Lefty Activists and Journalists: STOP using Google and other big US tech services!
2025-08-02
I’ve been helping an activist/journalist friend work her way out of Google services, primarily Gmail and she’s mentioned how many other activists she knows who are also using Gmail and it really seems like a problem that the activist community needs to deal with sooner rather than later. It was never a good idea to rely on Google for email but given what we see going on in the US today it is clear that such continued reliance is not just negligence, it’s dangerous. No one who values their privacy and security should use Gmail but activists and journalists are often dealing with sensitive data that requires extra protection and security. If you’re communicating with other activists, actively planning protests or other direct action, related to political protest or labor organizing, you should not be using Gmail. If you are it’s time to fucking stop. If you’re a journalist conducting interviews or other journalist activity over email, same. And don’t use Google Docs or Google Drive.
Do not assume your data stored at Google, Microsoft or Apple to be fully private or secure. Of course those companies will insist that it is and some is likely more secure than others. But these are all companies that are increasingly cooperative with the Trump administration. Activists storing data need to assume that their data is compromised. And remember, you are also compromising other people’s data. Your choices directly impact the privacy and security of your contacts and anyone you exchange data with especially if that data is in one of these services. Even worse, when you download apps from the various app stores, do you pay attention to those that access your data? Do you take note of what data they access and whether it is actually needed for the app in question? And is it just your data or the data of your contacts also being accessed?
Yet another consideration: Is it even your data? How sure are you that you’ll have access to that data in the future? We assume that these are “our” accounts and thus, it is our data. But you don’t have to spend much time searching to find numerous examples of users who have been locked out of “their” accounts because you were in breech of the “Terms of Use”. Here’s just one of the latest to cross my feed: Mike Kaganski who lost access to “his” account for a week because he sent an email with his hotmail account that Microsoft decided was a violation because it contained too many links. Huh. He sent an email with too many links. That sure seems like the kind of severe behavior that should warrant an account suspension. As Larry Vincient [commented[(https://mikekaganski.wordpress.com/2025/07/25/microsoft-anybody-home/#comment-1792) on the blog post about the incident:
Your data in the cloud is “not” your data. Once it’s in the cloud it becomes the cloud platform’s data regardless of what legal agreements, statements, policies,etc. are in place. They grant you access based on the agreements or payments you may be making however it’s NOT your data anymore. They have the legal horsepower to get out of any situation and can cut you off whenever or delete whenever they choose without recourse. It’s ultimately someone else’s computer and they can choose to do anything with it at any time or block your access. Say this isn’t true all day long but this is a perfect example of this process in action and this happens to a lot of people, you just don’t hear about it.
Kaganski eventually recovered the account but there are others who have not been so lucky.
Beyond these specifics, leftist, anti-fascist activists should be making more of an effort to educate themselves and their fellow activists on the general conduct and ethics of capitalist tech that they insist on continuing to use. Not only is your data being harvested and used, but there is evidence that all of the big three inject non-obvious malware/spyware into various apps in their operating systems. Beyond the big three that provide operating systems and services, there are a host of publishing services that leftist activists continue to use including Substack, X/Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, etc. Not only are all of these services aggressive harvesters of our data and potential security risks, but they intentionally continue to host fascist content.
File storage, emailing, publishing and computing generally are all integral to much of our activism but we’ve given far too little attention to the reprecussions of those choices. It seems to fit with our general culture of lazy tech ethics in which we adopt what is most convevient with little thought to important details. And it’s inexcusable at this point because there are other, better services that are fairly affordable ($15-40 per year). Yes it takes time and effort to make such a switch. But taking time and effort for your computing is your responsibility. The privacy and security of your data and others’ data is important. If you’re still using Gmail or the others get your move started. And talk about it, encourgage others to do the same.
Alternatives that are based outside of the US and which cover email and, to some degree, file sharing:
And for learning more about security practices, check the excellent Museum of Protest Guide to Cyber Security and Privacy.
Finally, going beyond your privacy and security, it’s worth pointing out that at this point both Google and Microsoft should be considered military contractors and not just “tech companies”. If you’re an anti-war or anti-genocide activist it’s worth considering the ethics of using the services of companies that are specifically providing services to the military.
I don't have comments but I love email or you can find me on Mastodon.
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