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.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

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166

If you don't mind me asking what is so important about privacy? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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What harm does public data have to you? Couldn't one just ignore the ads? You can't see anyone watching you, is public data good for public records? (I'm just curious). I know this sounds weird but is public data good for historical preservation and knowledge increasing the importance of the individual? And does public data lead to better products?

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

“Can’t you just ignore the ads?” No. No you can’t. Ads aren’t tucked away in the corner of a page, waiting for your focus. They are invasive and built solely to attract attention; even compete for it. So no, you can’t ignore them anymore than you can ignore a 3y old wailing 3 ft from your ear.

Information is power. And someone will exploit it. That’s human nature. Create an innocuous database of how high people can jump and that data will be exploited. Somehow. Someone will use it for their own gains. Does that fundamentally hurt you? Maybe. Maybe not. But there is always a risk of having information put to nefarious use.

Best to just never get there as a society.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

"Can’t you just ignore the ads?" Not if they specifically, psychologically, using the most advanced technology, tailored and made specifically so you personally can't ignore them, using the data they gathered. And then you just have to hope that it's an ad making you buy shit you don't need, and not a psyop compaign made for you to change religion, worldview, voting decisions.