Why I’m most vocal about digital privacy and freedom issues

Dear F-Droid Community, I hope you don’t mind me hijacking the forum by posting the following text here. It is absolutely not directed at you as you are allies in the issue I am talking about, but I needed a place where I could post a text longer than 500 characters that I could share on different places of the internet and where possible readers could come and read my words without being tracked.

:warning: Beware, the same can’t be said of some of the sites that I’m linking to in my text.


Why I’m most vocal about digital privacy and freedom issues.

I don’t consider myself an activist, I don’t like going to demonstrations, I don’t like seeking conflict with people who have other world views and I don’t try to force my ideologies on other people. What I do is try to live a good life and inspire others to change their ways by setting a good example and showing them that it is not as hard as they think it is.

All I ask from other people is to give me the freedom to live my life as I want to.

When I go to a restaurant and their menus make it impossible to decipher which meals are vegan or if there even are some I will let the waiter know why I’m choosing not to eat here. If on the other hand the menu or the waiter assures me that there is a vegan option and when I get it I find meat or cheese in it I will let the waiter know that this is not okay, but try to eat around it so the food doesn’t go to waste.

When I’m asked for my gender and there is no viable option to select I will let the responsible person know that the lack of options is discriminating and suggest alternative systems [1] [2]. In most cases a free text field is probably a viable option.

I live by strong principles and whenever I feel I’m expected to make compromises I’m not willing to make I will voice my opinion about it. Sometimes this is a bit limiting, but I never had to starve because it was impossible to get vegan food and I was never asked to leave anywhere because I was trans – on the contrary, most communities that I want to be part of welcome me with open arms [3]. The only principle that really restricts me in my every day life and that I regularly have to make compromises on to not be completely excluded from the rest of the modern world is my principle to refuse sharing my personal data with big companies who want to make big profit with it [4] [5] [6] [7].

I know there are issues that are far more important, but fortunately I live in a city that is largely unaffected by climate change and where living a sustainable lifestyle is possible, where I’m not being persecuted as a queer person and there is a support system for people like me, where gun violence is a rare thing and it is possible to avoid supporting the weapons industry through consumerism and banking. I live on a sacred island unaffected from most major issues of the world, where most people are part of the problem, but it is possible to live a different life style. This island is a great place to live, but it’s still an island and it is necessary for me to be able to communicate with the outside world to get informed and engage in discussions about ways to improve my life style. But if doing so means contributing to surveillance capitalism then that somewhat defeats the purpose.

I’d much rather spend more of my time on issues that are closer to my heart, but this one is very important too and it is the one that restricts me the most.

7 Likes

But why all citations from Fairphone, Metabrainz?

Because those are some of the sites where I am spending much of my time although tracking there is restricting my freedom.

Of course they will restrict you. They are for namesake into privacy. They are more into getting stuffs from other places and adding them as their re brand. Not fully reliable too.

It is absolutely not directed at you as you are allies in the issue

I don’t try to force my ideologies on other people.

Hope no one is forced to use a Google 'smart’phone nowadays

wondering what AI is hidden behind GoogleTranslate :?

This topic was automatically closed 60 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.