No real mention of the parents other than a line about how they’re lining up to sue too. When I was a kid, my parents made me log every moment I spent in front of the computer in a book along with what I was doing. I got into some stuff, but I also got sat down and talked to a few times. Many of my friends had to share phones with siblings. The computer was in a public space and we were all told to never use our real name online. Where did things go wrong and why?

I dislike Meta an FB a lot, but I think it’s ridiculous to make them responsible for every kid in America. Isn’t there a confirmation dialogue that says you’re not allowed to use it if you are under 13? The parents gave them a tool that can be used to look up >>>almost anything<<<. Thats like handing your kid a metaphorical RPG and sending them out the door to go play. Making sure kids have guidance and help in developing media literacy is at least partially the parents job.

Having said that, I do think there is a lot of other bad stuff META did that should have already put them out of business. In my opinion, they’re obviously a bad actor but blaming them infantalizes everyone else. Poor little Americans, powerless against the big bad Meta. Also, why is it okay to manipulate adults? If anything, these feeds should be boldly labeled as “does not reflect reality”, or “this content has been algorithmically selected to be addictive, take frequent breaks, touch grass”

I read that the one of the differences between Organic Maps and CoMaps is that the server side code for CoMaps is FOSS, while some of the server side code for Organic Maps is not. I hope I understood that correctly. I have Organic Maps installed because it was in the GrapheneOS app store.

If CoMaps has open server-side code, could I create my own map tiles with the best bike routes in my area and self-host them for myself and my friends? I find that google, bing, OpenStreetMap, etc all suck at recognizing good bike routes in my area and hand-curated routes are much better. I’d prefer to hand-curate the best routes color coded based on perceived safety and whether they are daytime only routes or acceptable for nighttime travel. Is something like this doable with CoMaps?

"You have selected ‘Caucasian Christian’. Permanent light mode has been activated and you can no longer look up porn on Sunday.

You have selected “Arabic Muslim”, sensor access has automatically been granted to determine when you are facing Mecca. If you have too many friendly fire incidents in CoD, the US will deploy reaper drones to your IRL GPS location.

On a more serious note:

There’s been a lot of talk about protecting kids, but none about protecting grandma from scams and AI misinformation if her systemd age field indicates she’s 65 or older. Why is that? Is it because kids don’t have rights, so who cares if by protecting them we prevent them from developing a shred of digital literacy? Or is it because the over 65’s can vote and kids can’t?

So in other words, “Sure we built the people-crushing machines, but we didn’t wire them up or turn them on.”

I’m sure the trees appreciate the AI sicofancy. /s

Protip, you can use your hostsfile or your router to block google so you don’t get tempted. If you may have to bypass, you can use some blocking extensions to allow an override after a nag screen chastising yourself for being weak willed. I rarely reach for the goog nowadays because I have a whole workflow I go through before giving in.

I wonder how far one of these would fly if it wandered onto a road and got hammered by a semi doing 55mph.

I saw the location on one of those “war dashboards” a day or two ago. Can’t have been that secret.

Thanks for the correction, I’ve clarified my previous comment.

When I see all the people running off this cliff, and the trump loving gen Z guys, I have to wonder if I’m going to have 5 simultaneous girlfriends before a single girl smiles at them. You gotta have self-respect before others will respect you.

I’ve adjusted to something similar:

• DDG for all-purpose searching
• SearXNG when I’m feeling extra FOSS
• Kagi when I need 1999 Google.
• Google “verbatim” mode when I absolutely mist use it.

I got laid off by one of these big tech corporations and replaced by AI (in my opinion, they denied this). It couldn’t have come at a better time because I was past the point where my ethics were allowing me to continue. Let someone else build, sell, and support the framework of global oppression. I wouldn’t mind doing some Linux work (20+ years of Linux use, minor coding experience, some devops type stuff, but mostly support/sales). For now, I’m focused on my family and I might teach some dance in the meantime. Gotta dance while the world is burning; how else do I stay positive?

Here’s the link to the a different article from the Republic on a similar topic, it’s accountwalled/paywalled but you can read the first paragraph or two (in German).

https://www.republik.ch/2026/03/19/schweizer-konzerne-finanzieren-palantirs-ueberwachungs-software

Articles like this are what puts a media source’s homepage in my bookmarks.

How about a 24 hour waiting period for me to harden my OS before Google slurps up all my data.

I liked Manjaro, they had a nice theme, it was in the direction of Arch, but still had some guardrails for the noobish.

Then my system kept breaking, then they screwed up their certs. If they want to fork it and go forward with a different focus/ideology, that’s fine by me.

The US constitution basically guarantees us root access to our own lives (life, liberty, and the pursuit of property/happiness). I’d like the same or better for my devices.

An option for full password on every cold boot with pin for subsequent unlocks would strengthen security without removing user freedom.

10 years ago I would have called that a stretch. After Windows 11, there is no doubt that Windows is spyware.

Goodby Ubuntu (community), you are now Ukuhaha (greed), freeBSD is now non-free BSD, openSuse/closedSuse, Fedora becomes Baseball Cap, Enlightenment WM becomes Samsara WM, etc.

I have no doubt that they’re pushing this because it hands then market share stolen from superior devs who distribute via multiple channels and dont ascribe to their top-down philosophy.