mine: i got recommended an mental outlaw video by YouTubes algorithm and that's where i got the pro privacy mindset
When I had reddit (deleted a few years ago), I posted a screenshot of my android launcher, and someone pointed out that I was using google apps, and said "protect your privacy", he gave me some resources and that's where it all clicked for me. What a nice guy.
I just wanted to watch some porn in peace without my parents knowing about it.
Sexting my wife, then reading an article in the 2000s about how the NSA keeps all cell traffic. Privacy is a human right.
I think it's kind of sad that we need to ask the question of what got you into privacy, as opposed to what caused you to give up your privacy. I understand why we must the question, but it's still sad to me. This is my answer, by the way. Because we need to ask "why privacy", is the reason I want privacy.
I agree. I think for most the answer may be a mix of complacency, convenience, and conforming to the norm.
Seeing how easily extremism can come into political power, and minimize the chance of my data being used against me for some reason.
When I was quite young I was trying to figure out how to play games on a school computer and must have set off some red flags because the IT guy came in and asked what I was doing.
Sure there's not much more to it. I think it was a Mac and I was trying to get around the administrative privileges.
On a similar note a different school used Windows but had a pretty good blocklist of sites that had anything to do with gaming or social media. I really wanted to browse some game review but didn't have another way because of how prohibitively expensive mobile data was at the time and ended up using Tor.
I never heard anything about it but it's funny to think I used it to read Metacritic reviews.
I worked in a field that managed a lot of technology in retail stores. The big ones know everything about you, it's just astonishing. At the time (around 15 years ago) there was very little oversight, but also most CIOs were inept and couldn't really make the data sing and dance. Today that is very much no longer true, and it's almost too easy to build a comprehensive profile of an "anonymous" guest and then attach it to their personally identifiable information, all without their consent or knowledge.
i somehow stumbled across duckduckgo and ended up reading its write up on why we need to use google search alternatives. The big one that clicked with me was how google can (and likely does) manipulate search results based on race and other factors. it immediately clicked why so many people are so self confirmed in their own biases and how to protect free and rational discourse we need to protect privacy.
The start was wanting to reduce my exposure to recommendation algorithms. That got me thinking about what absurd amounts of very intimate data companies have about us, and how they can use that to influence people.
I researched Snowden and my youtube feed got very pro privacy, joined privacy and degoogle subreddits. Here I am, a linux user with grapheneos.
Post 911, the "War on Terror", and the Patriot Act. I was young enough not to have complex political opinions, but it all stank to me.
