4 ms·

The one group, generally, that has been driven away from privacy via scare tactics of the surveillance state has finally been given the required incentive to re

The one group, generally, that has been driven away from privacy via scare tactics of the surveillance state has finally been given the required incentive to recognize the grave importance of privacy. This is no longer a political issue or an issue of only people that 'have something to hide'. Public support for privacy will be the majority opinion regardless of political ambitions. Good news! Now we can accomplish what people with sense have known for the last few decades

ls15 4y ago
Let's hope so. Privacy needs to be acknowledged as a basic human right.
- charcircuit 4y ago
  No, privacy runs counter to a world with free information. If privacy was an actual right we would need to destroy most history books because we never got those people's permission to reshare information about them. News reporters would have to get permission from people and companies they are writing reports about.
  - smolder 4y ago
    You're being downvoted, I think, because this entirely ignores the extent to which modern dragnet surveillance snoops on and categorizes every last person. We have history books that tell a lot about important public figures (and society generally) without data brokers or Palantir being a thing for any part of that history.
    - charcircuit 4y ago
      >We have history books that tell a lot about important public figures That's because the process doesn't scale. With technology we can scale this to a large percentage of the population of Earth. Imagine being curious about someone and just being able to look up what they did in life.
  - tobylane 4y ago
    Journalists usually write about public individuals, or where private people do something in the public interest. History is usually written about dead people, who you can find in publicly released census records. Companies have no right to privacy, only the limited concepts of trade secrets, etc. You may want to distinguish between what is published and what is collected for analysis. The GDPR covers both.
    - charcircuit 4y ago
      >Journalists usually write about public individuals There are plenty of news stories involving people who aren't public individuals. >History is usually written about dead people History is written in real time. See wikipedia for example.
      - ls15 4y ago
        > There are plenty of news stories involving people who aren't public individuals. Typically because there is a public interest in the story and/or because that individual did consent. It is not common to publish investigations of common people's bedrooms without their consent.
        charcircuit 4y ago
        I think that is caused more by there not being a demand for news about random bedrooms. If you look more at social media if you are at someone's house and take a selfie, you aren't going to ask your friend if having their room as your background is okay.
        ls15 4y ago
        > If you look more at social media if you are at someone's house and take a selfie, you aren't going to ask your friend if having their room as your background is okay. Prepare to get kicked out if you post my private space on the internet without asking.
  - ls15 4y ago
    Dead people don't need privacy or most other human rights. The living ones need them. And we need to separate between public interest and mining information about every individual. It is fine to show the Rajapaksa's bedroom on TV, because it was paid for with stolen money that was taken from the people.
    - charcircuit 4y ago
      >And we need to separate between public interest and mining information about every individual It's the same thing. One man's junk information is another man's treasure. The interest of the public is very wide since different people can have widely different interests.
      - ls15 4y ago
        > One man's junk information is another man's treasure. Just because someone wants to know the color of my underwear (even if they regard that knowledge as a treasure), there is no valid public interest in that. Preemptively and forcibly opening up all personal information is a very dystopian thought.
        charcircuit 4y ago
        >there is no valid public interest in that and how is a valid public interest defined? To me I would consider it to mean a piece of information that a person may be curious about or may want in order to make a decision. If someone is making an underwear recommendation system then I can see how they can be interested in collecting the color of everyone in order to offer this service. >opening up all personal information is a very dystopian thought I don't think it needs to be like that. Freedom of information will allow things to be made more efficient and for better decisions to be made and their impact measured. Anything you are curious about you are able to find out.
        ls15 4y ago
        > and how is a valid public interest defined? According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_interest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_interest : > The public interest is "the welfare or well-being of the general public" and society. So unless someone can prove that the knowledge about the color of my underwear is crucial for ensuring "the welfare or well-being of the general public", I would say that I should have the right to keep that secret.
  - einpoklum 4y ago
    "basic human right" does not mean "absolute right disregarding any other consideration and for eternity": * Should you have the same level of privacy after you die as when you were alive? * If you assume a public position of power, can you not be considered to have relinquished some measure of privacy to allow for public evaluation of your conduct? etc.
- hulitu 4y ago
  It is. But only for some people.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> Public support for privacy will be the majority opinion regardless of political ambitions This is usually not true. At least in America. The issue is compounded by a lot of privacy advocacy’s beachhead constituencies having low trust in government and/or unusually nihilistic opinions about public rulemaking. (I worked on the frontlines of this a few years ago.)
- upsidesinclude 4y ago
  That's why I said it will be It's clear that privacy hasn't had enough support by our sheer lack of privacy. Most people genuinely don't even know tracking is taking place at all times or by what means. Ask someone whether they're aware of cursor dwell time tracking. They will think you are babbling.

ls15 4y ago

Let's hope so. Privacy needs to be acknowledged as a basic human right.

charcircuit 4y ago
No, privacy runs counter to a world with free information. If privacy was an actual right we would need to destroy most history books because we never got those people's permission to reshare information about them. News reporters would have to get permission from people and companies they are writing reports about.
- smolder 4y ago
  You're being downvoted, I think, because this entirely ignores the extent to which modern dragnet surveillance snoops on and categorizes every last person. We have history books that tell a lot about important public figures (and society generally) without data brokers or Palantir being a thing for any part of that history.
  - charcircuit 4y ago
    >We have history books that tell a lot about important public figures That's because the process doesn't scale. With technology we can scale this to a large percentage of the population of Earth. Imagine being curious about someone and just being able to look up what they did in life.
- tobylane 4y ago
  Journalists usually write about public individuals, or where private people do something in the public interest. History is usually written about dead people, who you can find in publicly released census records. Companies have no right to privacy, only the limited concepts of trade secrets, etc. You may want to distinguish between what is published and what is collected for analysis. The GDPR covers both.
  - charcircuit 4y ago
    >Journalists usually write about public individuals There are plenty of news stories involving people who aren't public individuals. >History is usually written about dead people History is written in real time. See wikipedia for example.
    - ls15 4y ago
      > There are plenty of news stories involving people who aren't public individuals. Typically because there is a public interest in the story and/or because that individual did consent. It is not common to publish investigations of common people's bedrooms without their consent.
      - charcircuit 4y ago
        I think that is caused more by there not being a demand for news about random bedrooms. If you look more at social media if you are at someone's house and take a selfie, you aren't going to ask your friend if having their room as your background is okay.
        ls15 4y ago
        > If you look more at social media if you are at someone's house and take a selfie, you aren't going to ask your friend if having their room as your background is okay. Prepare to get kicked out if you post my private space on the internet without asking.
- ls15 4y ago
  Dead people don't need privacy or most other human rights. The living ones need them. And we need to separate between public interest and mining information about every individual. It is fine to show the Rajapaksa's bedroom on TV, because it was paid for with stolen money that was taken from the people.
  - charcircuit 4y ago
    >And we need to separate between public interest and mining information about every individual It's the same thing. One man's junk information is another man's treasure. The interest of the public is very wide since different people can have widely different interests.
    - ls15 4y ago
      > One man's junk information is another man's treasure. Just because someone wants to know the color of my underwear (even if they regard that knowledge as a treasure), there is no valid public interest in that. Preemptively and forcibly opening up all personal information is a very dystopian thought.
      - charcircuit 4y ago
        >there is no valid public interest in that and how is a valid public interest defined? To me I would consider it to mean a piece of information that a person may be curious about or may want in order to make a decision. If someone is making an underwear recommendation system then I can see how they can be interested in collecting the color of everyone in order to offer this service. >opening up all personal information is a very dystopian thought I don't think it needs to be like that. Freedom of information will allow things to be made more efficient and for better decisions to be made and their impact measured. Anything you are curious about you are able to find out.
        ls15 4y ago
        > and how is a valid public interest defined? According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_interest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_interest : > The public interest is "the welfare or well-being of the general public" and society. So unless someone can prove that the knowledge about the color of my underwear is crucial for ensuring "the welfare or well-being of the general public", I would say that I should have the right to keep that secret.
- einpoklum 4y ago
  "basic human right" does not mean "absolute right disregarding any other consideration and for eternity": * Should you have the same level of privacy after you die as when you were alive? * If you assume a public position of power, can you not be considered to have relinquished some measure of privacy to allow for public evaluation of your conduct? etc.
hulitu 4y ago
It is. But only for some people.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> Public support for privacy will be the majority opinion regardless of political ambitions This is usually not true. At least in America. The issue is compounded by a lot of privacy advocacy’s beachhead constituencies having low trust in government and/or unusually nihilistic opinions about public rulemaking. (I worked on the frontlines of this a few years ago.)

upsidesinclude 4y ago
That's why I said it will be It's clear that privacy hasn't had enough support by our sheer lack of privacy. Most people genuinely don't even know tracking is taking place at all times or by what means. Ask someone whether they're aware of cursor dwell time tracking. They will think you are babbling.