Whenever i talk to people about privacy, specifically my friends when i tell them why i switched to Signal and stopped using WhatsApp, i’m always met with people saying that i’m just making no sense and “why would you care so much if you have nothing to hide? I don’t care that meta sees that stuff” and some people are just so stubborn to understand that they might even settle on the “what would a billion dollar company want from me specifically?”. It makes me mad how people refuse to even consider alternatives and open their mind a bit. What do you think?
“I have nothing to share” It’s healthy to want privacy and to say I don’t want to share.
“Okay, whip it out” and then start unzipping your fly.
Sometimes asking if their private conversations (about spouse or kids) conversation would be different with an active observer in the room. Or if they are OK with a stranger at each window watching you. But some see that as paranoia, so it is fruitless.
The real issue is things like: how ICE is requesting records without subpoenas from telecom industries and they comply. Which lets them target protestors, and arrest them an trumped up charges. That’s the slide into 1984 distopia. But it still comes off as paranoid.
“post hole”
I saw someone on YouTube respond with “give me your phone and let me go into the other room for an hour”
No hidden thoughts that might trigger shame? Then you are not human or you’ve been trepanned.
“So why do you wear clothes or don’t share your credit card details online?”
…for now.
What happens if they outlaw being gay, trans, communist, Jewish, Muslim, autistic…
The way regressive bigots and their toadies are gaining power all over the world? We’ll probably find out in a couple of months.
“Let me join you next time you need to poop then”
“That’s sad”
Meta are harvesting your friends data that you have, contacts, birthdays, addresses etc. Using these platforms means that you are probably sharing friends data without their consent just because you don’t care about your own.
Anyway that’s how I would put it to them.
you’re the one talking about it to people and getting mad
what do you say?
Everyone has something to hide. That’s why I’m not posting my online banking password on Facebook or letting anyone install cameras in my toilet.
I do have something to hide. I wear clothes, because I don’t want everybody to see my naked body. I keep my debit card hidden in my wallet, my keys to my car and house hidden in my pockets, my passwords are hidden in my password manager, my phone’s unlock code is a secret, my SSN is hidden on a card in a secure place in my house, which I also lock up securely. I close the stall door when I use the bathroom, I don’t walk around with my medical records taped to my back, I don’t tell people all the invasive dirty or violent thoughts that randomly pop into my head, and I don’t keep my car’s title in the front seat, nor my bank account and routing numbers written on my arm.
And I would wager most other people are the same. All of those are completely legitimate things people have to hide, good reasons to keep them secret and locked away. It has nothing to do with being a criminal, or a sick pervert, or a domestic terrorist, or any of the other bullshit fake “explanations” for why people would value their privacy.
And all that doesn’t even touch issues like systemic corporate or state oppression, data exploitation, or labor repression. It doesn’t touch things like fascist governments coming to power and deciding that certain opinions or expressions of speech are “subversive” and must be banned. How easily “nothing to hide” can become “domestic terrorism” when certain groups come into power.
They should go to bathroom with doors open from now. Comfort of privacy is meaningless if they got nothing to hide, right?
