Negative thoughts flooded my mind. The EU is constantly trying to push Chat Control. They’re blocking bootloaders on phones, introducing ID and face scanning everywhere, in the US they’re trying to push system-level verification, corporations are spitting in our faces and don’t even hide it. I know we have to fight. My personal rebellion was joining Fediverse and Lemmy and quitting Reddit. But seriously, boss—I’m tired. Are our attempts to preserve internet freedom futile? Can we win against corporations and politicians who we pay but don’t listen to us?
We have to keep fighting, and it isn’t easy but we have been building great things! Look at the growth of the fediverse with projects like mastodon, Lemmy, pixelfed, etc. More and more, people want alternatives to surveillance-capitalist social media platforms. They see the value in privacy as the stakes get higher for activists. Keep fighting, keep sharing.
Now, I also believe that ultimately we cannot solve political problems with technical solutions. We need to organize online and offline to effect real change. This organization must be multifaceted (“diversity of tactics”). A recent success of this type has been rolling back flock surveillance in municipalities around the US. Go to city council meetings with your neighbors. If the council won’t listen, then go out later with a comrade and smash those fucking things.