Tech Tyranny: The Algorithm Is Watching
You Gave It Permission. Now It Owns You. - 10 Things Killing America | Part 9
The Eyes You Chose
“In 2025, Big Brother didn’t need to install cameras. He just needed you to download TikTok.”
You didn’t resist. You didn’t question.
You tapped “accept all” without reading a word.
Every scroll, every swipe, every filtered selfie was a breadcrumb in the trail you left behind — and now the machine knows exactly who you are. What you like. What makes you tick. What makes you angry. What makes you buy.
You didn’t just feed the algorithm.
You trained it.
You raised it like a child — and now it’s smarter than you. Faster. More powerful.
And it’s watching.
This isn’t sci-fi. This isn’t paranoia.
This is the system you helped build — smiling into the front-facing camera while it mapped your face and scanned your living room.
You were promised connection.
You got surveillance.
You were promised convenience.
You got control.
You are not the user.
You are the used.
The algorithm doesn’t serve you. It doesn’t love you. It doesn’t even care if you’re alive.
It studies you.
It categorizes you.
It manipulates you.
And when you say something it doesn’t like? It silences you with a flick of a switch — no explanation, no appeal, no face to blame. Just a Terms of Service violation buried under a mountain of corporate vagueness.
You won’t see the cage, because it looks like a touchscreen.
You won’t feel the chains, because they vibrate when you get a like.
But this isn't freedom.
This is a new kind of prison.
And you walked in willingly.
Now the question is — can you ever get out?
The Digital Panopticon
“If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product.” — Old tech saying, now more prophecy than proverb.
You wake up, check your phone, and the machine is already five steps ahead.
Before your feet touch the floor, it knows your sleep patterns, your mood, your spending habits, and which ad to inject between reels to break your focus and hijack your wallet.
This is not paranoia. This is the business model.
Surveillance capitalism isn’t some underground conspiracy.
It’s your default setting.
Google tracks your every move — literally, through Maps and Android location services.
Amazon listens — through Alexa, through your Kindle, through that Ring camera you installed to “feel safer.”
Meta (that’s Facebook with Botox) builds a psychological profile on you so accurate, it could probably write your diary better than you can.
They know who you voted for.
They know who you’ll vote for.
They know when you're ovulating.
They know when you're lying.
They know when you're lonely — and they’ll sell you a product for that too.
They don’t just track your behavior. They predict it.
Predictive modeling means the machine doesn’t wait for you to make a choice — it subtly nudges you toward it.
Want to guess how many of your recent “decisions” were really yours?
Spoiler: not many.
Every click. Every scroll. Every “accidental” linger on that girl in yoga pants or that rage-bait tweet about politics — all of it feeds the profile.
All of it shapes what you see next.
And what you don’t see.
Because this isn’t just about ads.
It’s about control.
Google, Meta, Amazon — they’re not just tech companies. They’re unelected superpowers.
And like all empires, they’ve made friends in high places.
Government contracts. Intelligence partnerships. “Compliance teams” that meet quietly in D.C. boardrooms to decide what you can say online.
They’ll call it safety.
They’ll call it moderation.
But censorship by algorithm is still censorship — and it’s much cleaner than burning books.
Here’s a fun fact:
The U.S. government doesn’t need a formal surveillance state.
It just needs access to your iCloud.
And while China builds a Social Credit System out in the open — punishments for wrongthink, public shaming for jaywalking, QR codes that decide if you can ride a train — the U.S. is already halfway there.
Only here, we’re addicted to the convenience.
We choose our tracking devices.
We wear our microphones on our wrists.
We pay for the privilege of being monitored.
TikTok might be Chinese spyware, but Instagram is American mind control.
Pick your poison. Same outcome.
The algorithm doesn’t blink.
The camera doesn’t turn off — even if the light does.
The mic doesn't go silent — it just pretends.
We live in the Panopticon — a prison designed so the guards don’t need to watch you all the time, because you’ll act like they are.
It’s genius.
It’s terrifying.
And it’s already here.
So next time you wonder why that ad knew you were craving a burger…or how your phone “magically” knew you were fighting with your wife...
Just remember: it’s not magic.
It’s surveillance.
And you installed it yourself.
Censorship 2.0 — The Silencing Is Automated
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” — George Orwell
The algorithm doesn’t just suggest what to watch.
It decides what you’re allowed to say.
It’s not just Netflix recommendations and cat videos anymore. It’s not “just the algorithm.”
It’s the new Ministry of Truth — coded in JavaScript and wrapped in TOS agreements nobody reads.
Once upon a time, censorship was clumsy — some sweaty government official with a Sharpie blacking out words in a book.
Now it’s automated.
Now it’s invisible.
Now it’s efficient.
Say the wrong thing, and your post vanishes.
No knock at the door. No trial.
Just a little gray notification: “This content violates community guidelines.”
No explanation. No specifics. No appeal.
It’s not censorship with a boot — it’s censorship with a glitch.
Speak too clearly about vaccines, immigration, elections, Ukraine, gender ideology, the WEF, the Clintons, the Bidens, or God forbid…comedy — and watch your reach collapse like a house of cards in a hurricane.
They won’t tell you you’re banned.
They’ll just shadowban you.
You’ll still be posting. You’ll still be shouting into the void.
But no one will hear you.
Welcome to the mute button of the modern age.
And while you’re wondering why your post with 10,000 followers got 6 likes — know this: it wasn’t the content. It was the content filter.
They call it “protecting the community.”
From what?
From thought?
Truth has become a liability — unless it’s approved truth.
And once truth is approved, it’s no longer truth — it’s propaganda.
Remember the Twitter Files?
Oh right — you probably don’t, because most of it was memory-holed by the same platforms it exposed.
What did they show?
Government agencies (yes, including the FBI) cozying up with Twitter, flagging accounts, requesting takedowns, shaping narratives.
This wasn’t paranoia. This was documented collusion between state and Silicon Valley.
Meanwhile, YouTube was out here demonetizing doctors — actual licensed professionals — for daring to question the gospel of Saint Fauci.
You know, the guy who said masks don’t work, then that they do, then that you should wear two. That guy.
Questioning him? Misinformation.
And if you didn’t march in lockstep?
Silenced. Flagged. Banned.
Modern-day heretics in the Church of Tech.
But let’s be honest: most people didn’t care.
Because the censorship wasn’t aimed at them.
Yet.
They kept scrolling. Kept uploading food pics. Kept clapping for Ukraine.
Until one day it was their post that got nuked.
Their meme flagged.
Their account locked for “hate speech” because they used the wrong pronoun or mocked the wrong sacred cow.
First they came for Alex Jones — and you cheered.
Then they came for Trump — and you shrugged.
Then they came for comedians, dissidents, doctors, artists — and you didn’t even notice.
Now they’re coming for you.
And all you’ve got is a TikTok account and a Terms of Service violation.
You don’t need to burn books anymore.
You just need to tweak the algorithm.
Make it so no one sees them. Make it so they never existed.
And don’t worry — AI’s taking over moderation now, so the censorship will be faster, colder, cleaner.
No humans needed.
No empathy required.
No dissent tolerated.
It’s not just the silencing of speech.
It’s the murder of meaning.
Because if you can't say it, you can't think it.
And if you can't think it, you can't resist.
So no, you're not being dramatic. You're not overreacting.
You’re watching the slow, surgical assassination of the First Amendment — and it’s happening in real time, through a screen you touch more often than your own reflection.
Dopamine, Depression, and Digital Chains
Addicted, Anxious, and Alone
They built the trap in plain sight.
But instead of steel bars and padlocks, they used filters and dopamine.
You didn’t walk into it.
You scrolled into it.
And now you’re hooked.
The algorithm doesn’t love you.
It doesn’t even like you.
It only wants one thing: your attention. Your time. Your clicks.
Your bleeding, lonely, exhausted focus — in exchange for momentary hits of digital crack.
You think that screen is your mirror?
No. It’s your dealer.
And it knows your weaknesses better than your therapist ever will.
Want attention? It’ll give you a selfie filter that makes you look like a teenage sex doll.
Want validation? It'll feed you hearts, likes, followers — just enough to keep you begging for more.
Want to numb the ache? It’ll slide you endless reels of fake laughter and staged lives, until you forget what breathing without performance even feels like.
It’s not accidental.
It’s not random.
It’s engineered.
These platforms weren’t built to connect you.
They were built to control you — gently, quietly, seductively.
Scroll.
Click.
Compare.
Doubt.
Hate yourself.
Repeat.
Tech isn’t neutral.
That’s the biggest lie Silicon Valley ever sold.
The endless scroll wasn’t an afterthought — it was a weapon.
A design meant to keep your thumb moving and your brain melting.
They tested it on you like rats in a lab.
They know the trigger points.
They know how long it takes before you feel ugly, inadequate, irrelevant.
They even know the exact moment you’ll consider deleting the app — and how to stop you before you do.
They know.
And still, you keep coming back.
Because withdrawal from a dopamine-based reality hurts like hell.
Because deep down, you want the fake high.
You want to feel important, even if it’s fake.
You want to feel beautiful, even if it’s filtered.
You want to belong, even if you’re dying inside.
Look at Gen Z.
Raised on blue light and TikTok trends.
Fed fake perfection from the cradle.
They don’t know boredom. They don’t know privacy.
They don’t know themselves.
What they do know?
Anxiety.
Depression.
Self-harm.
Disassociation.
Mental breakdowns before breakfast.
They know that "likes" equal worth.
That crying into a phone gets more views than asking for help.
That real life is the quiet, grey, boring place between curated dopamine spikes.
And yet — they can’t stop.
None of us can.
Because Big Tech made sure we wouldn’t.
Internal Facebook research — leaked in 2021 — revealed that Instagram made body image issues worse for 1 in 3 teenage girls.
They knew.
They had the data.
They saw the red flags.
And they buried it.
Because fixing it would mean less time on the app.
Less engagement.
Less profit.
They don’t care if your kid develops an eating disorder.
They don’t care if she cries every night because her filtered face isn’t enough.
They don’t care if he watches one more blackpill video and disappears into nihilism.
They. Don’t. Care.
As long as you keep swiping first.
This isn’t just about mental health.
It’s about soul death.
It’s about stealing your joy, your focus, your ability to be present, human, alive.
They’ve replaced faith with followers.
Replaced community with comments.
Replaced meaning with metrics.
And we let them.
Because it was fun at first.
Because it felt good.
Because it’s easier to die slowly in 10-second loops than face the ache of silence and real life.
They didn’t have to force us into chains.
We charged our own and called it connection.
The Death of Reality — Deepfakes, Filters & AI Propaganda
“We are rapidly entering the age of no context, where everything is content and nothing has meaning.” — Some guy on Reddit
Reality used to be something you could touch.
Now it’s something you scroll past.
We used to say, “Pics or it didn’t happen.”
Now the pic does happen — and it’s fake.
Generated, curated, manipulated, filtered, faked, face-tuned, re-lit, voice cloned, and fed through an algorithm that tells you what truth should feel like — even if it isn’t true at all.
Welcome to the AI-powered unreality.
Where you don’t just question the media —
you question your own eyes.
This isn’t the future.
This is right now.
The Pope in a Balenciaga puffer?
Fake.
Biden giving a speech? Could be AI.
That girl you matched with on Tinder? Could be a bot.
The war footage? Digitally altered.
That phone call from your mom asking for help? Might be a voice clone.
It’s all up for grabs now.
Truth, identity, memory, even death — nothing is sacred in the age of synthetic content.
Deepfakes used to be a sci-fi trope.
Now they’re a TikTok trend.
Now your ex can paste your face onto porn and ruin your life before you finish your coffee.
Now your politician can “say” something outrageous, go viral, then deny it ever happened.
And we’re left asking: Did he really say that? Or was it AI?
It doesn’t matter.
Because the damage is already done.
Welcome to the post-reality era, where truth dies faster than your attention span.
But it’s not just deepfakes.
It’s the shallow fakes that are killing us too.
The filters.
The enhancements.
The fake lashes, fake skin, fake smiles, fake lives, fake everything.
Every social media feed is a museum of fiction:
Perfect mothers.
Perfect bodies.
Perfect lifestyles.
All staged. All tweaked. All illusion.
And we compare our raw, real, messy, aching lives to this pixel-perfect bullshit and wonder why we’re not happy.
Spoiler: no one in those pictures is happy either.
They’re just better at editing their despair.
AI propaganda is the final nail.
Governments, corporations, influencers, news outlets — they all have tools now to craft perfect messaging.
Emotionally tuned. Data-tested.
Created by bots, approved by cowards, distributed by algorithms.
What you see trending on Twitter isn’t what’s popular — it’s what’s allowed to be popular.
What you see on the news isn’t always what happened — it’s what they want you to feel happened.
Fear. Rage. Obedience.
You think the culture war is organic?
Try again.
It’s curated conflict.
Outrage is monetized.
Division is algorithmically boosted.
Reality is engineered — not reported.
And while we’re arguing over pronouns, statues, flags, and bathroom signs, the real masters — the unelected tech gods and their digital enforcers — are feeding us a steady diet of distraction and distortion.
Because the more confused you are, the more controllable you become.
The more emotionally triggered, the more you post.
And every post = data = power.
The scariest part?
We’re adjusting to it.
We know we’re being lied to.
We know we’re being manipulated.
We know that every image, every headline, every video could be fake.
And we no longer care.
Truth fatigue.
The numbing. The shrug. The quiet collapse.
The moment when you stop asking what’s real — and just scroll on.
That’s not just apathy.
That’s defeat.
Because once people stop believing in truth —
they’ll believe anything.
And when that happens, reality belongs to whoever has the best tools to fake it.
This is how freedom dies in the digital age:
Not with a bang.
Not with a boot.
But with a well-lit, high-res, auto-tuned deepfake smile and 3.2 million likes.
Obedience by Convenience — How You’re Sleepwalking Into Slavery
“The perfect dictatorship would have the appearance of a democracy, but would basically be a prison without walls in which the prisoners would not even dream of escaping. It would essentially be a system of slavery where, through consumption and entertainment, the slaves would love their servitude.”
— Aldous Huxley
Picture this: You're in your kitchen. You ask Alexa to preheat the oven, dim the lights, play your "chill" playlist, and lock the front door — all while scrolling TikTok and paying your rent with a thumbprint. Sounds slick, right?
Now imagine you post something online that some unaccountable algorithm finds problematic. Suddenly, Alexa won’t respond. Your bank app freezes. Your door doesn’t unlock. Your rent? "Payment declined." Your Uber account? “Suspended.” No groceries. No ride. No way out. You don’t need to be hauled off in handcuffs. You’ll stay exactly where you are, obedient and silent — because the warm glow of your screen just turned cold.
This is not science fiction. This is Tuesday.
Convenience is the Trojan Horse.
Smart homes. Smart TVs. Smart fridges. Smart cars. How dumb are we, really?
Every device, every app, every "digital assistant" you welcome into your life is a node in a grid that does not serve you — it watches you. It collects. It logs. It calculates. Not just your data, but your compliance. Your patterns. Your choices. And eventually, your acceptability score.
It started with cookies. Then came digital wallets. Then biometric scans. Then digital IDs. And now — Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs).
That’s the final boss. That’s the endgame.
With a CBDC, the government doesn’t just see what you buy. It can decide what you’re allowed to buy. Or when. Or where. Or whether you're allowed to buy at all. Imagine your money programmed with expiration dates, location locks, and moral conditions:
Bought too much meat this month? Purchase denied.
Supported the “wrong” cause? Account frozen.
Traveled too far from home? Funds inaccessible.
Failed to get your digital booster certificate? Enjoy your financial quarantine.
It sounds insane — until you realize they’re already beta testing this.
In China, the digital yuan is programmable, trackable, and revocable.
In Nigeria, the eNaira rollout tanked, so they restricted cash to force adoption.
The EU is trialing the digital euro. The Fed is exploring FedNow.
Canada froze bank accounts of peaceful protesters in 2022 — remember that?
Still think your Apple Watch is just counting your steps?
The cage doesn’t come with bars anymore. It comes with perks.
We were promised freedom through tech. We got targeted ads, dopamine dependency, and a leash disguised as a lifestyle.
The more we embraced convenience, the more power we handed over. Now we’re three clicks away from full-spectrum surveillance. One "update" away from financial throttling. A social credit system already exists — we just call it "community standards" and "terms of service."
They don’t need to send you to a gulag if they can just deactivate your life.
And you — you’ll comply. Not because you love tyranny, but because you love your Spotify playlists. Your Amazon Prime. Your sweet little ring camera. Your digital leash.
You’ll sit in your smart kitchen, sipping your oat milk latte, wondering how life got so empty — and asking Siri if you’re allowed to leave the house.
The warning signs are everywhere.
But the comfort is louder.
Smart equals soft control. And soft control becomes hard tyranny the moment you stop being useful.
This isn't just about politics. This is about the infrastructure of enslavement. We are being herded, not with whips, but with user agreements. No one’s forcing you into the trap — you’re paying for it. You’re upgrading to it.
You’re unlocking your own chains with Face ID.
Still feel free? Or just plugged in?
The question isn’t when you lost control — it’s how long you’ll pretend you haven’t.
And here's the kicker:
If you’re not worried yet, you’re exactly who they’re counting on.
Not All Apps Are Bastards
a.k.a. “I’m Not Moving to a Cave, Karen, I Just Want to Be Left the Fuck Alone”
Let’s get something straight:
I’m not here to tell you to go live in a cabin, knit your own socks from alpaca hair, and raise goats off-grid (although, let’s be real, that actually sounds like a dream).
I’m not anti-tech.
I’m anti-bullshit.
Anti-control.
Anti-soul-sucking surveillance capitalism dressed up as “convenience.”
Because here’s the thing nobody wants to admit:
Tech is not the enemy.
But what they did with it is.
We’re not going back to the Stone Age. That ship sailed the moment we invented the iPhone and collectively decided we’d rather rot scrolling a dancing frog in a crop top than look out the window.
Technology is here.
We live with it.
We are it.
But there’s a Grand Canyon-sized difference between tech that serves you and tech that feeds off you like a parasite.
Tech was supposed to liberate us.
It didn’t.
The internet was once a rebel's playground. A messy, unregulated frontier of weirdos, forums, and freedom.
Then came the suits.
Enter:
Meta (Facebook, Instagram): The dopamine drug dealers of vanity, tracking your eye movement and selling your soul to the highest bidder.
Google: The librarian from hell who remembers everything you ever whispered and rearranges the shelves so you only find what they want you to find.
TikTok: A CCP-linked psy-op with lipstick on, spoon-feeding you weaponized garbage curated by AI. Oh look, a cat video! Distraction complete.
YouTube: Home of demonetized truth-tellers and promoted diaper-wearing influencers.
Amazon: Where your packages arrive fast, and your ethical standards die even faster.
It’s all rigged.
The algorithm is not your friend.
It's not even neutral.
It’s a leash.
But… some tools actually give you freedom.
Not all tech is out to colonize your brain. Some corners of the internet are still rebel-held territory.
Let’s break a few down:
Substack
Substack is not perfect, but it’s one of the last big-ish platforms where you own your words.
No ads. No feed manipulation. No overlords deciding what’s “dangerous.”
If someone subscribes to you, they get your stuff. That’s it.
You own your email list. You can export it. You can leave. You can speak freely (and people have tried to get it canceled for exactly that reason).
It's the digital version of a zine handed out in a smoke-filled bar, except now it's emailed straight to your reader's inbox.
No middlemen. No censors. Just you and your big, dangerous mouth.
ProtonMail
Gmail reads your shit. ProtonMail doesn’t. Based in Switzerland. Encrypted. Doesn’t even ask for your name.
Think of it as email with a lock on the door. A basic human right.
Signal
Your group chat about how the world’s gone to hell? Shouldn’t be scanned by bots.
Signal is end-to-end encrypted and doesn’t store anything.
WhatsApp might say it's private, but it’s owned by Meta. That’s like saying your diary is safe because you gave it to Zuckerberg and asked him nicely not to read it.
Brave Browser
It blocks trackers. It’s fast. It doesn’t snitch on you.
Basically: Chrome, if Chrome wasn’t a creepy little spy with a clipboard and no boundaries.
So what's the point?
The point is this:
The solution isn’t going backward. It’s choosing better.
Better platforms. Better tools. Better ways of existing online that don’t require selling your soul for a blue checkmark.
No, you don’t have to become a Luddite or build a bunker.
Just stop feeding the machine that’s feeding on you.
Use tech like a scalpel — not a leash.
Choose the tools that serve you, not the ones that sell you.
You can be online and still be sovereign. You can be connected and still be free.
And if they call you paranoid, ask them why their entire digital life is stored in a cloud they can’t see, owned by people they can’t name, governed by rules they didn’t write.
Then light a candle, pour a drink, and send a fire-breathing Substack post from your ProtonMail on Brave — like the glorious little digital outlaw you are.
Smash the Black Mirror
“The greatest prison people live in is the fear of what others think.” — David Icke
Look around. You’re surrounded. Surveillance cameras on every corner. GPS in your pocket. Microphones in your kitchen pretending to help you cook quinoa. A digital leash disguised as convenience. We welcomed it — no, begged for it — with open arms and fingerprint access.
We said yes to everything.
Yes to Siri.
Yes to facial recognition.
Yes to sharing our location “just this once.”
Yes to storing our lives in the Cloud like it’s god’s inbox.
And now you wonder why you feel watched when you’re alone?
Comfort is the ultimate con.
You didn’t get dragged into tyranny kicking and screaming.
You downloaded it.
Accepted the Terms & Conditions.
Enabled push notifications.
You surrendered your soul for faster WiFi and a better selfie.
We traded the wild chaos of real life for curated feeds. Traded conversations for comments. Touch for taps. Emotion for emojis. Truth for trends. Friends for followers. And freedom for likes.
You are not the user. You are the product.
Every scroll is a vote for your own enslavement.
They know what you crave.
They know what you fear.
They know when you wake up, when you cry, when you pleasure yourself, and when you start googling symptoms at 2am convinced you’re dying.
And no — they’re not here to help.
They’re here to hook you.
You think this is dramatic?
Good.
Because you should be angry.
You should be terrified.
You should be wide. Fucking. Awake.
Digital IDs. Social credit. Central Bank Digital Currency.
It’s not science fiction anymore — it’s beta testing.
They want to gamify your existence. Make compliance feel like progress.
Green checks for good behavior. Account locks if you dare question authority.
The future isn’t dystopia. It’s a user interface.
But you still have a choice.
Yes, you.
You can delete the apps.
You can leave the group chat.
You can say no to the dopamine buffet.
You can meet a friend without checking in.
You can let your battery die and watch the sunset without posting it.
You can reclaim what’s left of your analog soul.
Because real life is raw. It’s awkward. It’s messy.
It doesn’t come with filters or autoplay.
But it breathes.
And bleeds.
And belongs to you.
So smash the black mirror.
Shatter the screen that turned you into a ghost.
Say fuck you to the algorithm whispering in your ear like a digital devil.
Let your silence be rebellion.
Let your disconnection be war.
And if you need a final line to tattoo on the inside of your skull:
“The algorithm is watching. The question is: Are you watching back?”
Now go.
Before the next update deletes your humanity.
🔥 Coming Up Next Week:
The War Machine — Profits From Perpetual Chaos
We’re about to go deeper —
If this chapter shook your world, buckle up.
What’s next will blow the doors off your reality.Endless conflict isn’t an accident.
It’s a business model.
And you’re the product.
Get ready to cut through the noise.
Smash the lies.
Crank the volume on truth until it can’t be silenced.
Stay fierce. Stay awake.
See you next week.
Ivana 🗽
You are an amazing writer thank you!
Excellent piece of writing hitting the target with some good practical advice to boot. Surely you are familiar with the work of Shoshana Zuboff?