If you’re a user of Windows, and have been for a large portion of your life, you’re probably astounded that, via Windows 11, Microsoft is both trying to mimic Apple, and embedding information theft directly into your desktop. What do I mean? I mean, Apple does Apple better than Microsoft, and the inaccurately named “AI” that every billion dollar company is jumping on, is now also a part of your Windows desktop.
I don’t know what kind of information it’s collecting, I don’t know if it even is, but a corporation being a corporation, you can bet it’s likely. Stealing your information to sell to advertisers, and training LLMs so that it can better replace you, and possibly your job.
Automattic, the owners of Tumblr and WordPress.com (not to be confused with the open source self-hosted WordPress), have also not only bought into AI, but are openly planning to sell your information to Midjourney (Midjourney is a very openly anti-consent theft machine for generating images). There is, of course, little concrete detail about this thus far, but I’m not taking any chances.
Back to the Windows problem, though, I’m also not taking any chances with what Microsoft will or won’t do with their “AI.”
And thus, I have moved to Debian 12.
Debian is one of many Linux distros, and one of my favorites (I’m also a frequent MacOS user, but that’s beside the point). It’s very much an in-between for experienced users, and beginners. But the best part about it? It’s helmed by a non-profit, and there ain’t any AI in it.
As time marches forward, I fully believe every corporation, or corporate owned entity, from Sheetz to Bluesky, will have some sort of AI implementation in order to make bank off of what you type, what you post, and what you create. Which means, the era of open source has truly begun.
If you’re looking to get away from thieving corpos and their slightly advanced chatbots, here is a list of things you can use and know you aren’t, or at least have a very less likely chance of being, run dry by a scraper.
- Mastodon – An open source social media project with a few forks wherein you can choose a server, sign up, and start posting just like you’re on Twitter. Or, better yet, spin up a VPS and host your own copy! … and then start posting like you’re on Twitter.
- Debian – An open source Linux distro that I favor greatly. Debian 12 only requires a bootable, and you’re done. I highly recommend reading up on basic Linux usage if you’re considering this.
- Peertube – A Youtube alternative that doesn’t have any ads, no algorithm, and isn’t hanging up a “Don’t be evil” sign, just to take it down like some kind of cartoon villain. Peertube is connected to the same network that Mastodon runs on (ActivityPub), as are the next two networks in this list.
- Lemmy – A Reddit alternative run on AP that connects many servers together with more topics and communities than you can throw a penny at. Not run by an idiot CEO who thinks he’s Elon Musk Jr.
- Pixelfed – An Instagram alternative that’s much like the Insta-of-old. Join up, post your photos, call it day.
As you can see, there are alternatives for every single beast you’ve known for the past decade, or the past two decades (or three). Of course, Tik Tok is excluded, but it’s far too late for TT to be anything other than a disinformation rage-machine, and an alternative would only be … well, it’d probably suck.
When it comes to your information, and your identity, and your work, you should take these things seriously. You should protect what’s yours, especially in a world where corporations are more and more siding with the idea that you do not own anything.
I originally wanted to write this just to talk about how great the switch to Debian 12 was, from a Windows 11 install, but my thoughts have a way of trailing off into philosophy zone.
So …
Take back what’s yours, take back the internet, take back your data, and rest easy.
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