I've been "out" for 16 years and really out for about 10 years and never been bothered. It does not seem credible that I could have looked so female that no one twigged to my being T?
In the last week, two sites that I go to, one of them Facebook seem to have gone completely perverted. I've always run a low "friend" count because I don't think that people I don't talk to at least by PM are my friends. Facebook is only suggesting folk who are porn queens, so I have unfriended so many folk. Don't intend to be mean, look at what you want to.
I don't know why this is suddenly happening and it might lead to me dumping Facebook. Sorry.
I was using SKYPE for important stuff, but suddenly that does not work either. They seem to want me to use my legal name on Facebook and I am not planning to do that. I use about three names on the internet to make it difficult for trolls. I assume that most of you do the same.
I hate to go to ground...
Gwen
Comments
Legal name on Facebook
Facebook has always wanted/required a legal name. You can be called by a nickname but it must be linked to a legal ID. Of course people break that rule all the time, but Facebook is deleting accounts all the time too.
As for "gone completely perverted":
There seem to be all sorts of cross site and cross application tracking and profiling going on now, a lot of it automatic and built in. And some of the assumptions are dumb. Don't forget any interest Transgender Literature, equals being interested in perverted sexual fetishes, just look at the way Amazon lumps it all together.
Logins are shared across multiple sites, they try to push this as ease use. Example: "Pinterest", login with Facebook, and, login with Google, are options, or share something from one to the other, and they all gain profiling data.
Often you wont even realize you have been cross ID-ed, via shared login, or location, device and IP info. All the main software companies have tried to make all this automatic, and to hide it from our notice, or at least make it seem routine as part of seamless integration ad ease of use. You need to jump through hoops to even try avoid it, which is no longer entirely possible, unless you just don't use anything. Emails and IM are scanned for keywords, you agreed to this in the programs terms of service. When you log in to a non-local Windows account you have logged in to Microsoft's servers.
Facebook, Twitter, Google, other search engines, other browsers, Amazon, YouTube, Pinterest, location service, IP Address, IM programs, e-mail, Alexa, Cortana, Bixby, etc, etc, do you keep all these disabled or from communicating with each other, can you, are they even useful if you do? What are you wiling to do without?
~Hypatia
PS. Personally, I have decided, you can't really avoid this, but I will still keep up an effort to minimize it as much as possible, since it does bother me, yet I am unwilling to disconnect my computer, unplug my TV, and throw away my Kindle and my phone.
PPS. There are other implication to this tech. A relative is using Alexa to eves drop on other peoples conversations in his/her own home. This is the world we are now living in.
1984 was a work of fiction not a spying handbook
But sad to say, the world painted by Orwell is only too real.
You can be a total refsunik like me. I don't use any of that anti-social media s***t and I've dropped right off Skype since Microsoft F***** it up and I won't have any of those Alexa (or the google or apple equivalents) spies in my home.
I rarely use my real name on websites. If they demand it then I go elsewhere. So far putting my real name into Google yields no results and long may it remain.
Yours
Samantha
as ever a Boring old fart and proud of it.
terms of service
The most frequently told lie on the internet is "I have read the terms of service" [and agree to them]. The websites only really care about the "and I agree to them." Most often, they are hoping that no one will read them. Why else make them so long and convoluted?
I'm anal enough to read terms of service. An there are some that I've simply refused to use the site after that. Some others bother me, but I decide that I want what the site has to offer bad enough to put up with them.
As far as my legal name??? Well, I only actually provide that for a paid for service, like my ISP and my healthcare site or purchasing online. For sites that require an email so that they can send an email conformation before granting use, I have two web based emails that were created years ago, through three layers of other email back trails (some of which are now defunct) that I use for that purpose. Every once in a while I go through them and delete all the junk that accumulates as a back wash of giving out that email.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
Email...
Most stores where you buy something in person want your email, and now I see that providing it is not desirable. I use Google Email, and it is so full of sales things that it is useless now. I have an old Yahoo account but now it seems sketchy and I do not use it.
I'm very close to not having internet or Cell service at all. That would be a huge inconvenience. I'm hoping that perhaps after the election things may get better?
You almost can't avoid it anymore.
Your right it could be a huge inconvenience.
The problem is that, everything is switching over to, website, email, cell & texting, you need these for, Dr appointments, bill paying, social security, or any other govt services, etc etc.
Everyone is going to paperless billing, plus forms & appointments by web page, or submit applications via email, text messages for confirmation of many things. If you don't have these you almost can't deal with anything now. They no longer have staff assigned to doing things the old fashioned way. Utilities no longer send out paper bills, they send an email, or a text, they only send out cutoff notices.
Try an actual phone call, and you are endlessly talking a computer, they even make it hard to figure out how to get to an operator directly. Government, Institutional Organizations, and Corporate Businesses, are leaving the public no other choice then to deal with them electronically for anything that is not actually done in person.
We don't really have a choice anymore.
~Hypatia >i<
WAV Rainbow Group
I had some very recent online contact with them. Perhaps this is where the trouble originates?
Gwen