Microblog Memes

We all know what you're doing in the bathroom, but that doesn't mean you don't deserve the privacy to do it.

I would argue that privacy, at least in the modern sense of controlling access to personal information, is a relatively new concept.

Before the internet and the widespread digitization of information, keeping something private was comparatively straightforward. Information was scattered across paper records, filing cabinets, and individual institutions. A person or company generally had to make a deliberate effort to obtain that information. Today, computers and interconnected databases have changed the equation completely. With enough dedication, technical knowledge, and time, a single person can potentially uncover an enormous amount of information about someone.

In fact, some organizations have gone in the opposite direction and deliberately moved their most sensitive information onto older, isolated computer systems because modern interconnected systems create so many avenues for unauthorized access.

That said, I don't necessarily agree that everything listed in this meme should automatically be considered private information. I actually think there is a legitimate argument for greater transparency around things like wealth, relationship status, and political beliefs. If someone chooses to publicly announce their relationship on social media, for example, I'm not sure why that information should suddenly be considered inherently private. The same applies to political opinions: they only have political significance when people are willing to make them public.

The major exception, in my opinion, is information about a person's physical movements and location. Where someone lives, where they've been, and where they are at any given moment can have very real safety implications. And ironically, this is also one of the areas where governments and corporations are increasingly capable of tracking people regardless of whether those people want to be tracked.

So I think the real issue isn't that privacy itself is new. It's that technology has fundamentally changed what it means to keep something private.

On social media, I see ragebaiting posts and it occurred to me that they are honeypots in disguise. If I say too much, it could be used against me, as I plan to join a union.

When I hear that sort of thing from Google CEOs or the like, I wish I could be there to ask them if that means they'd be cool with me sitting in on their therapy sessions or at least having access to their therapist's notes after the fact. If they don't want me or the world at large reading that stuff, I'd have to assume it's because they're a violent paedophile or something? Why else would they want to keep it private? Paedophilic tax dodgers and terrorists are the only ones who want privacy after all.

Also, lol that this is posted to Lemmy, the least-private social media platform I can think of.

I'm a lot more comfortable with people knowing what my genitals look like than most people are and yet even I draw the line well before insurers or law enforcement get a peek

Filing accident reports, my contact information is made public record, and lawyers and shady chiropractors line up to try to fleece me. Yes, I have something to hide, or rather, someone to hide from.

How alternative medicine advocates target people right after diagnosed cancer

How people who just lost their loved ones gets menorial service ads

There's legit moments you become emotionally vulnerable and if they knew they'll definitely prey on you

There are even some body-parts of mine, that I am ordered — by the law itself — to hide in public.!!!1

People have been murdered for wearing glasses, please believe your minor social associations and opinions and thoughts can get you killed

"So when can we put cameras in your bedroom and bathroom?"

Data fabrication is its own risk in this. Assuming we live in a society where a govt can argue it has all this information, they could make shit up & conjure the “evidence” to support their version. Because the apparatus is established as “we know everything & can uncover the ‘truth’”, they could falsify files, they could plant files on devices, and they could edit information at a grander scale than in the past. Flock’s financial backing is connected to a company that makes money from footage editing. If they establish, “Flock shows footage of reality,” while being able to manipulate it, then we’re all a deepfake away from being accused of shit we didn’t do. That’s like Black Mirror episode 1.

surveillance is about datamining, and profiling to manipulate, control, and market. Not just market products and news but to lead the person profiled down a specific path.

we are about to have the control of our life and world view completely taken from us moreso than what was done with the analog methods of media marketing and later organic digital era which we are in the process of leaving.

it's really what every ancient culture warned us about. this is the false god. you don't need to be

I have something to add about this meme. I got set a USCensus. It’s a special Census, not the mass mailer they do to all Citizens i feel so special. And it asks your name. It already knows your address…. It asks, if you sold your home TODAY, how much would you put it on the market for. How much are my property taxes, oh… ARE YOU GAY? Well.. they ask, what kind of person are you and if you are in a relationship with what sex is that person... and they have EVERYKIND of person there is to list…. They ask, what time do I leave for work, and how long is that commute. What is the address of my job.. and WHAT IS MY TITLE … How much I make, i can’t remember if it was before or after taxes… and then what is my commute home.. what time do i typically leave… what type of router do i have in my home. how many computers do I own. How many bathrooms does my home have. I’m surprised it didn’t ask me when I took a shit…. I think some of those things are private. I don’t want to answer them. I felt, if i don’t answer the census and throw it away, They will send an enumerator and we will have todo it in person, in my home, which they state they do on all of the warning letters they sent to my home if I didn’t comply and i would be fined. I felt if i lied, they would do the same, and I would still be fined. And if they have on META glasses, or some sort of recorder, now I’m being taped. I’d despise that. Answering these questions made me feel very uneasy. They know my patterns… I hate that. I filled this thing out a few months ago, and I’m still a wreck about it. Some background… I live in Minneapolis, This Special Census went out to a few cities in southern states….not here. I’m gay. I’m an essential worker.. a very unique one, very unique. I’m a civilian. I’m not MAGA. I have a passport and I travel enough to have had my picture taken enough times at the airport when DINGBAT what in charge of Homeland security. None of my neighbors got the USCensus.. I called and asked them and none of my co-workers that have my title got it either. Privacy is KING. There’s diff types of privacy.. you can purposely exploit yourself by being online, and get mad about your privacy rights, or you can be forced into or tricked into self exploiting, therefore your privacy has been taken.

Saw this concept in another thread. Paraphrasing and adding my own stuff.

Two words: dynamic pricing. Every company will start setting prices, using your tailored data, to extract the maximum amount of revenue from you that they can. And i guarantee, it won’t be cheaper than you pay now.

That, and even if you're not considered part of whatever targeted group the current regime hates today, it doesn't mean they won't invent a new targeted group tomorrow that just so happens to include you.

This is before getting into all the false positive "identifications" of "criminal behavior" aimed at demonstrably innocent people e.g. as is already happening with the current Flock camera debacle.

No government has any legitimate reason to surveil its own citizens, and if any such excuse is generated to justify it in the beginning it is guaranteed to devolve into a tool of oppression afterwards. Once you give up rights there is no reality in which any government will voluntarily give them back.

Yeah no I really don't have relationship data lol

You have social security and credit card numbers, and porn searches you sick fucking perverted freak.