Even though it's not technically physical, GrapheneOS does have switches for both the camera and mic that disable them at the system level.

So if you answer a call, for example, you're prompted to unblock the mic because the phone app is requesting to use the mic.

It's easy to scoff at this whole "You will own nothing, and you will be happy" phrase, but it's really gone too far already.

Honestly, the EU's where it's at.

• Universal standards like USB-C instead of proprietary ports that cause waste
• Removable batteries
• GDPR
• Universal healthcare
• Right to repair

Invest in your people, and you'll go far.

This is great to see. I love when big players make moves into the fediverse, because it educates the masses. I'm a nobody on the internet advocating for privacy, security, and ethical social media... and I can advocate til my fingers bleed.

But when companies, publications, celebrities, and others of influence do this, it creates awareness and opens their mind up a bit into the platforms, why they're important, etc. And even if they don't understand federation at first, at least it's a touchpoint. A bit of exposure into how we can have a better, open, and private web.

Not the first time facial recognition tech has been misused, and certainly won't be the last. The UK in particular has caught a lotta flak around this.

We seem to have a hard time connecting the digital world to the physical world and realizing just how interwoven they are at this point.

Therefore, I made an open source website called idcaboutprivacy to demonstrate the importance—and dangers—of tech like this.

It's a list of news articles that demonstrate real-life situations where people are impacted.

If you wanna contribute to the project, please do. I made it simple enough to where you don't need to know Git or anything advanced to contribute to it. (I don't even really know Git.)

I don't "like" that it got this bad, but I do like that the worse things get, the more we can collectively organize and pressure reform to fix these things.

It'd be great to see a true social revolution take place in my lifetime. Social for the sake of social, not controlled by a single corporation with a business model that's designed to exploit its users.

If you wanna keep your bookmarks and the subreddits (communities) that you're subscribed to before deleting your account, I made a free tool to help you store and offload that data.

It's called Reddit Account Manager, and it's 100% free.

You can also use it to manage your Lemmy account(s), of course.

As usual, it's only Big Tech that's able to compete with Big Tech. They all love to throw their weight around when they can, and join forces when it's convenient.

Neither corporation should be defended or trusted with your data.

The only thing that's kinda funny here is the irony of Microsoft tryna poach Chrome users into their own... wait for it... Chromium-based browser.

If you wanna keep your bookmarks and the subreddits (communities) that you're subscribed to before deleting your Reddit account, I made a free tool to help you store and offload that data.

It's called Reddit Account Manager, and it's 100% free.

You can also use it to manage your Lemmy account(s), of course.

Gives me no pleasure to add it to idcaboutprivacy

Free and open source—feel free to contribute.

I can't emphasize how important it is for you to control your phone, especially notifications. Every notification is literally a mind hijacking attempt. Regardless of the type of notification, it's something that disrupts our thinking and our flow.

Some of them are necessary—but most aren't.

All the native apps will of course try to get as much permission from you as possible, including notifications. Don't allow this permission freely.

Get really strict about which apps need to send you notifications, and when. Take it from a dude who used to give free reign to all apps for notifications.

Once I started thinking in a more digitally minimalistic way, it made a huge difference. Running GrapheneOS actually helped with this a lot. But you don't need GOS to do this and feel the difference.

I got some notifications turned on, but most of em are silent. So they still get delivered, but they're not time-sensitive. They'll be there when I check my phone next. I don't need em interrupting whatever I was doing or thinking.

TL;DR: Be strict about which notifications you allow, and when. It'll do wonders for your thinking, productivity, and mental health.

#AdoptDontShop and don't support breeders/puppy mills.

No such thing as a "pure bred" dog anyways.

Plus, mutts have far fewer health problems. "Pure breeds" are largely inbred and products of incest.

I never participated on Reddit, but I used it to check in on tech stuff and other various interests. I didn't spend a lotta time on it, but it was definitely the platform that I spent time on the most.

When all the third-party stuff started happening, I decided to take the principled stand and quit using it, but I was worried it was gonna be difficult.

I was wrong. It was super easy ditching it.

Even though it was the "social" platform I was spending the most time on, it also felt like the easiest to replace—mostly because that content could be found elsewhere. This kinda made me realize that Reddit doesn't have a moat, and it confirmed what I knew all along—the value of the platform is derived from its users. So when there's enough collective will to do something (in this case, fight against network effects), it's incredibly powerful.

So I used this free tool I built called Reddit Account Manager to gather all my subscriptions, bookmarks, etc., and then Power Delete Suite to delete all my accounts.

I noticed that my time spent online in general had also decreased.

10/10 would recommend.

Revenge bedtime syndrome. It's legit.

Source: it's 4 am right now

Maybe enshittification is actually a good thing. Hear me out: the worse things get, the more motivated people are to ask questions, migrate to alternatives, build better platforms, and hopefully 1) enact well-informed legislation, and 2) prevent what appears to be this "necessity" of enshittification from continuing to happen in an endless cycle.

I can't prove it, but I'm 99% sure Lyft did the same thing. Had a perfect rating (and was even a driver at one point), and they banned me without explanation right after I switched to GrapheneOS.

Emailed them a few times asking for the reason, and they refused to tell me.

_"Legally, we cannot release any additional information except that we found your account to be violating our Terms of Service.

We will be in touch if we are able to reopen your account in the future."_

There's absolutely nothing else that they could've misconstrued as "violating the Terms of Service."

If Uber's going down the same path, no more ride-sharing for me I guess. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

There's no reason you should be using Chrome. Using Chrome:

• Means you consent to spyware (along with everyone else you interact with)
• Allows Google to continue dictating web standards
• Is a resource hog

If you haven't already, I highly recommend reading this comic about the dangers of Chrome: https://contrachrome.com/

If you need to absolutely use a Chromium-based browser, at least use Brave (just for that site).

Not-so-fun fact from the comic Contra Chrome: Google Chrome's URL bar is called the "omnibox." The name is derived from the Latin word "omnis," meaning "everything."

When you type into the omnibox, it's sent to Google's servers and added to your profile forever.

Even if you deleted it or didn't hit enter.

The most trafficked animal in the world. Protect these little guys.

Why privacy matters, reason #854203

I'm no expert, but that sounds pretty baaaad

Or raaaad, depending on how you look at it I guess