I wanted to make this post to try and raise awareness about internet privacy and censorship among communists, as this seems to be often overlooked in these spaces.
By using big tech services, such as Google’s endless arsenal of “free” services, Apple, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft, you are letting these companies learn everything about you: your interests, the people you talk to, the places you go to and your political interests. And as is well known nowadays, all of these companies are lapdogs for western intelligence agencies, handing over all of that precious data to them and censoring dissent. I hope you can clearly see the problem here. As a communist, this presents a massive threat to your freedom of speech, freedom to protest and even your safety, especially if you live in the imperial core.
I urge all comrades to stop using these services, by switching to private and open source alternatives, and to use additional measures to protect your privacy such as TOR or a trustworthy VPN like RiseUp, Calyx or Proton.
You can find more resources here:
Agreed. At the very least, use Tor when doing anything that could get you in trouble, even if it isn’t illegal (including something as basic as frequenting Lemmygrad in a highly anticommunist country), because there’s no guarantee that it won’t affect you in a few years as the second Cold War continues