I use an RSS reader to curate my Lemmy feed, which means I see every post, including deleted ones. Every so often, posts will crop up with pessimistic content such as “Why try anymore?” etc. Most of the time these are a result of privacy burnout, where the individual has a threat model that is too strict for their own tolerance.
We all wish we have perfect privacy. We all wish the world could be more pro-privacy than anti-privacy. One day, that may be the case. For now, we have to accept that nobody can be completely private. Privacy is a spectrum, and doing what you can to minimize data collection goes a long way. You can’t become private overnight, so taking small steps like these means you can grow a strong foundation for future privacy. Privacy takes time, so take it as slow as you need to.
Even if a company already has your data or another means to track you, by minimizing you are making it harder for them to extract that data, and it increases the odds that your data becomes stale. By caring about privacy to begin with, you’re showing companies and other people that the data collection is not ok.
I’ve been a privacy activist for years now, and I will also face periods of privacy burnout. I handle it by stopping, taking a step back, and reevaluating my threat model. It’s good to take breaks like those, because it means you don’t push yourself past your limits and become burnt out.
It’s really easy to get caught up in the “breaking news” of privacy, too. This is more of a personal stance, but getting caught up in politics and news often leads to stress and makes it harder to make real progress. (This is one of the reasons I use an RSS reader, I can curate my information without stressful headlines.) You don’t need to use the most private software or jump ship the moment anything goes wrong. If you feel you need to switch, do it when you have time and when it won’t cause problems elsewhere.
Take a look at how far you’ve come, and realize that even if you’re not where you want to be yet, you’ve taken steps to get there. Every person who starts to care about privacy, even you, is one more person to help make the world a more privacy respecting place. It may not seem like you make that much of a difference, but it’s not just you. You and everybody else who cares about privacy makes a huge difference.
Don’t give up now. Privacy is an uphill battle by design, but the payoff is worth it.
Good luck!
I’ve been on this privacy trip for about 6 years now and every once in a while I find myself on the point of giving up, usually when trying to do things like booking a flight and the site fights back by blocking everything or wants all your personal details… every app I am forced to close, or mothers maiden name I am forced to supply, causes more and more frustration. I rage, my partner says ‘why do you put yourself through this?’… I really don’t know sometimes, but basically because fuck 'em
I appreciate this post. I think you are right that those of us who value privacy and try to take steps to minimize eventually having those moments of having to step back and reassess our threat model.
Every now and then I ask myself why I resist the duopoly of Apple and Google, and the answer is because I value a third option. Like you mentioned in your post it may seem bleak now, but it might not always be this way. And if we ever do reach a more privacy conscious society, it was because all of us in the privacy community kept the flame going by supporting and using that more privacy focused third option.
I would be much more okay with corpos or states invading my privacy if anything actually useful would come of it, but it kinda doesn’t. I left corpo social media behind not because it was hungry for what data I could provide it, but because it used mine and others user data to make itself worse. And the desire to drop my smartphone and go full dumb tech or no tech at all grows with every passing day. But the paranoia every privacy-concious person experiences sooner or later, some more intense than others, was not something initial for me.
edit: … as was privacy-burnout. I always keep that in mind, I try ro remember, that the reason privacy bothers me is not (only) to protect myself. It’s not a futile fight for independence of anything, it’s tied to a vision I have of the world.and the future
Hope this makes sense I have the feeling what I write often doesn’t
Happy cake day! Unfortunately, nothing good can come from surveillance, besides slightly better AI models. The way I see it, privacy is not paranoia, but a modern day revolution.
Oh it’s been a year already?!? Time flies when you have a good time I guess. Thank you!
I edited my comment I forgot the conclusion as always lol you might wanna check it again
AI is a tool that’s used as a disinfo machine primarily, at least LLMs are in praxis, and they get better much faster at that in particular with such amounts of data. But I would argue that this kind of data (acquired without user consent) isn’t necessary for them to get better edit: at anything else that’s actually useful.
Excellent post. I hope everyone reads this.
I’d like to reinforce your point about RSS feeds. I think that being in control of the amount and type of information that infiltrates your thoughts is a form of privacy that we all we need to exercise.
For those who don’t already know; one great thing about the fediverse is that you can follow hashtags via RSS. You can literally only see the things you want to see, if you want to!
That is really helpful, thank you! Any suggestions for clients? I like Capy Reader for Android, but how about desktop? Specifically Ubuntu.
If you’re a fan of the terminal, check out newsboat. Good ol’ newsboat.
Read/skim the manual page and check out some use cases on youtube
Thanks for making an effort to support your fellow Lemmings.
Thanks for this very rational pep talk!
Great advice and thanks for the encouragement. This reminds me of one of the best pieces of advice I ever heard from a nutritionist talking about personal health.
If you can only do one thing to make a positive change, no matter how small it is, it’s far better than doing nothing.
Everyone has to navigate this, but we can do it together… Captain Planet!
The privacy…is yours!
Bookmarked.
Thanks
