Friday, August 04, 2017

The road to serfdom






Published on Aug 2, 2017

YouTube's new censorship policies are right out of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, and are designed to shut down the growing independent media outlets and critics like myself.

YouTube is demonetizing my videos because they're too "controversial" or about "sensitive topics."


I am preparing myself to go "Google free".  It's quite a chore since my Email is Google;  I have a real dependence on Google's  search engine services; Blogger is owned and operated by Google, My Win10 is  run (by my preference) by Google,  and  on and on.  

Amazon, too, (which is no longer cheap) is another threat.  I have taken to comparing JET and  WalMart  against  Amazon prices, and  both always win. WalMart  allowed  Amazon to  outperform  delivery service, but is  making strides. Plus, I see in Jeff Bezos a real national security threat. 

That Facebook clown is too much of a clown to be a longterm threat.  If I used FB with any regularity ... well, that's the point.  I have an account, but can't stand the "social engineering."

I am at war.



Oh.  There's this too.
Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal privacy complaint

8 comments:

leelu said...

DuckDuckGo for searches. Opera browser (w/ built-in ad block and free vpn). Linux Mint for OS (unless there's something you absolutely need Windows for). Register your own domain and have the provider host your e-mail and Wordpress blog.

Just spitballin' here, boss.

Rodger the Real King of France said...

I went through that a few years ago, and while I was happy with it, it required help from a couple of savvy Linus people. At the time my brain was still elastic enough to work through ti. And then, my entire computer deep fried, I lost everything. Today, when I want a nice dinner, I go to a restaurant, lest I burn the house down.

Eskyman said...

We are all like the proverbial frog in the pot, and the water's getting hotter all the time. Problem is, there's noplace handy to jump to, and the pot's got high, steep walls (and other frogs who are determined not to let you jump out.)

Since the powers-that-be want to be totally in control of everything and everyone, and they are succeeding- looks to me like the only option is to close out all accounts, leave civilization & find some spot in the remote woods; but for us old folks that's not much of an option.

I lived like that in my younger years, but never found it much fun. I like the trappings of civilization: the A/C when it's hot, the heat when it's not, electronic devices to make life easier & better (I now have 179 books in my Kindle library,) and I'm never lost anymore with my smartphone or tablet.

So what to do? I wish I knew. I've now been to google & told it not to track my web activity, but either they'll get around that or I'll find that none of the things I expect to work function anymore. It's like fighting the gov't, they've got deeper pockets than I do and a whole army of employees whose job is to crush the opposition!

Then also- today I found out via the Treehouse that the Uniparty is moving against President Trump by disallowing recess appointments; we might be in a shooting war sooner than I expected, so maybe it's all moot. When the bullets start flying, I doubt I'll be much worried about google!

Anonymous said...

So, if Google owns Blogger, is that who erases my comments every time I use the word "faggot"?

Rodger the Real King of France said...

No, that would be me

Alien said...

OK, Rodger, I'm on board; thou speaketh truth.

So who's the best replacment for gmail? I'm more than willing to spend a reasonable amount to ensure I have control over my email, assuming Ralph&Bob's Excellent Email Company doesn't go belly up in a year.

RE: JET - have you noticed how many scripts they have running on their site, and how unusable it is without turning off NoScript? JET also needs a LOT of help in their internal search process. And, about Walmart....they seem to not have mastered the "we can ship stuff, too" part of the biz, esp. if you do the "ship to store" thing where it takes them weeks to get it there and months for a store drone to find it once it arrives.

I also have strong reservations about WM quality; in past years I've caught them selling seconds because when they beat up suppliers hard on cost, the suppliers use WM to dump their lots that don't quite meet quality standards, rather than send seconds to outlets - for which I don't completely fault the suppliers, they're just playing the game by the existing rules - except, WM doesn't seem up to the task of policing that sort of thing.

Not that I don't think the same thing happens on Bezos' farm, although they do seem better at controlling it.

Like it or not, Bezos & Co. have set the standards and established the rules for performance, so it's an "away game" for all challengers; that said, Amazon is a very large target, especially with their insidious use of "dynamic" pricing.

leelu said...

Note on my original comment - you can use Opera on Windoes. It will still have the built-in adblock and VPN, which is what you want.

If you don't want to roll your own email, try myway.com. Pretty benign, no ads, free.

For home wireless- change the damn admin password, set upencryption, turn SSID broadcast 'OFF' (so your router won't be listed in the 'active connex' list) and set up allow connex by known device - using MAC address.

You'll sleep better at night. Trust me.

Anonymous said...

Just ordered some motor oil for my Jeep from walmart.com. They were half the price of Amazon and shipping was free.

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