It Makes Perfect Sense.

I've read about, posted about, watched about, listened about big brother, big data, big tech, big "you-name-it", knowing full well that every keystroke I've every keyed; every website I've ever visited; every search I've ever searched; every Youtube I've ever watched; every post I've ever posted; every "like" I've ever liked; every download I've ever downloaded, etc., were and still are most certainly being stored, recorded, and/or deposited somewhere out there in the great big beyond, but it wasn't until I came across this post in Threadreaderapp.com-- and apparently this understates the problem considerably because what you get when you request your data, even if it's comparatively nothing because you'd already disabled all that, is still only a fraction of the total data they have for you -- that it really hit me, and kind of, sort of blew my mind., yet, like I said, of course, this didn't surprise me at all if that makes any sense. There's a kind of disconnect between what I know and what I know if that makes any sense. I mean, I know things in my head in an abstract intellectual sense that I don't really know in my heart if that makes any sense.

No, it doesn't make any sense?

Well, for example,  I might know lots about evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plans formulated in secret by two or more persons, yet when I see real life evidence of these, dare I say, conspiracies, I'm startled, as in my heart beats faster, my eyes get larger, my blood pressure rises, while at the same time, I'm  telling myself, "no surprise here," and to the very few people I have tried to convince of these, dare I say, conspiracies, whether they're there or not, I say, "I told you so."

I know this sounds like the ramblings of a lunatic, and maybe it is, but I need an outlet.  I need to pretend someone's paying attention to me, pretend that's someone is taking me seriously,  pretend that someone's reading this and just hope it's not anyone I know, or that if they do know me that they don't find out it's me blogging all of this stuff.  Because, yes, I'm a coward.

 However, now it's very clear to me that whether or not anyone's reading this stuff now, there is no doubt that everything I've ever posted about, read about, watched about, listened about, etc, is all out there for anyone to pull up in a heartbeat, connect it to me and...and that's kind of scary because those certain someones--multi-millionaire/billionaire class of data owners--certainly won't like what I've posted about, read about, listened about, watched about, etc...in other words, they won't like what I thought about.

But I'm just a nobody.  Why in the world would they care what I think?  That's what I've told myself all along so I kept on posting, reading, watching, listening, downloading....

More than ever before, I hope I'm being paranoid because surely, I'm a needle in a haystack or more aptly, a needle in a mountain of needles.  Surely, I'm a winning half-a billion-dollar lottery ticket,  a grain of sand on a beach, a book at the Library of Congress, a leaf in a forest, a blade of grass in a meadow...well, you get the picture.  

See how that works?  My need to outlet far exceeds my need to shut the hell up.

“So we are in a really bad state of affairs right now, in my opinion. It is eroding the core foundation of how people behave by and between each other. And I don’t have a good solution. My solution is I just don’t use these tools anymore. I haven’t for years. -Chamath Palihapitiya, former Vice President of user growth @Facebook.

Links:

How Facebook Figures Out Everyone You've Ever Met

The Social Ties that Unbind

GDPR Reports

On May 25th, 2018, the new EU rules called General Data Protection Regulation(GDPR) goes into effect. It applies to companies who have users that are EU citizens, residents or visitors. The fine to companies that violate the rules can be 20 million euro or up to 4% of global revenue. The new rules requires opt-in for data collection and deletion of data when users withdraw their consent. It also lets a user request user data from a company that has data on a user, the company has to send it within a month for free.

GDPR Subject Access Requests

Everybody (in the EU) vs. Facebook

Framasoft runs various open source services

Surveillance and Capture: Two Models of Privacy

TrackMeNot