this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2025
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Privacy
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Google, Apple, and Microsoft are all doing the same thing with their operating systems. Soon, everything you do on your device will be recorded, analyzed, compiled, and cross-referenced. All of it ready to be used against you in advertisements, commerce, and a court of law.
If you think age checks are bad now, wait until it’s enforceably illegal to even look at pornography on your device. Or, maybe you receive a knock at your door for a missed period, or some questionable searches while pregnant? Higher ride app pricing for a low phone battery? Now your digital credit score determines your eligibility and cost for a ride. Think your VPN will hide that pirated movie or your location? Who needs to bypass encryption when your entire screen is analyzed by a hardware driven AI classification system in real-time.
Advertisers, authoritarians, media execs, and tech bros are vibrating so hard that they’re starting to glow. This is the real AI revolution into which they have sunk so much money. Do you think they’re just going to accept that they won’t get a return on their investment because you think you have a right to privacy?
How long will we even have access to hardware and software that doesn’t contain baked-in content analysis?
Reading stuff like this reminds me of why I have been a linux user for over 20 years.
Its why I only use AOSP roms on my phones.
Its why I have never used any USA surveillance companies. No one needs any of that shit!
Its why I get in my car, and visit people I care for, and not send them a message or use facebook to see what they are having for dinner.
I wouldnt even know how to turn a windows machine on. My last windows experience was with windows 95.
Do you still press a button?
I am a retired psychotherapist, 69 years old now, and have seen the devastating loss of our freedoms in my lifetime.
we all need to get back to being human again. We are human beings not human doings.
My display avatar is in fact a photo from a StoneHenge free festival in early 1980's. A time when we actually used the word freedom and meant it.
I do fear for you younger people and what lies ahead. What will be like in 20-30 years when I am long gone.
As someone born in the early 2000s, I can only say that there will be a divide of the informed and the uninformed. The true tragedy of my generation, to be honest, will be the people who have the tools and information at their disposal to actually understand the world, but opt instead for the comfort food of AI, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon's services.
I am an electrical engineering student, hopefully about to graduate in the near future, and I can tell you that some of my peers have the same thought process you and I have. We're willing to do the research, understand the pros and cons of convenience, and adjust our lives in the best ways we can. I switched to the FOSS ecosystem as much as I reasonably could. (Barring LTSC windows 10 for some program compatibility)
The majority don't care, however. In non-technical fields it's worse, many following the "I have nothing to hide and nothing to fear" argument. They use ChatGPT on a daily basis, are more than happy to upload photo after photo on Meta's suite, and complain about Windows 11 without bothering to consider alternatives. Any attempts I've had at explaining the reality of their "free" services gets just a weird look and them walking away.
The irony of ironies is that I was born, raised, and educated in Silicon Valley, ground zero, and will likely graduate into working at a company that makes this issue worse. But at least my private life, my friends, and those I've helped will have a lifeline.
Hey Truscape
Thank you for the wonderful thoughtful reply.
I particularly liked "the informed and the uninformed". This is true
Being a retired psychotherapist, I have known for all my professional life how easy it is to manipulate people. This is why, all practicing psychotherapists have to have, one hours supervision for every five hours of client work they do. This is to protect the clients from us, the therapist. There is no protection like that in the tech world.
My heart sinks everytime I see some shill promotimg online therapy. without ever understanding the lasting damage that they will do to the human being.
I do agree with all that you write