De-corporatize Your Internet

Allow me to make an analogy. Let's say that Meta's platforms are one mall, Apple's are another, Google's are a third, Twitter's are a fourth, ByteDance/TikTok's are a fifth, Microsoft's are a sixth, Reddit's are a seventh, and so on.

Let us purport that there the above's slop-posts make up one-quarter of the total lessees (and that's a very generous estimation).

If I were to go shopping, I'd have to wade through that quarter of junk before I get to the good stuff. Because of the sheer size of the complexes, navigation is difficult and I often find myself distracted, enraged, or deceived before I get to where I wanted to go in the first place.

On the flip side, if instead of our mall complexes our metaphorical shops are dispersed in smaller strip-malls over a much wider area, that quarter of slop still applies, but in much smaller chunks it is much easier and more pleasant to navigate. Of course, in the real world, one would have to travel to each different strip-mall. Yet, with regards to content, we have no travel time! I can visit a website hosted in Japan and a website hosted in London and one from New York all in the same minute.

Free speech is not so when the Corporate Internet has such a vested interest in keeping itself safe for advertisers. The Corporate Internet has created the illusion of free speech, yet it does not permit it to flower. The Corporate Internet censors whatsoever it sees fit.

Of course, I would not have a world where posts about a lost kitten are mixed into gore-posts and whatnot. The Corporate Internet claims to defend the separation thereof, and I will submit that it does a decent job at doing so. However, a more mischievous side effect comes from such strict moderation: the production of echo chambers (like Reddit and Facebook) and the subtle leanings of whatever issue is de jour that day. Case in point: the misinformation that surrounded the pandemic would not have spread so much if the platforms on which it was shared were not fundamentally antithetical to free speech.

Further, when Corporate Internet claims to fact-check statements, a grave case of Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? happens. Who is to verify that their verifications are accurate? Without ample openness into their processes, it would indeed be easy to manipulate towards a certain narrative. Now, I do not posit what narrative the Corporate Internet wishes to push, but the system on which it is built inherently has the weakness of manipulation.

The non-Corporate Internet, on the other hand, does not have this problem. Of course, on small forums there will be moderators. Yet these small forums, in the case of poor moderation, are easily replaceable. Further, with regards to false information, without fact-checkers, you are the one left with the decision of whether to believe or not. And, with a bit of adult common sense, you generally will be able to avoid things that are intentionally irrelevant to whatever you are searching for.

Centralization of our data in the hands of Big Tech could not possibly be worse for our own individual liberty. With all the information which Big Tech has on their average user, they could plausibly:

• Tarnish someone's reputation,
• Destroy someone's mental health,
• End someone's career,
• Target a particular identity or group someone is a member of and:
  • Provide for the political oppression or restriction thereof,
  • Cooperate with a dictatorship to better exploit its citizens,
  • Or manipulate status-quo political systems in the favor of another group.

Now, one might posit that if this amount of data were truly a problem, it would already have precipitated into a tangible effect on our daily lives. Yet it already has in several major events from the past decade: the 2016 US Presidential election (in which Cambridge-Analytica used illicitly-gained data from Facebook as well as numerous Russian bots flooding Twitter with propaganda), the Coronavirus pandemic (in which the waves and waves of false information crashed through American public discourse) and even across the world in Myanmar where Muslims are targeted on Facebook.

Centralization of information puts your data in others' hands.

In the physical world, the stranger to whom you hand your car keys may or may not steal your car. Yet you have given them the temptation, the unfettered access to your car.

If you trust under-audited Big Tech organizations to steward your data well, then prove it by handing your car keys to a stranger. Decentralization and decorporatization cannot be practically done with a car key (What? You want me to divide the key and give each portion to someone in my family so I can only drive when we're all together?). But we can do that with our data.

You might be able to seduce yourself into thinking Big Tech's intentions are just and good today. Does that guarantee hold true for tomorrow? How about for next week? Or next year?

Centralization of social networks and the Internet in-general proves a problem for privacy.

The major risk is the synthesis of informational-tidbits we tend to leave either directly (e.g. our phone numbers or email addresses in signing up for the service) or accidentally (such as commenting on a former coworker's post about how terrible the CEO was leading to some entity figuring out your former employment there). And yet we have been leaving a nice breadcrumb-trail for Big Tech under the guise of social connectedness.²

On its own, each portion of personal data isn't necessarily privacy-compromising or useful for malicious purposes. Someone might know your name. Someone else might know your date of birth. Some third party might know your street address. Some fourth might know your work address. If all those parties remained separate, there is little to no risk for identity theft, profiling, or psy-op conditioning.

Suppose one of those four parties gathered all of that information. They could create a nice, meaty dossier on you, including your DOB, your work and home addresses, as well as whatever else you might have given the parties individually. With that sort of information, someone who does not have the best intentions could steal your identity, commit acts which may jeopardize your home or workplace security, or something more insidious: manipulate you.

I am convinced that we are the victims of surveillance capitalism. Big Tech's products –even those that purport to be privacy-respecting– were never meant to end with the end consumer. Rather, they were created to give advertisers a platform. It's a rounding-up of gullible sheep, willing to be marketed to.

We are not the ones who keep Big Tech's lights on. They would not make products free-to-access if it were not the case.³ Advertisers, on the other hand, pay big bucks for our eyes. In the gaming industry terms, we are the school of fish, the advertisers the whales. Our using the product only gives the illusion of activity at which marketers snap.

Big Tech would never tell you this, though. We are permitting ourselves to be exploited by using this product.

Big Tech's business model is not to sell products, but rather, to use products to gather people to be advertised to.

The rise of influencers (who do not rise to the occasion of critical thinking all too frequently) are a symptom of the systematic disease that is consumerism. Influencers' main role is to convince you that you need something. That something is almost always a useless product, but, preying on our social nature, hearing that we need something from another person (with whom we may have parasocial connections, another marketing strategy), we are almost compelled to buy it. Big Tech thrives on these practices.

Big Tech drives consumerism by psychological manipulation.

Ironically, consumerism's main casualty isn't your wallet. Sure, it falls in harm's way and often ends up thinner than it needs to be. But rampant consumerism is more problematic because it stifles cultural ingenuity. We are in an environment which is apt for a cultural renaissance. People who used to be disempowered are now given a platform without any inherent restrictions: the Internet. The Free Internet of the late 90s to early 2000s proves this to be the case. Yet when we centralize into the Corporate Internet, we salt the soil of cultural evolution more and more.

The Free Internet's beauty is that of giving voices to the voiceless. Control, which is the Corporate Internet's modus operandi, naturally inhibits the self expression of those who now find themselves with a voice. Of course, the Corporate Internet does not claim to control the speech of its users. Yet, remember, its job is not to cultivate its users psyches, but rather to provide ample space to advertise. And for some reason, advertisers find that control is the best way to herd potential customers into their clutches.

All of Big Tech's magic lies in convenience. From Amazon's lightning-fast deliveries to Google's world of information at the tips of your fingertips, Big Tech attracts consumers with convenience. Yet this convenience comes at the cost of privacy, independence, and individuality.

Convenience is a hard thing to give up. Yet ultimately the sacrifice of some convenience today will be the fertilization needed to reap the sweet fruits of liberty tomorrow.

Further, as Dad used to put it, giving up convenience will 'build character.'

Amazon will not be sent reeling by one person choosing not to use it. Meta will not go bankrupt if another deletes his account. The more important result, though, is the example it sets to his neighbor. If you can show that your life is changed, is better without the increasingly burgeoning tech monopoly looming over it, it may inspire someone in your life to do the same. That, my friend, is how change happens.

Think of all the connections you've made on social media. Of those, how many do you know personally? Are you following accounts of people? Or are you following accounts of ideas?

Rehumanize your technology. Use services that are run by people, not by corporations. Think of the people behind the keyboard. Engage spaces that are full of humans (like smaller forums and blogs) instead of the Corporate Internet which is full of bot accounts (dead internet theory much?).

Read real. Reconsider what you read, what you spend your mental energy on, and read that what is real and not what is slop. If it stimulates the mental powers, if it leads to reflection, if it inspires change, then it is worth reading. But if it provokes anger or rage or kneejerk reactions, try again. Life is too short to be engaging in troll wars or to be raising your blood pressure on that which does not affect you. Don't feed the trolls. Read in good faith, read what you know is real-effort discussion.

Remember your principles. If a man does not have his own principles, he has nothing. Do not be swayed by whatever people spew. Instead, hold fast to whom you are and what you believe.

Create more, consume less. What a sad age we live in where we are considered to be consumers of content! The verbiage of consuming content would not be understood a decade ago. Yet now we consume and consume like animals feeding from a trough. Do not fall prey to the temptation that you must consume whenever you are bored. Do not consume for the sake of consumption. Rather, consume when you search for ideas. Savor what you read, rather than consume mindlessly. It would be a better place were the majority of people creators rather than consumers. You have been given a voice and a place to share it. It would be a shame to not use that gift. Shift your habits to creation rather than consumption.

Use the internet less. Become infatuated with reality once again. If I were to summarize this aphorism in two words, it would be touch grass. The internet is not reality. The Corporate Internet, on the other hand, wants you to think that it is. Reality is much more difficult to manipulate. The Corporate Internet and Big Tech have the power to manipulate our world, but it is so much more costly for them. They are not the ones in control yet. Savor it while you still can.

Become aware of the methods they use to control you. Knowledge is power. Simple awareness will instinctively lead you to use the Corporate Internet less. No one wants to be a victim. Take control of what you use and you will move away from the unhelpful.

Speak out. Promote awareness of the power that the Corporate Internet has over the majority. The more people know about it, the more they think. They will be able to take back their lives and to regain control if they but knew what is at stake. The future of our lives are at risk to becoming subservient to Big Tech. Do not let that happen.

The Indie Web burgeons. Join the movement to be in control of your digital life (that's oxymoronic, isn't it?).

When you publish your own content on a site which is yours, you are in control of what you give out to the internet. Running your own blog or website is another step towards control over your digital footprint. It's not too difficult to do so, too. In a world where everyone has the opportunity to have his own space, it is a shame not to take advantage thereof.

The Corporate Internet thrives on the collection of data and then the correlation of data to people to be advertised to. If you can eliminate the data they have on you, then you are less of a victim of surveillance capitalism.

There are several things you can do to anonymize your internet presence. Firstly and more time-consuming initially, you can ask to withdraw your data from each major player. It may be a challenge at first, but if you work through each company's site bit by bit, you can do your best to erase your internet trail without deleting your presence. If it is too hard to forbear the use thereof, you could make it a habit to routinely purge historical data collected. That would say to the Corporate Internet that you do value your privacy. Secondly, detach your real identity from your anonymous internet persona. It is a sad trend that in recent years more and more we link our real identities and locations and other personally identifying information to our accounts. With each concrete bit of information, it is easier and easier for the Corporate Internet to puzzle together your personality to target your tastes more. However, if you anonymize to the best of your extent, it will add a critical element of unsurety in that data. Therefore you will be less of a victim of surveillance capitalism. Thirdly, audit the services that you use and their permissions. Does Twitter really need my location in order for it to function? Why does Facebook need to know my operating system? Fourthly would be to compartmentalize. Only use certain tools for certain aspects of your life. You could separate your social media accounts into personal, family, and work; you could use separate browsers and separate search engines for different days of the week or of different topics. All of these spread your data into different hands, which is less risky than the centralization of your data.

The fifth option is the nuclear option: to stop using these services altogether. If you cannot live without social media, switch to Lemmy and Mastodon and Bluesky. Switch to OpenStreetMaps. Use a different search engine and browser. Withdraw your data from Corporate Internet platforms. All of these take sacrifice, but all of these are indeed worth the peace of mind knowing that your data is safer than in the hands of those who use it to fund themselves. Even better would be to completely forego the use of social media and the Corporate Internet at-large, but that is a major lifestyle change that I cannot ask you consider lightly.

The more steps you take to anonymize and to disempower Big Tech, the weaker they will become. Be the change you want to see.

In joining the Fediverse, your data is still in the hands of someone else. However, whoever runs your Fediverse server (it could be you!) generally has a lesser interest in manipulating your data to serve his own nefarious purposes.