You can’t spy on our citizens, that’s our (and our corporations’) job!

Signed, the US Government

I’d rather they just ban spy apps in general…but that’s a “dream a little dream, it’s never gonna happen” type of thing.

Yes, I understand your point and agree with you for the most part.

I feel like there was a turning point in the Internet though, where the federation of user identities basically ended for most Internet users. I track it to the advent of MySpace and Facebook. People started using their actual identities on these sites (most likely, at first, to attempt to get laid), and our privacy began being flushed down the toilet then. I also think the creation of Google Chrome with Google’s all-consuming want for private data and to tie all of your Internet activity to a real person had a big hand in this as well. The modern Internet is a surveillance Internet.

As the article states, it’s no longer true that “on the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog”. They hook you to your actual physical identity the instant you do anything on your phone, search using a logged in account, browse one of their sites with your logged in cookie, or generally browse anything after you’ve touched any of the major social media sites because they added trackers to everything.

In some ways, this is beneficial because many cannot handle anonymity, but the bad parts of the Internet have largely drowned out the good. As the Internet has scaled, more and more of the bad side of humanity is reflected digitally. To add to that mix, the major sites in their fun house mirror algorithms supposedly designed to amplify engagement (or “enragement algorithms” as I sometimes say) constantly amplify items posted by the most degenerate among us.

However Lemmy is still way bigger than what a mid 90s experience with the internet would be.

IRC was a ghost town the last time I checked in on it. In the mid-90s there were constantly thousands of people on it.

Yes, and they do.

So, we’re not doing Section 230 anymore ?

That’s a part of a US law, and as such doesn’t throw a shrimp on the bar-b in Australia, mate.

I remember the summer of 2016, when I was playing Pokemon Go in the parks and people I had never talked to and that lived nearby were playing it next to me. We were all celebrating when we caught a pokemon when we were after, and comparing which ones we’d caught with each other.

At the time I thought…who would buy Trump’s conman routine? Who actually thinks that the country is in a terrible enough place that we need to elect this person who seems to actively hate the country and seemed to want to set the entire thing on fire?

I left my Californian home and went back to my original state to visit my family. We went to several different areas of the state in fall of 2016 because my wife was from a rural area and I originally grew up in a slightly more suburban area. I saw the signs in the yards, I saw the discontent, and I saw how people did not seem to be reacting the same way to his craziness. I saw how casually they would put on his rants in the background while talking about other issues. I saw how some of them were amused by his antics. It had been a couple of years since I had last been back and it once again struck me how much worse the area appeared to be from the last time I was there. I was in a rural area when the “Access Hollywood” tape dropped. People seemed to visibly shrink at even the mention of the news. I thought he was done for, and that this was a bridge too far for his supporters to cross. That people would vote third party, or not vote at all. I did not get the sense that my thoughts were shared by those around me.

When I came back to California, people were talking about the debates. It was sunny and nice out, and people would talk about the projects they had going on in their houses, or they’d talk about work related affairs. People were sometimes amused by Trump’s antics, but everyone uniformly thought it was impossible for him to win the election. Having seen what I had seen in the weeks prior, I was no longer one of these people. “They’ll never let him win”, one of my co-workers said. I was stunned…who are “they”? Does the rest of the country actually believe this?

It turns out quite a few of them did. Many people thought there was just simply no way that Trump would win, because either the system was already rigged against him and would not allow him to win, or because the country was just not in dire enough straits to elect such a madman (as I once thought).

Hindsight is 20/20 but when I thought it was bizarre that he was even a viable candidate at one point in 2016, and I saw the decaying state where I grew up, I thought “if he wins the election, then we are in a much worse state as a country than I thought”. And we undoubtedly are.

Of course he won, but the reason that I have this somewhat rambling response to this question is that the answer to “why is he still in the race?” ultimately comes down to the overall state of this country.

He is in this race because this is where we are as a country: barely able to imagine a possible future that is brighter than the present, because we are still caught up in degenerative non-sense that keeps us thinking that our broken down towns, and our poor social bonds are caused by some horde of “others” instead of their true causes: our ever-widening wealth inequality, our ever-decaying moral responsibilities to each other, and our national instinct to absolve ourselves of our responsibilities by claiming that not only is it correct to be forever self-serving, but that even the idea of altruism is a lie.

I also sub to a few channels on Odyssee, and a couple on Rumble. If you’re good at searching for stuff, PeerTube can also work, but I personally haven’t found anything I really like there.

Good on you because the goal of getting off of google is definitely good but…these names sound like things that a writer would come up with as fictional social media platforms on a comedy show.

Once (I liked it so much I saw it twice…my apologies to Ted Lasso)

I don’t know if that fits the definition, but it’s an album being written within a movie which sounds like “media within media” to me.

You’ll get all the Logan act violations you seek if you act now!

It was obvious as hell that he wants Russia to win.

Ah, I see. You can’t do basic math. That tracks.

Ah, gotcha, you need new underwear and a new stick of deodorant for the job. That makes total sense then, be sure to hold up traffic so you can back in to park. It’s essential.

Doing a lot of heavy duty crew cab needing work at the local target?

You hold up those people as well when you’re reversing in.

Backwards parking is often necessary for cars with shit turning circles.

Who told you to drive a parade float to the store?

Again, when you’re reversing out, someone can take your spot (the person who was held up by you leaving). When you reverse in, you’re holding others up just so you can take up a spot. They get to sit there and watch you fumble parking in reverse for absolutely zero benefit to them.

I hate that I even know who this disgusting asshole is.

All I park in is urban lots. Then some asshole backs their Dodge ram into the compact spot next to me and opens their king cab door into my car.

They have a fisheye view, you can entirely see the road behind you using one. Also fuck you.