Comment by nixpulvis
5 years ago
Solutions? Just don't use the services? Check, I deleted facebook. Just talk to local people? I do, but it's hard. Especially now during COVID. Rely on encryption? Check, but still that does nothing to drive adoption directly. Still most apps require a phone number or email.
I'm very concerned about this issue, but also somewhat lost for clever ideas. Back in the day, small communities were healthier, but I don't know enough about them to know how to really help.
Perhaps I'll start going to church, god help me.
Use freedom-respecting non-profit social networks instead: https://joinmastodon.org.
Sure, now convince my 72 year old mother and the rest of my family to do the same. We understand the underlying problems of social media like Facebook and Twitter, but we are in a bubble. Most people outside tech don't have the same insight or understand the underlying issues to make the jump or even seek alternatives. Those who understand it somehow would simply stop using social media, but the large majority are either oblivious, don't understand the ramifications of lack of privacy in the Internet or don't care.
This is a really hard problem to solve, and would require those in power to help enlighten the people of this problem. At the same time, those in power are the one that benefit the most of the current trend of less and less privacy, so we can't really rely on them for educating people on this.