I would argue that privacy, at least in the modern sense of controlling access to personal information, is a relatively new concept.

Before the internet and the widespread digitization of information, keeping something private was comparatively straightforward. Information was scattered across paper records, filing cabinets, and individual institutions. A person or company generally had to make a deliberate effort to obtain that information. Today, computers and interconnected databases have changed the equation completely. With enough dedication, technical knowledge, and time, a single person can potentially uncover an enormous amount of information about someone.

In fact, some organizations have gone in the opposite direction and deliberately moved their most sensitive information onto older, isolated computer systems because modern interconnected systems create so many avenues for unauthorized access.

That said, I don’t necessarily agree that everything listed in this meme should automatically be considered private information. I actually think there is a legitimate argument for greater transparency around things like wealth, relationship status, and political beliefs. If someone chooses to publicly announce their relationship on social media, for example, I’m not sure why that information should suddenly be considered inherently private. The same applies to political opinions: they only have political significance when people are willing to make them public.

The major exception, in my opinion, is information about a person’s physical movements and location. Where someone lives, where they’ve been, and where they are at any given moment can have very real safety implications. And ironically, this is also one of the areas where governments and corporations are increasingly capable of tracking people regardless of whether those people want to be tracked.

So I think the real issue isn’t that privacy itself is new. It’s that technology has fundamentally changed what it means to keep something private.

We all know what you’re doing in the bathroom, but that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve the privacy to do it.

On social media, I see ragebaiting posts and it occurred to me that they are honeypots in disguise. If I say too much, it could be used against me, as I plan to join a union.

When I hear that sort of thing from Google CEOs or the like, I wish I could be there to ask them if that means they’d be cool with me sitting in on their therapy sessions or at least having access to their therapist’s notes after the fact. If they don’t want me or the world at large reading that stuff, I’d have to assume it’s because they’re a violent paedophile or something? Why else would they want to keep it private? Paedophilic tax dodgers and terrorists are the only ones who want privacy after all.

Also, lol that this is posted to Lemmy, the least-private social media platform I can think of.

I’m a lot more comfortable with people knowing what my genitals look like than most people are and yet even I draw the line well before insurers or law enforcement get a peek

People have been murdered for wearing glasses, please believe your minor social associations and opinions and thoughts can get you killed

How alternative medicine advocates target people right after diagnosed cancer

How people who just lost their loved ones gets menorial service ads

There’s legit moments you become emotionally vulnerable and if they knew they’ll definitely prey on you

surveillance is about datamining, and profiling to manipulate, control, and market. Not just market products and news but to lead the person profiled down a specific path.

we are about to have the control of our life and world view completely taken from us moreso than what was done with the analog methods of media marketing and later organic digital era which we are in the process of leaving.

it’s really what every ancient culture warned us about. this is the false god. you don’t need to be

“So when can we put cameras in your bedroom and bathroom?”

Data fabrication is its own risk in this. Assuming we live in a society where a govt can argue it has all this information, they could make shit up & conjure the “evidence” to support their version. Because the apparatus is established as “we know everything & can uncover the ‘truth’”, they could falsify files, they could plant files on devices, and they could edit information at a grander scale than in the past. Flock’s financial backing is connected to a company that makes money from footage editing. If they establish, “Flock shows footage of reality,” while being able to manipulate it, then we’re all a deepfake away from being accused of shit we didn’t do. That’s like Black Mirror episode 1.

That, and even if you’re not considered part of whatever targeted group the current regime hates today, it doesn’t mean they won’t invent a new targeted group tomorrow that just so happens to include you.

This is before getting into all the false positive “identifications” of “criminal behavior” aimed at demonstrably innocent people e.g. as is already happening with the current Flock camera debacle.

No government has any legitimate reason to surveil its own citizens, and if any such excuse is generated to justify it in the beginning it is guaranteed to devolve into a tool of oppression afterwards. Once you give up rights there is no reality in which any government will voluntarily give them back.

Yeah no I really don’t have relationship data lol

You have social security and credit card numbers, and porn searches you sick fucking perverted freak.

They even know my dick size. Nothing is off limits.

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