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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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 ZenkorSoraz@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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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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[–] Southsamurai@reddthat.com 101 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ask that mother and daughter that got arrested for an abortion after facebook ratted them out.

That's why privacy matters. Not because something bad can happen now, but because that information can be weaponized down the road

[–] deweydecibel@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Well, also, bad things absolutely can happen right now, they just aren't as obvious. People focus too much on how the government uses data to abuse people, not enough on how private companies can in opaque ways. Cambridge Analytica is an example of very bad things happening right now.

Also consider how the Supreme Court basically decided businesses discriminating against LGBT is acceptable. With how accessible user data is now, it would be trivial to put together a database of gay people, particularly same sex married couples, that businesses can check against. There's also every reason to believe rulings like that will continue and new avenues of abuse will open up for private companies.