Identity on internet

This is more of a rant, I already wrote about this in January this year, but never published it...

Forcing people to identify themself on internet is totaly absurd. I'm against it. Especially because our policies, national and international, sucks. I live in Europe, so we have the GDPR, but what does it mean? Nobody knows exactly. "Right to disapear" some would say, so you send a mail to a company, they are forced to give your data to you and need to remove all info related to you from ALL their systems. But does it happen? I don't think so, even if the audit, they had, "proved" that they are "working on it", or "they actually remove". How do you check that. I did create an account on Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, Google, ... I deleted some, then recreated, then polluted, than deleted, ... but lastly the created accounts, I didn't bother to delete them, I don't use them anymore, so the accounts exists, but I can't access or I didn't logged in for a very long time.

So they created GDPR, but at the same time, they intruduced KYC, which is a bs abbreviation, it stand for "Know your customer", which is at first introduced in financial world (that I know of). To buy a coin, you need to verify to whatever service, it can also be a scammer. Then they expanded it to nearly all services that exists on the internet.

Currently I only use Signal as chat app. Most of my friends, families, colleagues, ... are not using it, and try to convince me to go back to Whatsapp. Even if I tell them, why I don't want to use, and why I don't trust it. Still they are trying, and the most bs comment I get is "everybody is using it, why are you doing like you are special, and just use it too". Until they see something bad happened at Meta (or any other big company). Then they try to tell me the things I told them, like it is the first time they heared it. So I gave up on explaining why I don't use it, why I don't trust it, and act kind of stupid (like "ohhh, I didn't know, how they can do such a thing"). If you want to use any service, do it, I'm not the one to tell you not to use it, but don't try to put pressure on me to also use the "awesome app" you are really fond of and that everybody is using.

Then there is media, which is a weapon. And the one controlling it will tell and convince a lot of people. Like I said, I use Signal. When someone asks me how they can contact me, I give my number, and ask if they use or want to use Signal (most of the time, they don't want to install another app). And some people tell me the exact same bs the media is telling everybody "Do you have something to hide, why are you using this shady app". So if you tell people that you use Tor, DarkWeb, Telegram, Signal, Session, host your own mailserver, ... they associate those with criminal activities. When you create a social profile on Facebook or Twitter, ... with fake accounts. Again, why are you trying to hide your identity, are you doing some shady things? Are you catfishing, ...

Back to my main topic, those are also little things that got normalized. Giving up your identity on internet is normal, so you show to everyone that you don't hide anything. Well... until shit hits the fan. Until the things you share with the world is used against you, for whatever reason. To manipulate you to buy things, to charge you for something you said 15 years ago, to "cancel" you, ...

For me internet was a place to do whatever you want, without someone looking over your shoulders. I don't know when, we gave that up and I really hate it.

LinkedIn forces me to accept the new TOS, if I don't accept it, I can't login to my account, so I decide to remove it completely, to be able to remove it, I need to provide real identity evidence, then I can remove it.

I drive a car with Android Automotive, forces me to use GoogleMaps, only alternative I can use is Waze (which is also owned by Google). To be able to install anything, I need to login with a Google Account, so I create one, after 1-2 days, the account gets logged out, I can't login with that account on my car. Then I try it on a computer, and search the internet, why this is happening, and I need to identity myself, provide real evidence of my age and country I live in, so they know "I'm legally old enough to drive a car".

The school my kid is going uses Facebook private group to share school pictures, I tried to create an account, but during account creation I need to provide real evidence, with id card or driver license and video/picture of me holding a paper with todays date on it.

And ofcourse, the Chat Control Act they wanted to deploy on EU as well. Which I'm totally against it. You are going to force every citizen to give out their info to you, meanwhile, you (as government or state) are the exception to talk privately with whomever you want, because you can have "some national secrets".

The explanation is always the same, "we do it to catch criminals and make your life more secure". I know that it is absolutely not for security.

Let me tell you why it isn't for catching criminals, but more for controling the citizens. Who did fund the "freedom fighters", that turned up to be terrorist organizations? Who were the connections of the worlds nr 1 sex trafficer? Where did they find the millions of Euros in suitcases? Those weren't the citizens you want to impose the Chat Control on.

I hope that more and more people will be able to break from the cycle where you need to sacrifice your freedom, your identity, your privacy to just get some short term convenience. This is what I hope for. But deep down, I know that it has always been like this, and will continue to be like this. At least, we can be sceptical about anything that is pushed to us. The question "Why" is very powerfull, just don't be shy to ask that question a lot, even if they tell you that is forbidden.

When I started to ask the question "why", a lot of things became easier to understand, I made a lot of progress in life itself, much became clear to me. It is not easy to ask, but we al start curious as kids. So we already have it in ourselves, just need to find that curiosity back.

This is a lot of ranting for one day. Hopefully the weekend will the sun shine, so we can enjoy it.

Kind regards