hiramfromthechi , 11 days ago

Thoughts and takeaways, plus 3 viable solutions:

Thoughts

1️⃣ I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Enshittification might be a good thing. Here’s why

I don’t “like” that things have gotten this bad, but I do like that the worse things get, the more we can collectively organize and pressure reform to fix these things.

2️⃣ These tests are usually run on relatively small subsets of the user base. Remember when they rolled out hiding likes? That was rolled out periodically as well.

They typically also run different types of user bases. They already know the hardcore “influencers” and people who have built a public following will never leave the platform, since they’re too invested already, and are the people/publications that contribute the most to network effects. I.e., you’re on there because they’re on there.

3️⃣ Remember when Tim Kendall (former executive at Facebook) says that they talked about Zuckerberg having ultimate control over these 3 distinct goals?

1. Engagement: Drive up your usage. Keep you scrolling, liking, commenting, and remaining active on the platform.
2. Growth: Encouraging you to keep coming back and inviting your friends, and getting them to invite their friends, and so on.
3. Advertising: Make sure that as growth and engagement are happening, advertising revenue is maximized.

That’s what’s happening here—this is dial #3 being turned up.

Solutions

1. The most obvious: Delete your account

I know, I know—network effects are tough to break.

Tell your friends and family to delete theirs. Make yourself unreachable on Facebook-owned platforms.

Most people are posting less as traditional posts, and more as stories. If stories is your thing, Signal has stories. This is a really secure, private, and still convenient way to share whatever you want throughout the day.

If your favorite restaurant changes your dish’s recipe, you’d prolly stop going, right? Well, that recipe’s been changing, and we continue to put up with it despite an increasingly worse product.

2. For those looking for an alternative: Use Pixelfed

It doesn’t have nearly the same type of content or user base size that Instagram does. But the same way that we built Facebook little by little, the same can be done for healthier alternative platforms.

This might also help your reduction in using social media, if you’re looking for that.

3. For those who can’t/will never leave Instagram: Use an open source native mobile app (Android-specific)

If you have an Android-based mobile operating system, there are apps like MyInsta and Instander that give you a native Instagram experience while blocking all of the ads.

They also have app-specific settings that allow you to customize your Instagram experience even further, such as (but limited to):

• Downloading photos/reels/entire carousels
• Reduces data sent to Instagram (analytics, ads, and other requests)
• Ghost mode
• Block reels, posts, stories, explore, comments, or whatever else
• Tons more

I run a basketball media outlet (InThePaintCrew) and a lifestyle/photography page (LifeViaChicago), and being able to modify the experience to remove the noise/clutter when a native Instagram app is needed is helpful.

hiramfromthechi , 18 days ago

Not the first time facial recognition tech has been misused, and certainly won’t be the last. The UK in particular has caught a lotta flak around this.

We seem to have a hard time connecting the digital world to the physical world and realizing just how interwoven they are at this point.

Therefore, I made an open source website called idcaboutprivacy to demonstrate the importance—and dangers—of tech like this.

It’s a list of news articles that demonstrate real-life situations where people are impacted.

If you wanna contribute to the project, please do. I made it simple enough to where you don’t need to know Git or anything advanced to contribute to it. (I don’t even really know Git.)

hiramfromthechi , 17 days ago

Glad you like it.

And yeah, it’s foundational. We tolerate things digitally that we’d never tolerate in person.

Once I start connecting and analogizing digital to physical concepts in a conversation, it appears to “click” in their heads and they end up saying something along the lines of, “You’re right. It makes sense.”

Hence this project. I hope people can use this website and link it to people who need it to understand how this affects us all—now, not in the future.

hiramfromthechi , 17 days ago

Nice, thanks. Your site is really clean. Dig it.

hiramfromthechi , 17 days ago

Fixed it, thanks for flagging

hiramfromthechi , 17 days ago

Lol it was the other way around… I actually added a word instead. Fixed

Tap for spoilerit

now.

hiramfromthechi , 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

That’s nice of you, but it appears that the ad-supported business model doesn’t work. It just results in enshittification and surveillance.

“We cannot have a society in which, if two people wish to communicate, the only way that it can happen is if it’s financed by a third person who wishes to manipulate them.”

Jaron Lanier: How we need to remake the internet

hiramfromthechi , 1 month ago

Yep. Hence why we need to remake the internet.

hiramfromthechi , 1 month ago

We gonna see a GoldeneOS?

hiramfromthechi , 1 month ago

Cases like these are why this extension exists: addons.mozilla.org/…/don-t-fuck-with-paste/

hiramfromthechi OP , 1 month ago

Nonprofit news organizations. The Markup has a very public-interest technology approach, and is most well-known for it’s Blacklight tool.

hiramfromthechi , 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

Most of my friends know better than to send me TikTok links. But for the few who still do, I use this open source frontend called ProxiTok.

To get TikTok links to redirect automatically on click, use the LibRedirect extension.

hiramfromthechi , 1 month ago

See my comment above

hiramfromthechi , 1 month ago

Only time will tell.

I know this one also went down recently for Instagram: proxigram.privacyfrontends.repl.co

But I’m not sure if it was an Instagram change that did it, or Replit took it down or what.

hiramfromthechi , 1 month ago

Don’t worry, it’s not complicated at all. A little inconvenient maybe, but that’s always the trade-off when it comes to privacy and security.

Here are the two most convenient ways that I can think of on each OS.

iOS: Bookmark the frontend URL. When you get sent a link, pop open the page and paste the TikTok URL.

Android: Get Firefox and set it as your default browser. Install the LibRedirect add-on (browser extension). Whenever you get sent a URL, just tap it and it’ll automatically get redirected to the privacy-friendly frontend.

hiramfromthechi , 2 months ago

But is it prettier than the Puteketeke?

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/4e026082-bb24-4199-bfc2-45b8bbdb1e54.jpeg

hiramfromthechi , 2 months ago

At least you can say the experience was lit

hiramfromthechi , 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago)

Selena - No Me Queda Más

Arctic Monkeys - 505

Eminem - Headlights

GnR - November Rain

hiramfromthechi , 3 months ago

Source: trust me bro

hiramfromthechi , 4 months ago

For those of us who can’t code their own extensions: LibRedirect does this for other sites as well, not just YouTube.

hiramfromthechi , 4 months ago

“Been public enemy since you thought ‘PE’ was gym, biiiitch!”

hiramfromthechi , 4 months ago

“Being simple’s a yes, being skilled is a not/ Having substance is lame, using substance is hot”

hiramfromthechi , 4 months ago

It also literally says to not input sensitive data…

This is one of the first things I flagged regarding LLMs, and later on they added the warning. But if people don’t care and are still gonna feed the machine everything regardless, then that’s a human problem.

hiramfromthechi OP , 4 months ago

lol I thought about that too

hiramfromthechi , 4 months ago

“I apologize. I wasn’t familiar with your game…”

hiramfromthechi , 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago)

Daily:

• Signal
• GrapheneOS
• Bitwarden
• Firefox/Mull
• VPN
• Baserow

Not daily:

• Lemmy
• Mastodon
• Pixelfed
• Invidious
• Cryptomator
• Aegis
• Penpot
• Aurora
• LocalSend
• OSM
• Obtanium
• Voyager
• Open Video Editor
• OpenScan
• Cryptee
• Element

hiramfromthechi , 4 months ago

Our cognitive biases are fascinating, aren’t they

hiramfromthechi , 4 months ago

🎶 Many times I’ve gazed/Along the open road… 🎶

hiramfromthechi , 4 months ago

Cuteass lil killing machine

hiramfromthechi , 5 months ago

True. This is why the general recommendation is typically to buy used. That way, they don’t get additional revenue from the sale of a new phone, and it also decreases e-waste.

(Sure, the revenue may be a drop in the bucket, but it’s still something.)

hiramfromthechi , 5 months ago

To solve this, I’d ask: What can we do to incentivize graceful degradation instead of planned obsolescence?

hiramfromthechi , 5 months ago

How did you pull Mull into Obtanium? When I paste the GitLab URL into Obtanium, it says that there’s no APK found.

hiramfromthechi , 5 months ago

A great reminder that your voice does matter. Apply it other things as well, and things can actually improve…

hiramfromthechi , 6 months ago

Only one thing is abundantly clear: you don’t want your communications in the clutches of Big Tech.

hiramfromthechi , 6 months ago

Who doesn’t like an underdog? 😤

hiramfromthechi OP , 6 months ago

Do you need to enable the setting anywhere? I’m not seeing it.

hiramfromthechi OP , 6 months ago

Confirmed Eternity does it, thanks

hiramfromthechi OP , 6 months ago

👀

hiramfromthechi OP , 6 months ago

Yeah, I mean changing accounts right before writing the comment would work. Doesn’t need to be able to switch in the middle of writing the comment.

hiramfromthechi OP , 6 months ago

Did you confirm this? I tried a handful of different links, and it retained certain necessary parameters. Might depend on the link and how Firefox reads the link. Guessing it’s using regex.

hiramfromthechi OP , 6 months ago

What type of link was it?

hiramfromthechi OP , 6 months ago

Not on Android yet. In the meantime, I would just use the Clear URLs extension.

hiramfromthechi , 6 months ago

Freeing 2 million dogs? Don’t threaten me with a good time…

hiramfromthechi , 6 months ago

For some people it’s easy, for others it isn’t, and/or they’re afraid of messing it up.

This is the secondary reason why I created SwapMyOS, a GrapheneOS installation service that kicks back a percentage of every order to the GrapheneOS nonprofit to keep it funded.

Primary reason was to keep GrapheneOS alive and funded.