Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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How do I convince normies to protect their privacy? (lemmy.zip)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by idanay@lemmy.zip to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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Often times, I tell people to what extend big tech is willing to hurt people, to collect more and more money, as in data! And the reaction is… disappointing. They either don’t care, sometimes even making jokes, or don’t get over the inconvenience of switching.

If I tell them that that some of those privacy apps, like brave compared to chrome, is more convenient, they don’t care. If I tell them that they hurt themselves by using big tech, like TikTok, they don’t care. If I tell them that their use of those apps hurt others, they don’t care.

I don’t think I am convincing enough. So what can I tell them?

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[–] freedickpics@lemmy.ml 19 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Everyone's being so despondent. Of course it's possible to convince someone to care about privacy. If they're your friends, you'll know them better than we do. What do they value? What do they care about?

In my experience more people care about privacy than you think. But they just think it's hopeless. They're constantly being told "There's no point. Every company already knows everything about you. Give up."

Bullshit. Even if ad companies have a nice tailored set of data on someone's interests, behaviours, routines, etc. the moment that person cuts off the supply, that data starts becoming less relevant, less useful and less valuable every day. Once I explained that to a few people I had a bit more luck getting them to install ad blockers and stop posting so much personal info online

Talk to them in a language they'll understand. If they deal drugs, tell them they're much less likely to get caught using encrypted messaging apps. If they're into true crime, point out how many stalkers were able to track their victims down using what they'd posted on social media

[–] funkycarrot@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 6 days ago

This is a great answer and I love the most relatable example for this community is having friends that deal drugs, apparently.

While the "something out of the ordinary might happen to you" (getting caught for dealing, being a stalker's victim) argument works for some, some may realize that rare things are, well, rare. It can be argued the effort to counter rare scenarios can only be justified to a certain degree, or not at all.

I think this language is more universal:

"Remember the notion that if you want to double your success rate you triple your failure rate. [...] If you've ever watched a kid play in a way that's pushing their boundaries, they do this thing where – if they don't know you're watching – they make a lot of mistakes and they keep pushing through them. But if they catch you secretly watching them while they make mistakes, they put the thing away and walk away from it. It just kills their play. As a father it's the thing that breaks my heart when I do it, because it's very tempting to look over at your kids when they're doing something awesome and intense. But then you humiliate them. You embarrass them. So there's something about us that wants to have vulnerable moments not take place in public, that wants to choose the moment of disclosure."

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