Clippy is back—this time as a mascot for Big Tech protests

Clippy has become an unlikely protest symbol against Big Tech.

The trend started when YouTuber Louis Rossmann posted a video earlier this month titled “Change your profile picture to clippy. I’m serious.”

His followers answered the call and now across YouTube, X, and other platforms, profile photos are turning into the iconic Microsoft Office Assistant as a silent protest against tech companies’ encroachment into daily life.

The consumer rights activist, whose content focuses on electronic repair and right-to-repair topics, hopes to rally consumers against practices like data harvesting for AI training, selling user information to data brokers, planned obsolescence, censorship, and ransomware.

“I didn’t label it a protest because I’m not asking people to boycott a specific product or c