Ever thought, “Why should I care about online privacy? I have nothing to hide.” Read this https://www.socialcooling.com/
credit: [deleted] user on Reddit.
original link: https://old.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/savz9u/i_have_nothing_to_hide_why_should_i_care_about/
u/magicmulder
The main issue isn’t that someone would be interested in you personally but that data mining may put you in categories you don’t want to be in. 99.9% correlation of your „likes“ and follows to those of terror suspects - whoops you’re a terror suspect yourself. You follow heavy metal bands and Harley Davidson? Whoops, you have a 98% likelihood of drinking and smoking, up goes your insurance rate. And so on.
u/Mayayana
Indeed. But most people here seem to have misunderstood your post. One of my favorite examples is from Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google, whoo said in an interview (on youtube) that if you think you have something to hide then maybe you shouldn’t be doing what you’re doing. (Like maybe the Jews on Kristallnacht shouldn’t have been living in their houses?) Schmidt was later reported to have got an apartment in NYC without a doorman, to avoid gossip about his promiscuous lifestyle. :)
u/SandboxedCapybara
I always thought the like “no bathroom door,” “no curtains,” or “no free speech” arguments always fell flat when talking about privacy. Sure, as people who already care about privacy they make sense, but for people who don’t they are just such hollow arguments. I think a better argument is real life issues that people always face. The fact that things like their home address, social security number, face, email, phone number, passwords, their emails and texts, etc could be out there for anyone to see soon or may already be is almost always more concerning for people. People trust companies. People don’t trust people.
u/Striking-Implement52
Another good read: https://thenewoil.org/why.html ‘I’ve Got Nothing to Hide’ and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy
etc
You don’t choose what you share. Not sharing anything is now also a metric. There are so few people not sharing anything that it’s even a rather precise metric. And data brokers can easily build accurate profiles of people not sharing anything, because the governments, your ISP, and other companies you have to use, might already share your data (it’s safe to assume at least one does: it’s absolutely covert, so good luck finding which one(s), and in case they get caught, public awareness is so bad that they will likely only get a ridiculously low fine).
The whole point is: public awareness of this fact is absolutely abysmal, most people are made uncomfortable by this so they avoid this ugly truth as hard as they can, and a small very vocal minority of users has perfectly understood the problem at hand, but is so addicted to their tech, that they are willing to give and give up all they can to ensure their current level of digital comfort. Such users are often advocating in favor of big tech companies, even though it goes against their personal interest, but they have already long accepted to be slaves in exchange for fancy technology, and are trying to make that choice for the rest of us.
@7heo
What about using the tor network and not sharing. Then that can make profile of us that will be anonymous. Until they figure more behavior and compared with our old data. At the end what can we do?
@dingdongitsabear @privacy
The point is that you exist. A record of you therefore also does (hospital database/register, government registry, schools, various institutions, various companies, etc).
No traces of you existing online don’t mean that data brokers don’t have your (other) data: identity, sex, age, etc.
Those records, associated with no traces of you being online, can mean different things, but depending on your age, and potential social situation (both known or very reliably inferred from previously mentioned records), are pretty telling.
And, as you say, at the end, there’s not much we can do. We need a wide, deep, and radical social awakening, leading to a complete change of most people’s relationship to “technology” (or, at least, what they call technology), for us to have any chance at reclaiming our data sovereignty. So, not to be pessimistic, but I don’t see this coming any time soon… 😩