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 anonymize 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 for 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.
I think the focus of the article is more on using services deliberately rather than pure privacy, and I think the all or nothing approach to thinking of online privacy as you mention detracts from any positive effects of the little things people just starting their journey may try.
Those big companies don’t care about you. Every small step taken toward privacy is beneficial, even if it’s just eliminating one data point at a time. If you make it harder to find your info, they aren’t going to hire a PI to track you down, there are plenty of easier marks to chase.
I think this might partially be a case of different uses of the word ‘burner’ - what they describe is not strong opsec, but it is a way to reduce how much you provide for free (which is often more work for the company to get). By this, I mean not providing so many photos to track your every social visit and movement, not immediately providing life updates (ie, relationships, purchases).
Will meta find out most of this? yes. But I suspect it will be slower, more error prone, and sometimes more costly. Which don’t seem like a bad thing. Is there a good technical term for this? Hardening?
Also, I’ll note that the point of the suggestions is to reduce noise in a persons life, not to go off the grid. I think the blog is trying to be more about curtailing and removing sources of distraction.