They might ban it, but if its diy there’s little they can do to actually enforce it. People can 3d print guns or make bombs because you can’t control basic tech. Making a mobile device is harder because the carriers could try and detect unofficial access. But even having a device that’s only for wifi is better than allowing the goverrment to constantly monitor everything their citizens do and say online.
We really need to come up with some DIYable devices. A future where most nation states insist in this sort of backdoor feels distressingly inevitable at this stage…
I feel like I have a very different experience of YouTube than most people on here. UBlock on desktop and Revanced on mobile means no ads / sponsored bits, which is absolutely essential. But I also don’t have a problem with the dreaded ‘algorithm’.
I don’t know if it’s the kinds of videos I watch (nothing political, or popular) or just not being in the US, but I don’t get recommended AI slop or crazy propaganda. I just looked through the Home feed the app, looks like half of it is channels I’ve subscribed to and most of the rest is channels I’ve watched recently but haven’t subscribed to. There’s a couple of videos from channels I don’t reconognise, so they could be weird slop but that’s not the vibe I’m getting at all, and if I clicked and they were I’d just tag it “Don’t Recommend this Channel”.
Disapproving of YouTube because it’s an evil hegemon makes sense. Supporting alternatives is great (I pay for nebula, even though I end up mostly watching the creators’ videos on YouTube). But I’m always curious about why other people seem to have such a terrible experience of the algorithm.
And the single video that isn’t a “Sponsored” ad is still from Red Bull, and basically an ad.
Was there a specific event that coincided with the blackout? I don’t know the details of current US events, just that they’re crazy and depressing.
This is absolutely not a subject I know about in detail, but I feel like there are credible reports of the printed guns.
And I agree that if the government wanted to absolutely control all internet access and devices they could make it very hard for anyone to use it without going outside their supervision. But “banning all Linux devices” is quiet a different level of authoritarianism than “force android producers to install government software”.