May Meeting: We’re finally beginning to Escape Big Tech
Thursday, May 20, 2021, 6:30 PM
Outback Steakhouse, 2102 Texas Avenue South, College Station
As always, consider arriving early for dinner and discussion!
NOTE: We have sent our last email from our Gmail account!
The reminder next week will be from bcsteaparty@protonmail.com. Also, our Contact Us link above now sets you up to send us a mail at that new ProtonMail address.
If you don’t see our next email, which should go out Tue. or Wed. of the week of the meeting, please check your Spam folder and mark it as Not Spam. Thanks!
Big Tech keeps getting bigger
Big Tech appears to be so helpful that there could be no harm in allowing them open access to our personal information in exchange for them giving us free services. As we’re seeing more and more, this has been a Big Mistake. So…
We’ve been hoping to do this for a while now
We’ve mentioned at our last few meetings that we’re hoping to have some separate get-togethers to help folks who are interested to begin moving away from those Big Tech companies. As it turns out, events have led us to go ahead and use our May meeting for the first of these informational, and if you like, hands-on, meetings.
If you’re able, bring your laptop! We will help. Or try!
Please join us for a first dive into Why and How to Escape Big Tech—starting with Google. We will help you download and install some alternatives to the several major Google services (Mail, Maps, Docs, etc.) that many have come to rely on (or at least give you some info how to do so yourself).
Hope to see you there!
Various quotes from the May 20th meeting
…in America — for the most part — speech is free. In this context, the word “free” doesn’t mean “without cost.” It means “without a government permission slip or reprisal.”
What can we do about this? We can use the tools of the free market and the First Amendment. We can loudly leave the censoring venues and not patronize their advertisers. We can build and support other venues. We can preach the values of an informed public and the virtues of personal liberty. We can foster widespread opinions that censorship is repellant and censors should be shunned.
But we can never use the government to compel or evaluate speech. That will destroy what freedoms we have.
– Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, article “Big Tech and Free Speech” (link)
Google search is the most powerful gatekeeper of information ever created and Google unapologetically uses algorithms to promote politicians and ideas they agree with and crush those they oppose…
The sad part is that Big Tech’s control over the free flow information is almost entirely illusory and based wholly on our submission to it…
The fact that Big Tech has tried so hard to crush (alternative choices) should tell you that’s where you need to be…
– Jim Daws, Right Now podcast, article “How to Starve Big Tech” (link)
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said that the FBI surveilled his and former President Donald Trump’s iCloud chats during impeachment hearings in 2019.
– Epoch Times, updated May 2, 2021 (link)
As (Senator Josh) Hawley explained, “At a time when these platforms are determining elections, banning inconvenient political views, lining politicians' pockets with hundreds of millions of dollars, and addicting our kids to screens, I want to draw attention to the robber barons of the modern era…That is why I am writing this book…”
– Author and Radio Host Dr. Michael Brown (link)
Up until a century ago, most Americans regarded monopoly and corporate concentration with profound distrust. The founders associated it with aristocracy, and they believed aristocracy was a death sentence for republics.
– Hawley, Josh. The Tyranny of Big Tech (p. XI). Regnery Publishing.