Ask Lemmy

I'm pretty late but hopefully this helps someone:

Privacy is in the moment. It isn't just about your SSN, or the email address you had ten years ago even you signed up for Pegging by Peggy newsletters. It's a moving target and the highest value for the people that want your data is as close to right now as possible.

If you digitally disappeared in this moment the value of all the shit they have on you would rapidly decline.

It also is about as complete a picture as possible. Privacy violating data points are valuable in aggregation. An address and name are only valuable when you can tie it to viewing preferences, voting records, etc. The more data points you can hide, the better.

Also, many (most?) people will be more upset with the person who rocks the boat or is the messenger of bad news than the perpetrator of the real problem. "We've tried nothing and are all out of ideas" applies to people you might care about just as much as it does to Schummer.

"Then I guess there shouldn't be laws against murder since people do that anyway."

Ask to see their bank account transactions.

If the data is out there then they should have no problem showing you.

It's not "all out there", unless you let it go out there.

Most interaction with people on privacy-hostile services are out there, yes. But that's far from "all".

I've had moderate success by using a handful of quotes over the years whenever this topic comes up with friends or family.

"Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." - Edward Snowden

This quote can substitute out the "free speech" bit for "gun rights" if you are talking to a gun nut.

"I like to close the bathroom door when I'm taking a shower. It doesn't mean I'm doing anything immoral in there, I just have the right to privacy." - Anonymous

A fair followup question when they say "why bother, it's pointless anyway," that might provoke some thought on their part is: "Do you ever make any effort at all toward a goal that is ultimately a drop in the bucket? Have you ever recycled a single plastic bottle? Covered the PIN pad when entering your PIN number at an ATM? Walked to the store instead of driven? Written a letter to a congressman? If so, why? The overall effect of your action was probably negligibly small in the grand scheme of things, so why did you bother to put any effort in at all?"

The answer to that question is: just because you can't get to 100% privacy/eco-friendliness/whatever goal it is you have, doesn't mean you can't put in some degree of effort to protect your rights, the earth, or hold your government accountable.

They don't have to ditch Google entirely in one day. That's ludicrously hard and even privacy advocates like myself can't do it easily. You take incremental steps when you are ready. Ditch Chrome when you have the bandwidth and get Firefox. Ditch Google search in favor of DuckDuckGo when you think you can deal with the different experiences. etc, etc. Everyone's journey is different.

Ok, what is your social security number, email address with password, your date of birth, and if applicable, your mother's maiden name.

It's all out there right?

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good and if not for yourself but your friends and family. You would want them being stalked online right?

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

Please give me you bank account password, it's all out there anyway.

Public figures? Probably true to some degree.
(Even Linus Torvalds said that. He argued that anything that's worth being backed up, will probably be).

The run of the mill Joe Doe? No.

"Privacy is dead" only once you lose all legal rights to your own information. It may be "already out there", but at least you still have some legal recourse for when your information is being used by a 3rd party, without your consent. (or at least it should)

No one should have the right to just clone your identity, or make AI images in your likeness, or even sell your confidential information to advertisers, against your wishes. If there aren't laws already protecting your rights in that regard, where you live...there should be.

Then property ownership doesn't matter, because the land is 'all out there' so anyone can go/live anywhere regardless of who owns the property, right?

Tell them about surveillance pricing. It’s a good example because the information “already out there” is used to influence how much the stuff they buy costs. Another example would be unsecure home security/doorbell cameras that anyone on the internet can watch (if you know where to find them). Their camera feeds are “already out there”, so ask them if that’s ok.

Give me your debit card pin.

Okay, let me see your browser history.

And while I'm at it, can I sit in that corner over there and watch you have sex with your wife?

Oh are we getting a little uncomfortable now? May I take a dump while you shower?

Wait, wait! What do you mean you suddenly care about privacy?

I'm currently fighting my city over flock cameras and I'm hearing this a lot. More people should care about privacy.

I ask them to unlock their phone for me to peruse. They shut up real quick

I don't push it. It's their life and if privacy isn't a value to them nothing I say is going to change that. I might mention the amount of data collected but that's generally public knowledge anyway. Some people just don't care if a company that they use has the data.

"I value my privacy more than you, there is nothing more to it" is a more than adequate statement.

My approach:

Take their bathroom door away since everyone has the same wiggly bits anyway.

It is hard to shake people out of their ways of thinking.

I try and apply monetary value, as people care about money.

"Bro, Google sells your data and makes a ton of money off of what you're giving away. Why you giving it away? You want to give me your drivers license to sell?"

Also

"You have a right to privacy. And you give up that right in exchange for email? Can I buy your vote for a cookie?"

And this

"You gotta pay like $1000 just to bid on buying your data to serve you ads. Can you afford to even see you own data being sold?"

And

"They only see what you give away for free. Are you some pervert that likes to be watched? Are you naked at home with the curtains open? No? You sure?"

In America in 2025, I'd say they're right*. Flock has cameras all over cities, Palantir has scary face recognition data that iirc uses social media info up to a decade old, DOGE made a database of everyone's social security information that other bureaus probably have access to, ICE uses Israeli spyware that bypasses end-to-end-encryption, and state governments are trying to push VPN bans and ID checks to use web services. On the federal level, both MAGA and Democrats are pro-surveillance, so you can't just vote this out, not completely. You also can't vote with your wallet since the most dangerous surveillance tools exist at the infrastructure level. We're one step away from turning into China.

*By and large, there's nothing Americans can do about those things other than protest, normalize pro-privacy rhetoric, try not to support privacy-invading consumer services, and call local- and state-level elected leaders when new anti-privacy legislation is introduced.

In most cases, privacy efforts can help for some use cases, but there is no perfect threat model anymore, and it's mostly a symbolic act of protest these days, which is useful. Lemmy is the only social media I use these days, Linux is my daily and only driver, I'm boycotting tech oligarchs like Google, and I gravitate toward privacy-focused products and services. We need an active privacy advocacy bloc that will support causes and alternative technologies if we ever want things to get better, if not today than in the future.

One big thing people can still do is evade targeted ads. I probably have an ad profile stored somewhere, but I use adblock and enough FOSS apps that I haven't gotten targeted ad in years.

When they have doorbell cloud cameras and they're this type, I ask if they'd put one in their shower. To match your topic, I'd ask them to live stream their next email/search/web session.

I don't really have this conversation with people.

This stuff is important to me, it's not really accessible to people without lots of time and the same interest.

That sounds like: "Freedom doesn't matter because some freedoms are already gone"

I mean, Google might have your info, but why make it easier for non-Google adversaries to like, say, scammers have access to your bank info, or your emotionally abusive parents parents have access to your digital journal?

Even if we can't hide it from governments or corporations, there are still inter-personal privacy to maintain, and that can be more significant and impactful to your everyday life, than you being just file on a large database.

I don't even try to argue with these people. Thankfully, I have all the important people in my life trained up on proper cybersecurity practices and how to be good end users. It makes dealing with any tech issues for them so much easier lol. I only got yelled at once by a relative and I told him he needed to fix his tone before I'd fix his computer. He hasn't given me any issues since lol

Any reduction in the flow of data to big tech is a win. Its a journey, not a race. Good on you for starting.

As for trying to convince people, it usually a waste of time unless they are truly interested.

My usual tactic is to inform them about how google can and does close accounts for vague terms of service violations.

You might be right. Privacy may be dead, but I hope you'll forgive me for not dancing on its grave.

When I do react, I may ask them about the last time they had sex and how it was.

But most of the time I don't bother reacting. It's a waste of time.

I don't use Google or Microsoft. Also it takes no effort, you're lazy or you don't care.

Privacy protects us from scammers and other criminals, right? Why are you pro-crime? That’s weird.

"Here's a link, kid. Go read a book."

If the rise of techno-lords of this neo-feudalist era hasn't made it clear to people why privacy is important then it isn't even worth having the conversation with those people anyway. Privacy is an spectrum and 100% privacy is extremelly difficult to achieve and potentially not worth pursuing to the average people unless your life or someone else's you love is under threat.

But while 100% is not worth it to the average people, getting very close to it isn't super difficult nowadays granting you have or know someone with the technological knowledge to achieve it: Nowadays you can use Firefox with proper adblocker extensions for free, get a phone that is de-googled out of the box, you can switch social networks from centralised ones to federated ones, self-host a lot of cloud services very cheaply, etc. True that some technical knowledge (and time) is required to achieve a decent level of privacy. Finding the time isn't that difficult if one cares a little (they are one online search away), the technical bit is the hard one and maybe a good reason for those of us that self-host to start federating more and more services (but this is another conversation). The fact is, who nowadays doesn't care about privacy is because they have chosen to do so.

So if the conversation even arises, I sometimes flip it by pointing out how shitty their preferred online service (or even operating system) has become in the recent years, just to tell them I have a totally different online experience than them. If they are curious I can show them how, if not, then they shouldn't care about me as it's obvious they don't care about themselves in the first place.

No, it's not "all out there".

I use Google, and they have data about me, and while it's a lot through Android, settings limit quite a bit what they may do, collect, connect, and reuse. And partly because they have this significant information and control, I make a deliberate effort to not use their email. Email gives a lot more insight, attack surface (technically and through knowledge) and control (almost every service or their uses email in one way or another).

Email is so central, I don't want to depend on a free service by a huge impersonal/dehuman corp. My phone has data even without Google. I could migrate. With email, migrating data is possible with caveats, but changing the address on all services I use is infeasible.

Ultimately, is a matter of dependence, risk, and convenience. If they're fine with the risks, that's on them. Most people are not as poweruser or caring. And that's fine by me - I can't and don't want to invest into wasted effort beyond where appropriate and voicing or offering to a degree.

Even as a tech savvy person I'll admit it's a bit of a problem to "take your toys and go home". Google purposefully made themselves an integral part of most of our lives so it really is about as involved as moving homes when it comes to migrating away from Google.

I would just say that moving one service is better than moving none of them. It's a slow process but it is doable. I'd say email is easiest to start with. I haven't converted any accounts yet (i.e. using my new email as the username) but for any new accounts I've been using my new email and occasionally closing accounts associated to Gmail. There's probably a ton of services you've signed up for but never use so closing is way easier than migrating.

You can already make them agree on the fact that if less companies have their datas, they have less risk to see them stolen and misused by hackers...

So that they may begin to feel the=r datas worthy to be protected.

Just as example of what datas may be used for, a french company got a few million euros stolen because an employee (and the boss) had let enough datas online so that hackers could pretend to be the boss and need a big amoult of money sent asap to a fiscal paradise account ; for corruption needed to maintaining the company and therefore the jobs...

Nothing, because the confidential financial & health information was already protected by other laws, and the rest was bullshit metadata[^metadata] only good for targeted advertising to pay for free services. It's their problem.

It only makes sense to protect data that truly matters after you've assessed the risk & impact to rationally identify it. Information sufficient for identity fraud, financial records, health records, private communications & online activity you don't want others to see: protect that. Security in layers is good. However, web browsing activity to public sites that don't matter, public activity, etc: doesn't matter, not worth your time.

[^metadata]: either already found in the phonebook, plainly observable in the open internet to accessed systems, or voluntarily given

There's not much point arguing with these people as they've already decided that they don't care about it and it's not my place to convince them they should