Most of the time the reason that people want to be private is to stop mainstream tech companies from gathering their data to use for targeted ads. But I’m kind of cuirous to see what are others motives for wanting to be private online.

  • @TheAgeOfSuperboredom
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    33 years ago

    I really like what @[email protected] said. Privacy as an expression of your self is a neat perspective I haven’t considered before. In a way, your “self” is the only thing in your life you really can control. I think it’s even more complicated than that, since I don’t think we really have a single self to begin with (or rather a single expression of your self). I have my (semi) professional self at work, the (very) professional self when I deal with customers, a different self when I’m with my family, and even different selves among different friends. It’s not that I’m afraid to “be myself”, but each context is a different social framework that requires different interactions. It’s a fun thought experiment to think about what would happen if everyone knew everything about everyone, but humans and emotions are complex and and imperfect and wonderful! Living in the real world of right now requires that I have control over the expressions of my selves. I don’t think it comes down necessarily to any malicious intent (though that may be part of it), but rather the social framework for a given interaction. This is something I’ll need to think about more though since it’s an interesting perspective on privacy.