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Comment on Data privacy: how to counter the "I have nothing to hide" argument?

Just ask them a bunch of indiscreet questions. Do you watch porn? What category of porn turns you on the most? Do you think it’s appropriate to have sex in a room on the ground floor without curtains? What? You own curtains? What is your salary? What’s the amount of money in your savings account? Why do you have so many loud disagreements with your partner? Don’t you like visiting your in-laws? What’s inside the drawer at the bottom, next to your bed? Have you had any embarassing and cringy moments in the last few years you’d like to share?

Of course this is only the beginning. It’s not like the corporations collect data and then don’t do anything with it. You’d also have to be okay with them deducing information about you. Try to use that information to manipulate you into giving them attention, buying the stuff they want you to buy. That system is in place to nudge you into thinking what the algorithm wants you to think. App developers are actively trying to make the apps more addicting so you spend more time with them… People just get exploited with the help of all of that data.

If people really are that tame and have no secret fantasies, no sensitive data, no shame, no personal shortcomings they’d like to forget… And they don’t care about the annual security breaches of big platforms people use willingly, but that information then gets used by people who use it to send you spam or impersonate you and trick your grandma to send her retirement to some scammer… And they like to be shoved around by big corporations like cattle, used to fuel the capitalist system… …I myself tend to leave them alone. There is nothing that can be done at this point. Those people are lost, and they don’t want freedom for themselves.

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sepiroth154@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Or maybe do you always obey the speed limit in your car, and who is your insurance company? Or something among those lines…

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- hup@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  This is a great question to use because how many of these people have given their smartphone location permissions? Google knows if they speed already.
  
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Aceticon@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Pull out your phone, state “You’re ok with this, right?! After all you have nothing to hide” and very overtly put it in voice recording mode.

Then start asking the questions.

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madcaesar@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I don’t think this works, because any sexual stuff they don’t think google / Mega Corp cares about. Which is true google doesn’t give a shit if you have sex without curtains, they only care if you are shopping for curtains.

And the rest of the questions only matter if you are running for office or something which again 99.9% aren’t, so they don’t give a shit.

I’m all for privacy, but the argument I have nothing to hide except bank account passwords etc is hard to argue with, when it comes to the average person, because the truth is that they don’t matter and most likely no-one cares about their specific data.

Most data is only valuable in mass, unless you’re being criminally investigated or something.

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- porkrind3@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Perhaps you never heard of the psychological targeting done for political purposes through the misuse of mass data. (Cambridge Analytics)
  
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- rufus@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I think we’re talking about an abstract concept here. The example with the sex questions is more of a metaphor/image to make you remember there is stuff out there, we’d like to keep private. It’s not necessarily your main concern regarding google. Those are different things but way less graphic and more difficult to explain, so i went with this example.
  
  only matter if you are running for office or something
  
  You’re close to the category of people i described last. You don’t care for freedom. You don’t care your attention is guided by other people. Information that is shown to you is gated by algorithms. And their power to manipulate you comes from the knowledge they have about you.
  
  no-one cares about their specific data
  
  Au contraire. Companies pay big money for data. The more specific, the more valuable. The biggest companies of today, like amazon, google, twitter, meta… Their business model is to collect data about you, sell advertisements, maybe even sell the data they’ve collected about you. And all of that is worth billions and billions of dollars. Why do you think they let you use TikTok or YouTube or something for free and the comany still makes millions?
  
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  - SCB@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I care a lot about freedom and my personal privacy. The data collected by apps doesn’t invade my privacy, and cannot reliably be used to harm me in any way, so I don’t care.
    
    Do you care that you’re on video at the bank? Same thing.
    
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    rufus@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    
    data collected by apps doesn’t invade my privacy
    
    Sorry, i’m really at a loss here. I don’t understand. App data is used to make you transparent. To learn something about you to sell advertisements and show them to exactly those people who are the most likely to be influenced by it. This is how targeted advertisement works.
    
    You’re right. You’re not ‘harmed’ in a traditional meaning of the word. You’re just being manipulated. And so are millions of other people on the internet.
    
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    ironhydroxide@partizle.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    “the data collected by apps… Cannot reliably be used to harm me”
    
    So you’re saying that someone can’t use your location, recordings of your audible surroundings, recordings of your devices camera view, and whom you may be interacting with cannot be used to harm you?
    
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- faberfedor@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  
  I’m all for privacy, but the argument I have nothing to hide … is hard to argue with, when it comes to the average person, because the truth is that they don’t matter and most likely no-one cares about their specific data.
  
  In that case, please post your real name, tax id (SSN in the States) and annual household income.
  
  N.B. None of this information is private.
  
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  - madcaesar@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Yea obviously not that… Like I said bank account stuff everyone gets… Google isn’t harvesting bank account numbers.
    
    Privacy and not getting hacked is not the same thing.
    
    My point is that most people just keep their banking safe and don’t care about the rest, hence “I got nothing to hide” attitude
    
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- ode@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  but the argument I have nothing to hide except bank account passwords etc is hard to argue with
  
  It’s simple to argue against: any and all data points are either potential threat vectors, or will in aggregate paint a better picture of the individual they pertain to, for the data’s possessor to use as they wish. A default-deny policy for data creation/access makes as much sense for individuals as it does workplaces.
  
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  - madcaesar@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I get it, I’m telling you why it doesn’t resonate with 99% of people. Once you have to explain threat vectors people shut it down and call you a paranoid person.
    
    Again, I don’t agree with it I’m just telling you why I have nothing to hide is so pervasive.
    
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