Argument against "they know everything about me already"

Privacy Questions
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(the first 2 paragraphs is just weird backstory and rambling you can skip it)

I’ve talked about privacy to a few people, and I’ve honestly stopped hearing about “I have nothing to hide”. I haven’t heard that much from the Gen Z crowd. It’s almost commonplace to voluntarily just talk openly about “private” details of their life.

It feels the culture about the internet has sorta shifted. People talk incredibly openly about things that they want to keep a secret, they don’t really care about the corporations knowing things about them, it’s simply just “can the online me be traced to the real me”

and so, instead of “i have nothing to hide” which many people i know do, i’ve been hearing, “i have things to hide, but only the corporations know about it, and even if I stop, they already know everything about me”

What’s a good argument to get people to be more privacy conscious, even if what they’re saying is true and they know “everything”

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I like to say something along the lines of:

“That does not mean that they should, and you do have the means to stop them from doing so. By giving them access to all this data you’re not only ignoring your own rights, but also threatening your future self as everything you are doing may become illegal five minutes from now.”

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You have nothing to hide, but do you really expect the government to be competent about it and not put you to jail for any reason, just because?

In our complicated modern world, do you even know how many laws that an average citizen break everyday?

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Google (I assume Apple as well) have closed the accounts on a number of people in the past few years. Keeping all your stuff with one company is a recipe for disaster. Maybe this could be a new direction you can take.

A dad took photos of his naked toddler for the doctor. Google flagged him as a criminal

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Just now I was talking to a colleague.
Well, actually:
They have the data already. I have nothing to hide!
Do you close the door when you take a s.it ?
Yeah!
Why? Everybody knows what your doing there.
:thinking:

…

Whatever I can keep to myself I will. At moment changing my main email everywhere I can think of.
Read terms of conditions of my old mail povider. Web.de
I’ll be damned if they share my data with the whole world, inkl 3. Country’s…
So I’ll terminate them as soon as I’m done.

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“I have nothing to hide”:
Option 1:

Option 2:
Ok, would you let me see you instagram/private messages?
No, right? Why?

Option 3:
Why do you even wear clothes? You have nothing to hide.

Option 4:
You are sharing a holidays house with a group of friends. You and your boyfriend go to the room. Do you close the door? Why?

“Yes, but, I mean, I don’t want to be anonymous”
Possible explanation:
You are in a dinner with your friends. You wake up a go to the WC.
You know what you’re gonna do, right?
Your friends know what you’re gonna do, right?
But you still close the door. Because, despite everybody knows what you are doing/gonna do, they do not have the right to see. It’s your intimacy. That’s your privacy.
You do not need to wear some fantasy, or hide yourself and be anonymous, to get your deserved privacy in the WC.
You do not need to change your route, or leave the building to take a different path to the WC. That’s secrecy. You can conjugate all together, but you don’t need to.

Now, what instagram do is spying your “work” in the WC.

“Yes, but it’s instagram, why do they even care about me?”
Possible explanation:
As an individual, you might not have that interest. But, as part of a group, they want you. They want power over you (surveillance) so they can influence what you see and influence your opinions by directing specific ads bought by “questionable” entities.

“Yes, but I’m not influenciable”
Possible explanation:
Alright, fair enough. Then try to have a way of thinking out of the box(or not common) and you will see how they will limit you. Probably block you.
Instagram just limit the liberty of thought with the boundaries of “normality”. A society do not grow without thinkers that do challenge the status quo. Just take a look at the History.

To finish:
You don’t have to hide yourself. You just have to make use of the “loosing” guarantees that our elders have conquered for us: privacy and freedom.
By fighting back with the “I have nothing to hide” you are normalizing the surveillance.
Then a totalitarian government take place and you “might be” done.

“Yes, but they already know everything about me”
Possible answer:
Until now. You cannot change the past but you can change your future.
Besides, your data will be deleted in some years. You can ask for that deletion.

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In addition to that one I also hear the argument that “I’m nobody and thus my data has no value”. Then I ask them what would they do if they found they had an oil well under their house.

- “Do you have the technical knowledge, means and expertise to extract it, refine and distribute it?”
- “No.”
- “So, would you accept $50 for all of it?”
- “Of course not!”
- “But, you don’t know what to do with it, right?”
- “No, but I know it’s worth more than that.”
- “Exactly, like you data. It’s seemingly worthless to you, but extremely valuable to companies that can and do sell it. And yet, you’re barely getting anything in return because you don’t see what you’re worth.”

Something along these lines, it’s pretty easy to “carry” the conversation to make the point across. If not for the principle of privacy, make it about the money people are voluntarily giving away (by settling with commodities instead of selling their own data directly) and you’ll see their faces light up.

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Like this !

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I think this is a great approach. It also works regardless of what someone’s political leanings are.