Often times, I tell people to what extend big tech is willing to hurt people, to collect more and more money, as in data! And the reaction is… disappointing. They either don’t care, sometimes even making jokes, or don’t get over the inconvenience of switching.
If I tell them that that some of those privacy apps, like brave compared to chrome, is more convenient, they don’t care. If I tell them that they hurt themselves by using big tech, like TikTok, they don’t care. If I tell them that their use of those apps hurt others, they don’t care.
I don’t think I am convincing enough. So what can I tell them?
I talked to a guy like you a while back, and then he also mentioned he used “Brave” and he was surprised when I mentioned the awful things behind it. So perhaps re-evaluating your suggestions and own choices is the first step?
Brother, they were using Chrome for fuck’s sake🤦 Brave could never amount to the kind of societal damage Google creates, even if they tried their hardest.
Some can’t be convinced. The privacy (or lack of) tradeoff is worth it for them for the convince of the platform.
Save your breath. Middle class America is happy to queue up for authoritarian rule as long as it saves them 10 minutes shopping online. Half my neighbors have Alexa in their homes and a ring camera on their door to report on themselves. My own family thinks I’m a conspiracy theorist because I won’t connect my appliances to the internet.
We all make a personal judgement call on the price we’re willing to pay for convienence and communication.
The thought stopping cliche “they already have all my information” is especially difficult to overcome. As if that is compelling reason to continue participating in the brain rot.
new information is created all the time, there’s no reason to not limit the amount that goes into profiling you. something as simple as not having your real name on social media already splits real and online life in two, with no obvious way to connect them.
Just let them be the low hanging fruit to reduce your chance of being targeted.
Quite the opposite:
https://lemmy.world/post/52470551People thinking “My private information is worthless, I have nothing to hide.”
Wrong:
You enable the surveillance of people around you (hearing distance, wireless communication distance), some of which are trying to protect you and your country’s interests.
If you browse any media with a feed of recommendations, you enable the manipulation of what you know, think, and do.
Controlling the timing of notifications you receive on your smart device alters the timing of your other actions, which can be used to cause or prevent serendipitous meetings in real life, changing your future to the will of the manipulator, affecting the futures of people you interact with, like a chain of dominoes falling towards or away from vigilant targets your acquaintances interact with.
lol normies would be the first one to divulge YOUR information along with their own. they do t care
people have be conditioned to prioritize convenience over all else and only their material conditions will determine whether or not they start giving a fuck. if they or someone they care about gets bitten by it, they’ll start caring – like republicans.
The issue is that they trust institutions. Not because they think institutions are inherently trustworthy, but because they think that they are below these institutions attention. Reframe the threat in terms of petty bad actors exploiting institutional oversights.
The big tech companies are using AI to code now and it’s leaving big security flaws because no one can keep track of all the code AI churns out. Evil criminals, probably foreigners, who used to be too dumb for hacking can now use AI to take advantage of these flaws. They can use your data to figure out your online banking information, or they’ll use personal information to make Ai-faked blackmail material more convincing.
I think a handful of research examples. For instance, I used to work at a non-profit that does donor-based fundraising that apparently had an account compromised, and the bad actor just sat and waited until the right time.
Then, when a donor asked for details about how to contribute, that was when the attacker sent an email from the compromised account with instructions to wire to some outside account we had never heard of. It was caught right away and nothing bad happened but it was still too close for comfort.
I don’t believe in the fatalistic assumption that it’s impossible to communicate about. It happens to real people after all. But I think you have to be specific and have specific action steps in mind.
Removed by mod
Sure. If you’re super boring, never write anything nefarious about your political leaders, don’t run online services, don’t volunteer in any organization, have no secrets and not keep any for your friends, don’t get exploited, don’t have an evil ex with access to flock cameras, not have sex or anything, don’t travel, don’t have an important job, no crazy neighbours… I guess you probably won’t need privacy.
If you asked me the same stuff even just 5 years ago I would have responded the same. I am a tech enthusiast and work in tech. It took some time for me to understand the risks of not taking privacy seriously. I needed to discover how companies like Meta, Google or Microsoft collect and abuse our deeply personal information.
So, I recommend doing the same to people around you. Inform them of particular examples (e.g. Google flagging a photo of a baby taken for doctor’s analysis as CSAM), not just the risks. You may change the opinion of a few people, but it is unreasonable and unlikely for you to affect everyone around you the same way.
If logic doesn’t work, which it often doesn’t, I’d expect the most effective way to be highlighting how it can affect you, or public pressure. Like “did you hear how Facebook tested how it can influence people, and even drive them to suicide?”, “did you see that cop who stalked their ex using flock cameras?” Or “you know those smart glasses? Turns out they do spy on people even without permission, but they can also look shit up in real time. Anyone interested in them is a weirdo/pervert.”
It’s really hard to wrap your mind around a data leak, but one cop being a sick fuck? That you can take in. Get them interested first and then offer solutions.
Be subtle about it, free of judgement. Don’t lecture them on something they likely know already, and (semi)consciously ignore to maintain an unhealthy, yet comforting pattern. It’s rather about planting seeds, than doing the thinking for them: let them come to their own conclusions next time they use it.
It’s all about predatory dark patterns, that deliberately exploit human psychology; so gear them up to recognize these abusive mechanisms. Not in a direct way, but just by casual conversation about content on their timeline, with some observation woven into it, like: quite some advertisements, huh? What does that little text say? Oh, “sponsored content”. Do your friends still post things? Because I haven’t seen any on your timeline. Shouldn’t that be the entire purpose of this platform? They give you notifications about friends liking other’s posts now? That seems a little excessive.
My mom has been using the platform a lot less since I did, and she even has opened up to the concept of disabling Facebook push-notifications. The latter needing some more time, because she’s struggling with a fear of missing out. I once disabled push-notifications for news applications too without asking, so perhaps I should do the same for Facebook (Messenger being a different application anyways).
The main problem seems to be that users have, successfully, been conditioned into wanting anti-features. My mom actually clicks personalized advertisements, and I have no clue how to cure her from that; other than to joke about a particular shoe brand always being featured. I already substituted her ad-ridden weather app for a Firefox (with uBlock) shortcut, which she has really come to appreciate. So there’s progress to be made: it just requires the right approach, and a lot of patience; which is worthwhile for loved ones.
Here’s the thing: You don’t. You can’t. There are no magic words to make someone see things your way. You can give them ideas to mull over, but you can’t convince someone who doesn’t want to be convinced. You can be open, express you view and give your reasons to anyone willing to listen, but that is the extent of what you can do. Some people may eventually come to you for advice; welcome them and guide them as you can. Most people may take some bits from you but never start actually caring. That’s ok, that’s their way.
You can’t force people to do things your way, nor should you try. Just be honest.
