I came across a few comments and topics here telling people who strongly advocate for privacy to be more “moderate”, and to “sound less crazy”. People who say that should be ignored and even banned if they persist. Time and time again privacy advocates and skeptics of the “if you don’t have anything to hide you shouldn’t worry” have been proven right, while the other side has been proven wrong. Remember when James Clapper lied in front of congress? I do. Remember when Snowden used to be glorified as long as it served the purpose of the media and some politicians? I do. How do people think of Snowden now? As a traitor, a rat, someone who should be executed.
Privacy is a universal human right, we all deserve to have some. Yet, being welcoming and open to people who are here to set obstacles for us at every step is not only counterproductive but foolish. They clearly don’t care about privacy, and they certainly don’t care if others lose it, so why should we welcome them here and embrace their drivel and gibberish with open arms? They are a detriment to our cause.
My two cents.
A extremist privacy circle-jerk is helping no-one. You clearly don’t seem to care about actual privacy if you think it can be achieved by a tiny elitist minority that shuts out all moderate suggestions. Try to look out side of your filter bubble for a second :p
I was expecting a response such as yours.
Good meaning movements tend to be very open to outside influences and that’s how they lose everything in the process.
You invite the fox to the hen-house, you get devoured. The rest is childish idealism.
I am clearly not going to be able to convince you, but with a strategy like yours you might win a battle, but you will lose the war.
Absolutism like this is also a little silly. We need a range of strategies, from the most radical to the most reserved.
IMO there’s nothing wrong with being radical, analyzing a problem from the roots often means your conclusions are going to be very extreme, but that’s part of change.
However, being bigoted is a problem, it means you’re being hateful, hate cannot change the world, it only worsens it. I don’t disagree with the opinions of OP, but at the same time i encourage the community not to polarize.
If this was articulated a bit a better, I might agree, but this wall of text with calls for banning and broad claims like:
they clearly don’t care about privacy and they certainly don’t care if others lose it
isn’t productive if you want to achieve basic things like stopping your friends and family from sharing your contact information on instagram.
I have seen in lemmy some try to associate privacy concerns with right wing movements which is unfortunate. But spiteful language isn’t going to alleviate that tendency, especially when well funded and well staffed organisations like big tech and some government factions would like nothing more than that.
The privacy community here has been pretty open to hardline stances on github, cloudflare, ddg, brave, and more. If there are specific examples of shilling or agenda pushing, I think you can address them inline or perhaps do some research and find supporting arguments to help make your case.
lmao so the “wall of text” is your best critique?
The naïveté of people here is astonishing
Privacy is under fire 24/7, it has been like that for decades, if not centuries. And it has never been more intense than in recent times.
I am just letting people know that small communities such as these, as well-intentioned and oriented as they may be, eventually become a target to subvert by those seeking to prevent them from achieving their goals.
Don’t ban people if you don’t want to, that’s fine, but at least be aware of what’s happening and what people really mean when they say that we should be more “moderate” or “sound less crazy”.
The rest, as I said, is childish idealism or having dinner with the fox while you’re the hen.
deleted by creator
thanks, man. you know, when I typed that I did use “enter”, but it dawned on me that I have to do it twice for the paragraphs to be displayed correctly. Cheers
That is a BAD mindset. Privacy is a gradual spectrum, as my threat model guide also notes. You can be an iPhone bratty teenager with bad internet habits, or a journalist or dissident.
Calling for a ban demonstrates that you are shoving same threat model on all people, regardless of what their life situation is.
It’s not a bad mindset. Look up what regulatory capture is and look up the history of social movements and how they become subverted over time. It starts with seemingly innocent comments and claims, and it ends with the movement being destroyed from within. You are all entitled to think whatever you want of me, I am just letting you know that it’s happening right now, and you all are soundly asleep as it unfolds.
It may be happening right now, but you can’t think like that and pretend to want everyone’s privacy. Not everyone is as technologically savvy as you are, moving from their own actual use of the Internet to what we (technologically savvy people/privacy advocates) would prefer (in a perfect world) is almost impossible. You can’t blame people for not being educated in this field. We need to help them understand why it’s not as crazy as it sounds (because it sometimes sounds crazy) bit by bit.
Utopia sounds good on paper. Not one part of this world is utopian.
Technology we use is not even half a century old, and you expect everyone in the world to get onboard without creating a friendly culture for it. I AM CHANGING THAT ON GROUND ZERO. Therefore, I can tell people what is going on.
The libre pro privacy culture does not exist, therefore people are misinformed and misguided and ignorant. You are not going to cultivate a culture by isolating people by assuming them as disinformation proponents.
I would suggest you go through this piece I wrote in end 2020: https://teddit.net/r/privatelife/comments/k7vngo/2020_special_the_good_the_bad_and_the_ugly_my/
Tell me, are you here just ringing bells, or are you bringing a change? Are you an activist? Are you creating guides, or tools for digital privacy? Start doing this instead of advocating for bans, potentially driving away more people. Your post might have been more useful if you advocated or created ways to teach and make aware these people.
Man you are so off the mark. No one is advocating for utopias. Quite the opposite: guard communities like this one from subversion and people whose only interest is to call you crazy and to tell you to shut up, because, you know, “iF yOu DoN’T hAvE aNyThiNg To HiDe…” etc etc…
Don’t be naive, please.
I have a fair idea, and experience of how the privacy community works across every possible part of the spectrum you can imagine. You may have only looked at Reddit and 4chan, but I know a little more people and some more groups. Not bragging.
The point you are making will never work. It is the same thing as deplatforming QAnon people. Yes they may be silenced, but for how long? They believe in their garbage ideas, and one day their collective conscience and anger will erupt, leading to things like Capitol riots, because, you guessed right, they were banned away. These could be online in the form of mass brigading troll armies, or few trolls spread everywhere.
Even this platform, Lemmy, is very cautious with balancing ample amount of civilised free speech with keeping trolls away. I like the approach of admins and devs here. Criticism of Lemmy I see on reddit is filled with absolute BULLSHIT reasons.
You are advocating the idea of starting this chain of events via asking to outright ban people. Their dumb ideas about privacy will get stronger and stronger.
Case in point, a college friend of mine who believes in compartmentalising by using two different Android devices, but uses Google accounts on them, plays online games with account IDs, is fine with using WhatsApp but refuses to use Signal due to phone number requirement, and such garbage ideas.
This level of reverse education exists among normie people. And you are telling our communities to ban people. That does not work, mate. That will never work.
One more example, you got to make that Threema post on my community and Lemmy. Elsewhere, they censored you. Think about it.
The idea of banning people, to be honest, was a bit of hyperbole.
I clarified that a bit with this comment:
Don’t ban people if you don’t want to, that’s fine, but at least be aware of what’s happening and what people really mean when they say that we should be more “moderate” or “sound less crazy”.
To be fair I agree with you. All I want people to take from this thread is that we need to tread carefully when dealing with the “be more moderate” crowd. I don’t believe, at all, that they have good intentions until demonstrated otherwise.
If people can leave this thread with that takeaway alone, I will be more than satisfied. The banning and extracurricular activities are more hyperbole than anything else to be honest.
And yes! Kudos to you for allowing dissenting opinions. Remember when I posted to your Subreddit about why we should be distrustful of Signal? You were the only one who allowed me to say that out loud and look, today, I was validated; but back in the day all I got was a kick in the proverbial mouth and lots of censorship from the mainstream “privacy” subs.
Cheers my friend.
Often it is better to frame your arguments in a better way, even if not a coaxing one. You can be crude enough while not sounding rude.
I still remember this thread from back then, from one of the former main folks at Startpage before the buyout, and our participation in this thread: https://removeddit.com/r/privacytoolsIO/comments/grmk0k/how_to_spot_a_privacy_shill/
Hell yeah lemmy’s first turf war
I think the hardest part is not to convince people that their individual privacy is important and needs to be protected, because at the moment it’s already not too hard to protect your own individual privacy. Much more important and much more complicated is it to convince people that everyone privacy is worth to be protected. At the moment most countries (even somewhat privacy-friendly ones) think it’s ok to spy on foreigners and then share these information with the foreigner’s government that isn’t allowed to spy on its own population. This is the most fucked up part of the current situation IMHO.
With this mindset we’d probably be the same 4 people, again. Let’s keep isolating from each other and hating the outside world!
wolf in sheep’s clothing
