Three extra clicks made me a rebel...

There was a time when we dared not question the digital status quo. But now we write and read about the importance of online privacy, and, congregating in online forums and social media groups, we complain to each other about the erosion of our digital rights, the manipulation of our personal data, and the insidious influence of algorithms on our lives. There's the unnecessary bravado around our government's and corporations' collection of our personal data, against the backdrop of widespread data breaches and cyber attacks at home; and the buttressing of surveillance capitalism; and the kindling of online echo chambers; and the ill-thought-out cultivation of artificial intelligence (at our expense, to boot)—in the end, we'll be the ones who suffer the consequences, and we'll have to live with them, what other option will there be? And they collect and analyze our personal data, and brand those who resist as paranoid or extremist—and it is always "they," while we are—helpless.

We are approaching the brink; already a universal digital demise is upon us; a loss of control over our personal data is about to engulf us and our children, while we continue to smile sheepishly and babble:

"But what can we do to stop it? We haven't the strength."

We have so hopelessly ceded our digital autonomy that for the modest conveniences of today we are ready to surrender up all our online privacy, our digital souls, all the benefits of our technological advancements, all the prospects of our digital future—anything to avoid disrupting our comfortable online existence. We have lost our strength, our pride, our passion. We do not even fear a common digital catastrophe, do not fear a massive data breach (perhaps we'll hide away in some online crevice), but fear only to take a digital stance! We hope only not to stray from the online herd, not to set out on our own, and risk suddenly having to make do without our social media accounts, our online shopping, our digital entertainment.

We have internalized well the lessons drummed into us by the tech industry; we are forever content and comfortable with its premise: we cannot escape the digital environment, the online social conditions; they shape us, "data determines behavior." What have we to do with this? We can do nothing.

But we can do—everything!—even if we comfort and lie to ourselves that this is not so. It is not "they" who are guilty of everything, but we ourselves, only we! For every time we click "agree" to a terms of service, every time we surrender our data to a corporation or government, we are complicit in our own digital enslavement.

Some will counter: But really, there is nothing to be done! Our data is already out there, no one listens to us, no one asks us. How can we make them listen to us?

To make them reconsider—is impossible.

The natural thing would be simply not to give away our data, not to participate in the digital charade, but there are no alternatives in our digital landscape.

In the past, people have used online petitions, social media campaigns, but we are too cowed, too scared: How does one just give up one's online presence, just go offline?

All the other fateful means resorted to over the last decades of digital history are even less fitting for us today—true, let's not fall back on them! Today, when all the algorithms have optimized what they've optimized, when all that was coded has borne fruit, we can see how lost, how drugged were those conceited tech enthusiasts who sought, through hacking, cyber attacks, and online vigilantism, to make the digital world just and free. No thank you, fathers of the internet! We now know that the vileness of the means begets the vileness of the result. Let our digital hands be clean!

So has the circle closed? So is there indeed no way out? So the only thing left to do is wait inertly: What if something just happens by itself?

But it will never come unstuck by itself, if we all, every day, continue to acknowledge, glorify, and strengthen the digital status quo, if we do not, at the least, recoil from its most vulnerable point.

From the surrender of our private data.

When surveillance bursts onto the peaceful digital landscape, its face is flush with self-assurance, it displays on its banner and proclaims: "I am the all-seeing eye! Make way, step aside, I will collect your data!" But surveillance ages swiftly, a few years pass—and it is no longer sure of itself. To prop itself up, to appear decent, it will without fail call forth its ally—manipulation of our personal data. For surveillance has nothing to cover itself with but manipulation, and manipulation can only persist through surveillance. And it is not every day and not on every shoulder that surveillance brings down its heavy hand: It demands of us only a submission to data collection, a daily participation in the digital charade—and this suffices as our fealty.

And therein we find, neglected by us, the simplest, the most accessible key to our digital liberation: a personal refusal to surrender our private data! Even if all is covered by surveillance, even if all is under their control, let us resist in the smallest way: Let their control hold not through us!

And this is the way to break out of the imaginary encirclement of our digital inertness, the easiest way for us and the most devastating for the surveillers. For when people refuse to surrender their data, surveillance simply ceases to exist. Like parasites, they can only survive when attached to a person.

We are not called upon to step out onto the digital square and shout out the truth, to say out loud what we think—this is scary, we are not ready. But let us at least refuse to surrender our data!

This is the way, then, the easiest and most accessible for us given our deep-seated organic cowardice, much easier than (it's scary even to utter the words) digital civil disobedience.

Our way must be: Never knowingly surrender our private data! Having understood where the data collection begins (and many see this line differently)—step back from that gangrenous edge! Let us not glue back the flaking scales of the digital ideology, not gather back its crumbling bones, nor patch together its decomposing garb, and we will be amazed how swiftly and helplessly the surveillance will fall away, and that which is destined to be naked will be exposed as such to the world.

And thus, overcoming our timidity, let each person choose: Will they remain a witting servant of the surveillers (needless to say, not due to natural predisposition, but in order to provide a digital livelihood, to rear the children in the spirit of surveillance!), or has the time come for them to stand straight as a digital honest person, worthy of the respect of their children and contemporaries? And from that day onward they:

· Will not surrender their data to any corporation or government without a fight;

· Will not participate in online activities that compromise their digital autonomy;

· Will not support companies that prioritize profits over privacy;

· Will not click on ads or links that track their online behavior;

· Will not use social media platforms that collect and sell their personal data;

· Will not install apps that compromise their digital security;

· Will not participate in online discussions that are manipulated by algorithms or bots;

· Will not subscribe to online services that require them to surrender their data.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of the possible and necessary ways of resisting surveillance. But those who begin to cleanse themselves will, with a cleansed digital eye, easily discern yet other opportunities.

Yes, at first it will not be fair. Someone will have to temporarily lose their digital privileges. For the young who seek to live by digital truth, this will at first severely complicate life, for their digital tests and quizzes, too, are stuffed with manipulation, and so choices will have to be made. But there is no loophole left for anyone who seeks to be digitally honest: Not even for a day, not even in the safest digital occupations can they avoid even a single one of the listed choices—to be made in favor of either digital truth or surveillance, in favor of digital independence or digital servility. And as for those who lack the courage to defend even their own digital souls: Let them not brag of their progressive digital views, boast of their digital status as influencers or thought leaders, distinguished digital citizens or online personalities. Let them say to themselves plainly: I am a digital slave, I am a coward, I seek only digital comfort and to click my way through life.

For us, who have grown staid over time, even this most moderate path of digital resistance will be not be easy to set out upon. But how much easier it is than digital self-immolation or even a digital hunger strike: The digital flames will not engulf our bodies, our digital eyes will not pop out from the heat, and our digital families will always have at least a piece of digital bread to wash down with a glass of digital water.

Betrayed and deceived by us, did not a great digital community—the online activists—show us how one can stand down the digital giants with bared digital chests alone, as long as inside them beats a worthy digital heart?

It will not be an easy path, perhaps, but it is the easiest among those that lie before us. Not an easy choice for the digital body, but the only one for the digital soul. No, not an easy path, but then we already have among us people, dozens even, who have for years abided by all these rules, who live by digital privacy.

And so: We need not be the first to set out on this path, Ours is but to join! The more of us set out together, the thicker our digital ranks, the easier and shorter will this path be for us all! If we become thousands—they will not cope, they will be unable to touch us. If we will grow to tens of thousands—we will not recognize our digital world!

But if we shrink away, then let us cease complaining that someone does not let us draw digital breath—we do it to ourselves! Let us then cower and hunker down, while the technologists bring closer the day when our thoughts can be read and our behaviors altered.

'Building the Muscle

At first, refusal feels like work. Extra clicks. More setup. Less shiny. That’s intentional. They design defaults to wear you down.

But once you start saying no, it flips. It becomes instinct. Your finger drifts to “Reject.” You skip logins without thinking. You stop expecting the system to serve you. You claw back agency.

It’s a discipline. Like push ups for your autonomy. The small daily acts compound. One day you wake up and realize: you’ve built a life with less tethering. Less profiling. Less capture.

That’s the whole point.'

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