Privacy

31932 readers

911 users here now

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.

Some Rules

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
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
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
Be nice :)

Related communities

Chat rooms

[Matrix/Element]Dead
Discord

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

102

What is the cost of privacy? (lemmy.world)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

46 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I have been pro privacy and anti data harvesting for many years now, however it is becoming increasingly more difficult staying off some platforms. Mostly Meta.

Over the years I have convinced most of my friends and family to use Signal instead of WhatsApp. However, there are still chat groups that I am missing from, and trying to keep up to date with local events seems next to impossible without Facebook or Instagram.

Additionally, I am finding it more and more tiring to have the awkward "No I don't have WhatsApp. No I don't have Facebook either. Or Instagram, sorry. Do you want to try an app that you've never heard of to stay in contact with me?" every time I meet someone new.

I saddens me that it feels like the multi-billion dollar data harvesting companies are winning, but I no longer know if this is a hill that I'm willing to die on.

What are your thoughts on what we have to give up in our lives just to stay in control of our personal information?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Don't lose hope, resistance is NOT futile.
There are third party frontends for most of Facebook/Meta services and desktop apps which can be used when there are no other options.

Be aware of installing Whatsapp app on iOS and Android, there are vulnerabilities currently exploited by the israelian Pegasus. Nothing prevents anyone else from using these vulnerabilities.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Thanks MrSoup, do you have any suggestions on a good frontend for Instagram?

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

There was bibliogram (web) which I've used a couple of times, but it's now discontinued.
Your best bet here would be using instagram web as a webapp with a bunch of addons limiting their tracking. I dunno if there are some limitation on the instagram website, I don't use instagram at all.

By looking up on f-droid there is "barinsta" which received a cease and desist letter from a law firm representing Facebook. Maybe you can find an active fork of it.

If you find something, please update us. There could be someone else in your same condition.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Thanks. Yeah I found Barinsta but saw it hadn't been updated in years. I'll have a look around and report back.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

I've heard good things about Instander, but it may not satisfy all the requirements of an alternative frontend.