evacide
Trying to explain compartmentalization to activists, but the biggest stumbling block is that most people become activists by accident, so their activism is deeply enmeshed with all of their existing accounts, platforms, and devices.
Feb 6 at 12:50amWeb
Show threadevacideFeb 6
All of the advice I give is simultaneously "Don't be intimidated! Don't give up before you start! This is easy and approachable" and "Sigh....it depends. Everything is complicated and nuanced and often tricky to implement correctly."
Show threadBirch-o-maticFeb 6
@evacide I always told people, including business leaders, that the most honest answer to a tech question is “It depends”.
Show threadM.S. Bellows, Jr.Feb 6
@evacide @MrBirch Huh. That's what I said constantly as a lawyer.
Show threadMichael WeissFeb 6
@evacide with most things in life, stuff is easy to do superficially and hard to do well.
Show threadIron and InkFeb 6
@evacide for real
Show threadPerusesFeb 6
@evacide I'm taking the risk of not even trying to compartmentalize, I've had my time with privilege and am ready to stand out front and be seen so that it's known that some of "us" from "here" are done with it.
Show threadDaryl ManningFeb 6

@evacide We had this problem everywhere I was heading tech when I did NGO work: Amnesty (especially), Greenpeace, and GetUp (harder at the last because people’s identities were so tied to being an activist).

Curious as to what you’ve advised in this situation (sure your answers are better than mine were). I’ve thought about alternative solutions a couple of times but is hard if someone does not want to create an alternative secret superhero identity (esp for grassroots not org)

Show threadevacideFeb 6
@awws It all depends on who I'm training. I try very hard to tailor my advice to the needs of the people I'm advising and to meet them where they are. Sometimes that means that they decide to do high-risk things, but I try to make sure they are taking risks that they understand and have deliberately chosen to accept.
Show threadJon RoachFeb 6
@evacide “… and so in the end 90% of you will leave a trail and the secret police will sweep you up, 50% will be turned and betray the movement including some of you who compartmentalised successfully, and 5% of you will continue the struggle alone without resources or contacts. And that concludes my motivational talk.”
Show threadDennis ClarkFeb 6

@evacide I think it's becoming increasingly important to teach people from an early age to create separate online email and social network accounts for family, close friends, social groups, school, etc. if only to make it harder to get profiled by data brokers.

Chat is trickier as most chat clients don't let you sign in with multiple accounts

Show threadevacideFeb 7
@boomfish If your threat model resolves around trying to keep your personal data away from data brokers, it seems like it would be a much simpler solution to just sign up for a data broker deletion service, or if you are in California, use the portal the state built after the DELETE Act.