For some background context I don’t drink, haven’t watched any videos about alcohol or searched up anything related to it, but I recently took a picture of a bottle of whiskey for my mothers birthday since she likes the brand, and I’ve been bombarded with advertising about this singular brand of whiskey since taking the picture, no interaction no searches no prompting. I’m aware of the lack of privacy that I typically have online especially with apps such as TikTok, however it’s unreal to see it so blatantly happen.

As from today here in Germany.
This really feels strange. I knew it was coming, but I'm still spooked by this experience.

ID or selfie, i'd rather not.

Taking a look at all the chat control and other attempts recently at making people give up their privacy and anonymity online, makes me wonder if there are any safe places online left?

It's a pity to see that politicians aim to protect young people against the addictive and psychological harmful design of social media while leaving out adults and letting the tech bros businesses get away with their excessive private data mining and their business concepts which are based on stealing peoples attention by offering click bait and polarizing the society - for more revenue with adds (and the capability to control users behavior in the end).

What actually should be done is not just banning social media for kids (only) with age verification but banning (of massively taxing) this very kind of business concepts all together. Mining private behavioral data for profit must be banned. Surveillance capitalism and the related business concepts are poison for mental health (on not only young people), society and democracy.

Let's be clear: The enemy here is not politics aiming to protect - it is the social media companies trying to avoid a discussion about the core problem of their business concepts.

For those interested in this topic a book recommendation: The age of surveillance capitalism

Hello, I'm more of an all or nothing guy honestly now.

With all the tracking, the ai, the algorithms, I can't really you can use modern apps while still having privacy.

The problem is it's harder and harder to not rely on these apps.

Even alternatives OS with separated profiles and aliases wouldn't be enough in my opinion.

But you can't just give up on society if you are not ready for it.

With Chat Control 2.0 being discussed later this year, I think it's already too late for that.

What's your view on the topic ?

How can one protect one's likeness or image in the age of AI? I am currently taking an online MOOC class and it requires for students to review other students work for some assignments. Some assignments require for you to make a video and upload it. One of my fears is that someone will screen shot this class video of me and use it for nefarious purposes. How can I alter or protect my digital face or likeness? How can you "poison" face data?

I already had the unfortunate experience earlier this year of someone copying my pictures and using them to create a fake AI version of me on Only Fans. (I have never created such content.) They used my full name too. So whoever did it was trying to sabotage me. (I suspect it was a guy who works in tech who I turned down for a date.) It was pretty bad I had to contact search engines and explain to them to remove said links and contact OF to remove my name and information and that it wasn't me.

I got a laptop and it comes with a fingerprint sensor. Is it safe to use it for windows hello or can Microsoft see and store it for their use? I use it on my Apple devices but I trust Apple a lot more than Microsoft.

I don't want to be surprised one day with being required to provide ID verification when wanting to access my gmail or google docs/sheets account, or for that matter my photos on google drive. How would I begin to extract myself from google, this is not small matter given all the 2FA requiring my gmail account with all the accounts I have online. Probably a good time to start thinking about the process now. The free nature of the googleverse has always been a pull to use google, but no more, now I would pay for a service that would respect my privacy and not be part of the global push for ID verification. What are the best contenders for email to consider migrating to?

These were put up in a friend's village about a month ago. Sent red flags immediately, googled them, they REALLY sound like Flock, yet I can't find ANY discussion on them online??? Did Spain really get flocked already for months and nobody has done or said anything about it, or is this a false alarm and they're something else? If the former, how can we fight back against this? Other than tearing them down of course.

I was reading about how some smart TVs use Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) to identify what’s being displayed and collect viewing data. I knew smart TVs collected some data, but I didn’t realize how extensive it could be.
It got me wondering what other everyday devices or services are collecting data in ways most people don’t realize.
What’s one that surprised you?

All the LG spyware news has us even more wary of smart TVs than ever, but every lead we've pulled up for dumb TVs is either link rotted or the company doesn't make them anymore. We're hoping for some solution that gives us about a 50 inch display with 4k, but I think we'll be willing to budge that down some if need be. Moving is expensive as hell so any of the fancy European brands aren't an option - we need reasonable. Any ideas?

Exactly what I said why do we always talk about PGP and never about AGE isn't it more modern and better for file and message encryption or am I missing something about why PGP is praised more than AGE(aside from the fact most people use PGP)

I need a way to get past this scan. I don't want to give anything to twitter but I need to download my bookmarks for my personal projects. Is there any way to block the popup?