man when people were telling me that smart TVs are a privacy nightmare, I thought that was because they recorded what you watched using their built in media-player OS.
NOPE! Apparently Roku TV's will give you popups based on what DVDs you're watching through them, because they screenshot the HDMI-in and compare it to a database.
that's a few steps creepier than I was expecting from a garden variety privacy invasion
here's the page I was linked to (from a tumblr post I've lost track of) on how to turn this off on various TVs:
Don't give a "smart TV" access to the internet and you have a dumb TV.
I got two "smart TV"s and both don't have internet access and both are connected to a mini computer with kodi running.
And for other spying devices i would recommend Pi-Hole.
I think this is all the more reason for me to find an office TV or something other than one of these consumer TV's for this exact reason.
@foone We've had "smart" TVs for over a decade now. They've rarely been hooked up to the internet. (I hooked up an LG TV to get a firmware update for dolby, and then disconnected it right after.)
*So far*, I don't think any of them brick themselves if they're not connected, but I'm pretty sure that day is coming.
Even if you don't want to use voice commands, and don't press the "Mic" button on the remote, your LG TV will spuriously show a popup from time to time telling you to accept Voice Terms & Conditions (and connect it to the network). It's because it thought it heard "Hi, LG" (even from playing content!). How to disable this spurious popup on you LG WebOS TV when you don't want to accept "smart TV" terms & conditions: 0/ (optional) make sure TV is up-to-date 0.5/ Say "Hi, LG" and watch popup being shown. That's the issue. 1/ disconnect it from the network (if connected) 2/ accept the terms and conditions for Smart Features, Voice, etc. 3/ Go into the Settings -> General -> Voice assistant settings, and disable the Voice assistant 4/ Go back into Settings -> Support, and revoke the terms and conditions you accepted. TV will reboot 5/ Say "Hi, LG". Popup is no longer shown 6/ (optional) reconnect your TV to the network #LG #WebOS #HiLG #privacy #VoiceActivation #VoiceAssistant #enshittification #InternetOfShit
@foone We've found our streaming box covers our needs so well that there's no reason to connect the TV to the Internet at all.
I'm seriously concerned about it receiving updates that will start serving ads or making HDMI 2 a subscription service or something.
@vandorb12
The biggest revenue growth in Samsung TV is from their selling your viewing habbits and selling ads to insert in your tv.
Yeah I was disappointed when I found out about this “feature”. Not a fan of our vacation pics being collected by a crazy stalker corporation.
@foone all the replies to "network block it" are missing that some of these will insist you go through wifi setup until it succeeds. I don't know if we've yet reached effectively online-DRM about it and refusing to function if phoning home stops succeeding.
microprocessors becoming so cheap was a curse
@foone
I just disconnected all my TV's from the Internet. Their Internet features were crap and I use other devices to cast YouTube and other things to the TV.
No internet, no ability to report on me (unless they have hidden cell modems in them like some solar equipment apparently have).
@foone I refuse to buy a tv smart enough to need an internet connection.
I will *never* hook up my tv to the internet, nor my desktop screen, nor my car, nor my solar inverters, nor my home cleaning activities, nor my doorbell or security cameras.
If any of these devices comes with a sim, I will remove it. I don't care if it degrades it and I could e.g warm up my car with an app. it's an entirely unnecessary backdoor into my life that I just don't care enough about to keep around.
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