Honestly, the biggest problems we have about data privacy are cultural.

We need better tools and better laws, yes. But we must not neglect working on our society's culture surrounding data privacy and consent.

It is the only way this will truly get better.

#Privacy

@Em0nM4stodon I agree, I have a good friend who calls himself a Privacy Nihilist. All of his data is out there.. Which as an American is largely true.

There is also a sense of helplessness. when my Bank is selling my spending habits and the store is selling that data based on the card I use and phone company is selling my E911 location data.

these are non-optional tools of life and hard to feel in control. I think we need a cultural push to make some small legal changes to really get the ball rolling.

@Em0nM4stodon O for that cultural shift. No sign of it in the #UK . As I may have mentioned it will be a 'Black Swan' event. Something random and unforeseen, explicable only with hindsight.

@Em0nM4stodon And lest we forget; culture is the sigma operation performed over opinions.

#privacy

@Em0nM4stodon And for this cultural shift to gain any momentum, we need as many technical people as possible to offer help to the non-techies in our lives to make the switch. When we talk about digital privacy, a lot of normies imagine someone in a basement typing 900 WPM in a Matrix green terminal interface.

I got my tech illiterate mom to ditch Windows for Linux Mint and LibreWolf, and migrated her from Gmail to Proton. She doesn't even tell the difference and uses her computer like normal. She still uses an iPhone, but I hope to get her to switch to a Pixel with GrapheneOS once her iPhone reaches EoL.

Any step in the right direction should be celebrated. Any opportunity to ditch Microsoft, Adobe, Meta, Google, Amazon, ETC, should be publicised and encouraged.

@Em0nM4stodon

Avoid giving out PII in the first place.

@Em0nM4stodon

Consent. Consent is the word. the consent of the governed, the consent of your sex partner, the consent of your tech user.

We have a major problem with consent here. It's almost like we were founded as a slave society or something.

@Em0nM4stodon

"Having nothing to hide" is an argument from absurdity in its own right.

I have everything to hide, and so do you, and so does everyone.

The individual without secrets exists only as a thought experiment, and the result of the experiment is always the same: they do not actually exist in the so-called real world.

@Christian_Freiherr_von_Wolff @Em0nM4stodon The "nothing to hide" line is a manipulative ploy by those who have the most power and seek to keep it and gain more, as information about you is power over you.

The same people preaching the supposed death of privacy go to extraordinary lengths both to protect their own privacy—such as Mark Zuckerberg buying the houses surrounding his own ¹, to deny camera angles towards his own home—and at the same time invest literally billions in anti-consensually ² surveilling the public for the power and revenue they derive therefrom.

If anyone needs any further response, @Mer__edith comprehensively dismantles the "nothing to hide" rhetoric in her first answer to Guy Kawasaki at SXSW 2025, here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyH7zoP-JOg&t=88s

¹ The particular hypocrisy of Zuck and the houses is one I first heard noted by @pluralistic.
² By "anti-consensually," I mean, not only in absence of consent, but in active contempt thereof: despite knowing it is opposite the express will of the non-consenting person.

#privacy #surveillance #surveillanceState #surveillanceCapitalism

The State of Personal Online Security and Confidentiality | SXSW LIVE

YouTube
@deFractal @Christian_Freiherr_von_Wolff @Em0nM4stodon @Mer__edith @pluralistic
Humm... I'm not rich but... And makes me wonder if your just a corporate lapdog or something worse.
@Christian_Freiherr_von_Wolff @Em0nM4stodon the ones talking “nothing to hide” hide everything in trusts and trustfunds, offshore accounts etc amd dont allow their own kids on social medias etc… why? 😇
@mvrenselaar @Christian_Freiherr_von_Wolff @Em0nM4stodon I manage a small trust, and I can't think of anything it hides. Income sources, holdings, beneficiaries are all open to state & federal scrutiny. LLCs, on the other hand, do allow obfuscation.
@Nazani @Christian_Freiherr_von_Wolff @Em0nM4stodon apparently in NL “stichtingen” or trusts are often used by families to hide assets from the tax authorities. But true, not every trust is setip that way

@Nazani @mvrenselaar @Em0nM4stodon

Interesting. I don't know anything about that, but there have been certain businesses I've found out the hard way, are not entirely honest, and they were LLCs. So I have a really easy time believing that, honestly.

@Christian_Freiherr_von_Wolff @mvrenselaar @Em0nM4stodon For me, & likely most people, a trust is more about preventing confusion after a death than about hiding anything from the taxman. Beneficiaries can take control of finances without a lengthy probate process. When you sell any asset in a trust you're still going to pay capital gains tax, etc.
@Em0nM4stodon Thankfully the EU is working hard to improve all of this. Which sucks for people outside of the EU because they are not receiving the same level of protection.

@Em0nM4stodon

Honestly we need to move away from these Monolithic web browsers and to a Micro-browser architecture.

Why is a browser handling my web credentials I should be able to pick a separate app for that and use them in tandem.

Why is the browser handling my bookmarks, I should have a separate app for that and have full control over the app and moving to a new browser shouldn't affect them.

Need protocols/apis for this type of architecture that's not a bespoke plug-in system.

@Em0nM4stodon THIS 💯

Just yesterday I was thinking of how my real life friends unknowingly gave away so much of my privacy to Big Tech firms: by allowing my contact info (name, phone number, email address, birthday, mailing address) to be scraped and synched with Facebook, Instagram, X, Google servers.

And I mean I did the same back in the day when I was using their apps.

I love that Signal now allows usernames and not sharing phone numbers…

@_elena @Em0nM4stodon Regulations usually make cultural changes a lot faster and more successfully than raising awareness and trying to convince people around. That’s why lobbies exist. Convenience and habit are formidable opponents and we simply don’t have the platform to fight that. It’s our duty to alert others and suggest alternatives (as I do), but that’s not enough at all for the big changes our societies would need.

@tagomago While I agree that regulations are an important aspect, we also can't realistically regulate and legislate every aspect of everyday life.

Imposed rules and regulations need to either (a) to a large portion of the population be obviously more beneficial than costly, and/or (b) be in line with general opinion (meaning a lot of people already do most of it), possibly pushing the envelope slightly; and (c) be even possible to adhere to (the choice has to exist!).

…⬇️
@_elena @Em0nM4stodon

Somewhat silly example: it would make little sense mandating wearing seatbelts in cars if barely any cars *have* seatbelts. That just makes criminals out of a huge portion of the population who realistically doesn't have much of a choice. So one place to start is by mandating seatbelts to exist and mandating using them in cars where they do exist, combined with making people aware of the benefits of using them.

Much the same is needed in the field of privacy.

@tagomago @_elena @Em0nM4stodon

@mkj @_elena @Em0nM4stodon Ye, that’d be another (political) debate on who should be submitted to the regulations (businesses and/or consumers), how, and to what extent, but regulations are the way to go here, imo. How? Banning consent itself, which is a fallacy anyway. In this case, the regulation would only damage a data trafficking industry that didn’t exist ~20-25 years ago. The same services could exist without it (we are the living proof), and people could move on just like that.

@tagomago Having banned consent, agreements between parties cannot exist because agreements by their very nature require consent. And again, the options must exist, and there needs to be a demand for them; that's a public-opinion matter, not a legislative matter. So the starting point should still be that those who do care choose options (and accept the cost) which are more in line with the values we want those hypothetical regulations to embody.

@_elena @Em0nM4stodon

@mkj @_elena @Em0nM4stodon Nah, you can’t let consent substitute the law or your rights on everything, that’s just a disguised enabler for whatever it may be imposed down. Could you imagine consenting on human trafficking? Fundamental rights are over that, and privacy is a fundamental right which is being played for money.

@tagomago You were the one who said to "ban[] consent itself". There are plenty of laws in many different jurisdictions which regulate things which are done with consent; but absent consent, what remains is coercion. Which is hardly better IMO.

@_elena @Em0nM4stodon

@mkj @_elena @Em0nM4stodon Consent on trafficking with your privacy. I thought it was clear enough.
@tagomago Indeed. We need to work on all 3 angles: Technology, Legal, and Cultural. But while I see so many resources for privacy tools and privacy regulations, I see too few people discussing the cultural changes we also need.
@Em0nM4stodon a cultural shift is much needed … it’s hard work and an immediate social level .. slowly helping family and friends become aware and take action ..

@Em0nM4stodon And then have this here:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/20/face-age-and-id-checks-using-the-internet-in-australia-is-about-to-fundamentally-change?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

In communist East Germany we had Stasi informers.

In Australia, we now have a government mandating spying on me.

There is no interest in #Pricacy . #auspol

Face age and ID checks? Using the internet in Australia is about to fundamentally change

New codes developed by the tech sector and eSafety commissioner come into effect in December, with major ramifications for internet users

The Guardian