I think the average person just simply doesn't care about their privacy.
In some of the music communities I'm in the content creators are already telling their userbase to go follow them on threads. They're all talking about some kind of beef between Elon and Mark and the possibility of a boxing match... Mark was right to call the people he's leaching off of fucking idiots.
I care. I’m just increasingly convinced it’s too fucking late.
Tbh it's not black and white. I'm sure a big corporation can extract a ton of information on us but there's still a pretty big gap between having our real names and photos plastered everywhere on social media, or them just knowing where I live and that I spend a lot on steam games. Don't take the small victories for granted.
It is. They know everything about you. Even every store you have shopped at knows a lot about you. It really doesn’t take much interaction for a company to get a lot of info. It’s relatively easy to get an email and from there, if they wanted, they can get the rest of your profile from a 3rd party who has your data all matched up already. They can also build your profile pretty easily themselves as well.
I think personal data poisoning is going to become more prevalent among privacy communities, I would like to see some tooling for this in the next few years.
Im in basically the same position since realistically the change needs to be at an institutional level. I can't really change anything by myself without excluding myself from most modern services.
We need laws and regulations. But like you I fear it's too late.
It might not be. Plenty of US states are coming online with privacy rights. If you live in CA, CO, CT or VA you can submit requests to opt out of information sales and for sites to erase your data.
Me. I care I just....fuck. That ship has sailed. I don't go out of my way to download the big offenders like Tik Tok but....still. Everyone is tracking me. Everyone is selling my information. God knows how many different companies have massive files on me.
Same here, but that doesn't stop me from trying where I have the time and energy. One of those ways is voting. So far the government has let these companies wipe their shit onto every corner of the internet, and the 5-10% of us switching apps or emails or... Whatever, aren't going to change that. It's not a short-term solution, but I'm starting to think it's really the only way.
Even if you get them to care once you show them all they need to do to have a shred of privacy they shrug say something along the lines of "well I don't have anything to hide anyways" and go back to their merry way. The path of least resistance will always win sadly
Literally saw a comment like that yesterday. Drives me up the wall. I'm in the process of accepting that the average Joe/Jane just doesn't care about anything but their little bubble. I used to spend so much emotional energy on trying to convince people to stand up for something greater or to at least think more than 2 meters ahead, but now I'm just done. I'll watch out for myself and the people close to me, everyone else can just evaporate for all I care.
I literally just had a friend tell me he joined Threads and how neat it was, etc etc and when I explained why I wouldn't be joining him, he basically just gave me the old "Well I already know they have all my information so it doesn't matter"
...like wtf? So you just...give up having any privacy whatsoever? I just couldn't respond to him after that, I don't really know how to respond to that. There's a disease spreading in the world unfortunately and it isn't just COVID. It's one called Apathy and too many people are coming down with it.
Honestly he has a point. I was born right before Y2K. My entire life has been online. I’m sure with enough digging this account can be linked back to my IRL identity. They already have any and every bit of information about me, what’s a little more?
People don’t care and are never going to care. They can track us by anything already and don’t need you to give them any info. The algorithms that they use can identify you if you sign up or not.
It’s not apathy per se, it’s more resigned acceptance. There is no privacy anymore, even if you do everything in your power not to be tracked. Unless you live completely off the grid, cash transactions in places without security cameras only and no bank account/online accounts you’re going to be tracked by big tech.
The Average person, in my experience, doesnt give a shit about their privacy..because they are stuck on the notion of "what do I have to hide? I didnt do anything wrong!" with a heaping helping of not wanting to give up convenience on top of it.
And all attempts to explain them that you dont have to have anything to hide for your privacy to be important and be protected fall on deaf ears and accusations that you, the one trying to protect them must be some kind of bad/evil/criminal person to be that concerned with privacy.
These people tend to be absolute delights to deal with when their shit gets stolen, and they expect everyone else to fix it for them.
Well okay, with my piracy habit perhaps I do have something to hide😂
But I also think most people don't realise they do have stuff to hide.
Everything should be private by default. All this shit about nothing to hide is the opposite of that - trying to justify why something should be private. The question is rather why it should be public.
There companies profit enormously on our data and we get exactly nothing in return except the ability to use their service, under the conditions that they put in place. We have zero power to change anything at all about what they provide for us.
A user in that context is similar to a loser. Someone who has no ability to control what happens.
I keep seeing people saying "I have nothing to hide" is a bad argument. But no one ever explains why it is. So for the people who say they don't care about the privacy, what would you say to them about why they should care?
Because everyone has stuff to hide. You dont have to have criminal activity, ongoing or in your past, to want to keep your privacy and keep things hidden. I always counter with "Okay, then lets paint your social security number on the side of your car if you have nothing to hide", and they always stammer and stutter about how thats different and that would cause them no end of headache if someone got it and stole their identity.
And yes, thats the point. You have stuff you want to protect and keep others from knowing. Not just for identity theft reasons, but for social reasons as well.. You probably don't want your spouse to know how much you hate their sibling for no reason, or want your boss to hear what you say about them at home, You dont want people at the bagel shop to know your bank account number and password, Or any of a thousand other things that you do every day, that you dont want other people to know about.
Some really good arguments. But here's one from the Cyber Security side. We all know about the CIA, but do you know about the other CIA?
Confidentiality is the heart and soul of a functioning life. You do have stuff to hide, even if you say you don't. Do you want a rando to know your passwords? Do you want your wife to find out about your birthday gift to her before the big day? Do you want your nosy neighbour to start gossiping to the entire neighbourhood about what you and your wife did on her big day? Do you want that big secret plan that will make you the next Mark Zuckerberg be found out by the real Zuckerberg and now he's rich and you're not? All of these are things that aren't illegal, yet are still private information that someone like you might want to make confidential.
And this isn't even the tip of the iceberg. Sure, you might argue, you shouldn't be posting your plans for the Zuck-killer on Facebook, but your actual words are not the only thing Facebook stores and analyses. They know a lot about you. What you liked. What you commented on. What you searched for. What you looked at. They know things about you that you never ever said. For instance, even if you never said "I'm a {Democrat|Republican}" in so many words, or even if you don't share overtly political posts, they still know your ideologies and are willing to sell this information to everyone and sundry. Facebook is even building profiles on people who never created accounts on Facebook. Imagine being {Republican|Democrat} and working for a {Democrat|Republican} boss. You've worked hard to keep politics out of the workplace, because while there may be anti-discrimination laws if you're a woman or a minority, having an unpopular political opinion is not protected in as many places, so you could easily lose your job if Facebook discloses to your boss that you've not got the right political views.
If Confidentiality really was not an issue and everyone could live open lives without consequence, we'd be talking about the IAs of security, not the CIAs. That we are talking CIAs shows that yes, there actually IS a need for secrecy, and we actually DO have things to hide, even if we don't moonlight as murderers, cat-burglars, or strippers.
PS: I don't believe you have never had it explained to you why 'I have nothing to hide" is a bad argument.
PPS: Very strong sea lioning vibes here.
PPPS: Seems like this nonsense started cropping up on Reddit when it became clear the protests were having an effect. And now it's here. So much dishonest debate tactics being thrown around the whole "we want an alternative to the creepily intrusive policies of main-stream social media" debate. I wonder why?
</sarcasm>
Who knows what will be worth hiding in the future. Something that is nothing to hide today might get you in serious trouble in the future.
I'm just curious if you're a tech worker? (or a teenager interested in tech)
I ask because I feel like people who work in tech are basically exposed to the dangers of web privacy all the time. I remember having to implement a facebook pixel on a website, and realizing the network of surveillance that facebook have spread across the web at that time. So I have pretty decent privacy behaviors, still far from great but maybe slightly above average.
But when I go to the doctor and I mention how often I eat fast food and drink alcohol, or when I go to the dentist and admit I don't floss everyday - I'm sure those people are thinking 'most people seriously don't care about their health'. They might stop short of 'fucking idiot', hopefully.
I’d also say that those health issues are much more practically impactful than Instagram showing you ads for luggage when you’ve bought a plane ticket.
Caring about ad tech is a hobby. It’s as good a hobby as any other, but that’s what it is.
Sure I think thats fair. My larger point is that everyone is biased over time by their hobbies and professions, and we should be careful how harshly we judge others by our yardstick.
You can be casual about it, but I don't think it's a hobby to seek to understand something that you're very nearly forced to coexist with. I have to acknowledge there's ideology behind statements like this, but it's more analogous to knowing your enemy's capabilities. It's a necessary prerequisite to forming an effective defense.
But I've come to understand many people don't share my antagonistic mindset. That's fine, but they should still understand the interactions they're having with these systems in even just the vaguest terms, because the effect on their lives is very tangible.
i love a good analogy. point taken.
They probably don't know what actually involves giving away their data and what actually concretely means. I'm a tech guy, developer, here in the Fediverse and neither I do know actually what it means. It's the lack of information the problem. I could imagine it though, but it's not the same thing. I could imagine that with my data big corps become more powerful, creating more addicting ads, contents and algorithms that eventually will fuck up the world even more. And that's a nightmare, I know. Metaphorically it's like intensive farming. "I eat meat because I love it and I can't give up on it" and as soon as no one sees what actually happens to the animals inside those farmings, no one cares.
They are my mother, father, and everyone else. Life's hard, and too many things compete for our attention.
You're right. Indiscriminate data collection is like the meat industry. Some people may find abhorrent how animals are treated, even how destructive the whole thing can be. But ultimately, out of sight is out of mind, right?
Like you said, the same with privacy. Apps are shiny, addictive, and seem to be given away for free. Then life happens, the mind becomes busy with what holds its attention.
We're doomed because the game being played is simply too complex for anyone make sense of it. Any competing insight is immediately drowned under the massive torrent of data we're all subjected to.
One problem is that it's very hard to quantify how much our privacy, our data, is worth. There's money to be made with it, but we, average people, have no idea how any of that works. This leads to general indifference.
Another problem I see is that most people don't correlate their continuously worse online experience with being spied. Every facebook change led to lots complaints, but people didn't quit, they just ate shit until they stopped complaining. Same with Twitter, Insta, Google, Youtube. Since the enshittification happens gradually, they fail to correlate one thing with another.
I stopped using Facebook 10 years ago, but I'm loathed to actually delete my account because every once in a while, a long lost friend or relative contacts me there. It would be a shame to lose touch with people. Ultimately I care about that more than privacy. It's the same with Whatsapp. I've made a concerted effort to convince my immediate family to try XMPP, Delta Chat and Signal, but they just won't install another app unless everyone they know is using it. I find it a bit frustrating, but that's reality. So I have to keep using Whatsapp.
We can always keep a never in 10 years updated profile active for family and stuff. The biggest danger is for active users after all: they're the most vulnerable to targeted media manipulation.
By being present in their lives (while giving up as few data as possible to big corporations) they can have by their side someone with good advices on privacy, manufactured consent, rights violations and adjacent topics. Alienating ourselves from them isn't really beneficial in the long run.
I use WhatsApp as well for the people I keep in touch with, and have an active Instagram account where I use only the chat feature. It's enough to keep up with the people in my life.
For whoever is even more privacy concerned, it's possible to run those apps in sandboxed mode through some apps.
I really think this thread is a great example of why the average person doesn't care that much.
The whole thread is full of comments like "the issues caused by giving away all your data are too abstract, too far away, or too difficult to understand". This is true by the way, I completely agree.
But I haven't seen a single comment trying to explain those possible issues in an easily understandable way. The average person (or, at least me) reading threads like this won't learn anything new. Give me a practical issue that I might face, and if I agree that it's an issue, I'll focus more on avoiding that issue.
In other words, an example:
PS. I do agree with the notion of "minimize the data you give away", which is one reason I'm here, but I really don't have an answer for these questions. I'm like "I understand the point of privacy, but can't explain the reasons".
This isn't a plug, but it is a link to an article I wrote for exactly this reason. I tried to succinctly explain why privacy matters with real work examples and precedent.
Great content here, thanks
If an algorithm knows exactly who you are, then it knows how you think, and it knows what sort of content will manipulate you politically. And right wing political content is profitable. It's called the alt right pipeline. Most people have some kind of argument that will manage to radicalise them to any position you can name. Through correlative learning, an algorithm will look at how people like you changed their views, and it'll send you down the same path. It's easy.
Don't you feel like awareness of it can be the number one thing to protect you from the manipulation that is rampant? I look at everything and say that is trying to change my mind. Unfortunately, with that comes this cynicism that I'm being sold to all the time and whatnot. But if I happen to hop on a browser that doesn't have AdBlock, I don't walk away having spent money on snake oil, or I don't go sign up for my local right wing political action committee, because I've been made aware consistently that everything is aimed at getting me to give something.
And let's be real, we all remember the constant reference to the Reddit hivemind. If we're saying they're wasn't some sort of external influence that landed everyone on the same wavelength, that feels naive. Or I'm a cynic and can't enjoy anything anymore.
I've always felt like data gathering is kind of like lobbying. It is not directed toward you in person. It is used to shift the way people think and their opinions on topics.
A company / non-profit / movement / whatever lobbying towards a goal might be buying lunches or making seminars and talking about their point with selected group of people who have a say in a topic. Or they might not but they are in the vicinity of the topic or perhaps they are a group that a the company feels like they do not know what the fuck they are talking about and that needs to change.
These are not directed toward you but to a group of people whom you most likely have nothing to do with. This group has power to change something. Whether for good or for bad, that depends who doing the lobbying and for what purpose and how you think about the topic.
Data gathering is similar. This data that is being gathered is not identifiable to you (or it can be but this is not what I am talking about) but it gets clumped together with a buuuuunch of people. This bunch might be people from country x or Christians or people who like Mc Donald's or who are against gun-rights or pro abortion or people whom think that companies should not be pushing climate change responsibility to the consumer. This clump of people are the same bunch that the lobbyists are targeting. But they do not have direct power over a subject, in general. Point being that even if most of the people have no power over a topic, some of them might (they might hold power oma person company deciding whether to do more against climate change). And even if they do not, they will converse about the topic and this will shift the general consensus around a topic.
And this bunch of people can be very accurately targeted. People in their 20-30s, who graduated (or will soon) from a university that are most likely to go work in high-tech companies in or in the government who have people around them (family, friends) that are against gun-rights but still own guns and do hunting? Ezpz. Or perhaps own a car and drive a lot and have relatives far enough that car is a necessity but have shifted their thinking being more against cars? Np.
The problem is that this does not easily be used against you in particular. But it can be used against a group of people that you are a part of. It is used to shift the way we think as a community. It is used to push ads and news articles (or just the topics of articles because glancing it also works) to you, comments in twitter, posts in Facebook, and change the search results that you might see. Kind of like ads as well; ads work really well even though lots (most?) people would say that ads don't make them buy a product and only annoy them. Advertisers aren't dumb, they know exactly what people think and how they function, and ads work.
And again to reiterate, it has nothing to do with you. You are a blip. But you are a part of a larger community and in order to shift that community toward something all of its little bits and pieces need to be moved toward that target. Not all of them need to move toward that target. Just enough.
This got a bit rambly I think but anyhooo it's kinda how I see it.
So, if I understand correctly, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but the simplified version of this is: data collection allows massive cooperations to target Communities of Interest (CoI) and manipulate them by collectively altering their digital perception via a barrage of targeted advertisements, promoted articles and suggested social media posts?
And all of this leads to an eventual shift in the opinions and desires of said CoIs, leading to what the company would deem desirable behavior, be it growing apathetic to digital privacy, buying their product or growing more engaged with their platform?
Bad actors may use it to manipulate you or cause problems in other aspects of your life (HELLO data breaches!).
This is a hypothetical. Think about all of the normal stuff people could see about you on Facebook. Would you also want those strangers to have your other personal information and possibly passwords? How about your boss? School? Insurance agency? Bank? Someone who works at one of those places, and still remembers that information after they clock out?
Let's say there isn't a data breach. They also use that information to try to get you to click ads, even if those ads might be unsafe to click.
Please answer something for me. What is it that makes you think that Zuckerberg would act in your best interests? What would stop him from turning around, selling data again? How can you know that he will keep that data in trustworthy spaces, and away from bad actors?
I wouldn't even give my own parents access to that level of information unless I absolutely had to. I'm certainly not happier about a stranger having access to it.
I remember back when Snowgen first leaked all of that imfo about government tracking. One show, either the daily show or colbert report, did an episode about it. Almost no one they talked to cared until they mentioned the government can also track your dick pics.
People do, but ease of use will trump it every time.
It's a bit of a shock that simply picking an instance and signing up like any regular site is such a hurdle to so many people.
Technology is hard
That was not the case with lemmy. Most of the instances I tried required manual approval for signups. It took me going through like 4 different instances to find one that didn't.
To be fair, most people reccomend lemmy.world now, and that doesn't need manual approval. But there's another problem, they can't interact with Beehaw.
"Simply" picking an instance is not actually that simple. Most people just want to go to the site and sign up. Even with email, they know what Gmail and Outlook are. But on Lemmy, there's no indication of what you're supposed to pick. Even if you try to go with what seems like the "default" instance, lemmy.ml, you're met with an announcement saying not to do thaf cause it's overloaded.
People don't want to have to make decisions, especially when they don't have any information to go off of.
That’s the key, you have to figure out what instance is best for you. With a million choices you get choice paralysis mixed with FOMO and they just don’t bother.
IMO that’s probably the biggest problem with anything decentralized like this. The average person doesn’t care about the benefits and the above is by far a big barrier to entry.
I guess lack of choice makes choosing easy—you only have one option and that's it, take it or leave it. Having to choose between vastly different options is also easy. But if you have a hundred similar, yet slightly different options to choose from, making the decision becomes psychologically hard, even if it doesn't make a difference for your UX which option you choose.
And buzz. Don't forget buzz.
I'll go a step more general. People can't be inconvenienced. Climate change,politics,etc...
If it slightly inconveniences people you'll need a good leader to push it
All many people care about is bread and circuses. Unless their sustenance and distractions are taken away they are complacent.
Veganism is the perfect example
Nah, many of us non-vegans don't see animals as having a right to life. I know I don't.
People join massive protest all around the world for these things. They are willing to spend a day walking around and yelling even if it is an inconvenience.
It is lack of organizing and having a trust that if we just vote for right politician it will be solved. For decades of elections, nothing changed.
We need to organize ourselves as the people, like they do in some countries. Stop the traffic, organize in shifts to stay on road blocking all gas powered trucks. You need to stop businesses from operating normally to give the system some reason to change, instead of just ignoring us and promising us that next election it will be better.
Same for soical media, do the internet equivalent of blockades, DDOS them like anonymous did. They can't arrest us all. And organize to block police cars when they try to make an example of the few.
Zuck is proof that sociopaths and narcissists run the world. This is obvious theater at this point.
Privacy 🔏 What are you trying to hide something /s every Karen ever
You are the kind of person that openly insults people and then gets mad when people insult you huh?
It’s like music streaming. The streaming quality is worse and wireless earbuds don’t sound great, but the convenience of it all made that industry huge.
Convenience over quality.
I mean I use galaxy buds at work installing flooring and I love it, but at home I listen to vinyl or the very least flacc with good headphones.... but I guess im not the average person in this situation
Have a huge vynl collection, family doesn't understand why I can't just stream my music. They'll never know the sweet sound of vynl.
I mean, I blame Apple and the general trend of aggressively bland minimalism for the wireless earbud thing. You're not wrong though.
I resisted wireless earbuds forever (had the lightning -> 3.5mm adapter for quite a while) and I’ll never go back to wired earbuds on my phone. The ability to set my phone down while I’m doing a task with headphones in is a godsend for my ADHD.
The wire didn’t add sound quality for 99% of people who were using default Apple headphones or some $10 junk from Walmart anyways.
Ultimately, even for me as someone who cares about it, it's just become one of those things that I don't prioritize. Life is hard and at some point I'd rather get something cool done with gmail reading all my private conversations than struggle with my own email server.
Not saying it's a great choice but ultimately life is short and we need to focus on doing what feels right. People have to pick their battles and that's life.
That's kind of a fatalistic view on life.
You could have just used Protonmail or something.
Most of these battles are very interconnected. Destroying one part of this horrible system will leave a flank open for the rest to fall.
They need to spy on us, so they can stop any real fight, riot against other issues that are plaguing us, like inflation, climate change and etc.
First of all most people, not just the average person, simply do not grasp what privacy is exactly - especially in the US, where the view on privacy is skewed by its obsolete constitution.
I mean, just the fact that anyone would think if you personally don't mind sharing personal affairs or being public, then privacy isn't much of a concern proves the lack of understanding of that principle. It's like saying, I'm not religious so neither the lack of freedom of religion or the separation of church and state would have any impact on me.
The most important function of the human right to privacy is not the thwarting of interference with one's property or dignity, it's the maintenance of the control and power an individual has over their own self - and by extension that of a people.
A simple example: If I give you my phone number, I give away some control over myself because you now have to power to use that property however it fits you. That may mean to just keep in touch with me, to save the number in your contact list that is accessible to ChatGPT, Tiktok or some malware on your phone, or share it with someone who wants to dig up some dirt on me.
The key point is not whether any of the possibilities affect or matter to you but whether you would have any say in how that information is obtained, handled, kept, etc. The effect of the resulting consequences may appear only gradually and sometimes take years but those in control ultimately shape politics, the economy, culture, society. This is also one of the reasons why the US is run by so many monopolies and oligopolies in their respective market segments.
Excellent post!
.de and undertones of capitalism critique? hello mein freund
That wasn't the intention, however. I was referring to matters of power as seen from the perspective of human rights - without any heed to the structure of any nation's economy.
Ultimately, it's because the concerns of privacy are simply too far removed from people, or they trust certain entities more than others.
For example, if your next door neighbour knows all your browsing history, people would be bothered, but people are not bothered if Google knows as it feels they would have no direct effect on their life, whereas your next door neighbour might.
This can be easily seen in the whole discussion regarding privacy on Mastodon.
A lot of people refuse to use Mastodon over Twitter, because "Mastodon admins can see my DMs", even though Twitter absolutely could as well (Twitter apparently has encrypted DMs since May 2023 though). The reason for this is they see a Mastodon admin as someone who could potentially have an effect on their digital life, whereas they trust Twitter not to do anything with the data since they're a big corporation who has nothing to do with their personal life.
Unless it is an effect they can directly observe (or imagine to occur), people simply don't care. This applies to almost all discussions around the big picture, such as things like climate change or unions, or whatever.
Whether we like it or not, people absolutely trust corporations.
I would not say, people absolutely trust corporations.
You can probably ask any stranger o the street if Facebook is trustworthy and they all would say something about FB doing weird stuff with their data.
They all know!
But people have a limit on how many issues they can care about.
We decided that privacy is an issue, others might decide that the issues their sister is facing in life are an issue, or just how to pay the next month's rent.
So, they just use Facebook, google and co. because that is what works, what is there and done. No time to think any further about it!
So, if you wanna get wide adoption for privacy-friendly alternatives, stop solely selling the privacy aspect.
The fediverse is great, but all the people who care about the benefits of it are already here.
Now try to reach those who don't care that Twitter is a mess, they are just there because all the others are too.
They use it to communicate and not because it is great. The same applies to most other platforms too.
I liked Reddit because it's one platform where you find literally anything! You wanna talk about energy drinks? There is a subreddit.
You wanna know what this thing is you just found on the street? Just post a picture someone definitely knows!
True, the claim that people "absolutely trust corporations" is definitely hyperbole, but I would say they most certainly have some implicit trust for them in a way that people might not trust a volunteer.
I think this is relevant for anyone that has not read it,
A Cypherpunk's Manifesto Eric Hughes March 9, 1993
Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age. Privacy is not secrecy. A private matter is something one doesn't want the whole world to know, but a secret matter is something one doesn't want anybody to know. Privacy is the power to selectively reveal oneself to the world.
If two parties have some sort of dealings, then each has a memory of their interaction. Each party can speak about their own memory of this; how could anyone prevent it? One could pass laws against it, but the freedom of speech, even more than privacy, is fundamental to an open society; we seek not to restrict any speech at all. If many parties speak together in the same forum, each can speak to all the others and aggregate together knowledge about individuals and other parties. The power of electronic communications has enabled such group speech, and it will not go away merely because we might want it to.
Since we desire privacy, we must ensure that each party to a transaction have knowledge only of that which is directly necessary for that transaction. Since any information can be spoken of, we must ensure that we reveal as little as possible. In most cases personal identity is not salient. When I purchase a magazine at a store and hand cash to the clerk, there is no need to know who I am. When I ask my electronic mail provider to send and receive messages, my provider need not know to whom I am speaking or what I am saying or what others are saying to me; my provider only need know how to get the message there and how much I owe them in fees. When my identity is revealed by the underlying mechanism of the transaction, I have no privacy. I cannot here selectively reveal myself; I must always reveal myself.
Therefore, privacy in an open society requires anonymous transaction systems. Until now, cash has been the primary such system. An anonymous transaction system is not a secret transaction system. An anonymous system empowers individuals to reveal their identity when desired and only when desired; this is the essence of privacy.
Privacy in an open society also requires cryptography. If I say something, I want it heard only by those for whom I intend it. If the content of my speech is available to the world, I have no privacy. To encrypt is to indicate the desire for privacy, and to encrypt with weak cryptography is to indicate not too much desire for privacy. Furthermore, to reveal one's identity with assurance when the default is anonymity requires the cryptographic signature.
We cannot expect governments, corporations, or other large, faceless organizations to grant us privacy out of their beneficence. It is to their advantage to speak of us, and we should expect that they will speak. To try to prevent their speech is to fight against the realities of information. Information does not just want to be free, it longs to be free. Information expands to fill the available storage space. Information is Rumor's younger, stronger cousin; Information is fleeter of foot, has more eyes, knows more, and understands less than Rumor.
We must defend our own privacy if we expect to have any. We must come together and create systems which allow anonymous transactions to take place. People have been defending their own privacy for centuries with whispers, darkness, envelopes, closed doors, secret handshakes, and couriers. The technologies of the past did not allow for strong privacy, but electronic technologies do.
We the Cypherpunks are dedicated to building anonymous systems. We are defending our privacy with cryptography, with anonymous mail forwarding systems, with digital signatures, and with electronic money.
Cypherpunks write code. We know that someone has to write software to defend privacy, and since we can't get privacy unless we all do, we're going to write it. We publish our code so that our fellow Cypherpunks may practice and play with it. Our code is free for all to use, worldwide. We don't much care if you don't approve of the software we write. We know that software can't be destroyed and that a widely dispersed system can't be shut down.
Cypherpunks deplore regulations on cryptography, for encryption is fundamentally a private act. The act of encryption, in fact, removes information from the public realm. Even laws against cryptography reach only so far as a nation's border and the arm of its violence. Cryptography will ineluctably spread over the whole globe, and with it the anonymous transactions systems that it makes possible.
For privacy to be widespread it must be part of a social contract. People must come and together deploy these systems for the common good. Privacy only extends so far as the cooperation of one's fellows in society. We the Cypherpunks seek your questions and your concerns and hope we may engage you so that we do not deceive ourselves. We will not, however, be moved out of our course because some may disagree with our goals.
The Cypherpunks are actively engaged in making the networks safer for privacy. Let us proceed together apace.
Onward.
Eric Hughes
I don't see how data collection is a privacy and not secrecy issue by his definition.
My name is not secret, lots of people know my name. My name is private, I want to share it with the people I want to share it with, not with everyone on the internet/every corporation I interact with.
I think that's why data collection falls under the 'privacy' instead of 'secrecy' category for the most part.
The average person doesn't understand modern technology even on a basic level. Most people don't know what Free Software is or what end-to-end encryption is and you can't have privacy without those two. And those things have existed for decades. What about more complicated topics such as cryptocurrencies or AI? It's easy to see that most people don't understand them either.
So when it comes to some basic aspects of modern technology, most people are decades behind. Sometimes I even meet software developers who don't fully understanding those topics.
I even meet software developers who don't fully understanding those topics.
As an operations side IT, I've met a lot of developer side programmers (even really good ones) that don't understand computers in a functional sense.
Sometimes I even meet software developers who don’t fully understanding those topics.
"Even" software developers? That's kind of a weird thing to say. Programming as a discipline is far broader and deeper than most people realize (and that includes software developers!). Knowledge in one limited specialty does not translate automatically into knowledge in a different specialty and, indeed, can actively interfere with another domain without intensive retraining. (For a concrete example of this, just look at the abominations made in "embedded"1 programming by people coming at it from writing Yet Another CRUD-backed Web App.)
So it's absolutely possible for someone who's a real whiz with making web app front ends to have a very hazy grasp of security and privacy. It's a peripherally-related discipline at best.
1 "Scare quotes" used because I don't view what amounts to a PC running Linux in a funky form factor as meaningfully "embedded".
I just expect programmers to know more about software. They should know those things at least on a basic level. They should be the ones to educate people about it, because otherwise who will do it?
If software developers don't understand what end-to-end encryption is, what hope can we have that an average person will understand it? I just don't know how we can make progress if even technical people don't know technology well enough.
I think most people realize they're too boring for anyone with access to individual info to care who they are. Do you really care to know what porn I look at or what I'm buying online at 3am on a week night?
Nobody cares what porn you are into. Probably.
However, women using period trackers were free to do so in the US up into recently. Now that data can be subpoenaed and used to help prosecute if it is believed she may have had an abortion.
You never know when information posted online, or collected otherwise, could be used against you. It's best to seek privacy respecting options whenever possible.
Is this the community where we just talk about drama with other social networks? Because if so, I guess I'll just unsubscribe.
talk about other social networks in the community about social networks?
I've seen so many online communities fall and this is par for the course, lol
Yeah, welcome to Lemmy.
Everyone has to chose what's right for them. The reality is Facebook having and selling that data will never impact the average person. But not be part of the family because you are not on Facebook is a real thing that will affect people.
This isn't choosing what's right for you. This is having no standards. Most of our society is like this when it comes to software for no good reason. Think how much better the world could be if people cared.
In my opinion, they do care about privacy from people around them like you and me, they just don't seem to care when it's big tech companies like Meta or Google. Like for example, they won't show you or me their "sensitive photos", but it's fully backed up to iCloud or Google Photos, yknow.
They care about visible, or tangible privacy. It's hard for some to grasp internet privacy and why it matters if "you're not doing anything wrong."
But barge into their house at 4am, or open the door while they're in the bathroom, or listen at the door while they're having sex, and you'll get a whole different response.
Ask them about their finances and most people won't talk about it, but they don't realize that facebook and google know all about it.
Exactly. It is not that they don't care about privacy it is just that they trust them because they are the standard, they are big and government is supposed to keep them in check.
People trust the system way too much
it's also that you can't see what google is doing with your photos, so no reasonto be too bothered
you're right, the average person doesn't care about their privacy.
and not only do they not care about their privacy, they resent being called stupid for not caring about their privacy. "you're an idiot" seems to be most privacy advocates go-to argument as to why we should all care more about privacy, and it's really not making a very good case.
ikr? some years ago, a classmate laughed at me for not wanting to give my credit card to Google to watch a YouTube video with age restriction.
he called me "conspiranoic", "hysterical" and stuff, and i was just like "why do i have to give my credit card to watch a freaking video?".
he was the typical "i don't have anything to hide" guy. he said "it's not a big deal, they already have lots of info about us, why do you care at this point lol".
and i am ashamed i got influenced by them and days after, when that restriction appeared again for other videos i searched myself, i ended giving my credit card number.
and he was like making fun of it, like "see? i was right and you did it".
damn, he was so annoying.
(sorry for this, pal. it was just to say that people gladly share their data to mega corporations, and press us to do the same by calling us conspiranoic).
Recently i was hanging out with my brother. He look at some search result on my phone and asked about Neeva, that was the search engine i was using then. I explained how it worked and how it didn't push add on you.
His response was basically "so".
Yeah lots of people just don't care at all. either they think it is pointless because someone out will know about you or they don't see privacy as important
I'm not sure that they ever did.
The turning point for me when I really got a concrete realisation about people absolutely not giving a shit about this was when Snowden came out and I saw the majority of people just go "Eh, that's pretty fucked, whatever", and then immediately jump straight back into scrolling facebook all day long.
I realised then that there probably wasn't any point expecting anything from them. I don't have much sympathy left for people in this regard anymore.
Most people legitimately don't give a shit about this issue. I think that they really should, but they absolutely don't for the most part.
I tried to explain this to my daughter in law when she suggested my wife just use the same password for everything, including online banking.
Ended up in a big row about how she doesn't give a shit because she has nothing to hide.
Didn't talk to me for a week.
Thinking about that, perhaps I should rack it up as a success 😏
Can't disagree with anything you just said
One thing you don't understand is not everyone knows or even cares or has enough energy to fight for privacy. Not everyone knows how bad tracking is on websites or hell even know about tracking. Not everyone is a computer guru and can figure out how to use Linux and use a bunch of open source confusing programs. It's a balancing act between privacy and convenience. It's sure as hell convenient to use a default Samsung,apple, Google, LG, phone but oh the other end of you want max privacy you have to basically make your own phone from scratch which almost no love is going to do.
Most people don't know or have the energy to care about companies watching them 24/7.
I think the abortion and trans kids situations are putting into sharp relief the danger of large third parties knowing too much about us. Facebook is absolutely scanning its servers for signs of unwanted pregnancies and relaying that information to red state law enforcement. Other platforms may be doing the same thing.
Women in the US are advised not to use period-tracker apps, given they do often sell the data they glean, and don't discriminate against far-right interests. And anti-abortion organizations are shopping.
I’m not saying I don’t believe you and I wouldn’t put it past right wingers. But I gotta ask if you have a source for any of what you said here?
Welp, a short internet news search of period tracker led me to this interview on Slate
On TechDirt (which I use a lot for tech-industry news) reported this in 2021, so before the Dobbs ruling was leaked or released in May / June 2022.
So, it depends on to what degree you need it confirmed, but it doesn't seem to be buried.
My most recent trans privacy freak-out was Texas AG Ken Paxton requesting a list of all Texas drivers license / state ID records that have requested a change of sex on their ID, which can also be found searching news.
Most people aren’t aware of these things, and even if they are, they don’t want privacy to hinder their normal life in any way.
I think for most people it's "semi aware but just don't care".
Yeah Facebook is bad but so is the government etc etc
Hang around security professionals for a while and you'll realize just how bad things can get. This is the only thing I really miss from Twitter, an interesting group of security professionals I followed.
Oh, just realized I should probably follow those kinds of people on Mastodon.
Lack of privacy and concerns around the government (FBI, CIA, NSA, etc.) spying and private corporations essentially spying too but calling it data harvesting and whatever else has been pretty widely reported on and shared for well over a decade. I’m in my mid 30s and clearly remember the patriot act being proposed and rammed through the first time with constant outcries about the blatant human rights and privacy violations it would lead to which of course Snowden confirmed explicitly years later. This stuff has never been a secret, really, it’s just people legitimately don’t believe it matters to them. They think either “oh it just has to be this way” or “terrorism brother!” or “but why doesn’t Zuck deserve to sell my butthole pics, you commie?” That’s why it’s incumbent upon those who are experts, which I am not for the record, to always be on the look out and propose enforceable laws to prevent private corporations from doing this (with personal liability for executive level officers ie Zuck goes to prison for 50 years) and to strip back and break the reactionary spy networks which existed before 9/11 but became insanely worse post-9/11. All that spying which has resulted in zero prevention of shootings or any type of terror plot. People gave up freedom and gained no security… just a thin veil of theater of security and daily indignities of half stripping at the airport so some Neanderthal can see your junk in the radiation spinny device. Or the knowledge that every thing you say or type online (and offline with phones everywhere) is or has potential to be recorded or monitored and if you stand against some key positions and offer solutions of actual change and intent to enact it… well, it leads to self-censorship. Just ranting now, but I think most people do broadly know about this stuff they also justify it to themselves in the delusion of “well, I gotta use something like Twitter!” when you obviously do not (I’ve never had a proper real Twitter account because the platform has always been dogass and a terrible idea for any real interaction. Useful for quick news updates but worthless and just harmful imo for anything further)
Twitter… has always been dog ass.
I felt the same. When someone first told me about Twitter there wasn’t a web interface, you had to text message from your old school feature phone and waste multiple texts at like $0.10 a piece to send roughly 100 letters. I never really saw the point. By the time Twitter was “worth while” I still didn’t get the appeal. I made an account for a project I was working on, but I hated it, so I stopped and never signed in again. That account has been idle for so long that literal elementary kids after I last signed in came of age and are drinking in bars now.
I just use my name and say whatever I want here.
No one will ever believe you anyways.
If threads scrapes these sites and somehow links your account to your name, do you really want do recieve ads related to your complaint of an illness or condition? You should want to mantain privacy, or at least anonymity.
I believe you
"Jack_of_all_derps, deleted by creator"
Poor jack, gone from existence, I think he made god angry or something... ;)
People DO care about general and online privacy, but to a point. They will sacrifice some privacy if it means they can see their friends on social media. They will sacrifice some privacy in exchange for free apps.
Most of the public is unaware just HOW much they are being tracked and what is happening to their data. Most people are a bit unsettled when the data is shown to them. We need to educate more people.
Most people are completely ignorant about how much they are known to the tech companies, what the data is used for, and the dangers emanating from it. They don't know the risks, so they don't fear them.
What is shocking is the apathy of states. Slightly more movement in the past years, but it's still extraordinary how spying laws are now being circumvented through the use of industry, and states are just mostly looking away.
What is shocking is the apathy of states. Slightly more movement in the past years, but it’s still extraordinary how spying laws are now being circumvented through the use of industry, and states are just mostly looking away.
Not too shocking when you realise that the US isn't going to restrict its own tech companies because it likes being the global tech hegemony, while europe and others lag because they have become vassalised by the US, this report mentions ukraine in the title but the content of the report sees it as having taken place over a much longer period. This isn't some fringe influence org, it's a direct policy tank funded by Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, etc etc etc the list is really really fucking long.
Europe has almost no digital social media of its own, no digital sovereignty if you will, and the vassalisation has caused extreme reluctance to address this, which compounds the issue. Unlike India, China, Russia or others where they have constructed their own media that they control.
I doubt that anyone is going to address this, not unless they want to end up in the crosshairs of punishing sanction policy. It's not going to get resolved until dedollarisation of the federal reserve currency progresses significantly further.
Honestly, I feel like it's from technological incompetence. These people don't understand how a basic website works. They think facebook is entirely on their phone. Which, don't get me wrong, there isn't really anything wrong with an older person not understanding how it works. But it's entirely different when you're the one responsible for making decisions on laws involving technology.
Technology is developing at mach speed, and the government has a pack of snails pulling it forward. Couple that with many of the people making decisions being ancient, and you have laws that are not even close to matching our technology. Shoot, even photography laws are outdated. In the US, photography laws are practically non-existent. The only laws that apply to people taking pictures are trespassing laws. If you're allowed to stand there, and you can see it, you can take a picture. Laws weren't really needed when cameras weren't in every single persons pocket all the time.
they are known to the tech companies, what the data is used for, and the dangers emanating from it. They don’t know the risks, so they don’t fear them.
for the laymen, where can i read on this?
I don't agree, whenever I take someones phone and start reading their private messages or browsing history, they always get nervous, even if I can't find anything.
People certainly care, even an average person is aware of problems with digital privacy and they would love to get it solved. But people care about a lot of things, global warming, homelessness, police brutality, they just don't organize well enough to fight those issues and fighting them alone is hard.
Also don't forget the amount of propaganda there is to live a certain way, to chase promotions on your job, earn more money and have a high social status. All of these things get in the way of deleting instagram,whatsup and etc.
There is also a problem with lack of marketing of alternatives, most people haven't heard of lemmy or XMPP chat.
I suggest we try to get people to start using these alternatives first, until there are enough users that they actually have a choice to choose either network and then a lot of people will delete mainstream apps. First step is to make it popular, second is to delete these bad apps. However even getting someone to use a new app is hard, since they are bombarded everyday to install some new app and are even financially motivated (with deals and discounts).
It is a hard battle, but a necessary one. Without privacy there is no democracy, voting is secret for a reason. We need a real democracy, where we choose laws directly, not by someone else we are forced to vote for due too lack of better choice. That requires safe and private digital communications. In person communication is very limited.
This is what Zuckerberg keyed in on early internet days. Tech savvy users understand what is at stake, but to the average user, it gets in the way of using apps that people socialize on. It didn't matter how much preaching I did back in the early days. Eventually people fall in line and do what their friends do.
Nobody cares. I mean, have you seen armature porn? That used to not be a thing on line, once upon a time. Nobody cares anymore apparently, because there's a sense of anonymity in a large enough group.
I know I've seen armature porn
Whoa, mark that NSFNW (Not safe for not work)
Please, showing girthy shafts like this in public is such a shameless behaviour.
No, I disagree. When you ask the average person to show you their private chats, emails and passwords, they will refuse because of privacy.
Instead of not caring about privacy, people prioritize convenience over privacy. Big tech companies such as Google, Meta, Microsoft offer really good, stable products which are mainstream and generally don't cause problems. At least, Windows 10 is way less troublesome than Linux and it's easier to use the stock Android with Google instead of installing a custom ROM such as GrapheneOS.
To really push the privacy friendly alternatives towards the mainstream, the alternatives should become more user-friendly, less tech-savvy, and preinstalled.
I agree, but I'd add that they don't really understand how valuable their data really is. It’s almost like being in a different country with a different currency and not being able to really do the math in your head of how much it would cost in your own currency. I grew up with the early internet where, you assumed you were on a world stage and any post you made was on display for anyone to view, but you could navigate it in relative anonymity. Now you have tech companies not only track you online (where you browse) but also in the real world. You carry a personal tracking device at all times.
People don't quite comprehend that this is what countries spend billions of dollars on with intelligence operations. And this is the currency you are spending when you sign up for these “free” services. Just because it doesn’t come out of your bank account doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value. I’ve had discussions with friends and family and they don’t seem to understand, if your not paying for the product, YOU are the product and they are being paid for you. But because of this obfuscating of roles people will keep willing hand over their data, not understanding that these companies are building profiles to hack your psyche and influence you into doing or buying things.
The problem isn't that people don't care. The problem is that the negative consequences are too abstract/too far to see. Not so different than smoking or climate change denial.
You say not so different from smoking or climate change, but those are on completely different scales. Unless Mark Zuckerberg is doing some Samuel L Jackson in Kingsman level nefarious shit, then I don't think you can compare loss of privacy to getting fatal cancer or destroying the planet.
The problem is that the negative consequences are too abstract/too far to see.
What are the negative consequences that most people seem unable to see?
Information is power. Information is used against you pervasively for control. This control ranges in nefariousness. You want examples? Here are some examples of consequences of use of information as a means of power:
The usual response to a list like this goes something along the lines of, bah, none of that will happen to me, I'm a goody-two-shoes. That advice is about as good as saying "I'm a good driver, I won't get into a crash, so I don't need to wear a seatbelt". Back to my point, the consequences of information used against you are too far and too abstract for people to accept.
I think there has been a huge shift in the privacy concerns of the average people. 10-15 years ago we shared our (LIVE) locations constantly and everything defaulted to doing that. People tagged everyone on all photos (with locations) and initially there wasn't even a way to consent to that. Today that sounds really extreme. Now many people will lock down their accounts and they aren't sharing as much as they used to. You are right that the average person doesn't care as much, but it's not entirely true that people are completely careless.
Not caring about privacy is one thing. There is also a network effect; that is caring about privacy leads to poorer contact with family, friends, and people they care about. Privacy has been correlated with disadvantage.
The sad thing about it is that none of it is natural, the big wigs have rigged it this way. Sometimes I feel like the only winning move is to choose your peers, and if you cannot choose your peers, you cannot win this game.
I feel like many people care deeply about their privacy. I certainly do. The problem is, protecting it is exhausting.
The constant vigilance it takes to maintain your privacy along with dealing with the day to day stress and strife of just trying to live is too much. Sometimes it’s too heavy to carry.
I’m on top of that, the deck is stacked against the average person.
Haven't we known this for literally decades now? After the Patriot Act passed in 2001 and precisely zero fucks were given by the general population. Then a few short later facebook comes out and I realize oh ok not only do people not care about their privacy, but they'll freely and gleefully hand it over in exchange for a digital dog park where they can go around sniffing each others butts.
Ignorance is much stronger than apathy.
Mark was right to call the people he’s leaching off of fucking idiots.
It was "dumbfucks". In context, people who trust Zuckerberg with their personal information are dumbfucks. His words.
Average person does not understand why privacy is important. They were lucky enough not to (yet) experience repression, censorship or surveillance and often throw banal one liners like I've got nothing to hide.
It's only once you lived a while with someone (person or an institution) watching your every step you realize how it definitely changes you. You decide not to state your opinion, not to raise your hand, not to make the choice you would of you were truly free.
Same goes for welcoming your data against you.... But you're on fediverse. I'm packing to the choir here.
But you’re on fediverse. I’m packing to the choir here.
You would like to think so, but one thing that's become clear to me is a large number of new fediverse users are only interested in escaping what Reddit/Twitter have become in recent months, and have no issues supporting competitors who will abuse them algorithmlically just the same.
It's because privacy is not a trivial matter, especially in those sites. You have to go through endless legal jargon to see how exactly the platform is using your data. Your average user has the attention span of a goldfish because of Tiktok, he/she would never read the platform's privacy policy and will prioritize convenience over digital rights.
You don't even need to read the privacy policy most often it's enough to look at the requested app permissions of the app you are installing.
Yes but those are only local permissions, they don't cover how they are tracking your app usage
It's all jargon by design. You won't use something that openly says they watch/listen to you shit.
Can confirm. I don't really care about internet privacy all that much, though I don't consider myself average.
That being said, I refuse to engage with Meta, for no particular reason.
Pretty much the same, having reached a certain age before the internet was a thing, all my shit is out there already. I genuinely don't care if Google has all my info from decades of Gmail, YouTube, googling, Android phones etc etc because they make it convenient for me to use all their products. What I'm not happy to roll with is massively sub par experience due to adds or rage bait curated feeds. So I'm not on Twitter, Insta, FB or anything just because the experience of using it would suck. If they want to track me that's fine, just don't be gross about it and don't get hacked (hoping I don't jynx myself)
It is important for a society to have privacy, not just you as an individual. There are journalists and activist that need privacy for a very good reason.
"Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." ― Edward Snowden
The internet was never private. I'm not really sure why people ever thought it was. You can feel free to look through my social media and draw whatever conclusion you wish or collect it and sell it. Why should I care?
I think the average user feels "They have nothing to hide" or "I don't really care". However they feel this way because they think they still have the ultimate control over their privacy. They believe that if they wanted to they could pack up every byte of data and quit the internet and that their digital ball of privacy info goes home with them.
Most user probably don't realize that the camera, gps and microphone on your internet connected devices are actively gathering data all the time.
They think that there is a special wall between what they post and what they do with the rest of their day; it's not.
The amount of time that you use the service, what you click, how long before clicks, etc etc etc is all tracked too. There is a data profile to "anticipate" and "guide" the users to further engagement. And all of that is before you talk about how much data-selling and brokering occurs.
I think a big part is people don't understand the impact of what they are losing. It's not something tangible like their wallet or car being stolen, it's just "information" and they don't understand how that data can be used against them. Even when examples are given, such as the Cambridge Analytica incident, they think they are smart enough to be impervious to the manipulation so it doesn't matter.
Also anyone younger than probably 20ish has never known anonymity on the internet and so it’s hard to convince them to make sacrifices to convenience for something they’ve never had (and never will, no matter how much you try)
I feel like Cambridge Analytics stuff was about picking out who might be vulnerable to those types of political campaigns and by nature there's probably a bit of a correlation between that type of vulnerability and a lack of understanding of why their privacy is important.
The people who recognise it's important are unlikely to be the ones picked out by these groups anyway
I think people only care about their privacy if the consequences is something they can see/feel directly (e.g. privacy related to election)
People don't understand the power of aggregated mundane data
perhaps they also can see it and feel it directly but have decided its largely unavoidable, something they are largely unable to change, and just give up? sometimes i think it's as much about lack of control and weariness as much as it is about apathy.
Most people do not have to a reason to care about privacy, until the day their private comms/data gets leaked and abused is when they will give a damn.
But that’s not the kind of privacy we’re talking about. Privacy discussions are largely about ad tech and tracking. The post here isn’t calling people idiots because he thinks Threads is more likely to leak your credit card numbers and nudes. He’s calling people idiots for not caring about tracking the way he does. And the reality is that there’s no real reason why they should care. The argument boils down to just, “c’mon, don’t you think it’s creepy?”. And if I say, “not really”, we’re kind of at an impasse. There’s just no obvious pragmatic harm you can point to to reason them over to your side. You may as well being trying to convince them to enjoy pineapple on pizza. If they don’t already, the game’s pretty much over.
Americans don't care about privacy unless it's China collecting data.
And even then, it's lukewarm at best. I mean, Tiktok is still stupidly popular.
If China wants to see how much of my TikTok is split between chubby goth girls and Taylor swift, they are more than welcome to that. If they want to know I mostly browse TikTok on my toilet, in the evening, they are more than welcome to that too.
Not exactly a national security issue.
its perplexing when i talk to my siblings and realize how little they actually care about their privacy online, its almost if they enjoy giving out their private information to companies
Mots people do care about privacy, but most people see more pressing issues that goes first. It's hard to care about something intangible when it's hard to have a roof over its head, or to pay the bills.
Also musicians won't hesitate to put their audience at risk. They doesn't care about what they're asking their audience, because they 'feel' like they have no choice. Which is objectively wrong.
And musicians are often ignorant about copyright laws, so how can they protect their audience if the don't know how to defend them self?
I feel like the average person doesn't understand their options and doesn't want to understand them because it's difficult to them. When I try to help explain privacy issues to others, their eyes glaze over instantly. They don't want their private information to be collected and sold, but they don't have the attention span to learn about "tech stuff".
I get the feeling that the average person doesn't understand what privacy means in relation to the Internet.
Privacy doesn't matter on the Internet unless you want it.
People do, but have no clue.
Just think of all those posts we see that go "so I looked in my Google history and see they've been recording everything for the last decade and holy shit this is creepy" oh-snap moments.
It's just not something a normal person thinks about. I mean, just like a normal person wouldn't consider the thoughts of a serial killer, similarly people don't consider that stalking mega corporations could do what they do.
