The Thousand Headed Hydra

This year I got really obsessed with internet privacy. Like, really obsessed. I've spent hours researching how to make your browser less subject to data harvesting; how to make your digital footprint smaller; got rid of social media; got rid of my Gmail accounts and (hopefully) had all that data deleted; how to get my ISP to stop spying on my browsing history; learned about how companies sell your data to other companies who build predictive models about your behavior so they know what to sell you; learned that my phone isn't listening to me, it doesn't have to, it knows everything I've ever bought and where I was when I bought it; that AI companies harvest every single one of your queries and that they're obligated to disclose that information to the NSA; that the FBI has a tap on virtually every telecommunication company in the United States; that technology moves faster than we can legislate privacy laws.

The more you learn about privacy, the more you learn that it's impossible to truly have. You learn that de-Googling your life is a tiny step in the right direction, but it's not enough. You learn that the FBI has a secret court (FISA) that oversees wiretaps of US citizens. You learn that there are tens of thousands of cameras across the United States that are ostensibly for stopping carjacking but can be used for facial recognition — before they try to tell you that FLOCK cameras do not use facial recognition, the patent includes facial recognition. You learn that you are paying for this with your tax dollars. You install an ad-blocker, it blocks hundreds of ads the first week. You change your privacy settings, get a new browser, buy a VPN, half of the internet breaks. You begin to realize that the internet has been designed to watch you.

There is no sense in pretending anymore. Not at this point. Show's over.

Somewhere around the late aughts, Silicon Valley realized it was much more profitable to commodify your attention than to sell you electronics. If you are always looking at a screen you are more likely to buy things that the screen tells you to buy.

And you're addicted now. Fomented by anything from Candy Crush to TikTok. Your attention has been ingested and metabolized. The phone is a part of you, just as is the internet, television, podcasts, newsfeeds, everything. It's a part of you now and there are thousands of voices in your head fighting for your attention. You would not have been aware of these voices before, but now they have made a home inside of you.

You've come to love it. You've welcomed it into your heart and it has made a home there. Millions of voices all speaking in unison. There is no escape except by cutting out the parts of you that it has infected. There may be many.

The path forward is long and painful. There may be no other way.

also on substack ↗