Shake Police State Tracking with Mastodon!
Now that we officially live in the Police State of MAGA, we can no longer speak, write or post our thoughts without opening ourselves up to trumped up charges of whatever the MAGAmoron decides is his pet peeve du jour. The MAGAmoron uses Palantir software to sort and search for anyone based on his personal whim. Shared a meme on FB or IG or TikTok of the moron that catches his attention and ire? You are toast! Even gqp (grifter qanon pedos) who support him can be tracked down if their support isn’t what he rates “full throated.” Only the most ridiculous ass kissers will semi-safe.
I’ve never trusted social media platforms where I’m the product. What do I mean? Surely, you didn’t think zuckerberg funded FB out of the goodness of his heart? (FYI, I never capitalize the names of sleazy, money grubbing oligarchs and fascists.) Meta (FB’s parent company) annual revenue for 2024 was $164.5B. Gross Profit Margin for 2024 was reported as $146.5B. Bottom line, FB makes a shit-ton of money collecting, sorting, analyzing, packaging and selling data about you, your kids and their kids. They know what your grandchild’s buddy in 2nd grade wants for his birthday which is coming up in 15 days. FB knows your grand has asked for a gift to take to the party at a neighborhood pizza joint and it needs to be wrapped in superhero green, his favorite color. FB knows this because it’s all scraped off their sites each and every second. FB knows when your adult kids are trying for grand #2, they know what brand pregnancy test kits they use, they know you’re shopping for a new car seat for when kiddo #2 pops out. They know more about you than you probably know yourself.
However, in today’s connected world, there are workarounds to allow you to communicate with large groups of like-minded people without the surveillance, censorship and hate. Keep in mind that in a world filled with 8+ billion people, “large” is a relative term. Mastodon’s 2 million accounts are mice nuts compared to FB’s 3+ billion users. But, to use an old cliche, “It’s quality over quantity.” Here’s a YouTube video that explains Mastodon (and its cousin Fediverse) in simple terms. And, here is a video explaining the Fediverse. Including the Fediverse, there currently about 15 million users of decentralized instances.
Do yourself a favor and create a Mastodon account using an anonymous “handle,” not the same tired “MeMaJones” you’ve been using since you first logged onto the Internet 20 years ago. Here’s a site listing literally thousands of Mastodon instances. If you’re the anal sort, feel free to read through all the descriptions before joining one but remember, you can join two or three or as many as you want because each instance (server) is a free-standing Mastodon social media world. I would start with Mastodon.social or Universeodon.com (George Takei is here) or toot.community (based in the Netherlands.) There are many, many, many more instances so don’t fall prey to “paralysis by analysis.” There aren’t any wrong choices because you can always change instances later. One caveat, there are some porn instances so always check out the instance before signing on the dotted line. Not to worry, most instances block porn sites and, if someone slips through, you can always block them.
In fact, I suggest you sign up for a Mastodon account with a “throw away” identity and just observe for a while until after I post my next article about Proton.me, a Swiss based, privacy & security focused suite of tools for keeping cops, wanna-be cops, security guards and low IQ transit cops at bay. Proton has both paid and free subscriptions. As a bona fide security freak (just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean people aren’t out to get me!) I have a paid account but for normal people, the free account may be all you need. As always, if you questions, feel free to post a comment.