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by thinkingtoilet 30 days ago
What right to privacy do you have online? For the record, I am fully against this but people just throw the word "right" around. In another thread here people had a "right" to Anthropic's latest model. It almost becomes a joke. You have a right not to use the internet, but if you do the government can make laws, however shitty, if they want to. Relying on "rights" as an argument fails quickly in my opinion. You have a right to buy a gun, but a lot of places require verification. You have the right to be alcohol or porn, but that requires age verification. What right do you have to go online without providing verification? If you can't provide a legal basis, come up with a better argument because yours is easily dismissed.
1 comments

Uh, why do you think that a legal basis is the correct foundation on which to anchor an argument in favor of privacy? Laws vary per jurisdiction. Which country’s laws are you saying is the correct point of reference?

Besides, for democracies, explicit mentions of a “right to privacy” would typically be enshrined in a bill of rights which isn’t “law” in itself, but only cited as founding principles behind actual laws, such as those against wiretapping, which you probably have wherever you live.

I’m not sure why you think that legality is a meaningful point of discussion at all. The subject is clearly a matter of principle. Heck, authoritarian states probably don’t have bills of rights and commit all sorts of atrocities on their citizens, but I’d talk about the right to a fair trial all the same.

And please don’t conflate this with other issues and other threads