Fediverse

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.

https://emilsmith.pro/articles/posts/2023-06-29-practical-tips-for-protecting-your-data-ditching-google-and-why-it-matters/

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.

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.

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.

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.