What harm does public data have to you? Couldn’t one just ignore the ads? You can’t see anyone watching you, is public data good for public records? (I’m just curious). I know this sounds weird but is public data good for historical preservation and knowledge increasing the importance of the individual? And does public data lead to better products?
Well…
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Target once used small amounts of shopping data to accurately predict women were pregnant before they themselves knew.
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A Nebraska PD got data from Facebook to prove a woman had an abortion recently and prosecuted her.
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you don’t know what will become illegal
So, even small amounts of data can predict lots of things about your life. The government has a track record of using that data to prosecute you. And you cannot trust the Government will always align with your morals (assuming it even does right now).
And that doesn’t even consider other entities & organizations in the world.
What if an insurance company wants uses public data about you to deny you coverage? What if someone is searching for people in the area with ideal houses to rob and you’re on vacation? What if they use a deepfake of a loved one to scam you? Steal your identity and ruin your credit? What if they make and sell deepfake porn made of you or a loved one? What if they create meticulously engineered political psyop campaigns hand-tailored to exploit your psychology? What if this list of “what ifs” could go on nearly forever, and some “what ifs” aren’t even things we’re capable of knowing about?
Because that last one is absolutely true, all the rest of those are true for someone, and at least one of them is probably true for you already.
Ok, but what if you don’t care?..well someone else in your life does. And even if they have impeccable data privacy habits, if enough of their friends and family don’t, then they’re just a single missing puzzle piece, and everyone can still see their shape.
Not to mention, you contribute to a pool of data that’s used to perform these kinds of analyses on society at large, meaning you contribute in some part to each and every instance of malicious data use towards anyone, anywhere.
Is that a good enough reason to care?
I would add to your list, what if the company with that job offer you applied to asks for your consent to do a background check on you (they do) and then they pay other company that specializes in tracking all your information (these companies exist)?.
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Why don’t you go ahead and post your browser history and location data for the last 6 months?
Sure. What can possibly go wrong
Privacy brings security under totalitarian regimes or in countries that shift in that direction. They might say if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear, but there are unjust conditions under which you have to hide things, like that you belong to minority that is targeted by the authorities. Like the nazis did in the third reich, where privacy was reduced during their takeover. Or that you belong to a party that is suddenly framed as evil and enemies of the nation. Or if you have connections to “traitors” or other “scum”.
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Yeah, it’s insane we still have to deal with this in 2023… and it’s even worse for trans people, “transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely” and all that.
There are people who aren’t financially independent yet that are facing the very real possibility of getting disowned by their family and thrown out on the street if they come out as anything but cishet. It sucks, but keeping this kind of information private can be lifesaving.
Yep, security enables privacy, this is why the two are often referenced together.
What about neo nazis and white supremacists who use privacy tools to coordinate domestic terrorism like Charlottesville and January 6th? There’s two sides to the privacy coin.
You can also use a chair to bludgeon someone to death. Should we ban chairs? I believe the good side of privacy far overcomes the bad One can do with it
It comes down to a balance between cost and social benefit.
And privacy has a far greater value.
Thing is people who have bad things in mind are always more likely to use their own codes. You dont need an encrypted messenger to send encrypted messages. It’s a boy.
But normal people who think that they have nothing to fear and therefore nothing to hide won’t take that efforts upon them. They will live their lifes and one day they could be targeted by a government that wants to eradicate them. Using the data their predecessors gathered.
And those people sometimes shoot innocent people with guns, but that doesn’t mean that people like Malcolm X shouldn’t have one to protect themselves against that.
Just because something can be misused doesn’t mean it should be illegal to use it properly. Often the improper use itself is criminalized and making it illegal just tacks on an extra charge that people aren’t worried about by then, because they already have murder charges to fight.
To add: the FBI was asked by congress to justify project prism by telling just one example of something they stopped with warrantless mass surveillance. Turns out, they had none, the case they provided they’d have been able to get a warrant for the guys and they were put on the FBI’s radar by other means, not the mass surveillance. They don’t even stop anything with it.
I promise you that Google’s attempts to break AdGuard or the federal government’s begging Apple and co to create backdoors are not an attempt to stop domestic terrorism.
The most effective thing you can do to reduce domestic terrorism in the US, which is usually stochastic in nature, is to deplatform the people riling these people up.
Did you not notice how much quieter it was with Trump off of Twitter? When was the last time you heard anything about Alex Jones that wasn’t about his legal woes?
The right wing has built its own network called Rumble where they spread disinformation to their uneducated superstitious masses. These brainwashed zombies thrive behind a mask of anonymity. IRL these absolute loons are interspersed throughout the public, and our institutions are none the wiser. ID verification is needed to increase visibility and accountability.
There is no planet where you will convince me I need to present my state ID in order to browse the internet.
I am very familiar with rumble. We have seen its type over and over again. The same thing happens every single time. Because of their “commitment to free-speech,“ law enforcement just hangs out and either pressures the admins, who are facing financial pressures from nobody wanting to fund a website that has that kind of content, reasonable people feel repulsed, or eventually the feds get involved because something criminal is happening or threatened. Ask Voat. Ask Gab. Ask Truth Social.
Alex Jones did a lot more damage with YouTube and Twitter than he ever will on Rumble. These platforms will always pop up, but they are ineffectual in the long run. Ultimately, it’s about commandeering existing, massive channels. It’s about access to new people.
We need to target the hate problem at the root. Hateful speech comes from a hateful heart. How can we heal a heart problem if we can’t even ID the patient?
And on the topic of healthcare how do we accomplish contact tracing without complete records? Do you want to risk bumping into unvaccinated RFK?
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Deplatforming is not a stable long-term solution. It’s already a game of whack-a-mole. Cut one head off the hydra, two grow back. And the platforms themselves evolve or get bought by the next zillionaire. We need a more grass roots level of accountability, and that starts with authentication verification. Unique device identifiers are a big step in the right direction. And law enforcement has to follow the law. Just make it illegal for police to use the secure databases. Only federal agencies like CISA and the FBI/DoJ can access.
The red scare is a pretty good example for the US
You don’t even have to go that far back. It’s literally happening right now as red states seek to punish women who seek abortions.
What was it? Kansas? That literally opened an anonymous report page for people who were trans or supported trans rights? What will they do with that data, is the question. Because they’re definitely not pushing HRT, therapy or counselling via ads.
Hell go with the lavender scare too while we’re at it
Wow, I had never heard about the lavender scare until now. Just did a little bit of reading on it. Can’t say I’m surprised, just extremely disappointed.
Couldn’t you just ignore the ads?
That’s not how ads work, they are extremely manipulative and leave lasting impressions on your psyche, even if you conciously reject their message.
Advertising shits in your head
Companies fill the space now with their hideous brands, waging the same frenzied battle as the jungle species in order to appropriate the public space and attention with images and words, like animals with their screams and piss’
– Michel Serres
The more there is known about you, the easier you are to be manipulated.
If you read George Orwell‘s 1984 or watch the Cambridge Analytica documentary on Netflix you get an idea.
I started to read 1984 a couple years ago but it is so triggering I had to stop. It really sets your head straight. Might start again soon.
Honestly, sometimes my best answer is “none of your business”. Its none of Google’s business what my hobbies are. The fact that there’s no “harm” in it is irrelevant. I want to be left alone, I should be able to without an advanced knowledge of cyber security.
Ask that mother and daughter that got arrested for an abortion after facebook ratted them out.
That’s why privacy matters. Not because something bad can happen now, but because that information can be weaponized down the road
This was a reply I posted on “What should I say when someone says they “don’t have anything to hide”?” In ask Lemmy a week ago, and I think it’s still applicable here
They don’t choose what they need to hide, if their government outlaws woodworking tomorrow, then any carpenters today go from “having nothing to hide” to “I need to hide my entire career and hobby” overnight and in their sleep.
And then the government threatens Facebook to hand over messages from any user suspected of woodworking, and then they get persecuted and arrested
The government threatens Google to hand over all browser history from suspected woodworkers, Apple for all iCloud photos from suspected woodworkers, Amazon for all woodworking related purchases
It goes on
If the carpenter cared about privacy from the start, then the government just wouldn’t be able to find them and arrest them for simply woodworking
But the carpenter didn’t care about privacy, they “had nothing to hide” yesterday, so when that law goes into effect tomorrow the government will have a really easy time finding them
Then replace woodworking with abortion and you no longer need to imagine it happening, you can watch it live in 4K.
puts on tinfoil hat
You know how women (and some doctors) had problems in the US because the states were getting information on whether they had, were thinking of having, or were having conversations about having an abortion?
You know how there was a possibility (or maybe that really happened, I don’t remember) that the state governments could be aquiring information from women’s period tracking apps and acquiring their behavioral patterns to find out if they were planning on having an abortion?
Well, I’m not a woman, but I am disabled. After I got fired from my job because I couldn’t perform anymore thanks to my disability, (there was no discrimination, I literally could not do my job because of my disability) I applied for disability payment.
I was rejected.
After that, I tried to look for other jobs, but for some strange reason, I couldn’t find a job ANYWHERE in the US. They never called back after telling me they would do a background check on me. I applied for about 70+ companies, I got background checks on 20+.
That didn’t happen before I applied for the disability payments, and as an immigrant that was below the poverty line I wasn’t someone that could put up a fight… Against whom? The companies? The government? I didn’t even know if the fact that I applied for the disability payments was the problem.
At the end, I was able to find a job in a call center working from home. But it took me 8 months for that.
takes off tinfoil hat
It’s a double edged sword, youcan make better products and a better experience for some things, but some people/companies think of other people, especially minorities, disabled, and probably women, as liabilities, and they don’t really want that.
This is why I rather have privacy, the ads are just annoying asf, but the things I said are just 2 examples of why privacy is important.
Hopefully I make sense, and sorry for any grammatical mistakes, English is not my first language.
Edit: if you think I’m a communist because of my name username look very closely at my profile picture and tell me you think I’m serious
Did you know countries like Russia and China have better privacy protections for their citizens (at least when it comes to protections against their corporations, not their government of course), and just buy information on US citizens from US corporations for many of their human research needs?
Look at Cambridge Analyticas involvement in swinging the 2016 US election if you want an example of how much damage information can do when used in psyops
I always found the C6ISR acronym in warfare to be interesting. R is reconnaissance, S is surveillance, I is intelligence, and the 6 C’s are Command and Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, and finally Combat
You can predict when conflicts are about to rise with social media information. Frustration can be measured by looking at social circles. Consider Romeo and Juliet, they like each other, but everyone around them hates everyone else in the opposing party. Because Romeo and Juliet interact with each other positively, that means groups that don’t like each other are going to interact and human nature wants to resolve this frustration. This type of graph theory is used in the middle east to predict conflicts.
Do you remember the protest where BLM protesters were ran over by a truck? Russia organized the protest for both left and right wing parties. They got intelligence through surveillance. They got surveillance by just buying your info from American corps.
If you are real, could I buy you a ticket to Cuba? You probably won’t go it’s more fun to biych about theUS from mommy’s basement.
How am I bitching about anything?
I can send you a pic of my courtyard, I make plenty of money writing AI models to replace your useless ass
Comrades don’t have their own courtyard. It is the courtyard for everyone. Go cut your courtyard with scissors, or get AI to do it.
Look very closely at my profile picture, read my profile name very carefully, and feel like a dumbass for missing a very simple joke. If you understand that joke, I don’t think you would seriously believe I’m a communist - not like someone believing In an economic policy different from your beliefs should get your prepubescent testicles in a twist, but if it helps calm you down, I have partial ownership of a business I helped start, so you could consider me a capitalist to some degree.
How is your last sentence even remotely a diss? You went from suggesting I live in my mom’s basement to suggesting I share the property I own and to automate the last shred of manual labor that might be available for your useless ass (which I’m literally capable of doing).
No offence, but I don’t know how people are still asking this question with the amount of large scale data breaches that are happening these days. People are having all their money, maybe even their entire identity, stolen by criminals who have access to their data via these breaches. Just recently an Australian woman was ordered by US courts to pay Adidas and the NBA $1.2 million because criminals gained access to her PayPal account through a data breach and used it to commit fraud.
Privacy isn’t just some abstract idea - there can be real world consequences for those who trust governments and companies with large amounts of their personal data. That’s why so many of us look to limit our digital attack surface by opting out of data collection and/or choosing privacy respecting alternatives where possible.
But to be clear, it isn’t solely about direct harm right now. Personally I believe everyone should have the right to privacy both online and offline, so I choose not to assist governments and corporations that seek to erode that right. This point doesn’t get made much, because normies don’t understand why something is important unless you can directly show it impacting their life, but it is arguably more important than any of the direct harm stuff. Even if the realistic threat to me is minimal, I will still continue to advocate for privacy because I believe it is the right thing to do.
Wow, that story is pretty insane.
In my mind that kind of post comes at best from completely naive people that confuse social media with Google to ask basic questions, and at worst someone with malicious intent to make it look like this is an open question that does not have a clear answer yet (while, as you mentioned, it totally does).
For the most part I think it’s the former. Maybe I’m wrong but I don’t think the privacy movement has some sort of troll counter-movement like you see with the “carnivores” targeting veganism, for example. People don’t intentionally seek out privacy related stuff just to shill for big tech and try to get a reaction, or concern troll to cause confusion and mistrust. They are just genuinely ignorant, though it’s still baffling every time a post like this pops up.
The same reason I close my doors.
Here in the States your data can not only be used to trace where you live, and who your loved ones are, but also how to assure you will be convicted of an imprisonable offense, given the average American commits three felonies a day (mostly violations of the CFAA. If you’re not a pro-authority fascist, espionage and conspiracy can often be tossed in to extend your sentence.)
For most of us American shlubs, it’s not a big deal. If you’re a ten year old girl and make your own Facebook page (that’s a felony) no one is going to care much…
…unless you have significant liquidatable assets known to law enforcement.
…unless you cross the police on an unlucky day and one of them holds a grudge.
…unless you have enemies in high places, say, a state senator.
…or unless an official wants your real property / intellectual property / spouse and you’re in the way.
Then, yeah, it’s a matter of finding something that will convince a judge or jury that you need to be locked away. And if you are as privacy-conscious as a typical US citizen, they will find something. Maybe something even worth sending a SWAT team to serve your warrant over.
lying to facebook about your age is not a felony. a felony is a serious crime.
As written, the CFAA really does make violating terms of service become unauthorized access and thus a felony. Some courts have pushed back on this, but I don’t think it has been clearly decided.
There’s now precedent that no one reads Terms of Service anyway but yeah, it’s still a toss up whether or not you get a hanging judge.
Part of the problem is CFAA violation felony charges for mild violations is the means by which our federal government punishes many whistleblowers who alert the public of embarrassing activities by our officials. And rather than part with this means to
drive Aaron Swartz to suicideprosecute enemies of the state they just use the laws sparingly. The US has a lot of laws which are disregarded except when VIPs want to hurt someone or assure nonwhites stay in their place.
Imagine an insurance company using data about you that it purchased from FB or Twitter to give you different insurance rates.
Or your social posts or posts tagged of you affecting your credit score or job application or even your rent application.
There are so many scenarios where having your privacy respected would protect you from unnecessary and unfair judgement.
I didn’t authorize a random company to have access to a treasure trove of data about me so I have to lock everyone out. If data about me is being sold someone is making money off my private information. Ads can and do contain malware and consume extra data which I again never agreed to.
These are very basic arguments but I hope this helps.
