(2020-09-19) Ohno Adtech Touchscreen Capture And Our Social Dilemma

John Ohno: Ad-tech, touchscreen capture, and our ‘social dilemma’. You know, from direct first hand experience with targeted advertising, that ad-tech is (on average) bullshit.

So, what do we do? Ad-tech accelerationism! The adnauseam plugin clicks on every ad, while hiding it. It hastens the fall of adtech. At the same time, privacy weasel & privacy possum block trackers. Other plugins will spam them with flak data.

At the same time, we can counteract trendism (the primary behavioral result of ad-tech-oriented media) by Sorting By New on social media.

Basically, we need to sabotage the illusion that ad-tech is profitable while protecting ourselves from its fallout. Nobody will do this for us.

Social tech around social media will be no better to ad-tech than the printing press was to the Roman Catholic Church. We can accelerate this process.

We, as users (technical or nontechnical) don’t own or control the computing devices we rely on. We don’t control them because it is more profitable to keep the important parts on remote servers. It’s profitable because the ad-tech bubble hasn’t burst yet.

We need dual power. Create small-computing alternatives to big-computing behemoths. Make them ready for the fall.