I have neither time, resources nor know-how to like go all out on data privacy. But I try doing things like using Proton for Mail, browsing with DuckDuckGo or Ecosia, messaging on Signal instead of WhatsApp, etc.
But I’m having a hard time responding to people who say “why do you do that, it’s completely pointless since companies like Google have all of our data anyways unless we go all out, and nobody has time for all the effort that takes”.
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?
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.
Please give me you bank account password, it’s all out there anyway.
“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.
I’m currently fighting my city over flock cameras and I’m hearing this a lot. More people should care about privacy.
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?
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?
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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”.
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
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.
“Then I guess there shouldn’t be laws against murder since people do that anyway.”
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.
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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.
