I legitimately can’t imagine how awful it must be to be trans in Russia. Well, pretty much anywhere really, now that I think of it. Trans people just can’t catch a break. I feel so bad for them.
Europe? Do you use WhatsApp? If so, your info is already in their hands thanks to your friends/family who shared their contacts with Meta. Basically if you or any of your friends/family use any Facebook service, including WhatsApp and Instagram, they already have all your info.
Say you do sign up for Meta with a dummy email. The moment you start following people, checking out hashtags etc, they will start connecting dots.
It’s virtually impossible to avoid being tracked by them. This is why privacy advocates and activists have been begging people to stop using Meta’s apps and services for literally decades. Not only does it track the user, but also pretty much everyone the user knows, including people who never consented to having their information shared, never used any of their service, etc.
I mean there are people out there who drink their own piss because someone on Facebook said it was healthy. Obviously there’s something about information coming from an official or official-looking (or sounding) source that just makes people do weird things. It’s not any different than people falling for scams, MLMs, alternative medicine, etc.
Edit: omg remember the guy who injected piss into his arm during an interview? lmao
I can’t imagine going through life thinking that everything I love and/or desire will send me to hell or whatever. Imagine living in fear because you think someone is watching and judging you. No thanks.
I don’t see any advantage to having any kind of religious faith. Seems like it just limits your options and gives you nothing in return.
It’s a combination of ignorance and entitlement. They think free speech means freedom from consequence and entitlement to a platform and/or audience. That’s why they get mad and claim it’s censorship when they’re banned for breaking rules etc.
Also they only care about their freedom of speech, despite their claims to the contrary.
Misskey has been around since 2014, it’s not meant to be an alternative to anything. It wasn’t even part of the fediverse at first, iirc.
Anyway the best (imo) English fork is Calckey, and it’s basically Mastodon on steroids. I honestly don’t know why people choose mastodon over it, it does everything Mastodon does + more.
RIGHT? It’s fucking insane that no one seems to be talking about this. I’ve been trying for years and people just roll their eyes or ignore me. What the fuck.
And it’s completely because people don’t think about it and/or don’t understand how this stuff works. The app says “share your contacts to find your friends!” and people just go “cool ok”.
Here’s a not-cool story: Facebook showed my friend a photo of her rapist under “people you may know”. Fucking hell.
There’s a black owned Calckey instance but it doesn’t federate iirc. I can’t for the life of me remember the name, I think it was @Are0h@ubiqueros.com who mentioned it, you might wanna reach out to him.
Doesn’t matter if you’re using an iPhone or android. They have your number, email, etc. (either given by you or by someone else when they uploaded their contacts to Facebook/instagram/whatsapp) and everything you do is tracked and logged.
That’s the thing about Meta. They gather info from literally billions of people, it doesn’t matter if you personally handed it over or not. Everyone who has your info — name, phone number, email, work number, etc. has probably already shared all or some of it with Meta. The moment you sign up and give them any info at all that matches your info in someone’s contacts, they’ll know it’s you.
If you don’t want them tracking you, your only option is to not use their services and block all their trackers. They’ll have your info anyway, but at least they won’t be able to track your activity.
Edit: a lot of people don’t grasp how bad the situation is with Meta. They trick people into uploading their contacts by requesting access to “help you find your friends” across their services, and they match that info and create a shadow profile for everyone. As soon as you sign up to any of their services, they’ll match that shadow profile to you. That’s why you immediately see people you know even though you just created an account. You’re in their contacts. Facebook has outed countless gay and trans people, as well as sex workers. They will also recommend your therapist’s clients to you as “people you may know” because you all have the therapist’s phone number.
It’s a nightmare. I’ve been trying to make people aware of it for like a decade or something like that. No one listens.
Just letting you know as a former Android user, there’s nothing like Tasker for iOS, and people who say Shortcuts is the same thing have never used Tasker. iOS doesn’t do anything other than push notifications without user interaction, and nothing can run in the background and access the system like Tasker. The design of iOS makes it impossible.
I’ve been an iOS user since 2013 and I still miss Tasker. God, I wish we could actually automate stuff in iOS.
Problems you might face: nazis and QAnon. Solution: don’t federate with everything.