This bill has me finally thinking about getting a VPN. Then I thought, which country would I send my traffic to, anyways? Seems many are going squirrelly at the moment, and it will only get worse over time. Might need to start finding onion sites to chat on, like old forum styles, and onion high seas etc.

Briar is Android only. Bitchat is an iOS app (may have an Android port in the future though, I think).

What's dystopian is that a company like google will fight tooth and nail to remain the sole owner and rights holder to such a tech. A technology that should be made accessible outside the confines of capitalist motives. Such technologies have the potential to lift entire populations out of poverty. Not to mention that they could mitigate global warming considerably. It is simply not in the interest of humanity to allow one or more companies to hold a monopoly over such technology

Giant twice-reflecting mirror of low-expansion borrosilicate covered in pure silver and a giant digital camera with filters.

Or validating source, making sure it isn't AI content which usually regurgitates the same talking points. Homogenizing the entire query and removing actual information variance of personal experience.

Damn, I heard this mentioned somewhere as well! I don't remember where, though... The CIA is also involved with the cartels in Mexico as well as certain groups in the Middle East. They like to bring "democracy" to many countries that won't become a pawn of the Western regime.

I share your frustration. I went nuts about this the other day. It was in the context of searching on a discord server, rather than Google, but it was so aggravating because of the how the "I know better than you" is everywhere nowadays in tech. The discord server was a reading group, and I was searching for discussion regarding a recent book they'd studied, by someone named "Copi". At first, I didn't use quotation marks, and I found my results were swamped with messages that included the word "copy". At this point I was fairly chill and just added quotation marks to my query to emphasise that it definitely was "Copi" I wanted. I still was swamped with messages with "copy", and it drove me mad because there is literally no way to say "fucking use the terms I give you and not the ones you think I want". The software example you give is a great example of when it would be real great to be able to have this ability. TL;DR: Solidarity in rage