The surveillance state always hurts dissidents most of all. We shouldn't neglect the importance of constraining its power.
  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
    0·
    3 months ago

    I know my name will be on future lists when fascist purges start. Not because I’m some great though leader or anything. Just because they hate people with my beliefs.

  • Vendetta9076@sh.itjust.works
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    3 months ago

    Why are Americans so focused on left vs right? Both parties are fascists they’re just trying to take away different rights for the time being.

    • glowie@h4x0r.host
      0·
      3 months ago

      The Left think they’re morally superior… Prepare to be downvoted to oblivion kek

      Meanwhile, me a Libertarian Socialist laughs at both sides for being totalitarian in their own way.

      One of them lies about it while virtue signalling empty promises and the other says “what are you gonna do about it, huh? Yeah, that’s what I thought”

        • hemmes@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          3 months ago

          I know you mean democrats, but that would be incorrect about the second amendment and freedom of association.

          Where’d you read that?

          • Vendetta9076@sh.itjust.works
            0·
            3 months ago

            The blues have been spearheading the attempts to strip gun rights away for a decade. They’re the reason the ATF felt so comfortable changing rules randomly to turn millions of Americans into felons overnight. The most agregious recent example is the legality of arm braces. Although to be fair that gung ho attitude never changed when the reds were in office. Theyre more than content to let it happen.

            I did mispeak about freedom of association however. Turns out that’s also being spearheaded by the reds.

            • hemmes@lemmy.worldEnglish
              0·
              3 months ago

              Yeah, but you’re also wrong about the gun rights. They’re trying to act sensible loss, not strict gun rights.

              The most [egregious] recent example is the legality of arm braces.

              It’s not egregious, that’s called a sensible conversation.

              Why do gun fanatics need these types of guns anyway? What are you hunting, dragons? It’s so cringe to me when gun enthusiast get all upset about responsible gun laws - they just want to shoot everything and anything with the most firepower they can acquire. God forbid they have to earn the right to own such a weapon.

      • Mango@lemmy.world
        0·
        3 months ago

        To bear arms.

        Also nobody seems interested in male reproductive rights.

        Also, have you seen how leftist moderators here on Lemmy behave?

        • hemmes@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          3 months ago

          To bear arms.

          No they’re not.

          Also nobody seems interested in male reproductive rights.

          Okay, I’ll bite. Like what?

          Also, have you seen how leftist moderators here on Lemmy behave?

          Do tell…

          • Mango@lemmy.world
            0·
            3 months ago

            Can you see yourself right now? You’re literally lying and discrediting purely based of personal impression, and that’s the same behavior your whole crowd has that I have a problem with.

              • Mango@lemmy.world
                0·
                3 months ago

                Do I really need a reference to point out your party’s major stances? FFS, do you even know them yourself, or do you just pick a color and root for your team like it’s sports?

                • hemmes@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  0·
                  3 months ago

                  Yes. You need a reference when you’re talking pure bullshit. None of that unfounded crap is on the democratic agenda. That’s why you can’t cite a single reference.

                  Bullshit like yours needs to be called out every time.

    • ZeroHora@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      Yeah the good guys are the centrists who want to continue the status quo: grind the poor people, make them pay fortunes for basic needs while making the rich richer.

  • bloubz@lemmygrad.ml
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    3 months ago

    I never understand the presence of right wing people in privacy discussion actually. After everything they deliberately give up to either a fashist state or corporations

  • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    In an ideal (post-scarcity communist) society, we should be able to be completely libertine without judgement from society or from government systems (so long as we’re not causing harm). But as with the rest of this ideal we don’t know if we can actually get there.

    I have an ancient (2016) paper about potential joys of full disclosure (on Wordpress, if you’re interested) that portends the enshittification of Google. But it points out Google’s original business model, which was to have an enormous body of data that no human being got to look at directly (except their proper owners), and in the meantime the computers would report on observable trends and correlations.

    In the end, it got messed up by the usual suspects: Advertising interests pressured Google to reveal more and more. Technicians abused their positions of power to stalk. The police state forced Google to fulfill reverse warrants and list all people near the scene of a crime, making them all suspects. Or to completely reveal all the data of a given suspect, which poisoned the whole idea of your own safe private place to track contacts, dates, travel, etc.

    As it is, we need privacy specifically because of all those interests that would want to link our data to us. All the reasons for commercial or state interests to have our data are causes for them to not have our data.

          • Seasm0ke@lemmy.world
            0·
            3 months ago

            I agree that there are differences, but I feel there are more similarities. Especially with anarchocommunist or collectivist theory.

            • hemmes@lemmy.worldEnglish
              0·
              3 months ago

              You shouldn’t feel that way, because communism has absolutely nothing to do with open source software.

              Communism is a political ideology.

              Open source software is a licensing technique for creators and developers. Mostly so that no one has to worry about getting sued if they want to implement or modify said software. You think a communist government would even allow the use of open source software over government issued/approved software?

              • Seasm0ke@lemmy.world
                0·
                3 months ago

                You personally cant draw comparisons between two separate systems? Seems like a limit of imagination.

                You shouldnt presume to know better than others, especially when you dont appear to understand anything about the ideology outside of your bias.

                • hemmes@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  0·
                  3 months ago

                  Always cracks me up to see people who champion open source alternatives hate on communism.

                  This isn’t about “drawing comparisons” this is about how you don’t understand why someone would champion open source software and hate on communism…because of course people hate on fucking communism, you dope.

                  It’s proven time and time again that communist governments bring suffering to their people. Like, some fucked up shit. Like starvation, inequality, and lack of basic human rights.

                  Whereas open source software can be educational, build cost effective solutions for people and businesses, and empower people’s lives.

                  You see the difference?

      • save_the_humans@leminal.spaceEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        A big part of communism is about who owns the means of production. One way to alter this aspect of society is through cooperative economics. A state-less form of socialism (edit: democratically controlled) that’s already proven effective in small pockets of our own country (assuming US here) and around the world. One common example is Mondragon in Spain, a cooperative business and the seventh largest company in the country, that has proven its even possible for the cooperative model to reach levels of scale capable of competing in a private capitalist world.

        • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
          0·
          3 months ago

          Cooperatives are cool, but unfortunately Markets lead to class contradictions even with cooperatives in place, which is why the goal still needs to be full Socialism.

          • save_the_humans@leminal.spaceEnglish
            0·
            3 months ago

            Cooperatives have different structures to help mitigate class conflicts, but either way the model essentially, or practically, has a baked in, or something akin to a, union by giving members voting rights while not outright excluding the presence of a union.

            I don’t disagree with having a goal of full socialism. I just see cooperatives as a practical stepping stone in that direction.

            • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
              0·
              3 months ago

              They certainly can be a practical stepping stone, and probably will be in some countries, I just wanted to indicate that competing worker coops does not defeat the issues inherent to the profit motive.

      • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        Communism is a far-off ideal, and we don’t yet fully know how it would work, or how we’d get there, but people starving or dying would be a sign that it wasn’t working.

        You might be thinking of USSR, which sought to create a communist state, but was subject to internal corruption and outside threats (not to mention, Wilson sought a pact with the European states – some of which were still monarchist – to sanction trade with USSR, so it was at a considerable disadvantage from the get go.

        But while USSR was going through its growing pains, the rest of us were going through the great depression, and those of us living in cardboard boxes and stacks of paint cans were wondering if Lenin had a point, the industrialists boozing and gambling with Hoover were admiring the Austrian fellow. Eventually those industrialists decided they need to create a propaganda package and teach it in our schools.

        Huh. I can’t post images anymore. I wonder if it’s a browser problem or a Lemmy problem.

        • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
          0·
          3 months ago

          Communism is a far-off ideal, and we don’t yet fully know how it would work, or how we’d get there, but people starving or dying would be a sign that it wasn’t working.

          I don’t see how Communism can be built without actively building it through Socialism, so that bit’s pretty much solved, and the rest can be figured out by Socialist societies.

      • undergroundoverground@lemmy.world
        0·
        3 months ago

        Its funny that people dying of starvation, in the USSR, is seen as a crime of communism but the exact same people will refuse to accept, by their own “logic”, that would make the rest of ALL the starvation in the world a crime of capitalism.

        How do you even start to deconstruct that kind of indoctrination?

  • iiGxC@slrpnk.net
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    3 months ago

    If you didn’t realize the importance of privacy after the patriot act and seeing the continuation of right wing authoritarianism, it’s definitely time to get on board asap. Get yourself and your community on signal instead of texts and tuta or proton instead of regular email, use a vpn (mullvad or proton are solid), and dpending on what kinds of actions you may or may not be interested in, learn how to use tails os and tor (try to find a copy of the darknetmarket bible for a good intro)

    • Manmoth@lemmy.ml
      0·
      3 months ago

      patriot act and seeing the continuation of right wing authoritarianism

      The Patriot Act was an overwhelmingly bipartisan bill.

      • Jolteon@lemmy.zip
        0·
        3 months ago

        That’s what happens when your two options for political parties are auth-left and auth-right.

    • a Kendrick fan@lemmy.ml
      0·
      3 months ago

      Please don’t use Signal, the US government has all the keys. Self host XMPP, Matrix and SimpleX servers and make sure encryption is properly configured. If you’re not generating your encryption keys, why should you use them?

      • EngineerGaming@feddit.nl
        0·
        3 months ago

        I don’t think Signal is unsafe, but agree that it is a weird middle ground. Depends on threat model, of course, but overall I would prefer something selfhostable - for the sake of independence, easier anonymity and censorship resistance. Plus, Signal by default doesn’t allow desktop registration (and desktops are much easier to make private than phones), so you’d need either a VM or a command-line application for it, which is a big pet peeve of mine.

        • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
          0·
          3 months ago

          I think the best option is to communicate about alternatives. Maybe get a few close friends on each and then decide

      • Timber@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        0·
        3 months ago

        Source? And fyi, if you use Signal you are generating your own encryption keys. Your private keys are generated on your phone and stay on it. So what gives you the idea that

        the US government has all the keys

        ?? Sounds a lot like a conspiracy theory

        • Jolteon@lemmy.zip
          0·
          3 months ago

          Plus, the signal client is open source. You can literally be 100% sure that your keys are being securely generated.

    • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      I don’t want Authoritarianism period I don’t care if it is left or right. Specific political beliefs are a distraction

    • recklessengagement@lemmy.world
      0·
      3 months ago

      I’ve gotten nearly my entire circle on Signal and it’s incredibly satisfying. No more worrying about seeing ads based on my text conversations.

    • GadgeteerZA@fedia.io
      0·
      3 months ago

      @iiGxC@slrpnk.net don’t forget the CL:OUD Act either - that has serious privacy implications for countries outside the USA

      • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        I think people outside the US are fair game

        If you don’t like it then don’t send your data to the US

  • Autonomous User@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    Are people are using WhatsApp, Discord and Instagram because it’s left or right, and not because that’s what they see everyone else is doing?

    • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
      0·
      3 months ago

      I use discord because that’s what social circle use to communicate. No one is going to follow me if I switch apps or care about my suggestions.

        • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
          0·
          3 months ago

          Because that’s what the core of the group that are generally making all the plans want to use. Some of us were trying to get everyone to use signal instead a while back but it never went anywhere. At this point I’m just grateful they aren’t using facebook to coordinate everything. Or at least enough of them aren’t that I can still find out whats going on via discord.

          • Autonomous User@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            3 months ago

            I suspect many people here are not the core of their social circles and that’s why they never make any progress. We should tell them to fix that first more.

            • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
              0·
              3 months ago

              Not everyone has a personality suited to that. I certainly don’t and most people just aren’t that concerned with privacy. Just finding people that didn’t rely on Facebook was difficult for me. I don’t really have the time or energy to dedicate to convincing them to go further.

  • bad_alloc@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    0·
    3 months ago

    If you truly believe you have nothing to hide, please post your full name and address, telephone number, email, bank balance, an assessment of your relationship to your parents and a link to your complete photo folder as a response to this comment.

    • Zakkull@lemmy.world
      0·
      3 months ago

      While i agree with the sentiment thats a ridiculous comparison. Thinking you have nothing to hide from the government is not the same as thinking you have nothing to hide from random entities on the internet. You already give the government all of that stuff when you literally just exist. Go get a social security card or a drivers license. Absolutely asinine to try to compare the two.

      • TheFriar@lemm.ee
        0·
        3 months ago

        But increasingly, the data you need to care about not being private isn’t from the govt. airs from those random entities. And their security is godawful.

          • TheFriar@lemm.ee
            0·
            3 months ago

            …google, Microsoft, Facebook…need I go on?

            In the early 2000s, the issue was primarily the government. Patriot act made sure of that. And yeah, it’s still an issue with regards to the amount and types of data they’re storing and who the government is currently comprised of, but in 2024, the much larger privacy issue is from private data holdings. All those random fuckin apps you have, every cell phone carrier, every goddamn car now. Your data is the product now. And capitalism is the problem.

            • Zakkull@lemmy.world
              0·
              3 months ago

              Yes you need to go on. You dont just get to name apps and that just point blank proves your point lmfao. What is the data these places have that you didnt willingly give them that needs to be kept private

  • kbal@fedia.io
    0·
    3 months ago

    Declarations of an intent to reimagine social media are all well and good, but joining the actually existing Fediverse is probably a more effective place to start.

    It may not be precisely what you would’ve designed, not the People’s Democratic Social Media of your dreams, not exactly like whatever Tarnoff imagined, but it is what we’ve got and as it continues to evolve it has considerable potential for new kinds of Internet-based social organization.

    Organizing a boycott of Twitter is beside the point. All we need is for more people to join us in building up the better alternatives we already have. How is it even possible to put so much thought into the subject and not mention this?

    • pinjure@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      Playing devil’s advocate here: bringing awareness to the problem (and explaining why it is a problem in the first place) to more people is a pretty important step into carrying out this ‘social media reform’. Ultimately though I do agree that at least some mention of viable alternatives like the Fediverse would’ve been nice.