My “not a book review” of Careless People – the book Facebook doesn’t want you to read.

With highlights on Ireland’s complicity and the lengths people farmers (as I call them) will go to to appease authoritarian regimes like China.

https://ar.al/2025/03/21/careless-people/

It’s clear from this that Ireland should be stripped of the authority to enforce GDPR and, really, people farmers – and the business model of people farming in general – should be banned in the EU.

(Don’t hold your breaths.)

Tech bros are living, breathing embodiments of the false authority fallacy; claiming that their professed understanding of basic logic qualifies them to reason expertly upon every conceivable topic while conveniently ignoring a fundamental maxim of their purported core area of expertise: garbage in, garbage out.

Happy 10th anniversary to Spyware 2.0 – the video we released at the launch of Ind.ie (what is now Small Technology Foundation¹).

Have we learned any lessons in those ten years, I wonder.

https://vimeo.com/116656700

#spyware #SiliconValley #BigTech #technology #fascism #technoFascism #peopleFarming #surveillance #capitalism #surveillanceCapitalism

¹ https://small-tech.org

True, some news of John M̶a̶s̶t̶o̶d̶o̶n̶ Oliver and the alternatives to #PeopleFarming silos presented yesterday

› https://youtu.be/Eeq6nd5LsSc?t=2048 (at 34:08)

An Android OS update on a test device installed the Facebook app. Annoying but not unusual. It also installed, invisibly, in the background, something called Meta App Manager. You can't uninstall it either. Most people would never know it is there while it quietly tracks everything you do with your most intimate computing device.
#Android #Facebook #PeopleFarming #Spyware #Privacy

#Meta blocks FLOSS ? Then #BlockMeta

I made a block list of 472 URLs belonging to all the entities of the (evil) corp. It's usable first on #DNSFilter but also on #uBlockOrigin (it's a list of wildcards) … and, as a wise people said « Go Trump, go dump »

› https://dansleco.de/danslerush/dns-filters

Source : https://www.tomshardware.com/software/linux/facebook-flags-linux-topics-as-cybersecurity-threats-posts-and-users-being-blocked

Remember folks, you must give Meta/Facebook/Threads every benefit of the doubt.

Invite them to partner with you at the Social Web Foundation (https://socialwebfoundation.org) as you courageously fight to #FreeOurFeeds¹

Federate with them on mastodon.social. Because why not build an adjoining door to a Nazi bar?

You must do all this and more to ensure you legitimise them at every turn. After all, you wouldn’t want to prove Mark Zuckerberg wrong about you or anything, would you?²

¹ https://socialwebfoundation.org/2025/01/13/free-our-feeds-and-algorithmic-pluralism/

² https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/09/20/the-face-of-facebook

How surprising (no)

« Researchers’ findings suggest #X made ‘platform-level’ changes to boost #Musk and other conservatives’ posts when he endorsed Donald #Trump »

› https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/17/24298669/musk-trump-endorsement-x-boosting-republican-posts-july-algorithm-change

Did you know IBM helped Hitler carry out the Holocaust? Is it in any way surprising that we can’t do anything about Big Tech and toxic oligarchs like Elon Musk when even those who helped carry out one of the worst tragedies in human history remain unpunished? Should it come as a shock that the very same bastards are funding and pining for fascism today?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1rhzge9r6k4

“Businesses often monetize through data collection, leading to privacy compromises. However, it’s possible to build AI systems that prioritize user privacy, but these would likely require different business models—perhaps focusing on subscription fees or donations rather than data exploitation.

So, the privacy trade-off is more about choices in the current economic landscape than a fundamental requirement.”

– Microsoft Copilot

I'm very interested … I mean REALLY interested in the position the #Thunderbird people (@thunderbird) have on this (all in all condemning) announcement ?

« #Mozilla is going to be more active in digital #advertising […] we do this fully acknowledging our expanded focus on online advertising won’t be embraced by everyone in our community »

No shit Sherlock.

Cf. https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/improving-online-advertising/

« #Facebook admits to scraping every Australian adult user's public photos and posts to train #AI, with no opt-out option »

Yes, there is an opt-out : delete all your photos, delete your Facebook account and block all #Meta sites.

› https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-11/facebook-scraping-photos-data-no-opt-out/104336170

« #Microsoft has confirmed that #Windows11 users will not be able to uninstall the controversial #Recall feature, despite earlier reports suggesting otherwise »

› https://digitalmarketreports.com/news/25091/microsoft-recall-feature-on-windows-11-not-removable-after-all/

“Media giant Cox Media Group (CMG) says it can target adverts based on what potential customers said out loud near device microphones, and explicitly points to Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Bing as CMG partners, according to a CMG presentation obtained by 404 Media.”

https://www.404media.co/heres-the-pitch-deck-for-active-listening-ad-targeting/

“Little Tech” says the fucking billionaire VC.

Absolute bullshit. These people have no shame. They’ll piss on you and tell you it’s raining.

You know what’s not bullshit?

Small Tech.
‪
https://small-tech.org/about/#small-technology

It’s the exact fucking opposite of what Marc fucking Andreessen and his fucking cabal of fascist-adjacent VCs – the robber barons of Big Tech – stand for.

You’re not the customer, you’re the data.

I used to think Google were evil but smart.

I no longer think they’re smart.