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Joined 19 days ago
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Cake day: November 4th, 2024

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  • Do you legitimately think that any use of the words “what about” makes something whataboutism?

    No, that’s not what makes it whataboutism. That’s just a funny bit of your comment. What makes it whataboutism is your continued insistence that the problematic behavior is sourced from elsewhere. That’s not how things work. The right-wing extremism on Steam isn’t a symptom of extremism elsewhere. It isn’t sourced from elsewhere. It’s there on Steam, because the source for it is the same on Steam as it is on Twitter, right-wing extremist users. Suggesting that it is derived from the other sites implies that Valve is less responsible for it than other sites, which doesn’t make any sense. Furthermore, your argument in your comment is based on your perception of victimhood of video games by other media, which isn’t relevant to the conversation at all.

    And finally, the fact that Steam supposedly has, by your estimation and without any supporting evidence, less right-wing extremism than other sites doesn’t make the problem better or worse for Valve. It’s still a problem, and it’s one they have to deal with. Not twitter, not Facebook, and not anyone else.




  • A bit more context is important here. They aren’t E2EE, but they are stored encrypted. In the case of the person whose meta information was turned over, ProtonMail wasn’t forced to hand over the information right away, they were forced to collect it the next time that person accessed and used their email. That tells us that they didn’t store the information beforehand and could not access it without preparing to intercept it the next time their service was used.

    Ultimately, though, if something like that’s a dealbreaker, it’s likely you’re doing something that would benefit from a more secure way of communicating than email.



  • They gave meta information like IP to the government in Switzerland, where they are based, after the government forced them to with a court order. Not the encrypted mail, mind you, because they can’t do that, just the additional information they have on a user like email and IP.

    Because of that, a lot of redditers on r/privacy think they spy on their users for the US government. It’s a stretch, yes, but you have to remember they take turns using the one brain they collectively have.


  • It might be being sold even with a VPN, since VPNs aren’t really a privacy product in and of themselves. They need to be combined with other practices to be effective in that regard.

    For example, for social media like YouTube, I sandbox it inside a browser container, then blacklist any scripts from them anywhere else on the web using uBO. So javascript from Google can run inside the YouTube container, but if a page tries to load a Google script on another site, it never connects. Google can’t track me across the web, because the only site they ever see me on is YouTube, and not through my actual IP even then. And it probably goes without saying, but I use a throwaway Google account for YouTube. I make fun of Zios a lot online, so if I ever get banned, I can be back on YouTube in a couple minutes without there being any real consequences.





  • OK, let’s check then.

    You can usually sign up anonymously without giving an email address or phone number, although we may require human verification in some cases.

    Source

    I’ve signed up on Tor and the clearnet, and both times without providing an email address or phone number. Meaning if you keep running into that problem, it’s a sign that something you’re doing or have done is causing them to think you aren’t somebody that should be signing up without verification. Either way, the fact remains that most people aren’t having this issue.