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.

Well…

1. Target once used small amounts of shopping data to accurately predict women were pregnant before they themselves knew.

2. A Nebraska PD got data from Facebook to prove a woman had an abortion recently and prosecuted her.

3. 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?

Why don’t you go ahead and post your browser history and location data for the last 6 months?

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.

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.

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.

For me, it’s identity theft.

“Can’t you just ignore the ads?” No. No you can’t. Ads aren’t tucked away in the corner of a page, waiting for your focus. They are invasive and built solely to attract attention; even compete for it. So no, you can’t ignore them anymore than you can ignore a 3y old wailing 3 ft from your ear.

Information is power. And someone will exploit it. That’s human nature. Create an innocuous database of how high people can jump and that data will be exploited. Somehow. Someone will use it for their own gains. Does that fundamentally hurt you? Maybe. Maybe not. But there is always a risk of having information put to nefarious use.

Best to just never get there as a society.

deleted by creator

i think women who want the freedom to decide what they can do with their own bodies shows you how important privacy is. the was a cop in california sending out of state licenses to the home state governmemt to report women crossi g state lines for abortions.

I just came across this link on social cooling from another post a few days ago. The amount of information that can be gathered on you is frightening. I just want to be able to control my own data rather than it being taken from me.

Edit: This was also a super interesting read on what privacy actually is as a concept as well as analyzing the social balance of privacy and security.

For me, it is about removing an attack vector crazy people might use. We live in a time where people can seek revenge for the pettiest things. In thepastt, I had gotten into an argument on reddit over something harmless and they doxxed me and sent a warning to my house. I deleted everything and overhauled my privacy.

How confident are you that this stolen private data won’t become a tool against you at some point ? I’m not talking about hackers and impersonators (which are huge problems on their own), but anything you do could be used against you in a fascist regime.

If the records of Jewish people didn’t exist prior to WW2, the Jew extermination wouldn’t have been so easy. To consider that what you do or who you are won’t be something you or your descendants would be oppressed for in the future is a very dangerous bet.

By protecting my privacy I’m not taking any chances, and it’s actually making my life better through not being targeted by ads. Why would I do things differently?

I am not a product for these corporations to sell.

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.