I grew up in a small town everyone knew everything you did. Doesn't feel that much different. The answer is to just stop cancelling people not to have privacy. In a small town the gossips would have everyone "cancelled" if anyone paid attention to them. As far as the government spying on us it didn't take AI, facial recognition, or even an internet for any previous authoritarian government to fill "reeducation camps". What it takes is a population that is complicit with authoritarianism. What it really comes down to is we have a lot of really foolish citizens who think it isn't coming for them.

I have an entry in the FBI somewhere - I know I was survellied (sp?) back in the 80s when friends were raided by the Secret Service - we were what became known as black hats. Although I never went as far as a couple of friends, we "broke" into many federal computers....because we could. I never did anything more than 'look around' and backed out. Others did more and paid for it. I am pretty sure of phone being tapped twice in the early late 80s early 90s.

I don't think I've been flagged since - but it is possible about 10 years ago (I helped start a political party and was the first Executive Director).

I think more people are looked at than people realized, I also think less people are watched than believed.

I have a VPN, which supposedly keeps you hidden. I decided to give DuckDuckGo a try the other day. I typed in a search subject, clicked on a hit and immediately got a message: “Google and Facebook tried to follow you, but we blocked them.” I think I’m in love.

And, the hits for “controversial” topics seem far more evenly distributed. I don’t have to wade through pages of Wikipedia, Snopes and MSM debunking articles before reaching real content.

All I need to do now is transfer all my favorites over, and I’m all set.