Change your profile picture to clippy. I'm serious

I was listening to the Facebook

whistleblower hearings with Senator Josh

Holly a few months back. One of the

elements that stuck out to me was when

they were talking about how if an

underage girl has deleted a selfie, MA

keeps track of this because they know

that this person likely has low

self-esteem at that moment that they

deleted a picture of themsel, which

means that they may be more apt to

purchase something from an advertiser of

a cosmetic product. And I think about

this within the context of what

companies used to get in trouble for and

what they do or more importantly don't

get in trouble for today. I grew up in

the '9s, a time when Microsoft had hell

and fury fall down upon them because

they bundled a web browser with their

operating system. Whether you think this

is a good idea or not, I personally

think that a web browser being installed

in every single person's computer that

standards non-compliant that is so bad

that you can literally get a virus from

visiting a website has its problems. But

when you look at what it is that

companies got in trouble for in the

'90s, it just doesn't hit the same when

you look at what companies get away with

now. I remember having a Dell Dimension

233 back in the day and if you wanted to

get the one that had slightly better

graphics, they would give you a free

installation of Microsoft Office. And

with Microsoft Office back in the day,

it came with Clippy. Whether or not you

like Clippy and whether or not you liked

Microsoft Office or having an operating

system that had the browser built into

it that could easily get you a virus

when you visited other websites that

were trying to invade your privacy. The

one thing that you could say, unlike

Facebook, who is trying to profit off of

young girls that feel suicidal, Clippy

simply wanted to help. He might have

been annoying, but he just wanted to

help. There were no ulterior motives. If

you told Clippy that you were having a

bad day, he wasn't going to use that

information to try and figure out which

advertiser to sell you to, nor was he

trying to steal your personal data or

get you to purchase other Microsoft

products. He had no ulterior motives. He

was simply there to help. Unlike many

modern pieces of software like what you

get from Adobe or into it where you

can't buy QuickBooks anymore, you can't

buy a video editor anymore, you have to

pay a subscription fee for it. If I were

to boot up that computer that has not

been used for 28 years, and I wanted to

start up Microsoft Word, I could do so

without connecting to the internet and

Clippy would still be there happy,

enthusiastic as ever, simply wanting to

help. Adobe is another example of this.

This is a company that tried to twist

people's arms into having AI and machine

learning stuff go through their personal

data. Not public data, not the speeches

that I give, not my website or my blog

post or my videos, but my private data,

the stuff that I'm editing. And there

were people that were not able to get

into their account until they agreed to

this new enduser license agreement. When

they are looking for access to your

data, they're doing so because they want

to train an AI on how to do what you do

without paying you, without your

consent. Clippy simply wanted to help.

When Clippy would ask you if you wanted

help with writing your letter, Clippy

wouldn't even read the contents of your

letter.

He just wanted to offer suggestions.

Game of Thrones had I'm not spoiler

alert. There's this Sons of the

Heartbeat in season 5. They were these

people that wore masks and they pushed

back against the new regime. And the

purpose of the mask was to let the

leaders know that when you see people

with this mask, we are against you and

your new regime. And we are going to

push back against it as often as we can.

And the worry with the Sons of the Harpy

mask is that it starts with one person

putting the mask on and then somebody

else gains the balls to put the mask on

and then 20 or 40 or 100 of them put the

mask on and once a 100red or a thousand

of them put the mask on, there's nothing

that the leaders can do at that point,

enough people have put it on and enough

people have come together with

solidarity and they're going to do

something about it. Now granted, this

may not be the best analogy because

spoiler alert, they were trying to bring

back slavery and they also were just bad

people. Kesi kind of became a bag

at that point, too. Besides, I think

that Clippy is like a modern-day Sons of

the Harpy mask. If you're tired of

companies changing the terms of the sale

after the sale and getting away with it,

turn your profile photo to a Clippy. If

you're tired of companies that have the

ability to reach into your house and

ransomware your products that they stop

working unless you pay them again,

claiming that that's legal, but then

when somebody tries to give you back

access to what you bought and pay for,

that's illegal. Change your profile

photo to a Clippy. If you're tired of

sex bots invading the comment section on

a regular basis and their comments

always posting with no problem, but your

comments being censored even when you're

not saying anything that bad, change

your profile picture to a clippy. If

Google being one of the premier data

mining companies on Earth, not being

able to tell that little cat

with two pillows next to it that they

try to make look like an ass so that

thirsty young men click it as they

normalize sex trafficking on the

platform that doesn't allow you to

express an opinion bothers you. Change

your profile picture to a Clippy and let

them know that you're not happy. Clippy

never tries to normalize sex

trafficking. He just wanted to help. If

you're tired of companies saying out

loud that the reason they want to keep

you from fixing what you bought and paid

for is that that may take money away

from them, change your profile photo to

a clippy. I never expected to win the

legislative battle. It would be nice if

I did, but it was never something that I

set as I need to do this or I'm a

failure. What I always hoped to do was

win the cultural battle where all of you

understand what's going on and you

decide that enough is enough. If I ever

have a chance in my personal life to

push back against this, I will. You're

maybe not going to send that email that

you're supposed to send to enter. So to

tell them, oh, by the way, make sure

this chip doesn't end up on mouser.com.

Here's an NDA blah blah blah supplier

agreement. Maybe you just forget to send

that email when there's a new consumer

rights law that the senator that you

work for is on the fence about

supporting and there's a lobbyist that's

going to be against it that wants to

have dinner. Huh? Whoops. Maybe their

invitation went to spam. I didn't see

that. Sorry, boss. Maybe you quit before

you create a fake payw wall to test if

your customers will pay again for what

they already paid for. Or maybe when you

send out that ransomware firmware

update, you make it opt in instead of

opt out. Whoopsie. If in some bizarro

world, it is actually illegal to make a

thermostat work again and this bastard

of a CEO decides to try and get the

individual in trouble. 10 cases to

prosecute. Only got time for six. Maybe

I just ignore this one. When a company

CEO logs into their Slack and sees

10,000 clippies looking back at them,

what I hope occurs is that they

intuitively understand that they no

longer live in a world where they can

get away with over the consumer.

That their employees, their partners are

not going to be accompllices to this

anymore. That they are alert and they

are aware of what is going on and they

are going to politely but firmly push

back against it. Every single one of

those 10,000 people will be an obstacle

to the anti-consumer practices and the

anti-ownership practices and it will no

longer be another cog in the assembly

line sending us all into a dystopia.

There will be a moment where that one

person who usually would not have a say

in anything can be activated and in that

moment keep the world from sliding

further into a dystopia or help push it

forward in the opposite direction. But

we all have to get together. And the

first step is making it public that we

know what's going on. That starts with a

clippy. on YouTube. If you're with me, I

ask that you change your profile picture

to a clippy. At work, change your Slack

profile picture to a clippy. If you work

at the White House, don't take down the

United States flag, but somewhere on the

grounds, put up a flag of a clippy.

Clippy's a symbol that what used to be

considered one of the worst annoyances

in our life would now not only be

welcomed, but for all of his flaws,

celebrated as an idol. Because for all

of these things that occur right now

where there is negative malice of

intent, I want to take away what you

own. I want to take this back. I want to

get your data. I want to sell you to an

advertiser when I know that you're

crying. Clippy just wanted to help. And

if you were to turn him on today, unlike

most cloud he'd still work.

Hulu Foundation is going to be

announcing the winners to both the

future home bounty and the Echelon bikes

bounty within the next month. Us

offering 5,000 here, 20,000 there. It

pushes the ball forward, but at the end

of the day, that does nothing in

contrast to organizing all of you. We're

happy to get the ball rolling, but for

us to truly win, we need to show that if

you push us, Clippy clips back. That's

it for today, and as always, I hope you

learned something. I'll see you all in

the next video.

We also have the duty not to infringe

the IP rights in the process. It is in

fact the manufacturers who have the

relevant rights, not consumers.