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 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”.
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.
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.
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.
No, awareness isn’t the number 1 protection, it’s the number 3 protection. The number 1 protection is actually having a nuanced understanding of the issues so that when propaganda tries to prey on your misconceptions, it can’t find any. And the number 2 protection is avoiding propaganda, because anything starts to sound persuasive if it’s repeated enough. Awareness is important, but it’s just not as effective as those two other protections. It has too many weaknesses.
I think that’s pretty well put and I’ll agree with it.
In spite of everything telling me not to I still pop over to Reddit because I think there is still value there, even if I have to wade through the bullshit and the bots and whatever. A couple subs weren’t infested with shit yet. But for sure it’s a risk assessment, and I think I got it, but probably I’m not as smart as I think.
Cambridge Analytica. Not only did they influence the elections and general political attitude of the Philippines, it also affected US elections as well. I think there was a genocide that was caused by targeted campaigns too, not sure where it happened, though.
don’t forget Facebook knowing that their programs increased teen suicide rated but still stayed course because changing that negative content would lower revenue
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.
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.
I try, but at this point I think it might be too late. I’ve been on the internet pretty much my whole life and didn’t realize how big of a deal privacy was until I was in my 30s.
It’s more that the average person doesn’t have a clear understanding of what the cost is of not protecting your privacy.
The Internet is basically a privacy economy, where you sell your privacy in return for free services, and to most people this feels like a very one sided exchange. They’re giving away something that to them has no percieved value.
What privacy advocates need to get better at is actually explaining to people what the value of their privacy is.
Privacy is complicated and often a luxury. Not everyone has the technical understanding to protect their privacy, nor the money to always choose the privacy-conscious option (which are almost always paid options). And to be honest, they shouldn’t really have to if governments did their jobs and brought in effective privacy protection laws.
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.
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
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 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”.
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?
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.
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
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.
For the web scrapers, I, actual Hollywood superstar Margot Elise Robbie, stand by everything I’ve ever said on Lemmy that I would never say in real life, including the following:
Sam Altman and his web scrapers can scrape my Academy Award nominated dick. - Margot Robbie
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.
True, it should really be a foundational course now, and not just “here’s Microsoft office” level shit. With more advanced stuff left to collegiate courses.
Both programming in a high level language like python and A+ level CompTIA type thing.
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?
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.
True, in that it’s a balance of risk versus reward. But there’s a middle ground between putting your SSN on a billboard and faking your death to go off the grid and burn off your fingerprints. I’m willing to bet 99.9% of people aren’t worried about it because they’ll never have to be.
What if I told you that you can increase your privacy a lot without having to fake your own death? You don’t even have to burn off your fingerprints! All you have to do is use alternatives to certain popular apps. Isn’t that great?
Just use Signal or Matrix instead of WhatsApp. Use Firefox instead of Chrome. At some point you could even replace Windows with GNU/Linux (an operating system that doesn’t spy on you! crazy right?). Some of those are tiny sacrifices, some are bigger, but none of them are impossible.
I get it. But I am experiencing absolutely zero drawbacks to any privacy concerns, so any potential sacrifice is almost completely unnecessary. I’ll support some similar things because I consider them good causes, but I have no problem being an open book. To bring everything back full circle, I assume most of the population feels similarly, and that explains why most people don’t care (which was what I was originally replying to).
If the only people with access to it don’t even know who I am, it’s pretty inconsequential, especially since I’m often not doing things online or with a phone or computer. Everything isn’t being recorded.
For a lot of people we don’t know anything different. So to a lot it’s making a ton of extremely inconvenient sacrifices to try to claw back something we’ve never had in the first place.
They can try to influence your political opinions (manipulate you) by showing you certain type of content based on your current beliefs. They will show you content that is more likely to make you addicted to the platform. For some people that’s gonna be dangerous conspiracy theories or scams like alternative medicine.
Maybe you are immune to all of that, but many people clearly aren’t.
Kind of providing insight as to why most people don’t have any privacy concerns. I doubt most people consider that or think they’re so easily swayed. Heck, most people are practically apolitical.
Many people think they are not easily swayed, but in reality most people don’t have any training in critical thinking and often don’t know how to verify if something is fake. Things like confirmation bias make it pretty hard.
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 could (and probably have worked!) my entire professional life in domains you’ve never once caught a glimpse of using kit you wouldn’t recognize. To me it’s trivially obvious how to, say, debug an SPI bus timing problem where you might not even know what an SPI bus is without looking it up in Wikipedia first.
(I guarantee you that within 3m of you there are orders of magnitude more SPI connections than any form of encrypted connections.)
Now the only reason I know what end-to-end encryption is and why it’s important is because I took a short break in my mainline career and worked on PKI for about six years. (I then ragequit commodity software and went back to actual software engineering, but that’s a different story.) Had I not had that experience I could likely have made some guesses as to what E2EE entailed, but I certainly wouldn’t have understood immediately why this was a critical feature.
Really, software is a FAR LARGER domain than you think. Hell, it’s far larger than I think, probably, and I think it’s ten times larger than you think. 😉
You are right that it’s a huge field, but I’m not saying that we should be familiar with all of it. I’m saying that since we rely on software every day, there are a few concepts that every person should understand on a basic level. That knowledge would help them make better decisions and probably the world would be better if most people had it. Software developers should also understand those few concepts, but perhaps on a bit deeper level than an average person would.
A person can have privacy without knowing what SPI is, but it’s very unlikely for them have it or keep it long term if they don’t know what Free Software is. What you do requires deep knowledge of the hardware, which an average person doesn’t need to have. But they should know what cryptocurrencies and AI are, since those technologies are slowly becoming a part of our lives.
I don’t blame average people or software engineers for not knowing those things. But I think something went wrong in our society if people don’t understand very important concepts that impact our daily lives and which are mostly decades old. This proves that we can’t keep up with modern technology even on a basic level. Don’t you think that’s bad?
I’m saying that since we rely on software every day, there are a few concepts that every person should understand on a basic level.
Loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong before anything software-related I’d put knowledge of fundamental statistics in the queue for things people deal with on a daily basis that they should understand at a basic level. It’s one of the most critical skills a person can have in modern life and it’s one that almost nobody (including almost all programmers) has any kind of understanding of. If they did have a better understanding of it, to quote the Great Sage Equalling Heaven:
That knowledge would help them make better decisions and probably the world would be better if most people had it.
😉
And that’s just the beginning of the list. I’d also put basic psychology, basic marketing, basic civics even ahead of any degree of software knowledge. Knowing marketing, for example, wouldn’t cause someone to be fooled to the point of saying something like this:
But they should know what cryptocurrencies and AI are, since those technologies are slowly becoming a part of our lives.
But gentle snark aside:
But I think something went wrong in our society if people don’t understand very important concepts that impact our daily lives and which are mostly decades old.
Try tens of thousands of years old. You make it sound like the problem is technology. The problem is the same as it’s always been: people. A better understanding of people, of their motivations, of the tricks they use to further those motivations, etc. is what makes you better able to manage life and society. Understanding the tricks of marketers and advertisers (even before those were words in human language!) is what makes you understand things like “hype cycles” and “if you haven’t paid, you’re not the customer”. You’re focusing on a single channel of abuse. There are MILLIONS of channels of abuse. Learning why people find said channels and how/why they exploit them is a far more valuable skill.
Oh, and statistics. You need that too. You have NO idea just how bad we are at those and just how important that knowledge is for spotting grifters, liars, and other scum.
Yes, there are many things that people should be taught at school. Technology is just one area. All of the things you said are also very important, but it doesn’t make what I said invalid.
Knowing marketing, for example, wouldn’t cause someone to be fooled to the point of saying something like this:
<pre style="background-color:#ffffff;">
<span style="color:#323232;">But they should know what cryptocurrencies and AI are, since those technologies are slowly becoming a part of our lives.
</span>
Fooled by what exactly? A distributed ledger or machine learning? I think it’s a simple fact that those technologies are becoming more popular.
You make it sound like the problem is technology.
The post is about privacy and software. It’s important for people to be educated in other areas as well, but they weren’t the topic of this discussion. So there was no point for me to mention them.
You’re focusing on a single channel of abuse.
I make software, so I talk about software. I’m not an expert in the other areas that you mentioned.
Ah, I see. So you are an expert in psychology, marketing and statistics. That is truly amazing. It’s completely irrelevant to the topic of our discussion (which is about privacy and software), but very cool.
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.
You’re not getting downvoted for protecting freedom of speech lol. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean that you’re entitled to having every platform ever politely entertain your opinions. It protects you from the government and that’s it. There’s nothing else. If you express a racist opinion and people go after you in the comments they’re completely within their rights to do so. If you roll up at that point and try to defend them… Well, you’re not defending freedom of speech are you? They already said what they were going to say freely. At that point you are quite literally defending a bigot and asserting that they should be able to say what they want without consequences.
No, that’s just completely unreasonable. Nobody should have to be inconvenienced to make room for opinions that go against a healthy society. Bigots are not and hopefully will never be entitled to inject themselves into spaces they’re not welcome. Nobody is stopping them from showing up most of the time but you’re crazy if you think everyone should feel obligated to treat them with respect. You’re not just automatically owed any level of decorum because you have an opinion and decided to share it with others. I dont want to end up like the UK locking people away for saying an offensive word but I also absolutely refuse to make room for racists and pretend that their views matter. Because they don’t.
Racists are free to have their opinions and everyone but the government is free to shit on them as much as they want as long as there’s no calls for violence etc. Society can and should regulate itself and chasing ignorant bigots back under their rocks to die is something we can all work towards. If they fester then we lance the boil eventually. It’s whatever. But I’ll be damned if I’m gonna ever make room for their ugly, small, pathetic and worthless hate without telling them where they can shove it.
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