this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2026
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I’m sorry. I wholeheartedly agree with the article, but this bit:
You post something in public, it is public. You post knowing others might do things you don’t like with it; that’s the bargain. Especially on social media.
Instagrams owns you. They own every ounce, every dimension of your content on the platform; they can do whatever TF they want, and you have zero legal recourse.
No one made you use Google search instead of one of many alternatives, including alt Google frontends.
The fundamental issue here is that people, apparently even journalists, still see these Big Tech platforms as benevolent public squares where they have rights. And fairness. That is an illusion, and this is kind of thing keeps happening because everyone believes the lie.
And they don’t bother to even look for alternatives.
Are they really gonna keep getting surprised when platforms keep squeezing them, yet the platforms don’t stop because no one will leave anyway?
Posting something on a private platform is actually not public. It is the private property of the platform owner and they can make it public or private any time they want or find ways to commodity it in their terms of service when you sign up.
I say this to back up what you say about the myth of the digital commons. Most online networks are not a commons at all, they are the exact opposite, they are an enclosure to extract profit from what would otherwise be a commons, usually built by finance capital to have appealing features at first, generated at a loss, and then once profit needs to be taken the alleged "commons" is increasingly closed and monetized. Journalista don't really understand this, sure, but neither do most people. They expect, correctly, that social interactions should be analogous to chatting with someone on the street or at a public square, and social networks try to give that illusion.
Regarding individual choice, well a person is surrounded by the exact opposite of what we are saying and all their friends are on their addiction habit social networks so what would you expect them to do. These things don't just happen on their own, people must work to organize and educate on the way capitalism turns their social lives into profit.