Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

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Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
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If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
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Facebook bought a VPN company and deployed it, in part, to spy on its users. (techcrunch.com)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

39 comments fedilink hide all child comments

This is the problem with using VPN services in general, you have to have complete trust in the service provider.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Craigslist also doesn't have shit on it. try and buy a car on there. if you're looking for a beater, sure. but a halfway decent sports car, fb marketplace is the only place

its still OK for other stuff, I've bought tools and whatnot off Craigslist, but for vehicles fb is unfortunately still king

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

What you're describing is the network effect in action, not a flaw in Craigslist.

(It will be the same with every alternative you find, except perhaps one that's well funded with outside money, which will be awful on the privacy front, of course.)

The way we overcome a network effect is piece by piece:

First we switch to the privacy-friendly service for everything we can. That immediately reduces our exposure, reduces the power of the incumbent, and makes the alternative more useful by giving more users a reason to switch.
Then, over time, we switch for the remaining things as we find a suitable service for each one. (This might even be the same privacy-friendly alternative we started with, after it has grown a little.)

If I felt I had to buy a sports car, and some awful invasive site like Facebook was somehow the only viable venue, I would buy just the car there. I wouldn't make them the middle man for every other transaction in my life.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

well yea its not Craigslist itself that's the issue, its the fact that its a smaller platform. and yea I use eBay or Craigslist for everything but vehicles.its sad that Craigslist has been forgotten though.