possible opinion or political/philosophical/ethical viewpoint. I can assure you without any doubt that EFF is not sitting there fighting for someone to advocate for genocide, for example.

Further, defending privacy and free speech also means protecting from people/institutions which would act against privacy and free speech, i.e. the "paradox of tolerance" is very relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

Re: Mad at Meta? Don't Let Them Collect and Monetize Your Personal Data

#45
IMO, skip all the "FB settings" shenanigans and instead just block all Meta (and Google while you're at it) properties using a Pi-Hole on your whole network. VPN into your own LAN with Tailscale and use the Pi-Hole for DNS resolution and never see that shit on your phone again, either. If you want to go a step further, you could do this blocking at the router/firewall level, if you have hardware capable of this.

Re: Mad at Meta? Don't Let Them Collect and Monetize Your Personal Data

#47

IMO, skip all the "FB settings" shenanigans and instead just block all Meta (and Google while you're at it) properties using a Pi-Hole on your whole network. VPN into your own LAN with Tailscale and use the Pi-Hole for DNS resolution and never see that shit on your phone again, either. If you want to go a step further, you could do this blocking at the router/firewall level, if you have hardware capable of this.

So how do I make my mom do this? /s Seriously, even I would have to spend a day or two to figure this out. We need something simple for 99.99% of people to use.

Re: Mad at Meta? Don't Let Them Collect and Monetize Your Personal Data

#48
post #39

I feel like only a few years ago the EFF was a non-partisan organization but for the last year every article of theirs I read has a distinctly American progressive perspective. Anyone know what’s behind the change? I’m struck by the complaint about loosening moderation, right next to a complaint about censorship. It’s a very unprincipled take from an org I used to respect.

Could it be that red states aren’t passing privacy laws? No snark intended. Privacy seems pretty “anti-business” when you consider that it’s a type of regulation in any form. I share the same idle curiosity because I’ve followed the EFF for years too, but the more I think about it: did they ever stand a chance with Republicans? It also seems like big tech is aging into or adopting a kind of partisanship. These compan…

Texas Data Pri­va­cy And Secu­ri­ty Act

https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/consumer-protection/fil...

Re: Mad at Meta? Don't Let Them Collect and Monetize Your Personal Data

#50

IMO, skip all the "FB settings" shenanigans and instead just block all Meta (and Google while you're at it) properties using a Pi-Hole on your whole network. VPN into your own LAN with Tailscale and use the Pi-Hole for DNS resolution and never see that shit on your phone again, either. If you want to go a step further, you could do this blocking at the router/firewall level, if you have hardware capable of this.

So how do I make my mom do this? /s Seriously, even I would have to spend a day or two to figure this out. We need something simple for 99.99% of people to use.

Yeah, my point is that toggling some settings in Facebook won't do much of anything if you don't want to be tracked by these scumbags. I mean, regardless, your mom doesn't have to do anything if you swap her crappy ISP-provided router with a new router running opnsense or pfsense (and a bit of configuration to block the Meta-related domains). Entire households can become Meta-free with a single hardware swap. It doesn't require that much tech knowledge to do it - the one tech-savvy person in an extended family of dozens can do this stuff.
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