So there's a lot of doom and gloom here, but what do we actually do about it? How do we do it? ~Strawberry
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It's more that the average person doesn't have a clear understanding of what the cost is of not protecting your privacy.
The Internet is basically a privacy economy, where you sell your privacy in return for free services, and to most people this feels like a very one sided exchange. They're giving away something that to them has no percieved value.
What privacy advocates need to get better at is actually explaining to people what the value of their privacy is.
People do, but ease of use will trump it every time.
It's a bit of a shock that simply picking an instance and signing up like any regular site is such a hurdle to so many people.
That’s the key, you have to figure out what instance is best for you. With a million choices you get choice paralysis mixed with FOMO and they just don’t bother.
IMO that’s probably the biggest problem with anything decentralized like this. The average person doesn’t care about the benefits and the above is by far a big barrier to entry.
Same here. I've tried so hard to get people to care about their privacy. But it's one of those things that human brains are designed to fear things they can see and feel. We aren't really good at fearing the stuff that creeps up. (aka heart disease, diabetes, privacy creep lol)
I think the average user feels "They have nothing to hide" or "I don't really care". However they feel this way because they think they still have the ultimate control over their privacy. They believe that if they wanted to they could pack up every byte of data and quit the internet and that their digital ball of privacy info goes home with them.
Most user probably don't realize that the camera, gps and microphone on your internet connected devices are actively gathering data all the time.
They think that there is a special wall between what they post and what they do with the rest of their day; it's not.
The amount of time that you use the service, what you click, how long before clicks, etc etc etc is all tracked too. There is a data profile to "anticipate" and "guide" the users to further engagement. And all of that is before you talk about how much data-selling and brokering occurs.
Most people just don't even realise despite everything that all of these huge corporations are tracking their every move and, of those that do, many do not see or simply refuse to acknowledge the dangerous implications of handing people like Mark and Elon what are, in many cases, essentially the keys to their personal lives.
People are weird. I mean they're completely fine with random people at google knowing their exact location what they're doing and what websites they look at, but as soon as you start following them around in public they get all upset!
Seriously though, I'm guessing that an app just doesn't feel very 'threatening' somehow. It's just an appliance, in some sense. You don't care about the toilet seeing your private parts right?
Ultimately, even for me as someone who cares about it, it's just become one of those things that I don't prioritize. Life is hard and at some point I'd rather get something cool done with gmail reading all my private conversations than struggle with my own email server.
Not saying it's a great choice but ultimately life is short and we need to focus on doing what feels right. People have to pick their battles and that's life.
how do you think we got here (gestures all around) in the first place