Notices by switching.social (switchingsocial@mastodon.at), page 12

@jeff

One of us backs up their claims with evidence, the other one says evidence is unnecessary and keeps repeating the word "FUD".

@jeff

...except that they're not, because ownership isn't the same as invention.

Geez, we're going round in circles here.

No point continuing unless you feel like backing up your claims with evidence.

@jeff

Your main argument was Tor was invented by the military, so that was somehow similar to Brave being owned by Thiel.

I pointed out they're not similar because the military doesn't own Tor.

You said Tor was still owned by the military.

I asked you for evidence of that.

You refused to give me any, then said you "don't actually think those things".

@jeff

You're accusing others of FUD, failing to provide any evidence, and now admitting you don't even believe your own posts?

@jeff

You're accusing others of FUD but then refusing to back up your own claims with any evidence?

@jeff

I provided evidence in my original post, why are you dodging my request for you to do the same?

@jeff

Hey, @torproject , does the US military own parts of TOR?

@jeff

Can you show me some evidence for that?

@jeff

You're confusing invention with ownership.

Does the US military own shares in TOR?

No.

Does Thiel own shares in Brave?

Yes.

There's a free open federated network for storing and sharing music called Funkwhale:

https://funkwhale.audio

You can follow them on here:

@funkwhale

A really good example instance is open.audio, which is entirely Creative Commons tracks:

https://open.audio

You can use it through the web, or through subsonic-compatible apps:

https://funkwhale.audio/en_US/apps

#Funkwhale #Fediverse #Music

@LienRag

If no one owns Brave, why does Brave have all those venture capital firms listed on the front page of its B2B site?

VC doesn't give people money for fun, they give it because they expect a return on their investment.

And "Facts be damned"...?

Could you name one single fact in my original post which is untrue?

@LienRag

This isn't about who invented something, it's about ownership of its current form.

TOR was invented decades ago by the same organisation who invented the internet: US defense research. But both inventions grew beyond their original purposes, and the US didn't own them.

Brave continues to be part-owned by Thiel and other VCs.

@LienRag

How many people do you think would use Brave if they all realised the head of Palantir and a Facebook board member is one of their owners?

Maybe it wouldn't matter to you, but a lot of privacy-minded people don't want to use a browser from such a company. That's why I'm trying to raise awareness of this issue.

@boud @torproject

Switching.social is aimed at non-technical people.

But if you are able to use uMatrix and find it more useful, that's great 👍

uMatrix is aimed at tech people, the first line of its description is "Definitely for advanced users."

@boud @torproject

Switching.social is aimed at non-technical people.

uMatrix is aimed at tech people, the first line of its description is "Definitely for advanced users."

@LienRag @deezthugs

That should work in theory, but as Google's Android etc show it doesn't always work in practice.

If Brave becomes widely used like Google Chrome is, then open source isn't enough to stop surveillance features being added (or adblockers being effectively banned from the browser).

And you have to wonder *why* a major anti-privacy figure like Thiel would be investing in a company that claims to be pro-privacy. Thiel is also on the board of Facebook, he is not to be trusted.

Reminder why switching.social does NOT recommend using Brave:

-Brave is a for-profit ad sales and cryptocurrency promotion company, funded by venture capital firms. Its primary purpose is to make money, not protect privacy.

-Top of the list of Brave's VC owners is Founders Fund, which is Peter Thiel's company ( https://web.archive.org/web/20190831163230/https://basicattentiontoken.org/ )

-Peter Thiel is also the head of Palantir, which makes its money by spying on the general public ( https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-palantir-peter-thiel/ )

#Brave #PeterThiel #Palantir