Privacy and security isn’t an all-or-nothing matter though. While a Pixel running GrapheneOS would indeed be more secure privacy-wise than an iPhone, not only would one have to be willing to do without a digital wallet, among other features that unfortunately have telemetry injected into them, but would still depend on the user not installing any of the common apps that would harvest data, even on a de-Googled phone.

Apple disabled the feature in the UK because the alternative, per the British government, was to add a backdoor to it.

Apple charges unreasonably high profit margins on its products as its primary business model, along with locking down their ecosystem to push overpriced subscriptions to the detriment of competitors, to not need the same level of invasive data collection that powers Google’s advertising business.

As long as corporate news outlets and social media platforms continue to control the narrative, they can spin stories in Trump’s favor to keep his approval rating artificially high as he plunges the country into despotic wreck and ruin.

There’s many reasons not to get an iPhone, but privacy worries, in contrast to Android, is not one of them.

Rather than take an all or nothing attitude on the matter, I certainly think your friend would be better off trying make smart choices with his data whenever possible. Ultimately though, it’s something that he has to be motivated to do himself. Perhaps informing him of potential privacy risks would be helpful in that regard.

The problem is that Apple’s extensive marketing of Apple Intelligence has led to expectations that far surpass what the final product is likely to be.

Most people think generative AI is magic coming out of a hat, so even if Apple delivers at the same level as other companies, people will feel like they’ve been misled.

That’s a symptom of Google holding a monopoly over search results.

Real reporting will always cost more to produce than AI-generated propaganda, and if the former has a paywall and the latter doesn’t, people will inevitably end up reading the news that takes the least effort to produce, to the detriment of actual news reporting.

Requiring Google to both carry such content and pay for it at least ensures that it has an even footing with websites seeking to push propaganda instead.

The problem is that society has transitioned to a point where most people essentially go to Google and Facebook for all their information. Given the monopolistic power of such platforms on public opinion, there is a very strong societal interest to ensure that actual news, not merely the propaganda of the highest bidder, is what people have access to.

The responsibility of Google to pay for it can be argued, but as real reporting will always cost more to produce than AI slop pushed by propagandists, there is arguably a public interest in that as well. The alternative is legitimate news more often than not ending up with more ads and paywalls than propaganda, which will just result in more people reading sources based on less reliable reporting.

If that’s what the French want, then it’s Google’s obligation to comply and simply adjust advertising rates as needed.

Even so, there is a societal interest in objective news being available to the public, which means that search engines should be required to carry such content, profitable or not. All the more so due to Google’s monopolistic grip on the search engine market.

Not the corporate one, with 680 employees in Washington, D.C.

To keep Radio Free Europe from degrading to the level of Russian propaganda, any and all fascist influence must be removed and kept out of its administration.

If Radio Free Europe gets EU funding, it should be reincorporated in Europe and the remainder of its US operations relocated to Prague to avoid any American influence on its reporting and continued defense of democracy.

There’s been several non-sensationalized headlines for the French/British peace plan for Ukraine already, clickbait YouTube videos add nothing of value to the discussion.

Although the wood-grain Atari 2600 was also my first thought upon reading the title, I think the Wii’s minimal footprint is impressive considering that—in the case of the original model—it’s also a GameCube.

In contrast to the Wii’s 2006 release, the Wii Mini is arguably not yet ‘retro’ with its 2012 release, but definitely looks a lot sleeker, albeit not worth the loss of GameCube functionality for its minimal size savings.

Compared to both, the Wii U is super bulky, and lacks much use beyond improved emulation capabilities now that nearly all of its exclusives have been re-released for the Switch.

I’m guessing that they mean extending access to Japanese citizenship to descendants of Japanese expats abroad. Brazil in particular had a substantial wave of Japanese settlers in the early 1900s.

That’s not going to keep them from selling it.

Their defense is the need to keep Firefox “financially viable”, but if that keeps them from being able to broadly state that they won’t sell our data, it’s better to use a fork that prevents Mozilla from accessing that data in the first place.

Not a common suggestion, but the Scrabble PS1 port holds up surprisingly well, all the more so for how few Scrabble video games there are.

One shitty company suing another shitty company; nothing more enjoyable to watch!

Zelenskyy giving interviews to propaganda outlets like Newsmax, especially in giving in to Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in peace talk negotiation, is just dealing into Russia’s hand. Trump’s odd pandering to Putin means that Zelenskyy should be spending his time wheeling and dealing with as many European politicians as possible, since Trump will take Russian bribes in a minute over recognizing the illegality, authoritarianism, and ethnic cleansing associated with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the countless war crimes that it has perpetuated in the process.

When subscribing to a service means supporting a company that would arbitrate your wrongful death at their hands, or tailor its products to be more appealing to bigots and racists, the only ethical course of action is piracy.