Fediverse

I care. I’m just increasingly convinced it’s too fucking late.

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

I just use my name and say whatever I want here.

No one will ever believe you anyways.

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'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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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 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:

• Let's say I'm a person using lemmy/mastodon, only using privacy-focused search engines etc.
• If I would now change to using facebook/threads, started using Chrome as my browser, etc the usual mainstream tracking stuff - what problems can this cause for me in the future?

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".

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.

The average person also doesn't care about their own right to free speech or their right to bodily autonomy or agency over their own lives.

There's people out there that jumped at the chance to have an ID chip put under their skin and to have a QR code associated with all their identity info.

People don't realize the threat of centralized supreme authority that's accountable to no one. And it's really sad.

I get downvoted for being in favor of free speech, because I bring up free speech rights whenever someone says something bigoted. If you don't support the free speech rights of the people you hate the most then you're against free speech. Censoring a bigot is only going to make them double down on their beliefs. But reaching out and having a civil conversation with a bigot can make them realize that the people they hate are going through the same problems they are.

Everyone gets fucked on their taxes, everyone is getting a lower wage than what their employer could give, everyone is paying more rent than they should, everyone is paying a higher interest on their debts than they should.