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>People by and large don't care enough about privacy Not to play dumb or sealion, but what opportunities are they given to do so? How often have those opportun

>People by and large don't care enough about privacy Not to play dumb or sealion, but what opportunities are they given to do so? How often have those opportunities been one-and-done, "if you don't do something to protect your privacy in this particular instance at this particular moment, it's gone forever?"

kelnos 6y ago
> How often have those opportunities been one-and-done, "if you don't do something to protect your privacy in this particular instance at this particular moment, it's gone forever?" I don't think that question really captures it, because an easy response to that is "Why do I care? Why is my privacy so important that it's a problem that it's gone forever?" To some of us that might seem like an absurd question; we see privacy as an obviously valuable thing that we are struggling to maintain. But I don't think that's the case for most people; I think most people adopt the "I have nothing to hide, so what does it matter?" attitude. Especially when they (likely correctly) believe that online services that are central to their lives (like GMail or GDocs or Facebook or Instagram or WhatsApp) wouldn't be free to use if they didn't give up their data (and privacy) in return for the service. You can try to point to data breaches, but, even then, most of those don't have a tangible effect on people. 533M Facebook users' phone numbers and personal data leaked? Most of those 533M probably won't notice anything bad happening because of it, and any bad stuff that does happen... well, they probably won't be able to draw a causal line from the FB breach to the bad things.
- rhizome 6y ago
  >I think most people adopt the "I have nothing to hide, so what does it matter?" attitude. I think when this comes up it's a rationalization when the question becomes personal, "what if YOU had your identity stolen." However, for large-scale stories like this, I think defeatism drives the response more than a sense of innocence. You can't fight city hall, a cultural principle that anything a business does is justified, and other "oh well!" type reactions.

kelnos 6y ago

> How often have those opportunities been one-and-done, "if you don't do something to protect your privacy in this particular instance at this particular moment, it's gone forever?" I don't think that question really captures it, because an easy response to that is "Why do I care? Why is my privacy so important that it's a problem that it's gone forever?" To some of us that might seem like an absurd question; we see privacy as an obviously valuable thing that we are struggling to maintain. But I don't think that's the case for most people; I think most people adopt the "I have nothing to hide, so what does it matter?" attitude. Especially when they (likely correctly) believe that online services that are central to their lives (like GMail or GDocs or Facebook or Instagram or WhatsApp) wouldn't be free to use if they didn't give up their data (and privacy) in return for the service. You can try to point to data breaches, but, even then, most of those don't have a tangible effect on people. 533M Facebook users' phone numbers and personal data leaked? Most of those 533M probably won't notice anything bad happening because of it, and any bad stuff that does happen... well, they probably won't be able to draw a causal line from the FB breach to the bad things.

rhizome 6y ago
>I think most people adopt the "I have nothing to hide, so what does it matter?" attitude. I think when this comes up it's a rationalization when the question becomes personal, "what if YOU had your identity stolen." However, for large-scale stories like this, I think defeatism drives the response more than a sense of innocence. You can't fight city hall, a cultural principle that anything a business does is justified, and other "oh well!" type reactions.