Comment by Juliate
6 hours ago
Rules are all made up (as tech is) for the purpose of enabling society and lowering suffering. Who was harmed? Everyone whose private personal information have been leaked without consent. Who was harmed? Who have been manipulated into voting? How has the damage not been diffuse and probabilistically significant? (otherwise, why would Cambridge Analytica even funded and paid for? As well as the whole advertising industry?)
And, a fundamental right does not need an existing harm to be justified into existence: it is a right as first principle.
> [Privacy] is a right as first principle
If you want to axiomize privacy, you can: that's a coherent philosophical position: but it's one I find curious. You're arguing that privacy breaches are harmful not because they cause harm, but because they are harm. Why is privacy, not progress, the summum bonum?
Privacy is a fundamental right, not the end of everything.
And you axiomize progress.
Although the question isn’t one against the other. It is whether progress justifies treating people as objects, as data providers without consent. That’s not a curious axiom, that’s the basis of all rights-based systems since 1948. Or 1785 (Kant). Or 1215 (Habeas Corpus). Or 1750 BCE (Hammurabi code).