Your pictures can be a distraction, and they are not yours anyway
Not if you use certain services, at least.
Four years ago, someone observed, quoting among other examples the distortion of truth by YouTube algorithms, that:
- the impact on the real world of some for-profit, data hungry services like those by Google, YouTube or Facebook had long become “too destructive to ignore”
- [however] some of those services, e.g. Google Photos, “may help a tech giant suck up your valuable data, but your “love” pictures aren’t about to undermine democracy around the world”
I Object, Your Honor
No, of course your “love” pictures on Google Photos, Instagram, and so on, aren’t about to actively undermine democracy around the world.
They just are very likely to stop you from being active.
Not to mention that they are NOT yours at all, if you only keep them in certain places.
So…
I object to such a reductive view of certain dangers, and continue to propose a better, realistic solution.
Who writes this, why, and how to help
I am Marco Fioretti, tech writer and aspiring polymath doing human-digital research and popularization.
I do it because YOUR civil rights and the quality of YOUR life depend every year more on how software is used AROUND you.
To this end, I have already shared more than a million words on this blog, without any paywall or user tracking, and am sharing the next million through a newsletter, also without any paywall.
The more direct support I get, the more I can continue to inform for free parents, teachers, decision makers, and everybody else who should know more stuff like this. You can support me with paid subscriptions to my newsletter, donations via PayPal (mfioretti@nexaima.net) or LiberaPay, or in any of the other ways listed here.THANKS for your support!