Being invisible on the internet
Right,
So I've got this issue with so-called anonymity.
It seems to me like everyone around me is focusing on how to be as invisible as possible on the internet.
And it really doesn't feel right.
It feels as if it is totally coming from a fear-based perspective.
Yes I know your identity can be stolen.
Yes I know that there are people who are trying to steal stuff from you, whatever that may be.
Yes I know there are 'bad' people out there.
But you know what?
If someone REALLY wants to find something out about you, then I am sure they will.
Like REALLY.
It is so easy to get in touch with hackers and what not nowadays.
And no, I don't know this from experience.
I know this because I've witnessed it online.
I read a post on here yesterday that was talking about how we shouldn't use our real names on Steemit because what if our account gets huge and people will know how to find us and try and steal our money??
And you know what? It worked. It put me in a fear-based place for 10 minutes orso.
Really worrying about my name on here.
Because it is my real name.
Ashley.
Kalila.
You can type it into google and pretty much found out quite a lot about me.
I really got this bad feeling in my stomach about it.
This is what my thoughts looked like :
Shit, should I really have used my own name? Technically, someone could kidnap me and force me to give out my passwords to gain access to my account to take my precious Steem. Is that really going to happen? Does that happen? Will the government come after me for using another system to support myself?
BLA BLA BLA BLA BLA...
BULLSHIT.
Look, yes. It can all happen.
But I refuse to live in a space that is fear-based.
I will not give into the ideas that want to make me small, want to make me invisible and want to make me hide from the world.
I believe in openness, reality and authenticity.
I believe in baring our soul to the world, even in such a little thing as a username.
It has to be me. It has to represent me. Fully. Completely.
I believe in just being ourselves and owning whatever we bring out into the world.
And look, I fully understand that if you are posting about something which is taboo or illegal or whatever, that you might choose to an alias because you don't want your mother, boss, spouse, children, next door neighbour or whoever to find out the filth you write or the illegal shit you do in your basement.
But to me, it feels like in order for this system to fully work, we need to be fully open aswell.
And that starts with choosing a username.
So what's it going to be?
BIG love,
Ashley
ps. What do you think? What are your ideas about visibility online?
I use anonymity because it implies freedom of speech. Many internet sites and browsers filter what you see. Google is a great example, if you and I google the same exact thing, our answers are completely different. Google now has a new EULA and it is not hiding the fact that it uses censorship. Facebook is another one, one I no longer use because since it's IPO it has been so obviously propped up by the US Government as a data mining and control tool. I do not always go anonymous. Steemit, for example, has a horrible privacy policy but I like the platform so I subscribe. I think that visibility is slightly less important that anonymity because you are letting yourself be used as a product when you are visible. Google, Twitter, Facistbook, or any other "Free" service is not free: You are the product, you are the livestock! FSF and other people fighting for free speech do give things away, but they do not ask you your name, what you like, or insert control mechanisms. Take your Gmail. Notice how it takes a few seconds to load? That is not because it is "slow" it was deliberately programmed in to build suspense. Some people might not see how sinister that is, but to me there's nothing nice about controlling other people. Nothing good comes of it.
I totally get what you mean. But do you really think this is reduced when you go anonymously to certain websites and such? Or do you delete your cookies after every internet sesh? I've actually never noticed that about Gmail. I'll have to check it out when I log on next time!
I'm kind of in the middle of this. As a Magickal practitioner writing and communicating mostly about Magick online I obviously use my Magickal name attached to the Magick part of my personality. And slowly it is becoming as much me as my birth name is me, and people who know me personally and know my real name often still prefer to call me Echion or Echi in conversation (for whatever reason). Also my first name is pretty easy for most people but both my complete birth name and my legal name both confuse the hell out of people and most people find both of them too hard to write and/or pronounce.
And on top of that I value my privacy, and agree with pretty much everything @pastbastard just said. And I'm slightly camera-shy and socially anxious so facebook would be a no go zone for me anyways. And with my Sun in Cancer the secrecy should be no surprise to anyone anyways...
And my final reason would probably be that I want to make it as much as possible about my message rather than it being about me.
But then I find myself agreeing with most of this article, and with similar thoughts going through my mind I have become less and less privacy conscious for the last year or so. And I greatly admire and respect the courage of people when they totally put themselves out there and leave themselves vulnerable. It does show that you stand behind everything you do and say, even when you mess up. Maybe I lack the courage in that regard or maybe I'm courageous in my own way and express it differently than most people do. I'm not sure yet, but who knows, maybe I'll just blow these doors wide open one of these days.
While staying private can definitely be a valid statement or form of protest against those corporations which try to turn us into consumer puppets and have no qualms of giving our information away to governments, and I agree with the method of not giving them anything, for me personally I'm just going through a stage where I feel they can scream as much as they want, as their screams will be caught in the net of my ad-block/pop up blocker/virus scan/firewall, and while I still remain somewhat cautious I don't care that much anymore if they find out who the person is behind my messages as I stand fully behind everything I do and say online. Should the government of the country in which I reside ever become a little bit too authoritarian and turn Chinese or something (which doesn't happen from one day to the other) I will have packed my bags and left before that even happens.
Oh @echion I deeply want to thank you for your reply.
I can smell the authenticity coming from your words and I just wish I had more voting power to give you some proper $$!
Anyway, I feel you. Entirely.
I am ofcourse going to encourage you to blow those doors wide open and show yourself completely as you are.
Because I have noticed that for me, being completely myself, has been so inmensely freeing.
The less fucks I give, the better I feel!
Yet, I am in no way threatening anyone or any kind of system here on Earth ( as far as I know). Although quite a few people cringe at my use of swear words ;)
I guess this is a topic that will always be strange because there is no right or wrong way.
All there is is what is right for you.
And with that, I say, regardless of what your username is or how you choose to represent yourself online, I only hope you are being true to who you are.
I am also a Magickian! My moniker "PastBastard" actually refers to Freemasonry: I am a Past Master. There is an inner aspect to anonymity that allows a personality to explore new directions for growth. I had never thought about that, but it is very much the case. Also, I strongly suggest a VR Temple if you have the means. It had always seemed to me that if I could create something astrally, it would eventually come to fruition. Creating in VR also invokes the thing into your life, although in a different manner.
As a police officer I totally agree. I can watch someone for a while and stop them when they break the law. Everyone J-walks or spits in the street, or wears patent leather shoes in public, or breaks some law. It's better to have freedom of speech. Fight for it! That's also nice the way you said it @kkugel2 a lot of people would have trolled. Maybe not steemians but could you imagine this on Voat?
Hi @kkugel2 I am not entirely sure what you are saying here. Are you agreeing with me? Or with @pastbastard? Or both? ;)
Both really. It's important to be aware of what these companies are doing with your digital self and the subtler impact on the mind. Take for instance "mirror nuerons" a topic the bigger internet companies know all about.
Also, I am in the US and we pretty much have a police state now. We still have a good standard of living but it ain't what it used to be.....
Yeah I get that.
I am going to look into what the privacy policies etc are in Europe.
Most laws in Europe right now are on the side of the consumer. ISP's are not required to save any internet data (or meta data) of their consumers for example. They were required to do so in the past (to fight terrorism) but this has changed in 2015. Downloading illegal content from websites such as the Piratebay is illegal according to the laws of the European Union but in some countries like the Netherlands they are more likely to target the websites which facilitate the downloading of illegal content (some ISP's have been ordered to block the Piratebay soon again for example, and other ISP's might soon have to follow suit), but the end consumer is rarely if ever targeted. In other countries like Germany you can get a hefty fine if you're caught downloading illegal content. But these laws are always changing etc. Some ISP's are always doing everything to protect the data of their customers and Governments of some countries also don't agree with the rules of the European Union so you got all these parties (including the public) fighting one another all the time.
Google has some safety build into it's structure by using the https protocol which means that it would be harder for a third party to hack your emails for example. But on the other hand Google was known for scanning all your emails and pick out words so it could provide you with targeted ads. So all of your emails etc. are/were being read by Google, but not so long ago Google made an announcement that it would stop reading your emails. I don't know if they have as of yet. It's no secret that they have worked and given personal data to governments in the past and there's hardly any doubt that they will in the future (as they are required by law).
If you go to https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated you can opt out of a lot of their snooping. But even then I'm not sure if and how much Google can be trusted. Like Facebook they don't have a reputation of being very trustworthy. And while you might not have as much to worry about much while your in Europe, if you ever voiced your political opinion online I have heard it happen that people were barred from entering the U.S. based on information they shared online, either in private or in public. Organizations like the NSA are known for collecting private information of citizens pretty much everywhere, and not just in the U.S.
But a lot of apps like whatsapp for example also have their own encryption build into it. So in a lot of cases your personal conversations etc. might be reasonably secure.
Woah thanks for this.
Yeah it's a tricky little arena we find ourselves in.
But nonetheless, for myself, I like to keep it all open!
And indeed the laws change every second it feels like so you never really know what's happening.
I'm in the USA too. We were founded by Librarians but it's not like that here now, not at all. The Government, Banks, and Corporations are all stifling the whole mess.
This post from a fellow INFJ steemer just showed up in my thread and it seemed relevant here so I thought I'd share it:
https://steemit.com/dtube/@boomshikha/0v023of0
https://dtube.video/#!/v/boomshikha/0v023of0