Comment by rlv-dan
6 years ago
If someone says they don't have anything to hide, my reply is "then why do you lock the bathroom door"?
6 years ago
If someone says they don't have anything to hide, my reply is "then why do you lock the bathroom door"?
I strongly dislike that reply, because
1. it fails to address their actual argument, which is that they have nothing to hide from companies or the government, especially law enforcement.
2. it fails to convey the actual threat of loss of privacy: the threat to democracy and freedom of speech when journalists can't protect their sources, lawyers can't be trusted by their clients, etc.
I therefore prefer to emphasise that latter point, that even though they might have nothing to hide, people they should care about do.
Although lately it's become easier to convince people that even they have something to hide: as political actors (e.g. Cambridge Analytica) learn more about them from their data, they can target you (and people like you) with tailor-made lies to influence who you (and people like you) vote for.
Doesn't convince or even interest everyone, of course, but more than before.
In my personal experience the people who use the 'I have nothing to hide' argument, use it because they are unwilling to expend the cognitive effort to delve into the topic in any meaningful way.
Trying to reason with someone about some topic they didn't use reason to get to their position on in the first place is often a losing proposition.
So these days I just say "if you don't want to even think about some problem or issue, you should just come out and say 'I don't want to think about this' instead of saying something so obviously and unambiguously ignorant. That just makes you look bad". Then I move on. I can't make folks think. I can't save them from themselves and their privacy isn't the hill I'm going to die on.
>So these days I just say "if you don't want to even think about some problem or issue, you should just come out and say 'I don't want to think about this' instead of saying something so obviously and unambiguously ignorant. That just makes you look bad". Then I move on.
That seems overly dismissive and presumptuous.
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You can't seriously discuss the threat to democracy and free society because the overwhelming majority of the people who care about privacy want to leave back doors to see that behavior used against the various boogeymen they don't like.
Everyone talks grand about protecting privacy in threads like this but when it comes down to it we vote for politicians who promise to institute invasive background checks for gun owners and use Facebook surveillance to root out white supremacists.
IMO while definitely good for society the general acceptance of homosexuality and weed use are two big blows to privacy because those were very relatable and common things that people wanted to stay hidden.
> which is that they have nothing to hide from companies or the government, especially law enforcement
Which is not true when you consider that all your life events are being used to estimate your suitability for life changing opportunities like getting a job or a mortgage or a visa.
Sure, that's related to my final paragraph as well. But I'm not saying that their argument is correct; just that "why do you lock your bathroom door" is not a sufficient rebuttal of it.
I'm not sure that actually helps, because most people don't consider personal embarrassment similar to the serious reasons privacy is important.
For example, the consequence of the bathroom door being opened is fairly predictable and honestly, benign. But the consequence of someone gaining power of your life through knowing information that you thought was private is quite unfathomable. Which is why we often describe it as "creepy" even though we can't actually assign any specific negative consequence to it. Perhaps the most important thing of all is that humans have simply evolved to have this "creepy" detector as a built in defense mechanism, and we find it very disturbing and psychologically upsetting when it goes off. The simple fact that this is the human condition (whether valid or not) is sufficient to warrant it being respected.
A better reply is: "Saying you don't care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is the same as saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say."
That's a Snowden quote, isn't it?
Very possibly, it is not mine in any case.
Thanks for this punchline which starts better than a long an laborious argumentation.
And yet you guard your drink at a big open party, not because you want to hide what you're drinking, but because you don't want some creepy strangers meddling with it to take advantage of you.
respect for others that don't want to see me half naked while on the toilet? I don't lock the bathroom door at home.
I once heard a better phrase, but I now realise I've forgotten it and can only paraphrase.. But it was something like, "There's a difference between annonymity and privacy. Privacy is when you go toilet and lock the door even though everyone knows what you're doing".
I wish I could rememnber the phrase!
There exist social norms for bathroom use, but many yet for online privacy. You may be more effectual in your approach with a more direct recognition of this fact, for example by explaining that un-encrypted email may be retained forever and used in unexpected ways, like for marketing purposes, or to train machine learning models. These obvious violation of personal data ownership are more palpable and a stronger call for action, I think.
Or the Bradley Chait / Edward Drummond email (I'm reassigning noteriety to the violators of privacy norms, not its victim):
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/under-the-yum-yum-tree/