[umilegenio]

I might have been unclear on this aspect. My point was that privacy can affect other rights in complex ways, including, as a way of example, freedom of speech.

In the example I was talking about in the article, I was trying to say that nowadays people have different norms and opinions on what is fair. That is great, however this means that without privacy I can hurt you simply by sharing something about you with a a certain community. For instance, I can take something you said in private, or one fact about you (i.e., you are a member of party X, or have a certain sexuality, or belong to a certain religion) and share with a community that will misinterpret or attack you for that.

In the past we allowed the press to violate privacy of important people for something nefarious (i.e., they hunt people for sport). Now everybody has the power to violate privacy of anybody for any reason they see fit.

So, now maybe we should forbid everyone to violate the privacy of anyone, otherwise we will lose freedom of speech, because will be afraid to say anything for fear of being taken out of context. Maybe we should all agree that if you disagree with somebody you cannot call a mob to defend your opinion, but you should call them with your speech. That is not an obvious choice to make. As others have commented, what about actually powerful people? Just disagreeing with them will not change their opinion, because they are more powerful than you. So, I am not saying that is easy to understand what to do, but that privacy can actually change how we use other rights.

[scoutt]

Ok. Thanks. Still I believe they barely overlap (privacy and freedom of speech). It's a grey area. For instance, I can violate your privacy and not telling it to anyone (peeking through your window), and I can also tell something about you in a community without violating your privacy (give an opinion, or take you out of context, or plainly lie, or defame you).

Or you can input all your info in my website, then I get hacked and all your personal info is now in a torrent somewhere (to mention something that has nothing to do with freedom of speech).

They overlap perhaps but I might just call it gossip.

So I don't believe it's a either freedom of speech-or-privacy battle, where one is the solution to the other, or the problem to the other.

Invading privacy is punished in most countries, and gets more serious if the info is published. The real problem is that doxxing and posting personal information in a community goes unpunished right now. The solution may be something I would never want, that is, non-anonymous internet access. At least paparazzis were known, they have a face and a name. You can sue them, and in case, punch them in the face if that's your thing.

It's true there is also a problem with the mob, but there is little that can be done about it. I recall the two guys making "dongle" jokes in a conference and getting fired when it reached Twitter.