Excellent Medium article on some behind the scenes data science, and how Cambridge Anylitica (now renamed as Emerdata Ltd.) used behavioral profiling, ad micro-targeting via Facebook, and AI to win elections and influence opinions and politics worldwide.
medium.com/join-scout/the-rise-of-the-weaponized-ai-propaganda-machine
The best way to thwart these kind of systems is to use an open source web browser like Firefox, and use addons such as:
- (Search) DuckDuckGo: the search engine that doesn’t track you
- (Email) Protonmail: free-mium email account provider with a Swiss-based company with better physical and legal protections (+) for you than most other companies/countries.
- Also nice if you don’t want an
targeted ad engine(???) anddragnet warrant-less surveillance from the NSA(anymore???) trawling though your emails, like some of the other big free providers - My email account is run on my family’s own private email server
- (This is so atypical nowadays, I give most people context by telling them it’s like Hilary Clinton’s (or Bush’s / RNC’s, depending on your flavor) private server 😂) for privacy reasons, but this may be unnecessarily complicated for most people.
- Also nice if you don’t want an
- (Password Manager): Firefox Lockwise or Lastpass:
- Keeps track of your passwords for various different web apps so you don’t have to
- Set one master password for your account, other passwords are saved and filled in automatically by the browser addon
- Prevents you from getting pwned if one the companies hosting your account gets hacked and the password isn’t securely stored.
- Privacy Badger: Learns how sites track you, and drops these connections
- Ublock Origin : Blocks most ads
- Facebook Container : Isolates Facebook’s elements from the rest of your browsing
Mobile:
- Firefox Focus: web browser built for privacy on iOS and Android
- DuckDuckGo app: all in one privacy focused browser for iOS and Android.
More browser addons:
- Google , Amazon, etc. Containers: Isolates behavior and tracking to site-specific containers
- Disconnect : Similar to privacy possum
- Facebook adblock: blocks Facebook ads
- (Bonus) VimVixen : Speedy web browsing with vim shortcuts (for the old-school terminal lovers out there)
Also, it’s worth going into your Google account settings and turning off personalized ads and location data collection, especially if you have an Android phone.
These all may be helpful steps to help secure your privacy, even for reasons that may not immediately be clear to you at the time (+) (+) (+).
Previously:
