Life Without The Tech Giants

In 2019, when I was a reporter at Gizmodo Media Group, I spent 6 weeks blocking Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Apple from getting my money, data, and attention, using a custom-built VPN designed by Dhruv Mehrotra.

Here’s what happened. (Short version here.)

 

This was a six-part series at Gizmodo, accompanied by documentary videos produced by Myra Iqbal.

This project was a 2020 Gerald Loeb award finalist.

What People Said About The Experiment

 

A brilliant series of stories in which she attempted to cut out the big five tech platforms from her life. Doing so required the use of special hardware, custom software, and an effort that could only be called Herculean.”

Casey Newton

 

“What she has demonstrated in this remarkable piece of journalism is that our lives now run on a technical infrastructure that is owned, operated and controlled by a handful of giant corporations, from which there is currently no escape unless you want to hibernate.”

The Guardian

“She's a really, really great tech reporter. I've been following her work for years... And she spun out this incredible reporting project based on that just deceptively simple premise, which as you'll hear is astoundingly harder than that simple articulation of it is.”

Chris Hayes during an interview of Kashmir Hill on his podcast, Why Is This Happening

 

“Why we can’t break up with big tech.”

NPR

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