I have been thinking a lot about digital sovereignty lately and how quickly the internet is turning into a weird blend of surreal slop and centralized control. It feels like we are losing the ability to tell what is real because of how easy it is for trillionaire tech companies to flood our feeds with whatever they want.
Specifically I am curious about what I call “kirkification” which is the way these tools make it trivial to warp a person’s digital identity into a caricature. It starts with a joke or a face swap but it ends with people losing control over how they are perceived online.
If we want to protect ourselves and our local communities from being manipulated by these black box models how do we actually do it?
I want to know if anyone here has tried moving away from the cloud toward sovereign compute. Is hosting our own communication and media solutions actually a viable way to starve these massive models of our data? Can a small town actually manage its own digital utility instead of just being a data farm for big tech?
Also how do we even explain this to normal people who are not extremely online? How can we help neighbors or the elderly recognize when they are being nudged by an algorithm or seeing a digital caricature?
It seems like we should be aiming for a world of a million millionaires rather than just a room full of trillionaires but the technical hurdles like isp throttling and protocol issues make that bridge hard to build.
Has anyone here successfully implemented local first solutions that reduced their reliance on big tech ai? I am looking for ways to foster cognitive immunity and keep our data grounded in meatspace.
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Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
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Have you considered teaching? People will need these skills moving forward. Change can start with education.
I hadn’t seriously considered it but you’re right that there’s a gap here. The people who understand this stuff either don’t have time to teach or they’re charging enterprise consulting rates. Meanwhile the folks who actually need these skills - community organizers, small nonprofits, people trying to escape surveillance - can’t afford that. I’ve got the technical background from O-Net and I’m already doing informal tech support for friends anyway. The difference between “helping my friend set up Matrix” and “running a workshop on self-hosted communication” is mostly just structure and confidence. The barrier is partly income - I’m unemployed and need to eat - but also credentials. I don’t have teaching experience or certifications. Who’s going to take a workshop from a 24-year-old dropout? But maybe that’s the wrong framing. The communities that actually need this knowledge don’t care about credentials, they care about results. There are models for this. My town does digital literacy workshops. Even just making YouTube tutorials or writing guides would be a start. The knowledge doesn’t help anyone if it stays locked in my head or scattered across Lemmy threads.
You are thinking old school teaching. Maybe consider some local programs esp in areas that need skills. It’s a start. If you can donate 4 hours a month then it’s something. If it works lots of these places are willing to help you invest in trainer certs etc. a small amount of hours allows you to work and too. Build it slowly through influence and support. Not everyone who helps you learn is actually a teacher.