[docdeek]

The author goes too far when they suggest there should be laws (and one imagines punishments for those who break them) that prevent something being shared in one space from being shared elsewhere. For example, if I share something with my family, there should be a law that prevents a family member from making what I said public.

Not only would this be a nightmare to police but it would give rise to some anti-social outcomes. If I was flat out telling my family I didn't like race X and wished that religion Y could be outlawed, and then shared in the public realm that racists are terrible and that freedom of religion for all is paramount...shouldn't someone be able to call me out on it? And if not me, imagine a person of some power or influence: don't we want to know when someone's public political stance is different to how they really feel?

[umilegenio]

I am the original author. That are good points. I think that punishment would mostly comes through social interactions (i.e., we should chastise people) or technical means (i.e., you are banned from sharing content for X days), but also fines for the most egregious offenders. We fine people all the time.

> If I was flat out telling my family I didn't like race X and wished that religion Y could be outlawed, and then shared in the public realm that racists are terrible and that freedom of religion for all is paramount...shouldn't someone be able to call me out on it? And if not me, imagine a person of some power or influence: don't we want to know when someone's public political stance is different to how they really feel?

You can call out people in private for the bad stuff they share in private. However, you are right it is no so clear cut: we need to find balance. The issue is that making a special exception for powerful and influential people it is dangerous because it is not clear who are. In some way almost anybody has some authority: you might be a parent, the go-to guy for technical things in a community, the administrator of a forum or a open-source project, etc.

[leetcrew]

at the very least, the speaker should probably have to indicate in some way that what they're saying is private. like if I invite you into my home and we have a discussion about the best brand of kitchen sponge, you shouldn't automatically be prohibited from sharing my recommendation with others.

> If I was flat out telling my family I didn't like race X and wished that religion Y could be outlawed, and then shared in the public realm that racists are terrible and that freedom of religion for all is paramount...shouldn't someone be able to call me out on it? And if not me, imagine a person of some power or influence: don't we want to know when someone's public political stance is different to how they really feel?

perhaps it's because I'm privileged, but I don't really see how this is a problem? does it really matter if someone holds abhorrent beliefs privately if everything they do in public (and at their job) is consistent with their publicly espoused views? if instead of only confiding in close family members, the person abused the privacy protection to spread their views to many private groups, this would start to blur the line.

a more clear cut example would be if someone privately expressed a credible and imminent plan to harm someone else. you would definitely want an exception for that.

[notahacker]

> perhaps it's because I'm privileged, but I don't really see how this is a problem? does it really matter if someone holds abhorrent beliefs privately if everything they do in public (and at their job) is consistent with their publicly espoused views?

If somebody has both expressed abhorrent views and made deceptive statements, why on earth would one assume they could be trusted to only act in accordance with their public statements?

[leetcrew]

that's not quite an answer to the question I asked. people don't always behave in a way that's consistent with the privately or publicly held beliefs, and I think it would be foolish to expect them to.

suppose you have a hiring manager that's secretly a racist, but nevertheless hires a diverse group of talented engineers because that's what's in their job description. doesn't it only become a problem if people find out?

[notahacker]

In the real world - and even more so in a super privacy-conscious version of the real world - nobody has perfect information about how the other person acts towards others. Politicians renege on public commitments and racists hire minorities to bully all the time.

Suppose you have a hiring manager that expresses racist views about minority engineers but then tells you not to tell anyone. Why on earth should their plea for secrecy and some nonwhite faces in the office lead you to assume that they're scrupulously fair in their decision making?

[postlamper]

it becomes a problem the minute there's divergence because lack of integrity undermines trust. of course, the seriousness of the problem correlates with the size of the divergence. and given that, as you rightly note, there is always going to be some degree of divergence, social responses should be informed by the degree of the divergence, and should forgive relatively trivial ones.

[scollet]

I see a solution with individual auditing.

I want to see my social graph across different proprietary data stores and either charge a dime for use of my data, or reclaim a node.

Auth is one issue, building that graph is another, and hiding data from regulators is the last I can think of right now.

Regardless, the sentiment remains.

When I write this comment, it's work. I made some content for y'all. But if a scraper comes through and builds a social profile of me, it should compensated or controllable in some form.

I wasn't selling this data, but it's not really anyone else's data to sell either. Even if ycomb decides they are going to sell this information, I'd like to know that.

IDK what the solution is. It's probably reclaiming ownership via private servers. It's probably grand trust and code contracts. It's probably even a mandated anonymity filter where PII is opt-in by default and only a certain degree of information can be traded.

I am just under the impression that there has been a massive overreach and that the majority of people online have lost control.

[mikestaub]

You are correct that most of us have totally lost control. This company gives me hope: https://permission.io

[GoblinSlayer]

> don't we want to know

No, not your business. You're not supposed to know everything about everyone.

[treis]

>If I was flat out telling my family I didn't like race X and wished that religion Y could be outlawed, and then shared in the public realm that racists are terrible and that freedom of religion for all is paramount...shouldn't someone be able to call me out on it?

I think this goes to the heart of the problem with the article in the OP. Everyone knowing everyone's business leads to a lot of good things. Like if you knew a subordinate was beating their wife you'd probably fire them. But since they beat her in the privacy of their own home they get away with it.

More broadly, if everyone knew everyone that smoked pot or was homosexual or cheated on their taxes there would be pressure to change some laws and follow others. Social shaming is a powerful tool. Like any tool it can be used for good and for evil.

The assumption that privacy is protection against anything isn't supported by history. The Nazis, the Soviets, the Chinese, the Khmer Rouge, along with many others all conducted their reign of terrors without the use of modern surveillance. Privacy was no shield then and would be no shield now. The only real protection is not letting people like that into power.

[GoblinSlayer]

Privacy doesn't protect from physical attack, but if you fall victim to informational attack, you will lose physical safety too even if your physical shield is as solid as Troy.

[auser253]

"And if not me, imagine a person of some power or influence: don't we want to know when someone's public political stance is different to how they really feel?"

( aside from other points: )

But it seems political positions are somewhat arbitrarily chosen within the many possible positions and position-combinations and then you also have to change in lockstemp or not? So you have two parties (or a few more in different systems) and they have largely adopted specific positions, so you have to decide on one of the two positions on a issue (e.g. democrats with high taxes dont like corporations etc -> need to be in favour of high corporate taxes instead of vat+no corporate taxes+vat and redistribution-transfers 2) and then share their specific combination (instead of pro-choice rep or pro-gun dem etc)(and there are so many positions that you have to keep track of like tax-structure (income, vat, corporate-tax(corporations are bad -> high tax etc)), abortion, guns, climate change, lgbt, religion/religious-freedom, foreign policy 1) for all these positions and then also change whats your positions somewhat in lockstep with the party (eg support/opposition for foreign inventions, sexual, crime (90s vs today etc), gun rights (like how police unions used to be in favour etc)). (But if you loo at any issue objectively/remotely (i dont mean like objectively right, but somewhat separated from partisan-/party-influence) it seems like people would get to a wide variety of positions on just one issue (just like there are hundreds of possible positions) and then an even greater variety of combinations of this variety of positions (and then againan even greater variety in changes of positions and position-combinations etc).)

Not saying it doesnt make sense to have political duopoly (of alliances) so that complicated and unclear will can be somehow translated into power/actions. But asking a politician to honestly believe what he says seems somewhat like asking them to never remotely look at things and just try to directly assimilate into him whatever polls good for some time (without really any inner thinking or critical judgement etc a bit like a robot etc)(because all that wouldnt do that would then need to resign latest at the next position-change and only would remain etc).

[brongondwana]

Interesting choice of example. How about this one - do you like eating meat? What if you were flat out telling your family a story of how you fondly remember a time you had a lovely steak and that you're not 100% onboard with your new vegan party overloards who have declared all talk of meat eating as speciest and abhorent?

Shouldn't it be OK to call you out for your regressive hate speach? He said the N word in private! Nuggets! How very dare. Don't we all have a right to know that secretly he wishes he was still allowed to eat nuggets?