Mastodawn

cowan Apr 16, 2019

@strypey New to #PrivacyTools and I am curious what you mean by Reddit being a data farm. What data are they collecting on users?

Strypey

@cowan I haven't studied this in detail, but here are some facts:
1) Reddit has ads. Ads = tracking and data collection.
2) Reddit used to release their server code under a #FreeCode license. Not anymore. I suspect because of the move to ads

If you really want to know, read the fine print of the Reddit ToS, Privacy Policy etc. I tend to assume that any internet platform that's heavily VC-funded or owned by corporate shareholders is a #DataFarm unless there's a good reason to think otherwise.

Activist Mar 13, 2020

@strypey @cowan #Reddit is centralized on #Amazon #AWS & has a rampant censorship problem w/ #shadowbanning. Sorry to necropost but thought the bigger Reddit issues should be on the record. Since a yr ago, #Lemmy has emerged as a #freesoftware #decentralized replacement for Reddit.

Activist Mar 13, 2020

@cowan @strypey BTW, #privacytools has toxic endorsements & it still clings to #Reddit. I suggest avoiding privacytools.io. https://dev.lemmy.ml/post/31434

Strypey Mar 13, 2020

@aktivismoEstasMiaLuo the PTIO subReddit existed before the Discourse forum was set up. I can't see why it's a reason to avoid PTIO. Which do you think are the
> toxic endorsements
?
@cowan

@strypey @cowan Did you see https://dev.lemmy.ml/post/31434 ? #Signal, #Keybase, and #DDG.

@aktivismoEstasMiaLuo
I agree there are some issues with PTIO's current approach to endorsements, but let's not make the perfect the enemy of the good. Although it can take persistence to overcome some core members' confirmation bias at times, PTIO's endorsements do change in response to new information (eg removing Wire endorsement after they set up a US branch company to accept VC). Instead of condemning it, how about continuing to work at improving it?
@cowan

@strypey @cowan We are not talking perfection v. good. We're talking good v. bad. PTIO can't be salvaged. They've demonstrated contempt for facts & poor judgement, which means feeding them facts is just a waste of energy (and in fact it dignifies them to engage them). The way forward is to expose #PrivacyTools's reckless endorsements & steer people away from it.

@cowan @strypey There is a Finnish professor (@jaranta) who is actually recommending #PrivacyTools to students, essentially implying students can trust PTIO endorsements when PTIO is leading ppl straight into #masssurveillance traps. Teachers need to become better informed about #security - and it's a global problem that will manifest extensively during #coronavirus.

@aktivismoEstasMiaLuo
> steer people away from it.

Towards what? Who else is doing the job PTIO is trying to do?

@cowan

[email protected] is my main [psc]Mar 15, 2020

@strypey @aktivismoEstasMiaLuo @cowan

https://switching.software/ ?

@switchingsoftware

@clacke

switching.software

Ethical, easy-to-use and privacy-conscious alternatives to well-known software

switching.software

Strypey Mar 15, 2020

@switchingsoftware is a great project and I'm glad it got rebooted. But their focus is whether something is a replacement for the feature set of the #datafarms, not how well it protects user privacy.
@notclacke @aktivismoEstasMiaLuo @clacke @cowan

switching.software Mar 15, 2020

Hi there 👋

let me start by saying that @privacytools is one of my sources and we recommend them:

https://swiso.org/replace/switching.software/

Second, I think we shouldn't scare each other *away from* things. Like @strypey implied: Guiding us *towards* sites/software and improving these seems better 🙂

Third, thanks for the mention @notclacke . Like PTIO, we are far from perfect (probably further). Like "we" being often me, @tobias, doing this as one of multiple hobbies 😅

Let's do our best to improve things :)

Bye switching.software

Recommended Similar Projects

Activist Mar 15, 2020

@switchingsoftware @tobias @notclacke @strypey @privacytools This article examines some of the privacy tool advice sites & evaluates credibility: https://dev.lemmy.ml/post/31487

Strypey Mar 13, 2020

@aktivismoEstasMiaLuo #AWS is a bad procurement choice, but it's just commodity hosting, not a software dependency. If you dig a bit you'll find that most of the fediverse is ultimately hosted on AWS, as are #Signal, #Wire, and if I remember rightly, #Matrix.org. I'm pretty sure this isn't the worst thing about any given service, Reddit included.

@cowan

JC Mar 14, 2020

@strypey @aktivismoEstasMiaLuo @cowan AWS is not just hosting, it's a crazy amount of software around it that makes it worth the money (if you want/need all that they offer), so it is kinda a software dependency too. Besides: matrix.org is not hosted on AWS, modular.im is

@aktivismoEstasMiaLuo @cowan

@jcgruenhage If people engineer their service in ways that make it hard to move off AWS, that's a different issue. But AWS can be used just like any other remote hosting vendor, in such a way that servers can be easily moved elsewhere. The #OERu folks have been using it that way for some of their services:
https://tech.oeru.org/comment/34#comment-34

2018 update on the OERu Technology Stack | OERu Technology Blog

@strypey @cowan @jcgruenhage We seem to have different bones to pick with #Amazon. You seem focused purely on tech freedom, but I see Amazon as a highly unethical company: sweat shops, #climateDenial/#fossilfuels, surveillance (#Alexa/#Ring), etc. So for me, it doesn't matter if AWS is modular & replaceable. I have a problem with anything that helps #Amazon profit.

@aktivismoEstasMiaLuo I share all these concerns about Amazon (see my comments on the linked page). My point is that being hosted on AWS is a fairly easy problem to solve. Step 1: move your servers to a more ethical hosting provider, like the #CatalystCloud service mentioned at that linked page. Done.

@cowan @jcgruenhage

Activist Mar 15, 2020

@strypey @jcgruenhage @cowan To be clear, it's an easy problem to solve for the admins of a service (#Reddit), but an *impossible* problem to solve as an end user. Our choice is take-it-or-leave-it, to be blunt. As such, an ethical user does not use Reddit. They walk.

Strypey Mar 15, 2020

@aktivismoEstasMiaLuo
> an ethical user does not use Reddit.

That's like saying an ethical user doesn't use computers, because all hardware manufacturers buy from companies who trade in conflict minerals. It's absurd to hold users responsible for procurement choices they don't control. These issues:
https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/@strypey/101942987099070198

... are more discoverable and more relevant to users than where a service hosts their servers at any given time.
@jcgruenhage @cowan

Strypey (@[email protected])

@[email protected] I haven't studied this in detail, but here are some facts: 1) Reddit has ads. Ads = tracking and data collection. 2) Reddit used to release their server code under a #FreeCode license. Not anymore. I suspect because of the move to ads If you really want to know, read the fine print of the Reddit ToS, Privacy Policy etc. I tend to assume that any internet platform that's heavily VC-funded or owned by corporate shareholders is a #DataFarm unless there's a good reason to think otherwise.

mastodon.nzoss.nz

Strypey Mar 16, 2020

@aktivismoEstasMiaLuo @jcgruenhage @cowan
Do you know where activism.openworlds.info is hosted? Do you know which datacentres the server(s) are housed in? Do you know who supplies their bandwidth, or their electricity? Who handles their security, or their insurance? Do you know where the domain is registered? Do you know which parent companies owns all those companies, and who owns those parent companies? Are you responsible for all their ethical violations because you use that instance?

@strypey @cowan @jcgruenhage "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor." --Desmond Tutu "Activism is my rent for living on the planet" --Alice Walker. With knowledge comes responsibility. These are my guiding principles here.

@jcgruenhage @cowan @strypey So let's break down your hypothetical cases into two groups: evils that users are aware of and those that users are not. It would be absurd to hold someone responsible for accidentally supporting wrongdoing that they are unaware of. Although we could fault ppl for being ignorant to some extent but let's not get too complicated.

@strypey @cowan @jcgruenhage W.r.t the case of awareness, of course you have an ethical duty to avoid supporting what you yourself deem unethical, if you intend to be ethical. I actually seek out knowledge to some extent to ensure that I'm not supporting any obvious evils. Before opening an acct at activism.openworlds.info, I checked to ensure they are not hosted by #AWS & that they do not use #CloudFlare.

@jcgruenhage @cowan @strypey There's a finite amount of ethical research one can do.. if I probe one supplier that's less time to probe another. So there's a diminishing return if I were to inspect the utility suppliers of a website prior to using it, but checking to see if they are directly #AWS-hosted is trivial & a #boycott on #Amazon is very worthwhile in light of the great social harm that corp pushes.

@strypey @cowan @jcgruenhage I should say my first reply to you was to pile on more #Reddit wrongdoing. But I probably shouldn't have said my issues were "bigger". It's of course for each user to decide the weight of an issue. I also oppose ads, targeted & untargeted, but I find it more critical to condemn #Amazon b/c it has a huge negative impact on the world.

@jcgruenhage @cowan @strypey Consider the hypothetical case where someone has total information awareness, so they knew of the wrongdoing of the whole supply chain of every supplier to exist. It would actually work against your ethics to #boycott all b/c you'd fail to support the competitor of the worst players. So in the end ethical consumption is relative.

@strypey @cowan @jcgruenhage I have in fact discovered some evils with #Lemmy, but relative to #Reddit Lemmy is far more ethical. So I find it ethical enough to use Lemmy, but I cannot justify using Reddit.

Strypey Mar 16, 2020

@aktivismoEstasMiaLuo thanks for the nuanced reply. As you acknowledge, it's more complex than 'an ethical user does not use X'. We all choose our compromises, in situations of limited information, limited freedom of action, and limited power to influence larger institutional arrangements. One useful question to ask is; which compromises are ruinous?
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/compromise.html

@cowan @jcgruenhage

Avoiding Ruinous Compromises - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation

@strypey @jcgruenhage @cowan Answering your question is only feasible after asking what the mission is. #RMS's article is insightful but it's from the PoV of a singular mission. #Reddit unethical from so many angles with no positives that make it indispensible, so condemning it is trivial.

@cowan @jcgruenhage @strypey I am making a compromise. I occasionally use #Reddit to link a post on #Lemmy. This keeps the value added to Reddit somewhat minimal (content is only a link) & in exchange Reddit users become exposed to Lemmy. Doing that forever would perhaps be a ruinous compromise in the long term, b/c Redditers would still be in the loop.

@strypey @jcgruenhage @cowan So after Lemmy is sufficiently populated I would quit Reddit entirely. This avoids the ruinous compromise. I think RMS also takes a staged approach in the #freesoftware mission. The #xr movement does this as well, b/c it's a hard sell to ask moderates to make big lifestyle changes all at once.