Is the FBI watching?

Hi, my name is Mark. I'm the creator of Mosslet.

Hi, my name is Isabella, and I am the head of marketing for Mosslet.

Welcome to episode two of our podcast.

Okay. So before we get into the really cool updates, we just wanna tell anyone who's new. Mosslet is currently just a website working on making it an app, mosslet.com, and it is a social media website that is an alternative to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter that doesn't stalk you the way that these bigger platforms do. They harvest your data. They sell your data.

They use a bunch of sneaky ways to keep you online so they can keep studying you, and then they sell your data off. And that's really gross and annoying. And so we made a platform that lets you share with your community, with your loved ones, and then you go back to living your life the way that, you know, Instagram used to feel like in 2011.

So we've updated our About Us page, it's got now a little bio for each of us, for Isabelle and myself. You can now download memories that have been shared with you. So let's say you share that awesome picture from the beach with a family member and they want to save that photo to their device, they now have the option to download it and you can control through your connections who's allowed to download photos or not at any time. And then you also now have the ability to start over. So the right start over, start fresh, you can delete posts, memories, remarks, basically any section of your data at any point in time from the service in real time.

Let's say you just like went through a bad year and a lot of your posts reflect that or your pictures, your memories or just your general interaction with people on the service, you can just sign in one day and erase all that immediately and start fresh.

And that's really similar to how currently on Instagram, the younger generation finds themselves archiving everything every once in a while or pretty often, you know, to just keep themselves private. But so instead of archiving where Instagram can still see and gather data from your content, we truly delete it, which means we don't harbor it on the back end. You will really never see it again unless you already have screenshots of it. You know, of course, we can't control that. But it's the idea that we are not relying on you for your data by any means.

So you're free to express yourself and try on different personalities and versions of you and you can delete it anytime and start over.

Another fun update is that we have made an Instagram account. So totally hear the irony in it. It's like, why are you making an Instagram if you're trying to get people away from it? Well, that's where everyone is, is on Instagram. Our new account is at use Mosslet, and you're gonna find information on why Mosslet is safer for you, for your older family members, for your younger family members who are just starting with their online identity.

So if you have questions and think it's easier for the time being to still use Instagram, we get it. Shoot us a message. And then slowly but surely, we're hoping that less people will be on Instagram and more people will be on Mosslet because it has the same features while actually protecting your data and not selling it. So we have yet to talk about this on Instagram, but we've mentioned it in the podcast and of course it's on a big beautiful banner on mosslet.com. We're using the promo code friends 60, and that'll get you 60 off for your first year.

This code is active the entire time we're in beta. We want to know if you don't like things. We want to know if you want things to be different because we're making a platform for people to gather. Okay. But what we're really here to talk about are identity graphs.

They're a huge evil thing that data companies use to basically control what you see, control what you interact with, and it all happens right under your awareness. So to me, that's what makes it especially evil. Okay. So you know how we all joke about how there's an FBI guy watching on the other side of your phone to see what you giggle at and what you get angry about, all that stuff? So, basically, is the FBI watching?

Sure. Not all the time, but the identity graphs are. Instagram is always watching what you're doing. Facebook, always watching. They're the same company.

They're watching what you're doing. Amazon, watching what you're doing. Google, watching what you're doing. And all of these major companies are talking to each other. They're sharing their data so they can keep track of you across all platforms and in the real world as well.

So, what's an identity graph exactly? Online database of all the personal data related to you as consumer or a user, which is what people are typically called in the tech industry. And it helps business to personalize their ads based on what you do online.

It's like a giant map. Yeah. Sounds like.

Exactly. It's a giant web of information specifically tailored to you. And that involves everything from systems like email, buying things online, point of sale purchases, like in real life using a register, using your card, and all of the social media marketing tools, store different customer attributes, like your contact details, transactions, messages, your sessions on each website, so how long you're on them, where you're clicking, and same with your ad interactions.

Like how long your eyes are looking at something. Yeah.

Exactly. And so these companies gather all this data, sell it to each other like besties, and they get you to stay online longer, looking at ads longer, poking ads in between content they're pushing to you because they know you're interested in it, and it ends up leaving you online for a lot longer than you actually planned on. How many times are you like, oh, I'll just go on my phone for a minute, and then twenty minutes just evaporates? That's not you having a lack of willpower. It's intentional.

The phone is doing it. The longer you're online, the more ad revenue you're making for these companies is basically what it comes down to.

It knows you more intimately than even your best friends do or your close family or your partner. In some regards, it probably sounds unproblematic, but the implications of your online life being constantly tracked and sold off and manipulated and your future behavior being auctioned invisibly behind the scenes without your awareness at all is seeping into your life outside of your device without any of us recognizing it in the moment, and that's the danger zone.

Alright. And then we just talked a lot of tech. Here's some pretty easy examples of how identity graphs can get you without you realizing that it's happening. So let's say you're planning a wedding. Obviously, you're using Pinterest.

You're using Instagram. You're using Amazon to buy pretty things for cheap if you can. All of these companies are chitchatting behind the scenes with each other on hyper specific things about your online use. They are curious about which level of high end you consider to be using. Using.

They are focusing in on your venue locations. All of these things. But okay. That doesn't seem like a huge deal because obviously if you're interacting with things you like and the algorithm pushes more things you like, hooray. You're getting to see more things you like.

But that's an issue because without you even realizing it, Amazon, Pinterest, Instagram, Google, they are changing your preferences right under your own radar. They can choose your venue, your caterer, your dress, all by using these marketing tricks that stay totally under your awareness. And you can even think of it as simple as if you see the same ad over and over again pop up in between Instagram stories, sooner or later, you're gonna be like, alright, they keep showing it to me. I relent. I'm gonna click on it, see how it goes.

Maybe it's this big beautiful dress. Oh my god. This big beautiful dress is amazing. It's the cost I'm looking for. All this good stuff.

Boom. You buy the dress. You did not make that choice with your own free will to buy the dress. That dress was carefully selected and chosen for you, placed in between those posts on purpose, and placed there for as long as it was because they have algorithms that tell them what it takes to get you, not only to look at the ad, but to click on the ad and to purchase from the ad. And that's a huge success on the side of big tech.

Identity graphs track how you spend your money, where you live, where you travel to, where you shop, but most scarily, they can track your politics based on what you interact with. And all of this is happening without you being able to recognize it's happening. That's the point that I wanna push the most is that you may hear this and be like you may hear this and think that maybe we sound a little crazy because you don't think it's happening to you or you think you have better control of yourself than the average person. The harsh news is that you don't. Every human is on the same page.

No one is above being controlled by these algorithms. Amazon, Google, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook, all of them are chitchatting with each other trying to see how much ad revenue they can squeeze out of you. Because it's important to remember, if you don't pay for what you're using, the ads are what's making the money for the platform. Mosslet, we don't do that. There are no ads.

There's no sneaky algorithms. It's funded totally by user support. So, here's a harsh example about how identity graphs can be used against you without you even realizing. When it comes to your finances, let's say, those are private for most people. So if you're thinking, I have nothing to hide, usually people do.

They don't want their finances public. Alright? If you're looking to refinance your student loans or buy a home, depending on your spending habits, how often you travel, things that are really only attainable through these identity graphs, your rates can be higher. You can be denied refinancing. So many different things can go your way negatively because of identity graphs in how all these companies speak to each other.

They have an understanding of how much money you make in a year, where you live, what demographics are most likely to fall into the trap of any given marketing tool. And it's not some in the future scary sci fi fear mongering that's happening. It's literally happening right now. So you think rocket money, for example, that's a big scammy, hello scam, mortgage thing, money loaning situation. Those ads are given to podcast, to Instagram feeds that they are aware of their financial situation.

They know they are stressed for money. How do they know? They can look at your bank accounts. They can pay attention to your spending habits online if you're buying less, not only on Amazon, but on bunches and bunches of websites. If you're spending less, they know you have less money, they're going to up their ads in Rocket Money or in credit cards, for example.

Because credit cards, if they're not used properly, can be really predatory. And so that is a more spooky, if you will, example of how these identity graphs can be used to manipulate your real life. It's not just online.

They also have your different states of your psychology and your emotional states at different times of the day for every single day. So, like, the system can have a good idea that, you know, at 10AM on a Tuesday morning, you might be feeling a little depressed. So, if we send you this video pushing a certain political agenda, you're going to be more susceptible to suddenly accept whatever thoughts are being pushed than you would if we sent this to you Wednesday at at 9PM. And that, over time, starts to shape and change the way you think, and before you know it, you're believing things you never would have believed a year ago on your own. And that is how you lose your ability to actually control the direction of your life, to control your own thoughts, and the whole time you think you're making these decisions and having these thoughts yourself when they're really being essentially planted in your head and you're being nudged in these directions.

Exactly. So like conspiracy theorists, we all have some that feel a little silly. We all know people who fall into YouTube rabbit holes and it costs them their family. But to these people online, they were being fed videos and every other form of propaganda that they could find that already agreed with them, that already was saying, yes, you're right. Because what's happening with these identity graphs is we're all using different internets, essentially.

We have different understandings of reality based on what is shown to us. And the most simple example that I saw pretty recently of this is if you go into Google and you type climate change is, the autofill will be totally different depending on where you live in the country, depending on your own political views. That kind of separation is a very dangerous thing for humanity, but also just Americans in general to be able to have a common sense of truth.

Which is why Mosslet is so important. When you're on Mosslet, you're simply connecting and sharing with your friends and family. Nothing else is happening. We're small tech, which means that our customers are the people using our service. Everything we do on Mossle is to make your experience and life better.

We wanna hear from you. We want your feedback. We wanna know what you like and what you don't like and what you wish the service would do because we wanna make that happen.

We love you guys, anyone who's listening, and we created Mosslet out of love and a lot of hope for a better future. We hope you check it out.

And bring a friend so you can have someone to hang out with on Mosslet. Okay. Bye. Bye.