I like Techlore (https://www.techlore.tech if you don’t know) and I usually regard them as one of the most impartial and most trustworthy Youtubers out there. But for the past few months, I couldn’t help noticing their somewhat heavy bias towards some of their video sponsors. Still, everybody has to eat right?
This time though, it looks like Synology flew them over to Taiwan, and if you watch their video at the event, it’s wall-to-wall Synology shilling. I’m really disappointed.
They didn’t move from Matrix to Discord, that’s a very misleading way to frame it. They had Matrix, Discord and their forums, then they closed Matrix and encouraged people to use the forums instead. They left the Discord open for people who require real-time privacy advice. Here is their detailed reasoning behind the change, if you are interested.
I read their reasoning and it sort of makes sense: what they’re saying is essentially “We do Discord because that’s where the people we want to reach - the folks who don’t know anything about privacy - hang out.”
Well, I get that. But it’s kind of like Al Gore saying his flying around the world and spewing megatons of CO2 doesn’t matter because he’s doing that to promote environmental causes. I don’t like people who exempt themselves from the rules they preach, whatever their reason. People who walk the talk are usually more convincing.
But yeah, they do have a point I guess…
Techlore isn’t about preaching rules or activism, though. Their aim is to provide balanced and nuanced information for people with lower threat models. Often that means that the products or services they discuss or recommend to certain viewers are nowhere near the most private or ethical overall; they’re just the ones that have the right balance of privacy and convenience for that person.
This is all made even more irrelevant by the fact that they actually did close their Discord earlier this year, now that their official forums are in a better state for real-time communication.
What is it about then?
It’s TOTALLY about preaching rules and activism: they advocate for privacy and purport to educate people on how to achieve better privacy.
Can you please read the rest of my comment before replying? Literally the very next sentence after the one you quoted answers your question.
Ah I wasn’t aware of that. They were one of the few large channels at the time, so when they shut it down I quit using Matrix altogether.