I’m following several privacy focused communities. Mostly as lurker but in few I’m more active. Every time I see a posts like “how to be more private”, I wonder about the reasons behind those questions. What’s the reason you want to remain private (don’t confuse it with being anonymous)? Could you elaborate on your reasons?
Let me start.
I worked (and still working) in a highly regulated industry as a software/devops engineer. I’ve been working with banks, insurance companies, global online payment companies, major credit card vendors, few global corporations. I have seen how data is gathered and (mis)used. Every time someone tells me “I’m sorry but the system…” I know it’s the data gathered by the “system” and my profile created based on that data was the reason for “but”. This is why I care about the privacy, to prevent companies from taking advantage of my current situation and charge me more.
Do you people sniff into your stuffs? No. So why do you allow companies to make profit on?
And we need the anonymous part too.
Privacy means hiding our legitimate stuffs to others than could spy on. In this way, privacy is a big family that needs anonymity and security to work well
EDIT : Anonymity and security are not different than privacy, they are a way to achieve it
If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.
From Cardinal Richelieu
Combine this with the fact that entities which have access to our data rarely have our best interest in heart. Governments change, the political climate changes, and people change. What’s honest and just today may not be next decade.
Also, people change over time, and more and more of our lives are ending up online earlier and earlier.
Do you really want some stupid “hot take” you were passionate about as a teenager effecting how someone sees you a decade or more down the line?
Everyone deserves the right to change their mind and not have old beliefs hang around their neck forever.
Similar to you, but I also hate the advertising industry with a burning passion and want to deprive them of any and all data possible.
Similar to your experience, I’ve seen several large governments and organizations mishandle or mismanage user data by accident or on purpose many times with little or no recompense. If nobody can do it right they should either make it all publicly transparent for everyone or not store it at all.
Misinformation, not using accounts or accounts with incorrect information, multiple accounts, etc counter ops seem prudent at this point as the information system and monitoring apparatus of some of the most powerful governments and corporations in human history remains largely unchecked.
Privacy is an important right to protect and value because of the damage that can and will be done when groups hold personal information (financial, medical, behavior patterns, etc) and either sell it without explicit consent or leak it because they have no expectation of risk or loss if they don’t protect it.
Tl;Dr The oldest rules of the Internet are don’t believe everything you read and don’t dox yourself.
It all kinda boils down to the Cambridge Analytica scandal for me. Harvesting people’s locations and data, accessing and logging our daily lives is what facilitates mass manipulation of the public’s opinion, therefore distorting their view of the world and killing freedom of thought. GAFAM and others are specialists in controlling their users. I ultimately don’t want to be profiled, controlled and/or rail-roaded in any aspect of my life.
Strangely enough, like the wikileaks scandal… Most people are forgetful. But not on purpose…
That’s how good they are in manipulating people’s mind.
Because without privacy you can’t be a proper human being. You need privacy in order to have the safe space to develop, to dare try, to explore without the constant judgement of others. If you can’t be a proper human being, can you genuinely have democracy?
It’s both a per-requisite for humanity and what the political system that is often considered as the most just.
That’s why I care.
I care about privacy for the same reason you do. Actually I don’t care about my personal privacy bacause I’ve always been careful to not share too much with big tech companies, but I refuse to use products from amazon, meta, alphabet, apple, or microsoft (outside of work hardware/software) because of how they abuse their position of power over the poor.
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having a stalker, makes privacy very important
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Having identity theft, makes privacy even more important
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Being pigeonholed, makes privacy important
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There’s no file system in existence that can handle a text file large enough to include all reasons why people care about privacy.
Why do so many external entities care so much about constantly trying to reduce my privacy?
If they would not have started it, I wouldn’t have started to care.
The right extremists are on the rise in my country. I would rather not have them knocking on my door in a few years to detain me for calling their leader a cunt on the internet.
Judging by your username: same country, same reason here! I‘d have been put in the chamber back then and I dont want people to do it once the swastika is back on our flag.
I’m sorry, but that’s private.
It’s a pillar of democracy to protect the autonomy of the people.
If you have time for an answer in audio form the CBC has some ideas.
If you have ever had a psycho (or two) stalk you online and/or in the real world, you will understand why privacy and anonymity is important.
