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by thetmkay 3683 days ago
> If you know that some percentage of your friends on social media are using "surveillance" tools, then you'll be more careful about what you post, because you will understand the true meaning of "public." Whereas if all the surveillance continues to happen in secret, you will continue to post recklessly, blissfully unaware of just how "public" your posts are.

This may help reduce the asymmetry of power, but is it not a case of "throwing the baby out with the bath water"? We lose the exact freedom we are trying to protect - the freedom to act so-called "recklessly" or "inappropriately" in respect to popular opinion.
2 comments
notduncansmith 3683 days ago
Information really wants to be free.

Privacy is only necessary now because when you lose it, when someone else holds such a detailed profile of your behavior, there's a deep power imbalance. If you received a similarly detailed profile on everyone who was privy to yours, it wouldn't be so bad - and that's exactly what GP proposed.

I think there's something deeply immoral about asking someone to ignore, for your sake, some physical phenomenon that's occurring as much in their universe as yours.

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dredmorbius 3683 days ago
There are two parts of this I disgree with.

1. It's not information that wants to be free, but access to published information. Where the roots of the word "publish" in "public" are germane. In addition to published information, information on public institutions such as governments, government agencies, bureaucracies, major social actors, the wealthy (who've gained strongly through socially-mediated systems), and those guilty of crimes against society.

2. Information doesn't balance power imbalances, it magnifies them. Though the empowered and disempowered have different vulnerabilities and strengths. Hence information can work against the empowered and disempowered in different ways.

Absent a handle or pivot point for power, information yields none. You simply have understanding of a process you cannot manipulate.

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c22 3683 days ago
> If you received a similarly detailed profile on everyone who was privy to yours, it wouldn't be so bad

Except it would be because some entities posess much better capabilities to leverage that data.

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losteric 3683 days ago
That's why there's value in anonymous accounts. The user can't leverage their identity's social capital, but they can say and do anything.
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