Discussion
Freedom or safety: choose one. This is the false bargain we were offered after 9/11, the ideology underpinning the PATRIOT Act and the (permanent) suspension of human rights.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/29/works-well/#fails-well
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It was only Congress that had a say in the matter before them. Individuals like me did not, because Congress was too scared to even read the bill.
@pluralistic I love Cory - Cory fucks with "DD", and makes it funny. #Linux #hacker
@pluralistic I do not support "the idea that Mastodon's rough edges are due to the fact that it's open and federated", but it's because the Mastodon overlords act like little dictators similar to their big corp counterparts, thereby driving away huge numbers of developers who might otherwise improve their #UI and #UX. Big corp owners have enough money to compensate for being dictators because ... people do need money.
- written from an https://elk.zone UI
This ideology has metastasized out of the realm of airport security theater and mass surveillance, ossifying into a bedrock axiom about technology design itself.
Ironically, it's not just conservative bed-wetters who've rejected the idea that freedom isn't free, and we all have to trade away our autonomy for a safe and secure online experience.
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There were plenty of techno-progressives who insisted that the problems with Twitter and Facebook could be solved by forcing their zuckermuskian overlords to invest sufficient resources in their Trust and Safety teams.
There's nothing wrong with asking people who host social spaces to invest in moderation, but the idea that we improve the lives of people stuck in these obviously irreparable corporate spaces is by making their owners care about our welfare is just *bankrupt*.
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Far better to make it easy for us to *leave* these platforms:
https://www.eff.org/interoperablefacebook
Mandating interoperability - federation - for these legacy social media services means that if somehow it turns out that neither Zuck, nor Musk (nor anyone who succeeds them) is fit to preside over the social lives of hundreds of millions or billions of people, then those users can *leave*, without losing touch with the people they currently stay on these platforms to be in community with.
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We don't have to choose between safety and freedom. We can have both. Franklin had it wrong when he wrote, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
It's not that you don't *deserve* these things, it's that you won't *get* them.
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pretty sure it was Ben Franklin who wrote that
Minor correction: this was Benjamin Franklin, not Thomas Jefferson. (I suppose that Jefferson may have repeated it, but Franklin said it first, when Jefferson was still a child.)
Interestingly, Franklin wasn't talking about civil liberties, but rather the liberties of the colonial legislature, specifically (in the original context) its right to tax landowners.
Give Apple control over which apps you can install and who can fix your device and which accessories you can use with your devices, and Apple will spy on you and they'll let other people spy on you and rip you off:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/26/empty-threats/#500-million-affluent-consumers
They'll block you from installing and using tools that improve the user experience of Instagram while blocking Meta from spying on you:
https://www.digitaltrends.com/phones/the-og-app-ad-free-instagram-removed-app-store-iphone/
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