Honestly, sometimes my best answer is “none of your business”. Its none of Google’s business what my hobbies are. The fact that there’s no “harm” in it is irrelevant. I want to be left alone, I should be able to without an advanced knowledge of cyber security.

Imagine an insurance company using data about you that it purchased from FB or Twitter to give you different insurance rates.

Or your social posts or posts tagged of you affecting your credit score or job application or even your rent application.

There are so many scenarios where having your privacy respected would protect you from unnecessary and unfair judgement.

If your data is available to the public, people can also learn your behaviour, likes and dislikes. From that information

1. Authorities can coerce you to do something you do not want to do (like make a false claim) because if you don’t they can use your dislikes and deny your likes to make you suffer until you relent
2. Advertisers can push advertisements of things you like and make you spend a lot more
3. Thieves will know when is the most likely time that you and your family be at home and break in during those times

I’m in no means an expert here, but over the last 10 years or so, I’ve been trying to learn as much as I can. I am still in the boat of trying to find meaningful, impactful ways of explaining to people around me, why they should care about privacy.

Here’s what I would challenge anyone who takes the time to read this to do. Choose a random user in this thread. Any one of them. Go to their profile page, and see what you can learn about that person based on comment/post history.

Did you get an idea of where in the world they live? The problems they’re facing? The things they like? Now. Think like you were someone trying to harm/exploit them. Think of some products you could put in front of them that they could not live without.

Now we take that information, and start to put it together, we think, okay how do we manipulate this person into purchasing this thing.

Maybe we target a fake news article, stating “(target user’s generation) choosing between paying rent and purchasing (target product)”

Now that person starts to think “whoa, in not the only one that’s struggling with this decision, and others are choosing the purchase”

Now, maybe we target an influencer video to them, about how much better their lives are with that product.

Pretty soon, we put together a picture of how quickly and easily we could create an algorithm to manipulate someone into buying something that they would not have made the informed decision to buy. Now they value the product even if they can’t afford it…

I’m literally realizing this as I’m typing it… And it kind of terrifies me.

All of this is completely ignoring the concern of government entities, with I’ll intention, using the information against you…

deleted by creator

This was a reply I posted on “What should I say when someone says they “don’t have anything to hide”?” In ask Lemmy a week ago, and I think it’s still applicable here

They don’t choose what they need to hide, if their government outlaws woodworking tomorrow, then any carpenters today go from “having nothing to hide” to “I need to hide my entire career and hobby” overnight and in their sleep.

And then the government threatens Facebook to hand over messages from any user suspected of woodworking, and then they get persecuted and arrested

The government threatens Google to hand over all browser history from suspected woodworkers, Apple for all iCloud photos from suspected woodworkers, Amazon for all woodworking related purchases

It goes on

If the carpenter cared about privacy from the start, then the government just wouldn’t be able to find them and arrest them for simply woodworking

But the carpenter didn’t care about privacy, they “had nothing to hide” yesterday, so when that law goes into effect tomorrow the government will have a really easy time finding them

Marketing use alone fucks the world up with peoples data.

I just came across this link on social cooling from another post a few days ago. The amount of information that can be gathered on you is frightening. I just want to be able to control my own data rather than it being taken from me.

Edit: This was also a super interesting read on what privacy actually is as a concept as well as analyzing the social balance of privacy and security.

How confident are you that this stolen private data won’t become a tool against you at some point ? I’m not talking about hackers and impersonators (which are huge problems on their own), but anything you do could be used against you in a fascist regime.

If the records of Jewish people didn’t exist prior to WW2, the Jew extermination wouldn’t have been so easy. To consider that what you do or who you are won’t be something you or your descendants would be oppressed for in the future is a very dangerous bet.

By protecting my privacy I’m not taking any chances, and it’s actually making my life better through not being targeted by ads. Why would I do things differently?

When other people are at your house, why do you close the door to the bathroom when you are pooping?

“You can’t see anyone watching you” Why not just close your eyes, you won’t see your house guests watching you poop.

“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.

With the data they could literally impersonate you, this data gets sold to shady assholes, the data is regularly leaked, most isn’t public data but shit like your location, phone number or sometimes even credit card info.

Also, why should i allow anyone to know about me, im a literal ghost online, you can’t find me, and thats good.

I am not a product for these corporations to sell.

Nice try, Zuckerberg.

Privacy brings security under totalitarian regimes or in countries that shift in that direction. They might say if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear, but there are unjust conditions under which you have to hide things, like that you belong to minority that is targeted by the authorities. Like the nazis did in the third reich, where privacy was reduced during their takeover. Or that you belong to a party that is suddenly framed as evil and enemies of the nation. Or if you have connections to “traitors” or other “scum”.