The most common argument used in defense of mass surveillance is ‘If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear’. Try saying that to women in the US states where abortion has suddenly become illegal. Say it to investigative journalists in authoritarian countries. Saying ‘I have nothing to hide’ means you stop caring about anyone fighting for their freedom. And one day, you might be one of them.
It's not that I have something to hide, it's that I don't trust your judgment
This applies to so many things. Someone's lifestyle might come under attack, someone's religion might be persecuted, someone has sensitive information to share, and so on and so forth.
I tried arguing against this, but it's no use. I tried pointing out how something can be branded illegal retroactively, like 20 years down the line, I tried the "give me your credit card info" approach, nothing took. 90% of the time the counter-argument is usually something to the effect of "big companies know everything about me anyway", which is just guessing on their part.
I'm just going to take care of my own privacy, because I'm clearly in the minority (present company excluded, of course). Almost everyone I know disregards online privacy completely, so I'm done trying to get a dialogue going with these people; it's every man for himself. The only way online privacy will become a hot topic among laymen is when something nasty happens and at that point, it will have been too late.
Just tell them unlock their phone so you can take a look of his browser history. Works quite a few time for me.
At one time I did, and to my surprise, my friend did just that! Unlocked their phone and handed it to me without a word. Welp.
"I don't trust you!" But they trust whatever NSA-agent looking at their private photos not to save anything for later..
Thank you very much for speaking my mind!
I would also add that the "Plandemic" WAS that nasty thing that started other nasty things happening AND still few acknowledge what you are very well talking about.
IT is not only about being able to exercise the freedom of speech, privacy or living and loving, IT IS about HUMANS and HUMANITY and those that are against it...
REAL EYES, REALISE, REAL LIES! ☝️
Saying you don't care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying you don't care about freedom of speech because you don't have anything to say.
Easy: "You, the government, want me to show you all my data? Right after you show me (and everyone else) all your documents, including the "top secret" ones. Because you haven't done anything wrong, right?"
investigative journalists in authoritarian countries
You mean like the US? Who achieved the feat of persecuting a foreign journalist as if he were an American citizen?
EDIT: I know that Mullvad is also critical of american surveillance, but I find it very funny that when in the West they call a state democratic that does exactly the same (or worse) than a state in the East that they call "authoritarian". It really reveals how empty of meaning this word is. "Ah, but these Western states have 'democratic institutions'." News for you: the states you call "authoritarian" have them too. In both cases, they can be and de facto are dictatorships.
Abortion should be illegal because it violates the UDHR. Other than that true.
Um, pretty sure that is very not correct. https://reproductiverights.org/un-human-rights-committee-asserts-that-access-to-abortion-and-prevention-of-maternal-mortality-are-human-rights/
This information is pretty new. I didn't know there was the edit.
Upvoting for admitting you were wrong in your edit.
I wish more of the internet acted that way.
I don't think that's relevant but still curious to know where you think in the Universal Declaration of human rights or in the Déclaration des droits de l'Homme de du citoyen it forbids abortion
I'm not French and idk French laws. I was talking about the US.
What are you even saying? You were talking about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is NOT a US text. And it is based on the Declaration from France from 1789.
Anyway, the UDHR says that humans are born equal in rights, and that individuals have the right to live. It's a good question to wonder what is considered an individual indeed. For example, the US law defines an individual as a human being who was born alive
It is not a US text but it is accepted to work in the US afaik and I'm quite sure of it. Another person told me that the declaration was edited in 2018 to include the right of abortion. I didn't know about that and I, in contrary to most people in this discussion, am not afraid to admit it and therefore that I was wrong.
There is a inversion of sorts here that is also important. If some people have access to the information hidden to everyone else they have power and control. Allowing just a few to read everything everyone else does gives them undo power. The access law enforcement has can and it abused, it is also sold or stolen.
Ok but you don’t need to pay a vpn to have a reasonable amount of online privacy. Even more because most of the things today work online and you need to provide an identity por example for government services. So is not bad to have a a standard profile but take precautions that don’t need to use a vpn. Even if true, this is propaganda to have fear and buy it.
If you read the blog post you would there are 0 mentions of VPNs there. VPNs have very limited purpose, and it's just a small tool in the arsenal of privacy.
A vpn service, that it’s just that a company selling a product , publishing a blog post about the terrible things about not concerning about privacy… ah they didn’t mention vpns … so ok noting is being sold here…. :D
It really depends on each person's threat model. But there are a few things everyone would benefit from. Like VPN, email aliasing, password manager, 2FA/MFA. They don't have any convenience cost and in most cases make your life easier.
If you are interested in learning more:
- https://www.privacyguides.org
- https://thenewoil.org/en/guides/prologue/
- https://freedom.press/training/
- https://anonymousplanet.org/guide.html
