A few days back I watched a SomeOrdinaryGamers video, in which he states to drive a Tesla car, despite expressing the obvious privacy concerns surrounding the built-in camera system; but doesn’t seem to consider the privacy-impact to those around the vehicle, he chooses to drive through public streets. And another example being Rob Braxman, while ironically, both known to frequently criticize other public-facing, internet connected surveillance systems (like Ring for example).
If it was “just” a cabin camera, staring you straight in the face every time you drive your car (and you’re somehow okay with that), it would still be a terrible look in context with your channel content, but at least it is contained to you personally. But knowingly driving these surveillance nightmares on wheels through public streets, subjecting others to that surveillance, while you represent pro-privacy channels online, is just inexcusably hypocritical to me. But perhaps it might just be me, so what are your thoughts?
If you are a privacy advocate and driving a Tesla, you are a grifter.
This isn’t, “You can’t criticize capitalism while being in a capitalistic system.”
Tesla is one product among hundreds of consumer choices. They are choosing to drive around with the equivalent of 9 Ring and Flock cameras taped to themselves.
Tesla is one product among hundreds of consumer choices.
Reminds me,… I have heard priv advocates propose a consumer label. Like we have nutritions labels on food products but for privacy.
Their idea is, there are so many products. It is almost impossible for average consumer to even know how much data their car, blutooth gizmo, or smart TV collects. With a mandatory label, they could be better informed. Companies could even compete on it. Just like car co’s first bitched about car safety features but later competed to have the best safety ratings.
But that label idea would need teeth. Gov agencies tasked to test it. And enforce compliance. That’s the hard part.
Like FOSS but privacy-oriented?
All cars are spying on you.
Yes, but Teslas are spying in everyone they are in the vicinity of, too. Most cars don’t send video from their onboard cameras back to the manufacturer for analysis.
For real, you can drive a Ford pinto
I do like Rob’s content occasionally, whenever he doesn’t repeat, that which he has discussed a million times before. But yes, I totally agree with the rest of the comment.
SomeOrdinaryGamers is a hypocrite, and pathetically dependent on the opinions of random people on the internet. Bro made a video talking about how you should delete your twitter account and then he makes a new one behind the scenes like a week later. He makes videos about how bad the switch 2 is, says to not buy the switch 2, then proceeds to buy the switch 2 and makes a fucking apology video for people on reddit calling him out lmao. Those same chuds got mad he made a video calling out some vtuber creep he used to make a podcast with, and he took the video down. Bro has zero backbone or integrity. Also, most importantly he fucked up an arch update and had no backups, then blamed it on Arch and made a video about swapping to mint. (no hate towards mint, mint is awesome.)
All of this paired with him, allegedly pretending to be an engineer for credibility, really doesn’t contribute to him being a trustworthy character. Which doesn’t necessarily mean none of his content can be of value to some, but I do believe viewer discretion is appropriate here.
I watched SomeOrdinaryGamers for a few years and it became quite uninteresting near the end of that period. I stopped completely when he told his audience not to buy Nintendo Switch 2 and went ahead and bought it shortly after. That guy is not honest or genuine.
I’m not a big fan of the channel either, but the channel keeps getting featured in Invidious’ feed; leading me to sometimes watch a video of his, often to gauge the opinion of him, and more importantly, a large chunk of his (seemingly impressionable) audience.
He’s a charlatan who claimed he was an engineer
Ayup I agree wtih you.
It’s one example of a general prob. So much of tech now betrays the privacy of NON users. There are calculator apps, weather apps, prayer apps, fitness apps for phones. They scrape contacts. I’m in my friends contacts. Now a million data broker companies track my social graph despite I don’t give it tot hem.
And Facebook ofc. They build Shadow Profiles on NON users. You never used FB? Well FB still buidls a profile of you. You can tell a lot about someone just from metadata. Who are your friends? Now we can infer your politics. Your educational level. Your hobbies.
Oh, gmail too! When gmail started it was “Your new mailman will read your mail”. But in reading your mail it also reads MY mail.
I guess, most ppl just do not think about it. They give personal data as much thought as I give my toothbrush. Personal data is invisible. We cannot touch it. Out of sight out of mind.
Yes, and everything you’ve touched, Rob has at least criticized on his channel; but somehow doesn’t apply to his Tesla car… I sometimes wonder how much these privacy advocates care for other’s privacy, versus their own and simply yapping about it.
Never heard of that guy myself but yeah I guess it’s human nature… we are good at rationalizing what we want to do.
Personally I’m kinda torn. I would like an EV for environmental reasons. But all EVs seem to be horrible spyware on wheels. Even worse than internal combustion cars. Which already are pretty bad. At least newer ones are. My old ass car isn’t. But a modern EV? It’s so invasive.
So I stick with my old ass car. But I grind my teeth. Because I want a lower impact vehicle. I use a bike or bus when I can. But sometimes Ican’t.
Producing a new vehicle requires a lot of resources, and so did the older vehicle you’re driving right now. So it might ironically be more environmentally friendly to keep driving that vehicle (especially since a lot of EVs are running on gray energy, and all the newly produced and installed “green” infrastructure also required a lot of resources). The human contribution to climate change appears to be due to industry (and especially globalism): yes, the same industry trying to sell you a solution to the problem they’re largely responsible for (and trying to gaslight you into believing you are). Sure, “consumers” play a role in it, but is largely due to incentives created by the industry; and their unwillingness to meaningfully change (instead of resorting to greenwashing, or moving to a subscription economy instead of throwaway). But lowering impact doesn’t hurt (that is if you aren’t substantially inconvenienced by it: including limited in your ability to move freely and independently), but primarily comes from consuming less instead of more: not discarding a perfectly functional item, and substituting it for a newly produced one.
Those are very good points. Some of that tied into my choice to keep my old car until the wheels fall off.
Eventually I’ll have to replace it. Then it’ll be either antother old but less old combustion car, or an EV. But all the EVs leave such a bad taste with the surveilence.
Same here, until the government goes from the carrot to the stick approach I guess (because of poor adoption-rates). :) Yeah, I really don’t understand how cameras in and around one’s personal vehicle, which aren’t under the control of its supposed “owner”, flies with anyone (especially privacy-conscious persons)…
I don’t have a problem with this.
Advocating to change the status quo, doesn’t insulate you from having to live in it.
If you want a nice new electric vehicle, (any vehicle really) in the US today you’re going to have to buy a spy mobile. No way around it.
In no way does having one mean you can’t push for public awareness and government regulation to improve the current privacy environment.
You can call it hypocritical. It’s not. It’s pragmatic.
I agree. I imagine he may have bought it before Elon went crazy too, when it was hyped up and one of very few options. We don’t know though.
And, I mean, he’s why I’m here now and why I have GrapheneOS on my phone and why I’m looking into even starting some local activist groups focused on data privacy and why I’m hosting some op sec parties with my friends to teach them more about all the FOSS and privacy focused apps and software I’m learning about.
To err is to be human. If anything, I’d want to see him use the audience to jailbreak a Tesla and build and open source OS to push to it to strip the tracking from it. Given that there’s an even harder push now to include eye tracking, breath tracking, heart rate tracking, and more as standard in 2027 cars, that feels pretty useful to me.
If you want a nice new electric vehicle, (any vehicle really) in the US today you’re going to have to buy a spy mobile. No way around it.
Nobody has to drive a “nice new vehicle.” If your job is advocating for privacy, you should set a good example by driving an old car. (Or moonlight as an urbanist and ditch the car entirely, for that matter.)
I have a newer vehicle just pulled fuse to modem.
If you don’t practice what you preach, your words are shallow in my opinion, and you shouldn’t expect anyone to take you seriously. And can we stop pretending like a “nice new electric vehicle” is a must? It’s as pragmatic as having a Ring doorbell camera (at least from the perspective of a less technically inclined person), but yet these very same channels won’t spare such “big-tech” products (which Tesla wouldn’t classify as of course…). Ring cameras are technically (but not practically) restricted to private property, rather than a 360 degree camera roaming public streets; but yet you actively scrutinize the first, while remaining suspiciously quiet about the latter. Please come again, at how that is not peak hypocrisy.
