u/BisonGlass2152

Context: I was out in my city, and I was taking a walk around with my roommate.

While passing through the main square of the city, we both witnessed a movie-like chase where three police officers managed to corner a guy who was probably dealing nearby.

I had never seen anything like that involving law enforcement before, so I decided to tell my girlfriend about it live by sending her a WhatsApp voice message.

So I raised my phone to record the voice message, but then something happened.

On the other side of the street, exactly where they had cornered the guy, a young policeman noticed I had my phone in my hand and shouted at me: “HEY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

I froze, confused. I didn’t process it. I just stood there, looking at him, thinking he couldn’t possibly be talking to me. After three seconds, I saw him running toward me, still shouting: “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

I got seriously scared, so I stretched my arms out toward him, without touching him, and went: “Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down!”

From that moment on, the conversation went more or less like this. The police officer starts, I’m the second person. The dialogue alternates.

“What are you doing? Did you make a video?”

“I didn’t make any video. I was sending a voice message to my girlfriend.”

“Go to your gallery immediately and delete the video. In front of me.”

At that moment, I got embarrassed. “Why?” you may ask. Well, I remembered perfectly well that the last photo I had taken was a photo of my di*k that I had sent to my girlfriend.

I wasn’t afraid. I don’t mince words. If there’s something embarrassing to say, I say it. The damage was already done.

“Look, I’m not joking, but the last photo is a photo of my d**k.”

“I don’t care! Delete that video immediately!”

He didn’t hesitate. For him, in that gallery, there was THAT video. Except THAT video didn’t exist. A non-video.

So I humored him. I opened the Gallery. I showed him the latest media. I opened it. He saw it. He stood there for about two or three seconds, maybe to process what he was seeing. Then he closed his eyes and looked away from the phone.

“Get out of here!”

So we left.

I was crying with laughter. My roommate was too.

All in all, it was a pretty great evening.

Context: I was out in my city, and I was taking a walk around with my roommate.

While passing through the main square of the city, we both witnessed a movie-like chase where three police officers managed to corner a guy who was probably dealing nearby.

I had never seen anything like that involving law enforcement before, so I decided to tell my girlfriend about it live by sending her a WhatsApp voice message.

So I raised my phone to record the voice message, but then something happened.

On the other side of the street, exactly where they had cornered the guy, a young policeman noticed I had my phone in my hand and shouted at me: “HEY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

I froze, confused. I didn’t process it. I just stood there, looking at him, thinking he couldn’t possibly be talking to me. After three seconds, I saw him running toward me, still shouting: “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

I got seriously scared, so I stretched my arms out toward him, without touching him, and went: “Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down!”

From that moment on, the conversation went more or less like this. The police officer starts, I’m the second person. The dialogue alternates.

“What are you doing? Did you make a video?”

“I didn’t make any video. I was sending a voice message to my girlfriend.”

“Go to your gallery immediately and delete the video. In front of me.”

At that moment, I got embarrassed. “Why?” you may ask. Well, I remembered perfectly well that the last photo I had taken was a photo of my di*k that I had sent to my girlfriend.

I wasn’t afraid. I don’t mince words. If there’s something embarrassing to say, I say it. The damage was already done.

“Look, I’m not joking, but the last photo is a photo of my d**k.”

“I don’t care! Delete that video immediately!”

He didn’t hesitate. For him, in that gallery, there was THAT video. Except THAT video didn’t exist. A non-video.

So I humored him. I opened the Gallery. I showed him the latest media. I opened it. He saw it. He stood there for about two or three seconds, maybe to process what he was seeing. Then he closed his eyes and looked away from the phone.

“Get out of here!”

So we left.

I was crying with laughter. My roommate was too.

All in all, it was a pretty great evening.

Context: I was out in my city, and I was taking a walk around with my roommate.

While passing through the main square of the city, we both witnessed a movie-like chase where three police officers managed to corner a guy who was probably dealing nearby.

I had never seen anything like that involving law enforcement before, so I decided to tell my girlfriend about it live by sending her a WhatsApp voice message.

So I raised my phone to record the voice message, but then something happened.

On the other side of the street, exactly where they had cornered the guy, a young policeman noticed I had my phone in my hand and shouted at me: “HEY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

I froze, confused. I didn’t process it. I just stood there, looking at him, thinking he couldn’t possibly be talking to me. After three seconds, I saw him running toward me, still shouting: “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

I got seriously scared, so I stretched my arms out toward him, without touching him, and went: “Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down!”

From that moment on, the conversation went more or less like this. The police officer starts, I’m the second person. The dialogue alternates.

“What are you doing? Did you make a video?”

“I didn’t make any video. I was sending a voice message to my girlfriend.”

“Go to your gallery immediately and delete the video. In front of me.”

At that moment, I got embarrassed. “Why?” you may ask. Well, I remembered perfectly well that the last photo I had taken was a photo of my di*k that I had sent to my girlfriend.

I wasn’t afraid. I don’t mince words. If there’s something embarrassing to say, I say it. The damage was already done.

“Look, I’m not joking, but the last photo is a photo of my d**k.”

“I don’t care! Delete that video immediately!”

He didn’t hesitate. For him, in that gallery, there was THAT video. Except THAT video didn’t exist. A non-video.

So I humored him. I opened the Gallery. I showed him the latest media. I opened it. He saw it. He stood there for about two or three seconds, maybe to process what he was seeing. Then he closed his eyes and looked away from the phone.

“Get out of here!”

So we left.

I was crying with laughter. My roommate was too.

All in all, it was a pretty great evening.

TL;DR: A cop thought I was filming an arrest and demanded to see/delete the video. I told him the last thing in my gallery was a dick pic, he didn’t believe me, so I opened it in front of him. He saw it, processed it for two seconds, then told me to leave.

I’ve recently reached the point where I can’t ignore how much of my life has been tied to Google and other big tech companies.

If the government had the same amount of information about me that Google has, I would find it deeply uncomfortable. Search history, location data, emails, contacts, photos, browsing habits, app usage, purchases, device activity, and countless small behavioral signals collected over years.

And yet, because it’s Google, many of us treat it as normal. The services are convenient, the interface is polished, and everything feels harmless because it is presented as “free.”

But it isn’t really free. The cost is dependence, profiling, tracking, and giving one company an enormous amount of power over our digital lives.

That’s what pushed me to start de-Googling seriously. I’m changing operating systems where I can, replacing default apps and services, deleting old data, closing accounts I don’t need, and moving toward tools and providers that respect privacy more.

I’m still early in the process, and I know it’s not realistic to become perfectly private overnight. But I no longer want convenience to be the reason I keep feeding a system I don’t trust.

For those of you who have already started or completed this process: what were the most important steps you took first? What made the biggest difference?

I’ve been thinking about how differently we react to state surveillance compared to corporate surveillance.

If a government had access to the same amount of information that Google, Meta, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and other major tech companies have about us, most people would probably find it disturbing. Search history, location data, emails, contacts, browsing habits, purchases, voice interactions, app usage, device data, behavioral patterns, and sometimes even sensitive personal information.

But when private companies collect, process, and monetize that information, many of us treat it as normal because it comes packaged in convenient apps, clean interfaces, and “free” services.

The strange part is that, at least in theory, citizens have some tools to push back against governments: voting, protesting, legal challenges, public pressure, journalism, regulation. With big tech platforms, our leverage often feels much weaker. We are not really the customer in many of these systems; we are the data source.

I’m not saying state surveillance is fine. It obviously isn’t. But I do wonder why private surveillance has become so normalized when it can be just as invasive, and in some ways harder to escape.

I’ve started taking privacy more seriously: changing operating systems where possible, deleting old accounts, reducing my dependence on Google and Meta services, and moving toward providers whose business models and privacy practices I trust more.

Has anyone else gone through this realization recently? What made you start taking action?