Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a suit on Monday against Samsung, Sony, LG, TCL, and Hisense, claiming in a press release that they "have been unlawfully collecting personal data through Automated Content Recognition (“ACR”) technology.” Paxton goes on to label ACR as “an uninvited, invisible digital invader,” and in one of the five separately filed suits, he calls Samsung TVs “a mass surveillance system.”

However, it’s also possible that during setup, the TV may have asked if we’d like “an enhanced and personalized viewing experience.” Who wouldn’t say yes to that? I dunno, anyone who actually reads it? “Enhanced and personalized” always means spyware. Always.

Oh people like you make my head hurt. Not because you’re wrong, because you’re not. You’re entirely right here. The reason people like you make my head hurt is because you live in this self isolated bubble where you think everyone else is mentally on the same page as you. You’re baffled that anyone would agree to that checkbox, because anyone who reads it would understand as you understand that it’s not in your best interest. Whereas I’M baffled that you think hardly anyone reads the EULA of anything. Google could literally put in their EULA “user agrees to chop off their genitals and walk barefoot on hot coals”. People would still agree and check yes. Why? Because they never read it. They just click the thing that lets them do the thing and use the thing. Thats as far as 99% go with EULAs. I’ve watched people like you in person complain that everybody doesn’t do things their way. And while that way is, in general, a better way than is currently being handled, it all falls apart on one key aspect to not understanding the world. That important key being that the world does not see things through your eyes. They do not think of things from your perspective. But instead of taking action to create a world with better ideas being practiced, you sit on the sidelines, watching as the world does what the world will do, and thats be influenced by others. That is what humanity has always been. That’s what it will always be. But in the last 200 years, instead of being influenced by the ideas of a community upbringing, and structure, and morals, it is now, and for all of our lives, been influenced by the ultra rich. The 1%. We’ve fallen into a world where a persons worth is equal to their net worth. A world where celebrities and ultra rich businessmen are celebrated rather than shunned. Entire genres of music where the sole message is “I have money, therefore bitches fuck me”. And the masses flock to it, because they have adopted that message as their own. Here you sit. Not having fallen for the basic tricks that are played on society. That alone gives you a huge step up, to rise above the glass ceiling, break through, and bring changes needed to this world. Instead, you ponder why no one else recognizes there is a glass ceiling. You question why others aren’t doing things the way you would, while offering no resistence of substance. Everyone wants to complain about shrinkflation, but nobody wants to stop buying the product. If they change the formula, or the price, or the portion size, or whatever, and suddenly they have 0 purchases, things go back how they were real fucking quick. It is up to us, as the ones who see what is happening to educate those around us. To filter out the static noise of the internet’s social media. To teach our loved ones that they are being ripped off. Stop buying “smart” tv’s. Teach those around you to only buy dumb tv’s. And if there’s no dumb tv’s on sale, then there’s no tv’s to buy. And if they keep not selling dumb tv’s, you keep not buying. You teach those around you to keep not buying. This is how you fight the war against the elite. Not with guns, but with wallets that refuse to open. They can’t take our money unless we agree to buy their goods. But we’ll never get to that point from the sidelines.