to clarify

Thank you for all your comments on my post re secure internet etc. I am delighted that I am not the only one and not a nut case.

I should clarify that the main impetus behind my efforts to investigate my social media/internet use and to initiate any changes I think are necessary is not just a safe internet - whatever that may imply and I don't think I am any way close to it - but to move away from tech companies that are in the hands of very few, very wealthy men who blissfully embrace fascism. I am not even going to discuss this last point.

So, in wake of events unfolding in the US, the desire to shift away from these big tech oligarchs is growing every day in my country and from what I can gather, many other European countries. And with it comes a growing interest in understanding how this internet stuff actually works and who runs what and how entangled and used we may actually have become. I've been to a couple of public lectures on culture wars/fake news, big tech monopolies, data protection laws in the EU, political influence from Russia, China and the US/Musk and all this - there are more events scheduled here - has given me so much to think about, you have no idea. 

Now, I love the internet, I love switching on my laptop and I enjoy my morning routine of reading online news, checking newsletters, blogs and emails, obviously the daily contact with my family far away - I cherish it all and would not want to miss it. During lockdown, we ordered a lot of stuff online, it was a life saver in many respects, especially prior to the arrival of the vaccines for someone like me, with a chronic disease and immune suppression medication. We are lucky that we don't live out in the sticks, have markets and shops and pharmacies etc. within walking distance, so we rarely need to fall back on online shopping now. Occasionally, I order used clothing and second hand books from online sellers and we use ebay/etsy and their German equivalents for some purchases - but also to sell some stuff we are clearing out. And of course, there's online banking and the other stuff like pension, health/car/house insurance, tax office, the various public utilities and on the few occasions when we travel, bus/train/plane tickets. 

I have friends and family who are paranoid of anything online, who would not even check the rain forecast because some evil service will steal their identity or - worse - send them advertising. I have a friend who is regularly predicting the end of the world's water and electricity supply due to bitcoin and yes, there is some truth in that but you can go and read about that yourself. I openly admit that I am ignorant about A Lot of what goes on online. 

But as with so much that is happening right now - fascism, climate change, the threat of (hybrid) war, my deteriorating health and the looming diagnostic detective work - the curse of my curious nature will not allow me to just let it be. I have to stick my nose into it, come what may. 

Having worked in science editing for 25 years, I have learnt a thing or two about checking sources, double, triple checking of "facts", identifying images, figuring out who is paid what to publish what and when and so on. With the rise of AI, this has become more difficult and I am often relieved that I am retired and only need to open up that new can of worms when I feel ready.

Basically, I want to feel informed, always wanted to, I am nosy. I don't want to feel trapped or used or bought. I know it's unrealistic to think I can be morally/idealistically free of any unsavoury influence. I am only human and often lazy. But I want to be On The Ball as much as I can and I think it's Very Very Important for as many people as possible to be that too, no matter where on this planet we are. 

There was a time, sometime in the early 1990s, when R explained computer programs and the internet to me - at least he tried to - and what I remember is that he stressed, it's a tool, just a tool. People use it.

I could go on but I won't. Instead, I would love to continue to hear from other people how they feel about it.

These two blog posts by Australian writer Joan Westenberg have expressed it all so much better. So if you are still reading, I recommend you continue here:

1. How I’m Building a Trump-Proof Tech Stack Without Big Tech

A quote:  Apple, Microsoft, Google, Meta, and other tech companies operating on American soil can talk a big game about their sovereignty, independence, and encryption. But talk may be all it is; there can be no guarantee that an authoritarian U.S. government will not compel American cloud, email, productivity, and messaging providers to open their databases and records to partisan law enforcement.

2. On Ideological Purity

A quote:  You don’t have to be all or nothing. You don’t have to make every decision a moral battlefield. You don’t have to sever every tie to every compromised system - and you sure as hell don’t have to do it overnight. You have to engage. You have to stay aware. You have to keep questioning the default. If enough people tried—just tried, even imperfectly—things would shift. If more people opted for alternatives when they could, if more people supported independent platforms even three times out of five, if more people put even a fraction of their energy into challenging the defaults, it would matter. A lot of folks don't, or won't, because they think - they've been scolded into believing - that if they can't do it completely, it's not worth doing at all. It is. Every step you take in the direction of your values matters. Every time you make a choice that reflects what you care about—even if it's small, even if it's incomplete, even if it feels incremental, marginal, unimportant—it reinforces something. Not just in the world, in yourself. And that's what counts.