Escaping The Matrix

'Bout That Action, Boss

I can hear you, you know. You quietly and politely listen to me, but you don’t respond.

Instead, as soon as I’m out of earshot, you let out a deep, long sigh.

“I get it, Cassandra” you whisper under your breath. “Everyone is corrupt and everything is a conspiracy. What do you think you're going to do about it? Waste your breath trying to convince us that you are right so that we can live in even more fear and anxiety? What exactly would you like me to do about all of this? Just snap my fingers and change the world?”

Well, yeah. That’s exactly what I would like, and precisely what I’m asking you to do.

Your fucking part.

While I certainly don’t have all of the answers, and I’m begging you to independently research for yourself, I do have a few suggestions that are actionable, and powerful. Let's start with the first, and most important:

#1 Delete The Tech Giants

When I say “delete”, I mean go into your account, download any data you can't bear to lose, and then wipe out all of your personal information and as many posts and photos as you can. If the option exists (likely deep in the settings, the ToS or privacy agreement), submit an official request for your data to be deleted from the servers. Save the request and any confirmations you may receive. Then, delete your account.

Not “deactivate.”

Not “uninstall.”

Delete. Your. Account.

Begin with the following accounts, listed in order of maliciousness:

(Facebook & Facebook Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, Threads, Hugging Face, Oculus, etc.)
* Google (Gmail, Google Photos, Maps, Docs, Sheets, Drive, Chrome etc.)

If you have an Android phone, create a completely separate, brand new, Gmail account that is used solely to connect your phone to. Never allow a third party app to login via your Gmail account.

Remove permissions for every single Google app that you can’t delete. Force stop or disable them.
* Amazon

Yeah. I know. This is the step I’m on. This is a rough one, but this Bezos fucker has us trapped by the allure of convenience and free shipping while he is collecting all of your consumer habits to include in your digital psychological profile, and selling it to organizations who are using this information to take advantage of you. Ditch his ass.
* Apple/Android. And for the love of God, collect your fitbit or watch, any other wearable, and every stupid little device in your home (IoT) that is just freely connecting to your wifi, and accessing the data in your other devices. Set that collection of “things” down in your driveway, and then drive over them with your car. Several times.
* Then, the biggie: Microsoft. No clue yet on how this is accomplished. I’ll let you know when I learn Linux or something. But in the meantime, delete Co-pilot.

This will keep you busy for awhile. I am currently on Month Four of this process. If you want to learn from my mistakes, and make this is a little easier on yourself, I highly recommend that you begin this process by following these initial steps:

  1. Create the new Gmail address (sorry iPhone users, I don’t know how you go about getting a fresh Apple ID, or if it’s even possible.) Preferably, create this new email on a separate device, in an incognito window (not actually private but whatever). Then, while still incognito, create a new Samsung account with this new Gmail address (or whatever Android phone brand you have). This is the only account that should ever be attached to your new Gmail address. Never use this email for anything else. Never login to this Gmail account on another device. If you absolutely must check this email, do so via a secure browser and not through the Gmail app. This is merely a “placeholder” email account. No Google apps need to be running on your phone.

Do not let the “incognito device” you have used to create your new Gmail and Samsung accounts save your password, the email address or any other associated info that may have automatically been saved for autofill purposes. Write the password down. Keep it safe. Cover your tracks the best you can be clearing the history, the cache, tossing the cookies and getting the fuck outta there.

  1. Download only the data in your phone that you don’t want to lose forever (contacts, photos, notes), and then, take a big deep breath, and perform a factory reset.

  2. When your phone boots up, sign in with your new “placeholder” Gmail/Samsung account, and do what you’ve never done before. Read every word as you go through the setup. Make sure you understand what you’re reading before you agree to something. There are things you are allowed to reject, but they are sneakily concealed. Be slow, methodical, and intentional. Unselect any optional app that the phone wants you to download during the installation process. Say “no” to any recommendations to “link or sync” for convenience. Reject any offer to share any data at all under the guise of “enhancing and customizing your experience.” Get that phone booted up as minimalistic and locked down as the setup process will allow you to. (I had to factory reset twice because the first time, I apparently made an unintended selection that synced hundreds of my digital accounts instantly.) Trust me, the installation instructions are tricky. They expect you to just click through and accept everything, as you’ve always done. It has been made intentionally difficult for you to decline. Your phone will tell you that if you disable certain apps, it could become inoperable or not function correctly. How scary to think about! You paid a lot of money for this phone and you can’t just afford to replace it! They know this. 99.9% of these scary warnings are lies. If you’ve been tenacious enough to get to the point where your phone is threatening you, you are doing it right. Press on.

  3. Now that your phone has fully booted up, so fresh and so clean (and, of course, it has forced you to do so on your wifi network so that it could instantly identify any IoT devices in the vicinity that will snitch on you), it’s time to go straight to your phone settings. Straight to the list of apps. “What apps?” I hear you say. Well, go see for yourself. My freshly, factory reset, Samsung S21 booted up with over 80 pre-installed apps, even though I had told it to download none. I had photo editors, 3d art apps, virtual reality apps, and a shit ton of games. Every single one of them was full of data. My data. Stored data, even. Data that these apps had collected before the factory reset. Samsung & Google have made sure that this data, hidden inside useless applications, can act as a honing beacon. A safeguard, in the event that a relentless person tried to circumvent the system and demand a little privacy.

  4. Uninstall every app that you do not need to use (ahem, all big tech, remember?). Uninstall every one of these bloatware spy apps, if the option even exists. If your phone will not allow you to uninstall an app, force stop or disable it. Give permissions to nothing. If you’re not sure what a particular app is (or does), and you don’t know if it is truly mandatory to have it running or give it permissions in order for your phone to function, do some research. (On an alternative device.) In the meantime, disable it anyway. If something goes wrong, you can just re-enable it. If your phone accumulates errors or starts crashing or whatever, then factory reset it again and start over. *shrug* You’re not going to break the hardware by pressing buttons on the software. Virtually everything is reversible. If it's not, and you permanently fuck up your phone so badly that you need a new one, then that sounds like a blessing from the Universe itself. Go buy a phone that isn’t made by Apple or Google or Samsung or Windows. Did you even know that you had other options??

If you get as far as deleting Meta and Google, and now you are miserable and everything in your phone is difficult and taxing to navigate, and you find yourself having to say “no” to the constant, eternal, unblockable notifications asking for permission to track you or steal your data, and you are now wondering why you ever took my advice, send me a message on Session. I’ll point you towards the real internet. The saf(er) internet. Where the real, living, breathing, thinking humans are.

❤️

I love you.