I was browsing r/privacy today and I came across this guy going on about how Mozilla was just pretending to be privacy focused. Here's his comment. Now I don't really know what to think of this, and frankly, I'm getting really exhausted of hearing about how all the things I'm using aren't actually trustworthy. So can so someone put my mind to rest? Does this guy's claims have any truth to them? Thanks.

Please, if you haven’t already, see Part I and Part II.

Besides using anti-virus software, I wondered if there were other ways in which I could reduce the amount of threats to my online privacy and security. One method that I came across was to block adware and malware before it had the chance to reach my browser and computer.

For the technically inclined person there is Pi-Hole which is a network-wide adware/malware blocker. The name comes from the use of a Raspberry Pi to act as a black hole for adware/malware. Currently, supported operating systems include Raspbian, Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, and CentOS.

A much easier method, which essentially does the same thing, is to modify your computer’s hosts file. For a safe and easy way to do this, I recommend that you use free GUI software to implement this. Windows users can download Hosts File Editor+ and Mac users can download Gas Mask.

Next, you will want a DNS blacklist that comes from trusted sources. The ones that I recommend are from Steven Black here: https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts

Scroll down the page a little until you come to a table of all the different combinations of blacklists.

From there you would choose which list to use, as your new hosts file depending on your personal preferences by clicking on the corresponding Non Github mirror.

Using your hosts file editing software, you would then create a new hosts file by copying and pasting your preferred list. You may want to check for an updated list every once in a while. Most of these lists have their associated creation dates near the top for convenience.

In 2016, I was an ardent supporter of Bernie. But come the general, I voted 3rd party, because I was "Bernie or Bust." Many people accuse me of indirectly voting for Trump, allowing "the worst thing ever" to happen (esp since I'm in a swing state that went Trump). But here's the truth as I see it: Voting Democrat regardless of candidate, with their only qualification being "Not Trump," will only increase the USA's slide (deeper) into fascism.

The reality I see is that even if Trump had never entered the 2016 race, 90%+ of the policy, judicial appointments, and everything else that he has done since being elected would be identical no matter which "R" candidate won the race, because all of these things are exactly what the GOP has been doing for decades. In that regard, I consider Trump more favorable than any other R candidate, because he is at least failing to do his "real" job: Hiding fascist, imperialist policy behind a charismatic smile and some clever words.

Ultimately, this is the reason why I don't generally support Democrats either. Hillary's policy wouldn't have been as immediately destructive as the GOP agenda, but it also would not have stopped the march towards fascism. I voted my conscious in 2016, and will do so again in 2020. I just hope there are more people willing to do the same this time around.

I like to picture that the government of the USA is digging a hole. With every shovelful, we're sliding ever closer to a fully authoritarian fascist regime, and the destruction of our planet. While Trump (and the GOP as a whole) has been calling in for backhoes and drills to speed the process....as far as I can tell, only two candidates in the 2020 primary are calling to stop the digging: Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. At best, the other candidates are conveying messages akin to: "We need to compromise with the GOP and maybe slow down the rate at which we allow new backhoes to be brought to the pit."

In my mind then, it makes more sense for 4 more years of Trump, than to allow another center-right candidate for his opposition. Because at least Trump isn't able to pull off the charismatic smile and/or intelligent language that the Regan's, Bush's, Clinton's, and Obama's of the world have that allow terrible things to continue behind a cloak of "incremental change." It wakes up those who would otherwise tolerate these horrendous acts, and perhaps inspires them to become more active. By allowing for the political discourse to end with "Anything is better than Trump", it just permits the overall platform to gradually, but continually shift to the right.

And in my mind, it is the total death of real, dissenting voices in public discourse that is far, far worse than Trump winning another term could ever be.

I would love to hear if anybody else in this community has had feelings akin to what I've described here, as I've only been described as "insane" by most of the people I've discussed this with in person.

I've been somewhat of a lurker here, actively reading posts, but today I came across a topic which had a small typo in it. No big deal, but if this was wikipedia, I could easily go in and fix it... Then it hit me, what would a site like tilde be like if anyone could propose an edit to a post, and have that edit go into effect if the original poster approved it? Of course revision history would need to be available too, for accountability. Good idea? Bad? I'm just curious how that might play out.

Hereby I suggest that there be a dedicated Tildes group for social media–related topics.

Current State

The (recent) number of topics tagged social media exceeds the number of topics in several existing groups:
https://tildes.net/?tag=social_media
In addition, there are more topics without the social media tag but with tags related to individual social media, e.g.,
https://tildes.net/?tag=reddit
https://tildes.net/?tag=facebook
https://tildes.net/?tag=twitter

These topics are quite scattered across the site (many of them are in ~tech, and some were moved to ~tech from places like ~talk and ~misc).

Why Not Just ~tech?

The topics are often focused on non-technical aspects of social media, and the mentioned moves from more general groups might suggest that social media are perceived as a general rather than a purely techn(olog)ical phenomenon. In addition, ~tech is already the biggest Tildes group.

Special Relevance

Tildes is itself a social medium site, and many of the above topics are thus specifically relevant for Tildes. For this reason, I suggest ~socialmedia as a top-level group rather than a subgroup (of ~tech, apparently).