The internet was made by us, for us, and we can take it back from the noise.
This is Part 1 of a new series I’m starting to help make the internet quieter, break free of doomscrolling, and bring intentionality to how we use our devices. If you enjoyed this piece, please share your feedback or share it! Thank you!
To create an effective burner account you need an effective burner device and a burner network to use it on. Otherwise it is trivial for companies that collect your data to figure out who that data belongs to.
This is more technologically difficult than the average person is willing to deal with. It’s too high of a bar to clear when your browser is being fingerprinted, your devices are being fingerprinted, every new device you buy has some app or subscription, and algorithms collect and anonymous your data with such recklessness that it’s basically trivial to unanonymize it.
Use the same network as your parents and you’ll get ads for the toothpaste they use, and maybe what they plan to buy you for Christmas.
Try to remove or block trackers? That just makes it easy to single you out as a specific individual. Try to firehouse those trackers with garbage data? Same problem.
If you think using a dummy Facebook account on the same device you use afor regular accounts means Facebook doesn’t track you or know who you are? That’s a pipe dream.
It’s the same with other apps too.
Especially Google and their app network.
Understand that it’s not that I don’t think this is a good idea (to remove certain services from your electronic life, and to curtail the use of others). But I think your strategy will give people a false sense of security.