Meta wants you to keep Facebook Link History on, here’s why you shouldn’t:
“Meta injects special “keylogging” JavaScript onto the website you’re visiting that allows the company to monitor everything you type and tap on, including passwords.”
I'm getting Google, Facebook and Amazon out of my life.
Starting last year and continuing until it's done, in manageable increments, I've been gradually disentangling myself from three of the worst tech monsters. After 15 years of letting them embed their fangs deeper and deeper into my leg, it's daunting!
Finding an alternative for audio books and ebooks tonight was a nice step. I still have to un-DRM my books from them and find a non-proprietary e-reader, but I'll get to that.
Even seemingly little things like removing Google Analytics from my sites and installing the (paid) non-tracking app Plausible Analytics felt like a big thing at the time. I had to first look to see if there was such a thing as privacy-forward analytics — there is, with multiple options! Then pick one, then sign up, then install and configure...
So I'm taking this step by step. It'll take years. But each additional step feels liberating.
My wife is looking forward to deleting her Instagram account once she can connect with the same folks from her Mastodon account. Being able to remain in touch with over 100M people who still use Meta products out of the comfort of an ad-free, privacy-friendly platform like Mastodon is a game changer.
Preaching to the choir here, but I think it's really valuable to see services/apps like Flipboard pivoting to open social, in a really visible way.
This is stuff I have been screaming about (and annoying the hell out of most people) for over 15 years. I am finally hopeful that the critical mass has just about been reached, and each pivot that occurs, especially with relatively well known brands that rose up before the monolith walled gardens, I'm a little bit more vindicated. I care so passionately about this, and I really hope to eventually be able to reconnect with many people I've lost from my life because I refused to connect with them on Facebook all those years ago.
Great interview and makes really good points, reminding us why it's so important to fight for this. Not as keen about the bit about advertising, which obviously is part of the revenue model for many apps these days, but they focus on the need to be respectful of users, instead of #enshittification that is so prevalent currently.