Hey guys, stop using Google and Meta and X and Amazon.
They're kinda ruining civilisation with their terrible ideas and all you get in exchange is news that doesn't inform you, social interactions that are largely artificial and a permanent inability to use technology which they exploit by selling you enshittification-laden garbage.
The price of their "free" services is way too high. Get rid of them.
Every time I say this to someone offline, they act like it's literally impossible. It's so frustrating
In some sense they are not wrong.
The average person has no idea how technology works because these companies do everything for them for free in exchange for their private data.
It used to be common that kids would learn how to use computers to pirate music and burn CDs. Now the incentives to learn (free music/movies) is gone because Spotify and Google give you all you want for the low price of your privacy and eternal dependency on them for access to the fruits of technology.
Getting your privacy back means giving up those conveniences and learning to use the technology that you depend on. For most people that is too much to ask.
"Luckily" the deluge of algorithm enabled propaganda and resultant fascist resurgence have some people questioning this bargain.
Did you know that fascist regimes generally prefer audio dubbing films and tv shows instead of subtitles because then they get to control what the dialog says to their captive citizens ? And if most citizens can't speak the foreign language and can't read lips they never find any changes because how could they ?
Google is doing the same thing here. But with your own content.
I find the AI audio translation on YouTube, which Google now seems to be imposing as standard, to be the most absurd thing of 'em all: even the intros are so poorly translated that it couldn't be more ridiculous.
I'm sure many users don't realize that this is supposed to be a "feature" and mistakenly believe that the foreign-language video they deliberately clicked on is obviously AI-generated because the audio track is so horribly bad.
Well, another reason for PeerTube...
"Users are happier when we tell them lies our algorithm says they'll like. Yes it is also news"
Fun experiment: Ask Google if there are more stars in the solar system than grains of sand in a glass of water. See the AI confidently say "yes" and then refresh the query and see it confidently say "no".
I have experimented and can very often get AI to give whatever answer I want (i.e. on a yes/no) by subtly changing the query. Super easy to manipulate the results.
Install Brave. Use its default search.brave.com. Google last. After a lot of other good options.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
