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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   19252 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 29, 2024

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Privacy is obviously important. I don't want some rando, or worse, some personal enemy to rifle through my all of my digital data looking for ways to harm me. But the abstract privacy concern takes the form of a Motte and Bailey between the two. Google, Facebook and friends mostly act on your private data in the aggregate, but the privacy advocates generate worry that your intimate conversations or pictures are being personally viewed.

There is a very thin line between "enemies" and "neutrals" when it comes to protecting your digital privacy, its one irreversible data exchange away from belonging to both of them.

I generally don't take too many steps to protect my own privacy, because I consider it a lost cause. If some enemy wants to go after me I'm pretty sure I'm fucked. Because enough "neutral" parties have collected enough data on me that is only loosely protected. There is a certain point where tech savvy adults have this realization about their online activities. "Oh shit, all of this stuff in aggregate could totally be used against me and fuck me over." Plenty of them react by trying to lock down the data about them. I don't think I blame them for that reaction, even if I kind of agree with you that this is a pointless endeavor. Its a bit of a horror show to realize how quickly an unscrupulous asshole could fuck over your life.

I work in web-development and GDPR has been a huge annoyance. I think its brought us closer to a Balkanization of the internet. Many large companies in the US were able to comply with the regulations, many small companies weren't. The obvious choice for the small companies was just to stop offering services to Europe. At some point the inter region disparities in law could force even the big companies to pull out. I'm not convinced this is a bad thing. Let each country or region have the internet it deserves based on the laws they impose on it. The sophisticated users will resort to using VPNs (at least until those get fully banned).

The sophisticated users will resort to using VPNs (at least until those get fully banned).

Perhaps by the services themselves, rather than any government. Once I turned my VPN on, Google blocked me from search even after I solved a few captchas.

go figure. shitty pooled IPs. same experience here with VPNs.

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